LAEM script/outline thingy

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LAEM script/outline thingy

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Postby mechashiva » Fri Jan 02, 2015 11:46 pm

Sorry if I can't put this here, or that there's not much to report at this point. I'm still writing the outline at this point and up to sort of the beginnng arc of the series (up to episode 3, WOW. I really need to pick up the pace -o-; )

But yeah, as it stands now with the part I'm outlining now, some stuff I've added/changed a little for clarity:
-Halfway on his train trip to Neo Tokyo-3, the trains experience an emergency shut down and Shinji makes a break for the nearest payphone, where in the series we are introduced to Shinji. There is an earlier scene establishing Misato offers to pick up Shinji from the station to take him the rest of the way to NERV HQ but gets to the train station to find him not there (hence a bit of dialogue in ep. 1 of Misato saying something to the effect of "I can't believe I lost him!") Alas, I'm not including the sexy photo detail because in the timeline I've constructed, the time that Shinji gets the letter and then leaves to go into the city wouldn't be enough time to get Misato's picture and I kind of doubt she would include that in an official NERV document. At the very least, he calls the NERV office to confirm his arrival and she answers and gives him her personal contact info in case he needs to be picked up.

-Ritsuko is introduced looking over Rei in the intensive care ward in the hospital as Misato is leaving to pick up Shinji. She acknowledges this, something to the effect of "Ah, so we'll be getting a replacement." Rei is comatose, or hovering between life and death and a little later (not much later, since the scene happens right afterwards) Rei appears in the street while Shinji is trying to call Misato and then she disappears, almost as if she wanted to see the new pilot for herself :wink:

-The whole "Ritsuko diving in coolant/LCL" is changed to the hospital opening. A little less ambiguous and it establishes that she's a doctor

-I don't remember if its ever explained better in the series or the Rebuild movies but I've changed PenPen so that he was a rescued penguin she raised while stationed with her father in Antartica when the Second Impact happens. He's still the same penguin but with a slightly different origin story. (unless its the same and I just forgot)

-I think I read somewhere this happens in the manga but when the EVA-01 gets slammed into the mountain while fighting Shamshel just barely missing Toji and Kensuke, he takes the initiative to let them inside the entry plug after remembering Ritsuko going over the plug's emergency exit points

-Sometime before Shinji starts going to school in Neo-Tokyo-3, he either runs out or realizes he forgot to pack his anti-depressants. Misato recommends he see Ritsuko about refilling his perscription and after a cursory check-up, she tells him he doesn't need it because it'll will affect his sync ratio (at Gendo's request :uhh: ) Its a long shot but it would establish how Shinji's mental health deteriorates from Shamshel onward, why he becomes kind of sullen and broken down in addition to all the other stuff going on in his life.

I've also been thinking about the What If? of changing the series from taking place in Japan to America and here's what I've gotten so far:

-Shinji, Gendo and Yui stay Japanese but Gendo and Shinji moved to the States sometime after Yui died so his connection with his birthplace is tied in with his mother and anything that reminds him of Japan makes him feel sort of sad and wistful.

-Asuka will be German-American

-Misato, Ritsuko, Kensuke, and Toji are American. Rei is technically American but she has Yui's Japanese DNA so her mannerisms come up as vaguely Japanese, reinforcing her connection with Yui

As for setting, I was thinking of a specific state that had a similar geography to Neo-Tokyo 3 and the surrounding countryside (mountainous with some kind of coastal area) and the closest that would work would be somewhere like California but since I'm not really familiar with the state, I don't know exactly where. San Diego or Los Angeles, maybe?

