Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: SA: A Modest Rebellion – ANDROID AND I Rewatch

August 17, 2014 7:32 AM - Season 1, Episode 3

A series of android suicides prompts Section 9 to investigate the manufacturer, Genesis Androids.
posted by Pendragon (3 comments total)

Love this episode. On the one hand, it's a interesting bit of melancholy world-building, but on the other it dives right into the Koester-influenced ruminations on the mind-body problem that are absolutely central to Shirow's conception of the series. And it may just be my personal reaction, but I always seem to find depictions of objects gaining souls powerfully creepy, especially if they're deterministic computer systems. Dolls with ghosts is something that the series keeps coming back to in different forms, and I love it.
posted by figurant at 11:54 AM on August 17, 2014

There's an interesting double nature to the story: as the android deviates from its/her programming, the man seems to be ceding his autonomy to the cultural programming of cinema. It seems like anxiety we may have about machines attaining consciousness can carry an under-current of anxiety for loss of our sentience (critiques of our newest technologies bumping up against some of our oldest; Phaedrus meets the cyborg).

I've been trying to pay attention to some smaller aspects as I rewatch. Things that struck me from this episode: the not at all subtle name allusion of the Canadian ambassador's son Marshall McLachlan; Borma dropping the guy he's interrogating on the floor; Alphaville as the film canister on the top of the pile; and some of the very nice backgrounds (e.g. the bar at the end of the episode).
posted by audi alteram partem at 12:48 PM on August 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Following on from the second episode, this was yet another melancholic story which I rather liked.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:58 PM on August 19, 2014