REI:“I am here to brief you on the schedule for Operation Yashima, to begin at 00:00 hours this morning.”
FreakyFilmFan4ever: This is obviously Shinji's P.O.V. I like how unwavering and transfixed it seems to be on Rei.
Kendrix: "a little monotone", hm? Helps to highlight that he's still pretty overwhelmed from the previous battle/hasn't even had the time to "process it", but this is real life and the situation demands that he let himself be stuffed in there right away, trauma or no trauma. Just the blunt cruelty of reality.
Rei takes out a memo and reads it in businesslike fashion.
REI (Takes out memo.):“Pilots Ikari and Ayanami will assemble at the cage at 1730 today. At 1800 Units 01 and 00 will activate.
At 1805 they will move out.
At 30 in the same hour they will arrive at the temporary base at Mount Futago. They will stand by until they receive further orders. The operation will begin the following morning, as soon as the date changes.”
Kendrix: She immediately starts off with stating the facts, without any greetings, routine questions or decorations. Note that her tone of voice is not described as "cold" or "monotone", but as "businesslike". She is adressing/treating Shinji like a coworker here - if she was in his shoes, she'd probably also like to simply have her informations delivered to her.
EvangelionFan: Is Rei reading it because she can't say it in her own words, because she has a respect for authority, or because she likes the official nature of the text? All of the above, I believe.
Kendrix: ...This plan has just been thought up. Rei is reading it because she didn't really have any time to learn it by heart. She has probably only just been told herself.
Additional Commentary
EvangelionFan: Hey now, I wasn't criticising her. Yeah, she has only recently been told the plan, but she doesn't have to read from the text: as she read it she could have paraphrased with 'We' instead of 'Pilots Ikari and Ayanami', but she doesn't, likely for any one of the reasons I said above - and script-writing point of view, it reinforces her impassive/stoic nature.
Azathoth: More importantly, I would say, it emphasizes the sense of alienation from herself which will be hammered home at the end of the episode, where she genuinely doesn't know how the entity Rei Ayanami should be behaving in this situation. Of course that alienation will become even more significant later, as Rei becomes aware of the Lilith-self within her and its increasingly powerful will to death.
Kendrix: How about Rei not paraphrasing the lines because she simply doesn't see any logical reason to/ is unaware of the fact that this would sound odd to most poeople? It's definitely also a possibility.
She speaks after fumbling under the cart
She throws a plug suit in a pack towards him
REI (She brings out a vinyl bag from under the cart.):“This is a new one.”
