Ghost in the Shell, cut no. 683, solegraph

"Well, where shall I go? The net is vast and infinite." In the penultimate cut (see the still image) the main protagonist Motoko Kusanagi, stands high over the city summarising her whole quest and the theme of the feature in this line of monologue.

The next cut shows us her view on the city in a slow and long pan.

In the distance, the skyscrapers of the new town rise at the centre of an artificial island. These buildings are depicted as being around three hundred metres tall, with low-rise buildings filling the spaces around them. The high-rises in the foreground are a more conventional height, at around thirty storeys or so.

The animation camera moves steadily from the bottom of the background to its top.

Art director Hiromasa Ogura has suggested that this image expresses ‘the coexistence of the old and the new’, a central theme throughout the film.

The feature ends with a fade to black on New Port City.