One of the most iconic scenes from the Ghost in the Shell anime film sees its main character, Major Motoko Kusanagi, stripping off her clothes and dropping from the top of a massive skyscraper to assassinate a target, all while seemingly fully nude. After her assassination attempt is successful, it's revealed she's not actually naked, but rather wearing a thermoptic suit that allows her to become invisible, getting away without a trace.
The thermoptic suit is a staple of the Ghost in the Shell franchise, but anime has an easier time getting away with having its lead character move around seemingly unclothed and invisible than a live action movie starring Scarlett Johansson does. The filmmakers of 2017's Ghost in the Shell adaptation knew from the start that they wanted to include the thermoptic suit in their movie, but it was just a matter of adapting it for the big screen in a way that stayed true to the source material while also working with MPAA regulations.
Major turns on her thermoptic suit in the 1995 Ghost in the Shell movie
The solution was to design a look that made it clear Major was wearing a suit while also giving off the effect of her being nude. Costume designers Kurt Swanson and Bart Mueller worked with Weta's Richard Taylor and his team to design a skin-toned suit modeled after Scarlett Johansson's body that wouldn't force her to run around naked in the film, but also would visually convey the idea of Major's thermoptic suit from the anime.
"We’re not actually trying to pretend she’s naked," explained producer Avi Arad on a visit to Ghost in the Shell's New Zealand set. "The suit emulates some of the ideas of the panel lines. When you see it the movie you’re not meant to think that that she’s naked."
While other movies might have turned the suit into a digital effect by putting Johansson's face on a digital character or digital doubles, Weta and the costume designers used prosthetics to keep things practical. Using Swanson and Mueller's design, Weta built a full-silicon suit for Johansson by taking digital scans of her body and creating a design for an outfit that would mirror her silhouette.
Major wears her thermoptic suit in the 1995 Ghost in the Shell film
The struggle was to find a material that would "try to create a skin that moves like human skin but isn’t is incredibly challenging," said Taylor. Weta needed to find something that wouldn't buckle and fold when you move around, so the team ended up deciding to use silicone. The body suit had to be manufactured off a core, which got around the problem of the fabric not lying flush on the human body, and then the limbs were built and poured separately.
Overall, the process of creating the suit took about six to eight weeks to finish, and Taylor reflected that Johansson "appeared to be very comfortable in it and was very complimentary of it and performed in it beautifully." But even with the suit looking great, it still needed to make sense in the context of the live action movie.
"In the original, it’s like one minute she’s wearing clothes and the next minute you turn around and you’re like, 'OK, there she is. Is it the thermoptic? Is she naked? What’s going on?' That one took a long time and a lot of concepting, and then they came up with some really ingenious ways to achieve it," said Mueller.
Added Swanson, "It’s weird, those are the things that on paper really work or in an anime really work, but in reality… I don’t know. That became another conversation with Scarlett and Rupert too, because it’s a very sexualized image. It’s great, but when you’re really doing it, you’re kind of like, 'Why would she do that? Does she even have any sort of reference for that?' 'Why would she wear that?' was always a question."
That led the costume designers into more existential questions, like why would a cyborg with a "completely stylized, perfect form" wear a bra, and why would she wear any sort of provocative clothing like Major is sometimes seen wearing in the anime film? Because of that, Johansson's depiction and director Rupert Sanders' direction of Major wearing the thermoptic suit focuses on it being a purely practical outfit that's "very military and functional."
"I think she’s very removed from her sexuality," Johansson said on set. "She’s in the midst of an identity crisis which I think, I guess perhaps some people’s sexuality or an abundance of it or whatever, comes at that time. ... She has such a murky idea of who she was that how would she even know what she likes or who she likes. She also has no heart -- human heart, anyway. So if you would imagine if that could be related to sensuality or sexuality, that part is also missing for her."
Arad clarified that the decision to avoid nudity wasn't due to the fact it would give Ghost in the Shell a more mature rating.
"The nudity wasn’t going to break us rating wise. We’re not faking it. It’s her thermoptic suit. Her skin doesn’t have thermoptic properties. When you’re watching the anime, she has the hood. Without a suit on, she can’t become invisible so I think we’re sticking with those rules," he said. "The rating and the choices we are making dovetail, but not necessarily driving each other. If it were R-rated she wouldn’t be running around naked."
Ghost in the Shell hits theaters on March 31, 2017.
Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.
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