But yeah...for something I'm doing for fun, I'm afraid I've put too much thought into it. I haven't tried to write a script before and I'm kind of dreading writing any of the scientific or technical details about the NERV goings-on but well see when I finish the outline :rolleyes:
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Postby Gob Hobblin » Sat Jan 03, 2015 12:06 am

I'm interested to see what you write up with this, but I want to ask what the hook is. What is it about this story that makes it unique compared to other Evangelion fanfics? The setup so far seems to be scene-for-scene from the first three episodes but with fairly minor differences. It can pay off in the long run, if you're going for incremental 'butterfly effect' changes: however, you have to keep the audience attention to get to those drastic changes.
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Postby mechashiva » Sat Jan 03, 2015 12:28 am

Well, I kind of wanted to do the script as trying to tell the basic story to a hypothetical audience who's never heard of Evangelion, if that's what a live-action Evangelion movie would end up being. Thinking about the story linearly, there are some things that come off as ambiguous or unclear (Rei appearing in the street and then vanishing) and could be conveyed or explained differently (that Rei had an out-of-body experience appearing to Shinji and disappeared when she regained consciousness in the hospital)

I guess the hook that I'm hanging the story on is that Evangelion is, at its core a coming of age story but even with that in mind, I feel like maybe I took a tad too much from the first few episodes if everything is happening fairly closely to the sequence in the series and I don't want to get bogged down with too much texture stuff (Shinji's life at school, stuff like that) that works great in a series where you can stretch things out but would bog down a movie.

I dunno if that helps
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Postby Guy Nacks » Sat Jan 03, 2015 12:39 am

View Original Postmechashiva wrote:Well, I kind of wanted to do the script as trying to tell the basic story to a hypothetical audience who's never heard of Evangelion


I thought that's what the first Rebuild movie was supposed to do.
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Postby mechashiva » Sat Jan 03, 2015 12:40 am

But in live-action, and maybe taking place in America. Maybe. :uhh:
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Postby Gob Hobblin » Sat Jan 03, 2015 12:59 am

Okay, I got you! So we're talking about condensing and adapting Evangelion into a script format, possibly with an American audience in mind.

That makes more sense now. So the changes you're talking about are to condense plot elements in the show while still giving an audience an insight into what's happening? That's an interesting concept. Good practice, too.
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Postby mechashiva » Sat Jan 03, 2015 1:28 am

(one more post before bed -_- )

Yeah. The closer I get to the end (or definite conclusion) the more I'd have to either compress or excise certain events completely: the Jet Alone I could probably keep but the Ireul infecting the Magi computers may have to done off-screen or not given much screen-time. (It happens but it doesn't affect the pilots directly but it shows an insight in what kind of person Ritsuko is and how she handles a crisis)

So much of the 'flavor' of Evangelion is specific to Japan or Japanese culture and changing the setting from Japan to America is going to be slow going but I have some ideas: Kensuke, I imagine as kind of a fanboy/otaku of Japanese culture as well as military stuff and he latches onto Shinji because his origin is like so many other mecha anime and how cool and glamorous it is as well as asking how many kanji he knows :rolleyes:
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Postby Gob Hobblin » Sat Jan 03, 2015 1:39 am

^

Which is a good point, though you could probably transition over to American specific issues (though they have been done to death by now: critique on American military policy, anyone :bigeyes: ?) I would say if transitioning it to an American setting, go the whole way: names, the whole nine yards. You can't really say it's being white-washed, because I call this a hypothetical script based on adapting a work. It's training, and it's for amusement and fun: sometimes, the adaptions have to be far reaching to be pragmatic.

That being said, if you keep it in Tokyo-3, I would say some events could possibly be merged and condensed in order to save on time and drive home the points you're trying to make. I have to think more on specific examples for that, however.
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Postby mechashiva » Tue Jan 27, 2015 4:26 pm

So I haven't updated in a while because I've just been writing other things but its just a matter of how much of the last episodes I can translate coherently so thinking "Okay, what is the intent of the ending? What have all the episodes been leading up to?" Most of "How can I write it so everything comes together in a conclusion without leaving things on a cliffhanger?" I don't know about you but I can't stand movies that spend an hour to two hours filling in backstory only to stick on a "to be continued"

Most of the unease was while thinking about it, I wasn't 100 sure of the intent of the Human Instrumentality Project so summing it up, even in outline form, means I needed to know why Gendo is going through all the trouble of making it happen.

