A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby Mbryo » Mon Feb 06, 2017 9:12 am

According to the alleged "prototype" script there were originally two different alternate endings considered for EOE.

I've got a question on one of these alternate endings. This ending is supposed to have depicted Shinji lying alone among grave markers with everybody's names inscribed on them, muttering to himself how he'll never see everybody again while holding a disembodied arm, presumably Rei's.

This clearly goes against the "traditional" view that everybody is going to come from the sea of LCL after Instrumentality has been ended. Nobody has returned from the sea of LCL and Shinji has to live by himself.

But what's weird is that even in this prototype script, there's the line by Yui/Rei at the end of Instrumentality, the one that made it into the final version of the film, telling Shinji not to worry because anybody can resurrect themselves if they have the will to live. In other words, the prototype script is basically contradicting itself by saying that everyone can and probably will return, but in the end nobody has returned.

What is the reason for this contradiction? Could it be that Rei/Lilith was actually wrong? Or could it be that Rei/Lilith's line had an underlying meaning that I've failed to catch?

Could it be that nobody came back except for Shinji and Asuka in the actual eding (the ending that's been actually made) as well, contrary to what everybody believes?
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby Reichu » Mon Feb 06, 2017 10:12 am

Simplest explanation: The disembodied arm ending didn't make the cut because it didn't actually make any sense. Expecting a draft to have the internal consistency of the finished product is kind of like... well..... There's a reason for the whole "writing multiple drafts" thing.
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby Sachi » Mon Feb 06, 2017 10:27 am

My take is that is that its simply a bleaker version of what we got. More bitter and less sweet. Everybody has the potential to return, however nobody does. The human will simply wasn't as strong in mankind as a whole, leaving Shinji alone in his new hellish paradise.
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby ErgoProxy » Mon Feb 06, 2017 10:35 am

My blind guess is that the alt-ending actually makes some sense, but too literal to make it into the final cut.

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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby Reichu » Mon Feb 06, 2017 11:05 am

Sachi wrote:Everybody has the potential to return, however nobody does.

Where does the Rei arm come from, then? It's implied it's her arm because, aside from being "white", Rei's name is the only one missing from the graves. Further complicating things is that Quantum Rei pops in right after Shinji finishes talking to the arm. The whole thing really doesn't make much sense.

Incidentally, my boyfriend thinks Last B is a reference to the final scene of Go Nagai's Devilman. I still haven't read it, so I can't comment, aside from noting the apparent visual similarity.
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby Mbryo » Mon Feb 06, 2017 11:28 am

Probably so, but still the contradiction is so glaringly obvious. Did they actually write the script without noticing it?
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby Reichu » Mon Feb 06, 2017 11:49 am

You're scrutinizing the draft from a vantage point of knowing the ultimate direction the story went in. Had the whole "disembodied arm" thing gelled in Anno's mind as a logical place to end the series, then subsequent drafts would have presumably focused the writing to take that goal into consideration. However, since the idea was abandoned, the best you can possibly do is see if it makes any sense within the full context of that particular draft. But even if a complete translation were available, I honestly doubt that most of us would be able to separate ourselves from the final product enough to be able to get a good sense of what Anno might have been going for when he wrote Last B. (Long shot: Try reading Devilman and see if that helps?)
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby Mbryo » Mon Feb 06, 2017 12:21 pm

Yeah I've just read through the Japanese script for the alternate ending, and from what little I can make of it, the conversation between Shinji/Rei/Kaworu/Yui at the end of instrumentality does seem to conclude a lot differently compared to the final version. Shinji's line about how he "wants to see everybody once again" seems to be missing, and overall Shinji's lines in the prototype script does seem a lot less optimistic than the lines in the final film. In fact, Yui's line about how people willl return from LCL kind of stands out because unlike in the final film, there's seemingly no mention of Shinji wanting the presence of other people again.
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby NemZ » Mon Feb 06, 2017 1:09 pm

Yui saying that people can return from the LCL doesn't mean it will happen anytime soon, or that the same people will return. Could be a hard reset, meaning life will have to re-evolve from scratch.
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby Sachi » Mon Feb 06, 2017 7:27 pm

View Original PostReichu wrote:Where does the Rei arm come from, then? It's implied it's her arm because, aside from being "white", Rei's name is the only one missing from the graves. Further complicating things is that Quantum Rei pops in right after Shinji finishes talking to the arm. The whole thing really doesn't make much sense.

