Thoughts about Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, Season 1, Episode 12: “Tachikoma Runs Away; A Movie Director’s Dream - (Escape From)"

I recently found these thoughts I wrote down (sometime before 2010 I think) about an episode from Ghost in the Shell, Stand Alone Complex, Season 1, Episode 12:  “Tachikoma Runs Away;  A Movie Director’s Dream - (Escape From)"

The episode is in two parts, and I remember the first time I watched it I could not piece together the connection between the two parts, so I watched it again and kept thinking about it.  I eventually wrote down these notes.

Spoiler alert and plot details follow, but also if you're not familiar with Ghost in the Shell the original movie and/or the Stand Alone Complex series, it's probably not going to make much sense.  Apologies for the lack of background.


In the first story, Batou’s AWOL Tachikoma meets a little girl who is looking for her pet dog.  The girl ultimately explains that she is pretending to search for her dog (which is dead) to keep her parents happy.  But she wants to be able to grieve and move on, and can’t continue her life until she can do these things.

In the second story, the Tachikoma has returned to Section 9 headquarters with a small net device.  The Major connects to the device, and loses contact with the rest of the Section 9 team while inside.  The net structure inside the device replicates an old theater.  There are people waiting for the movie to begin out in the lobby.  On some hidden cue, the people in the lobby get up and enter the theater, and the movie begins to play.  The Major follows them, and stands awestruck when she looks at the screen, as she begins to cry.

It turns out that the movie being played is the “best movie ever made”.  The people in the movie theater are all real ghosts of people who have voluntarily chosen not to leave, because the movie is so amazing.  The Major has a conversation with the director at one point.

To me, the connection between the two sub-episodes appears to be the theme that life involves change, which must be accepted.  The little girl is unable to live fully until she can grieve for her dog and move on.  The movie goers have chosen to give up life, by forever repeatedly watching the same movie.  Regardless of how compelling the reasons, avoiding/delaying change results in the same thing – fighting against life.

This seems pointedly relevant to the Major, as she (being fully cyberized except for her brain/ghost) does not undergo most of the changes associated with life.  It is further glaring proof to the Major of what she is missing by being cyberized.  Perhaps, realizing this over the course of the events that occur in Stand Alone Complex leads the Major to fully embrace change at the end of the first Ghost in the Shell movie, when she agrees to merge her ghost with that of the Puppetmaster AI, which results in a new entity, similar to both “parents”.  In this way she gets to undergo a change greater than any that has been previously possible – a rebirth in which she maintains her memories and stream of consciousness.