Maybe its just my wishful thinking to make it so but I wanted to dial back Gendo's dickishness to find the core of his motivation. Also maybe its just I've been watching a lot of "King of the Hill" and Shinji and Gendo's father-son dynamic reminded me of Hank Hill and his son Bobby: he's fueled by this need to make Shinji grow up because he's weak (or he perceives him as weak) and also because Shinji reminds him so much of Yui. I know the explanation for Gendo's hatred (or extreme apathy) of Shinji is because he was jealous of Shinji "stealing" Yui's affection from him but I wanted to shift it to more that he pushed Shinji away because he was just another reminder of losing Yui. Because so much of NGE is from Shinji's perspective and he sees Gendo as just a figure of hate, he doesn't see and we only get glimpses of Gendo's point of view. I think it was from the Leliel episode but one part I thought was interesting in its brevity was Gendo being accused of murdering Yui because she disappeared and he couldn't tell anyone outside of NERV she's the heart of the EVA-01. So I wanted to have it that Gendo hates himself for why he can't open up to anybody and Yui was only one who could see goodness in him so he shut it up and he wanted to use the Human Instrumentality Project to be one big happy family.

As for Kaworu, I'm not sure. I definitely don't want to frame him in this script (if I decide to include him at all) as a gay love interest. In the Discussion thread, thinking about him as Shinji's guardian angel is the closest way to think of him as. Leading up to it or foreshadowing it is going to be tricky, though. I, personally, didn't like that Kaworu just shows up out of nowhere and Shinji forms a bond with him only to have to kill him.

I was raised Mormon (don't worry, I'm a jack mormon.) and I hope this makes sense but one belief is that everybody before they had earthly bodies were angels or beings of light in heaven and children before they were born picked which family to be born in. So maybe...Kaworu was going to be one of Yui's children but she died before he could become born so he stayed in Heaven looking after Shinji until he turned into an Angel and gained an earthly body.

I'm not sure if I'm going with that idea, though. It would be quite a leap but its just one idea.

Once I finish the outline, I'll start writing the script proper and post it. Wish me luck and let me know what you think -o-;
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Postby UrsusArctos » Tue Jan 27, 2015 6:22 pm

View Original Postmechashiva wrote:I know the explanation for Gendo's hatred (or extreme apathy) of Shinji is because he was jealous of Shinji "stealing" Yui's affection from him but I wanted to shift it to more that he pushed Shinji away because he was just another reminder of losing Yui.


That's Sadamoto's Gendo from the Manga, and Sadamoto's Gendo is an ass of the highest order. The Gendo we know and love abandoned Shinji out of extreme self-loathing, and he believed that he would do nothing but mess Shinji up further - and ironically, he succeeded in making Shinji a lot more like him than he would've wished.

My own take on it is that Gendo believes that he was responsible for Yui's decision to go into the Eva and that his drive to get Yui back is just as fueled by a desire to bring her back and make up, to stop hating himself over something that he sees as his fault, and not Yui's. It's self-hatred that drives Gendo, just as much, if not more than, love for Yui.
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Postby mechashiva » Tue Jan 27, 2015 9:21 pm

Yeah, I can see that. I haven't read the manga yet so I wasn't sure.

Its like even though Gendo and Yui were partners, he regretted letting her use herself as the first test subject and becoming lost inside the EVA-01's heart and he's driven to fix that mistake even if it means using Shinji (and Rei as well, to some extent) to make it happen.
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Postby UrsusArctos » Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:20 pm

That's not his only regret, if you ask me. I'd say he's wondering if he's done something to make himself deserve the punishment of being abandoned by the person he loved the most. Remember Episode 20, where Shinji is dissolved into the Eva? Ritsuko attempts to salvage him and bring him back, but he's plainly refusing to come out of the Eva - and she even mentions that the previous such operation (Yui's) failed, the plain implication being that Yui refused to leave the Eva. Gendo's flagellating himself for being such a wretch that he drove his wife into abandoning him and he wants to get her back to free himself of that guilt and hatred.

