This scene was removed, so it changes nothing at all.

Just because the scene is shown doesnt mean that it what occured in it doesnt happen in this continuity.

Someone wrote:This scene was removed, so it changes nothing at all.

On the contrary, it identifies that this was a strongly considered possibility and that they did plan to have an explanation for the moon at some point in the film, but decided against it for whatever reason, be it time restraints, for the sake of flow, etc. This suggests that Sequelism is not what they had in mind for these films; they're trying to provide canon explanations for these now-unexplained occurrences. And it would be insulting to suggest that they spent all this time working on a scene that disproves the Sequel Theory, and suddenly decided to scrap the scene to simply go along with the sequel idea.

Not on screen = doesn't matter. Intentions of the creators only matter insofar as they are manifest in the final work.

Sachi's point should hold for whoever doesn't religiously adhere to in Death of the Author (or whatever the meme is).

Sachi wrote:... a scene that disproves the Sequel Theory

It doesn't disprove the sequel theory. At most, it simply explains the blood stain, and even that's debatable.

I don't think Rebuild is a sequel, but until a few things are made clear, I'm not ready to abandon the theory yet. Those things are 1.) what Kaworu's dialogue is referring to and 2.) Why all the EOE references? Hell, 1.0 begins with a shot directly out of the final scene of the last movie. That seems significant. Even if the storyboarded answer to the blood stain is correct, it wouldn't have anything to do with the sequel theory's validity.

Warren Peace wrote:Hell, 1.0 begins with a shot directly out of the final scene of the last movie.

....Where's that handy infographic that so delightfully points out that Nadia has that very same scene as well? That seems relevant here.

My point is just that supplemental materials are only useful for discussing the creator's intent, not establishing anything 'in universe'.

I don't think sequel theory has much of a case to begin with, however.

Legendary wrote:....Where's that handy infographic that so delightfully points out that Nadia has that very same scene as well? That seems relevant here.

Undeniable proof that Fuyutsuki was Gargoyle in a past life.

NemZ wrote:My point is just that supplemental materials are only useful for discussing the creator's intent, not establishing anything 'in universe'.

That seems like a needless form of fan-strangulation, especially in cases where the materials answer simple questions in a straightforward manner. (Not necessarily the case here.) I'm glad not everyone is so dogmatic about these things. :p

Legendary wrote:....Where's that handy infographic that so delightfully points out that Nadia has that very same scene as well? That seems relevant here.

I'm not familiar with Nadia, maybe it is. Is the water red there as well, like it is at the end of EOE? If the water was blue, no one would be connecting the two movies (before anyone says it, yes, I'm aware of Rebuild's explanation for the color. The question is, why reference EOE like that at all? Why give Asuka the same injuries she had in EOE's final scene? Why make the moon look like it does?)

Water's blue, but the ripples are exactly the same. It's just standard design reuse, because it's easier to copy something over and over than make unique-looking designs EACH TIME.

As for Asuka, I don't think it's an argument for sequel theory that she obtains similar sets of injuries in identical ways twice. That's intertextuality in this case, since the two are separate works. And of course, Rei and Asuka share injuries, both in this work and the last. Really, the fact that Asuka's injuries are portrayed differently here than the set of injuries have been portrayed in episodes 1-4, EoE, and 1.11 make them more distinct!

Finally, the moon looks like it does because it's HAUNTING. Rebuild is a separate work, but it is a Evangelion work that was made after examining NGE and the whole "the world looks cool only a decade and a half after an apocalypse" doesn't really make the stakes look very high. By starting off bad and going worse, the audience is more tense as a result.

Reichu wrote:That seems like a needless form of fan-strangulation, especially in cases where the materials answer simple questions in a straightforward manner. (Not necessarily the case here.) I'm glad not everyone is so dogmatic about these things. :p

Quite the opposite, actually. It's fan-liberating to keep all the noncannonical stuff from getting in the way of otherwise awesome theories.

Yes, duel of the seeds totally happened.