The arm is there because LOL symbolism; and you're right that it doesn't work or make much literal sense. Based on how the OP describes the alternate ending, however, it seems very much in the same spirit as the ending we eventually got, only more bleak, as I mentioned before. There's the parallel between the grave markers, the disembodied Rei (albeit, GNR is what we got in EoE), and Shinji having seemingly gone insane from isolation, etc.
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby esselfortium » Tue Feb 07, 2017 8:06 pm

View Original PostNemZ wrote:Could be a hard reset, meaning life will have to re-evolve from scratch.

That doesn't make any sense as something to tell Shinji, unless she expects him to live a few million/billion years to experience any of that.

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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby NemZ » Tue Feb 07, 2017 8:46 pm

Eh, you know, long-term hope. "Don't worry, you didn't break it forever. It will be okay again... eventually."
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby Reichu » Tue Feb 07, 2017 10:03 pm

Just so everyone knows, the final parts of the draft have been mostly translated, so a certain amount of the speculation going on is unnecessary.
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby lilim » Fri Feb 17, 2017 2:16 am

a version of this film wherein Shinji enters into instrumentality after having a meltdown, considers himself and his place in the world and decides to return even to his life even if it's painful and is told everyone else will have the option to do the same but instead is left making markers for remembering people he's presumably never going to see again and who he has no bodies of to bury, while clutching the arm of the clone of his mother and wandering around, muttering insanely to himself, all alone for God knows how many years sounds like a really demented twilight zone kind of experience..

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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby Reichu » Fri Feb 17, 2017 5:42 am

The grave markers did make it into the final version of the film (complete with the one described in Last A as having been kicked over by Asuka), though they're easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking at.
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby lilim » Fri Feb 17, 2017 11:26 am

kicked over by Asuka? I haven't seen in EoE in a couple of years (something I'm going to fix within the next few days) and though I think I vaguely remember grave markers - I at least remember something about Misato's cross - I can't recall anything about Asuka having kicked any of them over but it's entirely possible I just never caught it the first time

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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby pwhodges » Fri Feb 17, 2017 1:55 pm

We see a static view of thirteen markers at first, of which one is knocked over and broken, then a close up of Misato's with her cross pendant that she'd given to Shinji (as we don't see Misato's cross in the first view, her marker might be making it up to fourteen). We don't see Asuka breaking any in the film as made, though (but if she had seen one for herself off-camera, perhaps that would have been natural?).
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby Reichu » Fri Feb 17, 2017 1:58 pm

Before Misato's cross is shown, you see a row of charred wooden grave markers. (The cross is a closeup on the one erected for Misato.) Look closely, and one has been kicked over. The draft ending Last A tells us why: it was Asuka's marker and she kicked it down when she found it. The final film doesn't show the kicking, of course, just the aftermath.

If we didn't have the scripts to explain it, this detail would likely be free of any significance. How many viewers are going to identify that row of charred wood monoliths as monuments to the dead erected by Shinji, let alone wonder why one of them is broken in half?
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Re: A question about the "alternate" ending for EOE

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Postby lilim » Sat Feb 18, 2017 2:36 am

ahh i need to make myself familiar with the scripts. thanks for the explanations!
even though there's lots of speculation about how long they're there on the beach before the choking scene, i was never sure if we had any reason to believe that wasn't just the first time Shinji sees Asuka afterward, that they either came back around the same time or at the same time. if she'd been there and kicking stuff around before we see them laying there next to each other and he turns to see her with that expression, still, it's somehow more eerie to me.


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