Three Evas, two kids, and a treaty: What the hell?

[Sailor Star Dust]

I already explained why Eva-02 was put in storage: Europe still had jurisdiction over it (Asuka even questioned in-film why they didn't store Eva-00 instead) and this way the "Three pilots per country" rule can be maintained.

And my post explaining what happens in-film/order of events, whether it's about characters or the plot, is kinda important to understand both.

[Legendary]

So, let's get this straight then.

Japan gets Eva-03. For the three Eva rule, they need to shut down an Eva. They have a damaged prototype that Seele doesn't want, one production model, and one reasonably working test type.

So Seele makes Europe tell Japan to shut down the production model instead of that other Eva that no one wants and is currently broken. That's stupid. It makes no logical sense and there is no justification.



And then, as I've noted, we now have a pilot without an Eva. And so it takes Misato forever to decide whether it should be her or someone else. Is Misato RETARDED?! How did that thought process work?

"Hmm... there's Shinji... but he has an Eva. There's Rei... but she has an Eva. There's Shinji... but he has an Eva..."

Did she just forget Asuka exists?



AND THEN, it is played up like this is a momentous choice on Asuka's part. It isn't. The choices are "Pilot" or "Do nothing." It says nothing about her or her growth or anything. It just says she's not stupid enough to think that Nerv will keep paying for room and board if her Eva is going to be offline and the special First Child gets two fucking robots. Her accusation of nepotism actually makes sense instead of just being petty, this way.

[Tarnsman]

I already explained why Eva-02 was put in storage: Europe still had jurisdiction over it (Asuka even questioned in-film why they didn't store Eva-00 instead) and this way the "Three pilots per country" rule can be maintained.

And my post explaining what happens in-film/order of events, whether it's about characters or the plot, is kinda important to understand both.

You're not acknowledging the real problem. There is no reason why Asuka shouldn't have been slated to be Unit-03's pilot from the moment that Unit-02 was put into storage. She shouldn't have needed to volunteer, Misato shouldn't have needed to choose.

[Azathoth]

I'm guessing that some part of that section of the plot made sense back in the drafts where Mari actually worked at Nerv and had already taken Asuka's place as Unit 02 pilot.

[Legendary]

I'm guessing that some part of that section of the plot made sense back in the drafts where Mari actually worked at Nerv and had already taken Asuka's place as Unit 02 pilot.

Perhaps, but even then a lot has to have changed or you get:

Rei pilots Eva-00, Shinji pilots Eva-01, Mari pilots the now shut down Eva-02, and Asuka is the unloved redheaded stepchild.

So even then if it has always been Rei vs. Asuka, there's still a shit-ton of idiocy.

[Ornette]

Wait, wasn't Eva-03 supposed to be dummy plug piloted? Asuka wasn't supposed to be Eva-03's pilot, they just needed someone for the activation test. I haven't watched Funi's subs, did this change?

The whole Vatican treaty was a pretty hokey idea, but it didn't really bother me that much.

@Tarnsman The biggest plothole in the original NGE is probably the "Kaworu mistaking Lilith as being Adam after Seele told him Adam was in Gendo's hand". There's a couple of threads about it in Discussion (doing a text search for "plot hole" in the thread list will reveal a couple).

[Legendary]

Wait, wasn't Eva-03 supposed to be dummy plug piloted?

I have no idea, but then Asuka's plot arc is even less of the big deal it's made out to be. "Yeah, sure, you guys can have your party and I'll just sit in this Eva for the last time in my life because I basically have nothing to do ever after this. Yay picking piloting over friends. Except now I don't have either."

[Tarnsman]

@Tarnsman The biggest plothole in the original NGE is probably the "Kaworu mistaking Lilith as being Adam after Seele told him Adam was in Gendo's hand". There's a couple of threads about it in Discussion (doing a text search for "plot hole" in the thread list will reveal a couple).

I forgot about that. You are indeed correct that is a massive plot hole.