Legendary wrote:Water's blue, but the ripples are exactly the same. It's just standard design reuse, because it's easier to copy something over and over than make unique-looking designs EACH TIME.

As for Asuka, I don't think it's an argument for sequel theory that she obtains similar sets of injuries in identical ways twice. That's intertextuality in this case, since the two are separate works. And of course, Rei and Asuka share injuries, both in this work and the last. Really, the fact that Asuka's injuries are portrayed differently here than the set of injuries have been portrayed in episodes 1-4, EoE, and 1.11 make them more distinct!

Finally, the moon looks like it does because it's HAUNTING. Rebuild is a separate work, but it is a Evangelion work that was made after examining NGE and the whole "the world looks cool only a decade and a half after an apocalypse" doesn't really make the stakes look very high. By starting off bad and going worse, the audience is more tense as a result.

Your explanations may make sense on their own (except the one about the moon -- I don't get that), but together, they're too much of a leap. All these examples (and possibly others. The chalk outline?) seem to represent a trend. A trend of incorporating the imagery of EOE into Rebuild. To me, a chronological sequel theory seems unlikely, if not impossible. But Rebuild could tie into EOE in less direct ways.

As for the moon, Anno certainly didn't have to make it look like it does in EOE, but he went out of his way to do so. Again, that seems significant.

Your arguments for sequel theory rely on two kinds of evidence:

1) Things in Rebuild ending up looking like EoE.

Unfortunately, as all have explained backstories, we run into a problem. Apparently the chain of events is:

Rei kills everyone, makes the seas red -> Shinji rejects Instrumentality -> Some sequence of events leads to a hard reset of existence, making the water blue again -> 2I makes the water red for unrelated reasons.

Occam's razor suggests we can skim everything off of that except "2I makes the water red".

Take another example:

Asuka Soryu is born -> Asuka Soryu dies -> Asuka Soryu is reborn with injuries -> Some sequence of events leads to a hard reset of existence to a point in time in which Asuka wasn't born -> Eventually Asuka Shikinami is born -> Asuka Shikinami gets the same injuries that Asuka Soryu did.

See how this doesn't actually suggest a sequel at all? Sequel Theory was at its strongest before people pointed out that the water hadn't always been red, because then a hard reset of existence wasn't required, merely a hard reset of HUMANITY. Even then, Asuka's injuries are completely unrelated because she's still part of that humanity subset.

2) Kaworu's lines

Guess what? Someone who'd never heard of NGE or Sequel Theory but who just watched the movies would assume that Kaworu and Shinji had simply interacted in the past. And that's all it takes.

Every claim for sequel theory is either refutable, not actually proof of a sequel (hint, Star Wars didn't have Alderaan come back in Episode VI so that things would be like Episode IV again for the second Death Star), or vague but explainable.

Legendary wrote:2) Kaworu's lines

Guess what? Someone who'd never heard of NGE or Sequel Theory but who just watched the movies would assume that Kaworu and Shinji had simply interacted in the past. And that's all it takes.

Liez! I assumed that it was a sequel of something.

Just saying, but at the end of 2.0 the blood across the moon disappears as unit 06 decends (after spearing 01 with Rei and Shinji inside)...

Penpen wrote:Just saying, but at the end of 2.0 the blood across the moon disappears as unit 06 decends (after spearing 01 with Rei and Shinji inside)...

It could be that the stain is on another part of the moon.

Penpen wrote:Just saying, but at the end of 2.0 the blood across the moon disappears as unit 06 decends (after spearing 01 with Rei and Shinji inside)...

Was the bloodstain in Rebuild ever visible from Earth? I honestly don't recall.

SaltyJoe wrote:Was the bloodstain in Rebuild ever visible from Earth? I honestly don't recall.

As I said in the other thread a second ago, no, it wasn't (Rei and Shinji's discussion before the Ramiel battle is a good way to notice this, since the moon is full and enormous and there's nothing visible whatsoever)

^Maybe it's just the angle?