Couldn't tell you, I haven't seen it. Don't feel any particular urge to.

I did re-watch the original the other day, for the first time in probably 20 years. I'm not sure I'd ever watched it on home video, but I saw it a bunch of times when the dub was making the rounds of arthouse theaters. I'd forgotten a number of things about it. For instance, that most of the English voice acting is pretty weak, particularly—a bit unfortunately—Major Kusanagi.

(The English VAs were not, one feels upon further review, well-served by the script or the direction. For instance, no one involved in the translated version of the scene with Togusa and Kusanagi discussing guns knew what the hell "Mateba" or "Zastava" meant and just made something the fuck up based on the phonemes in the original Japanese, which is why—even in the subtitles—Kusanagi chides Togusa for his reliance on his outdated Matever and orders him to switch to a Zastober. Still, you can't lay all the dub's problems at the doorstep of indifferent production. Kusanagi sounds like the voice online dictionaries use to tell you how to pronounce words. I realize she's supposed to have kind of a flat affect, but Jesus.)

Also that the art direction is sort of radiantly unengaging, especially when compared with the source. It hasn't aged well, either.

Mainly, though, I was reminded of a visual that Zoner and I got from the scene where Batou is chasing the dude in the thermoptic raincoat (which has a cameo (dis)appearance in Eyrie Productions Destroys the Marvel Universe, I've just remembered) through the street market. Batou spots the guy, whips out his pistol, yells that he's with the police, and causes a panic, in which his target basically makes good his escape.

In the our-heads/UF-universe version of that scene, the dude still got away, but it went down a little differently.

EXT. DAY. A STREET MARKET on FUNKOTRON. BATOU prowls the crowds, scanning on every wavelength his sensor suite can perceive, and finally isolates his target using ultrasound. He whips out his sidearm.

BATOU
(yelling)
POLICE! EVERYBODY GET DOWN!

People in his vicinity glance at each other, shrug, and set to work. Instantly, and to BATOU's visible consternation, the street market converts into a block party. Vendors whip away displays of their wares and replace them with disco lights, speakers, and all the other accoutrements. "Partyman" by Prince starts blaring. People crack glowsticks, drop some E, and get ready to go for the rest of the day and all night long.

BATOU POV INTERCUT. The silhouette of the RAINCOAT MAN looks around in obvious bafflement, then turns and disappears into the dancing throng.

BATOU
... Shit!

He runs after his target, elbowing his way through the crowd.

I don't think we ever used that scene, but even if it was off-screen, it totally happened at some point.

--G.
In UF, Batou's first name is Lloyd. No real reason. He just looks like a Lloyd.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.