I think I finally figured out my main gripe with the movie. It's not the story, or the whitewashing, it's that the Major in the movie is not the Major from the GITS series.
In every other iteration she shares a number of traits that make up her core characterization. First, she's highly skilled at what she does. Her character has always exuded confidence in her knowledge and experience. She is able to assess the most complex of situations and either give out orders or delegate to the various Section 9 members. While they might think she's sometimes a pain in the ass, it's very obvious she commands a lot of respect from all of them, and whenever she asserts her chain of command, it's obeyed.
Second she's thoughtful and reflective. I think most people aren't accurately remembering how she was in the original movie, and I'd strongly urge anyone who thought she was "robotic" or monotone to rewatch it. The Major has a very clear personality, however it's her face that is largely unchanging. This was no doubt done intentionally to emphasize the dichotomy between her thinking, feeling, emotive human side with her cold, mostly expressionless cyborg side. Despite this you could still get a sense from what she was thinking and feeling even without her saying it out loud. A good example is when she's on the ferry and catches another person with the exact same body as hers.
Scarlett Johansson's "Major" was the exact opposite. Nothing about her displayed any sort of competence at what she did. In fact, for any Gundam fans, I would consider traditional Major Char's Counterattack Amuro, while GITS 17 Major the equivalent of early Mobile Suit Gundam Amuro. She got by by virtue of having a more advanced body than everything else. She seemed less the commanding officer of the team and more like someone they had to babysit. She blatantly ignored orders for seemingly no reason, and with Aramaki just shrugging his shoulders, and couldn't lead the team for shit.
While the old Major was reflective, this Major seemed more confused and curious about everything, like a toddler would be. She didn't really seem to understand what was going on or what she was seeing. The scene with the freckled black woman amounted to absolutely nothing.
This movie got her character completely wrong, which is a shame because she is one of my favorite anime characters, and pretty much my favorite fictional female character