<em>Ghost in the Shell</em> and <em>S-Town</em>: The Week in Pop-Culture Writing

Ghost in the Shell Has the Look of the Original, But Not Its Brain
Emily Yoshida | Vulture
“If Paramount just wanted to do a female-led cyberpunk Bourne Identity, probably nobody would have minded. But to associate a straightforward ‘Who am I?’ action film with a franchise as philosophically noodly as Ghost in the Shell is disingenuous and pointless—you deny existing fans the actual post-self substance of the thing they like, and you alienate newcomers with a weird title and the obligatory skeleton of an existing franchise, which, when it’s not being explored, comes off as needlessly complicated.”