So, at first glance - the casting annoys me for the aforementioned reasons, but there is a golden shiny wire of hope for me in it.
I watch GitS dubbed (like a heathen), because I like to be able to pay VERY close attention to all of the split-second visual cues as well as the complexities of what's being discussed, and the English VA cast does a really good job of it. (I've watched all of SAC & 2nd GIG like... 5 times, and still always catch new things from it). The first thing that I was thinking was of the long, complex scenes of philosophical dialogue layered with the sort of strong female character that Motoko is, and I kinda feel like Scarlet Johansson could actually REALLY nail that part of it.
She plays a voice-only AI in
Her that really hits some important points of what would make Motoko work without even being on screen, and despite not having actual visual screentime in that film, she made it sell brilliantly. Then there's the physical role, and while I can't speak to
Lucy (because it came out while I was in Sweden, I think), her
Captain America: TWS role as Black Widow pretty much sells me on the physical aspect of being able to pull off Motoko. I think that if they work to make the rest of Section 9 visibly multicultural (specifically Aramaki, Ishikawa, & Togusa assuming they're all in there)* I think that they'll be able to make this work - especially if they address the idea of individual identity in a post-cyberization era with a fully/heavily cyborg individual.
*(I didn't list Batou, because depending on the story he was a part of operations with the American Empire's military rangers at one point, so he could be a non-asian role and still fit in).
Thoughts?
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