Gendo wasn't this way earlier. When Fuyutsuki first met him in Episode 21, he was a sort of good-for-nothing who got into bar brawls and was generally snarky and disrespectful of others (especially crude in Japanese society). I interpret it as he had long since given up hope on anyone liking him and generally did as he pleased, without a care in the world, and found contentment in being a smart-mouthed cynical jerk. Yui came along and gave him love and hope that he could be loved for the very first time in his life.

The very qualities that made Gendo repulsive to a man like Fuyutsuki might have made him attractive to Yui, who had already been pegged as the daughter of a Seele member and one who would have been very hot in the marital rankings. Rather than an army of pretentious good-for-nothings trying to weasel their way into her life, here was a guy who just didn't bother and who was actually a kind and considerate man who had been embittered by life. He wasn't one who had qualms about opening up to someone...as long as that someone wasn't put off by him and was genuinely interested in him as a person. That's what Yui saw in Gendo and why she married him.

And then, having had a son, a loving wife, and a very promising career, Gendo suddenly has his wife vanish inside the Eva and he's accused of killing her, while all attempts to retrieve her fail - due to her refusal to return. Is it any wonder that Gendo cracked at this point and decided that he was irredeemable?
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Postby The Polyethylene Man » Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:45 pm

I agree with Gob. If you want to use Eva in America as your hook then you've got to make some composite characters and change names. Shinji, Rei, Gendo, and maybe Misato can get away with being Japanese, but Kensuke, Toji, and hHriki wouldn't. Technically Asuka is an American citizen anyway, and 3/4 white, so it really makes no sense for her to have such a Japaneses first and last name. I always imagined her dad as an American military officer stationed in Germany, which would also help explain how he met his half Japanese wife. And why he's named after a CIA base.

As for location, can I suggest the greatest and most extensive city in the world: NYC. We're right on the sea, have some [s:2uvbdgx5]mountains [/s:2uvbdgx5] very big hills just to the north, and spiderman lives here. Also, every person living in New York is an alcoholic, so Misato would fit right in.
For a beach episode you have my hometown of the Hamptons, and a little further down on Long Island you have montauk, where the military has conducted time travel experiments with Nikolas Tesla.
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Postby UrsusArctos » Wed Jan 28, 2015 2:37 pm

View Original PostThe Polyethylene Man wrote: And why he's named after a CIA base.


He's named after the first American aircraft carrier, which in turn was named after a man - Samuel Pierpont Langley. He doesn't need to be in the military, however. He could just as well be a physicist doing research in Germany.

If I had to go with an American NGE that had a lot of people of Japanese origin, I think I'd place it in Guam.
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Postby mechashiva » Wed Jan 28, 2015 3:40 pm

View Original PostUrsusArctos wrote:That's not his only regret, if you ask me. I'd say he's wondering if he's done something to make himself deserve the punishment of being abandoned by the person he loved the most. Remember Episode 20, where Shinji is dissolved into the Eva? Ritsuko attempts to salvage him and bring him back, but he's plainly refusing to come out of the Eva - and she even mentions that the previous such operation (Yui's) failed, the plain implication being that Yui refused to leave the Eva. Gendo's flagellating himself for being such a wretch that he drove his wife into abandoning him and he wants to get her back to free himself of that guilt and hatred.


I see. So not only does he feel responsible, he feels like he's incapable to making others love him if he just ends up driving people away.

I can work with that. Thanks for your input :wink:

As for Guam (once I looked it up. Sorry. I don't know that much about it) the placement is ideal, given its almost inbetween Japan and the US and it would explain why it would be the place where NERV would stake its claim (in this version, the first Angel attack happened in Japan but obviously the Angels reorient themselves to where Lilith would be) given all of the military bases but I can't help but feel like a small island like that would be practically flooded if not completely underwater because of the Second Impact.
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