I've been fascinated by people's responses to Ghost in the Shell 2017, and more recently, the new trailer for Blade Runner 2049.

It seems like most (or at least a surprisingly large number) of the people who liked GitS2017, didn't like the original anime. That seemed almost unimaginable, until today.

Many people on /r/ghost_in_the_shell seemed to believe that the visuals of Ghost in the Shell 2017 were somehow "original" or "innovative". That also stretched the limits of disbelief until today.

When the Blade Runner 2049 trailer became available, someone posted a question: did the same people who worked on GitS2017 also work on BR2049?

That's when it became clear.

Simply from viewing the trailers and concept art for GitS2017, you can see quite clearly that the world is mostly taken from Blade Runner (1982). From reading practically any review of GitS2017, you repeatedly hear that the plot is essentially RoboCop in Japan, starring Scarlett Johannson (with a plot twist that seemed like a half-hearted attempt at deflecting controversy -- that's an issue for a different conversation).

And then it all made sense. The film probably seemed completely new to audiences who aren't science fiction fans outside of anime and manga.

• If you've never seen Blade Runner, you'd probably be amazed at the sight of building-tall 3D holograms. The made-up word "sologram" would likely feel like the invention of someone who was working at a high level of creativity.

• If you've never seen RoboCop, you might have thought that Scarlett Johannson's version of Kusanagi Motoko (complete with her "robo-walk") was the result of brilliant creative choices on her part as an actress. The idea of Kusanagi as a murdered person reincarnated as a machine could have seemed like a new and "deep" idea.

• If you don't enjoy science fiction beyond the Ghost in the Shell series, you might not have enjoyed the slower, "film noir" cinematic style of the original anime. Science fiction is a genre of ideas; if you don't like science fiction, you probably won't like the Ghost in the Shell anime film. And if you didn't enjoy the philosophical aspects of the anime, the 2017 film's re-enactments of action scenes would likely serve as a satisfyingly "faithful" or "authentic" portrayal of Ghost in the Shell, without the annoying philosophy bits to get in the way.

From the trailers and various galleries of concept art available online, it's clear that practically none of the "biggest" ideas in Ghost in the Shell were new. That's what was confusing: if the reviewers almost universally thought that Ghost in the Shell 2017 was not very good, how could anyone praise it or want a sequel? Why would anyone want to pay to see a film that, according to most people who saw it, wasn't a very good film or a worthwhile Ghost in the Shell story? How could the few people who praised the film say that it was in any way new, innovative, philosophically satisfying or original?

It was a case of /r/ghost_in_the_shell versus reviewers who mostly disliked the movie intensely, and the rest of the movie-going world who mostly didn't bother to watch it at all. It's fine to like a movie that's "so bad that it's good", but it seemed like that wasn't the case here.

So I was curious if my guess is true: that people who enjoyed the GitS2017 film may not be science fiction fans outside of anime, or even outside of Ghost in the Shell specifically. This obviously isn't true for everyone, but it's hard to think of any other explanation for why anyone would see GitS2017 as anything other than a RoboCop/Blade Runner rip-off set in an ambiguously Japan-like future city (with a few "iconic" Ghost in the Shell scenes added to satisfy Rupert Sanders).

It's possible to be an anime fan and not a science fiction fan, so maybe that explains the different reactions to GitS2017 and now, Blade Runner 2049.