[Ornette]

I have no idea, but then Asuka's plot arc is even less of the big deal it's made out to be. "Yeah, sure, you guys can have your party and I'll just sit in this Eva for the last time in my life because I basically have nothing to do ever after this. Yay picking piloting over friends. Except now I don't have either."

The fansub made it out to be that Eva-03 is going to be dummy plugged. Eva-03 talk, talk of dummy plugs, talk of how we don't need children to pilot anymore, more talk about Eva-03, etc. Thought it was pretty obvious.

[Legendary]

All right, but like I said, Asuka's plot arc falls apart all the harder the less she has to do with Eva-03.

[Seele00TextOnly]

...

[Tarnsman]

The fansub made it out to be that Eva-03 is going to be dummy plugged. Eva-03 talk, talk of dummy plugs, talk of how we don't need children to pilot anymore, more talk about Eva-03, etc. Thought it was pretty obvious.

We see Eva-01 getting fitted with it during that scene so unless every Eva is having its pilot replaced I don't see why Eva-03 would get special treatment.

[Sailor Star Dust]

Wait, wasn't Eva-03 supposed to be dummy plug piloted? Asuka wasn't supposed to be Eva-03's pilot, they just needed someone for the activation test. I haven't watched Funi's subs, did this change?

Eva-01 was fitted with the Dummy Plug System (which was one of Misato's concerns to Kaji during their dinner scene), there was nothing that I saw about Eva-03 being fitted with it (in either fansubs or Funi's translation). Instead Eva-03 did require a pilot, at least for the activation. (Maybe Nerv WAS thinking of fitting the Dummy System on all the units eventually and they decided to test it out, so to speak, on Eva-01 but this wasn't explored too much.)

[GasmaskAvenger]

all in all, this thread is more evidence of that the true villain of the Rebuld films is not SEELE, but Evangelion 1.0

[Lucretius]

I have no idea, but then Asuka's plot arc is even less of the big deal it's made out to be. "Yeah, sure, you guys can have your party and I'll just sit in this Eva for the last time in my life because I basically have nothing to do ever after this. Yay picking piloting over friends. Except now I don't have either."

No no, it's more like "I'm choosing to pilot for all my new-found friends, except now I've realized I don't need dorky friends after all! No wait, being with other people is great! Thanks, Misato!"

I seriously have no idea what Asuka's motivation is supposed to be in the build-up to the Unit 03 disaster; her phonecall to Misato is a masterpiece of muddled writing. Part of this is probably due to the translation, but still. C'mon, Anno.

[Shogo-Kun]

Well, seeing as Rebuild is Anno's reaction to NGE, and could be read as a meta-textual commentary, these obvious, glaring (and some might say inexcusable) plot holes are being inserted in lieu of narrative ambiguity, in order to mock his previous auteur mindset. Anno is shedding his chrysalis, having long since abandoned the larval form of the introspective, precise writing of the depressed neurotic, and blossomed in the butterfly of the pandering, mainstream filmmaker. He is saying that being intentionally vague for artistic purposes, is just as bad as writing a story that makes no logical sense, and demonstrating that for his audience in the most straightforward fashion. If you dismiss what, at first, appears to be shoddy writing, or a miserable train-wreck of a plot that makes no sense, then you're dismissing the very crux of Anno's narrative art.

I like this explanation. In fact, that's exactly how I view Rebuild, a deconstruction of Neon Genesis Evangelion. And since NGE is a deconstruction of the mecha genre, what do you call a deconstruction of a deconstruction? A reconstruction! Hence, Rebuild of Evangelion.

[Legendary]

The entire thing was sarcastic, not meant to be taken seriously, and borderline trolling.

[Eva 04]

What? Where the hell did the movie state Rei was gonna be the test pilot for Evangelion unit 03? IIRC,they never said who was gonna be it's test pilot before Asuka Volunteered to do it.

[SaltyJoe]

Yeah, the plot here is more than a bit wonky, but i think i can address a few points, in the form of a faux dialouge:

"1., Why did Asuka have to volunteer instead of being selected outright?"

It was Nerv Europe who took her off from piloting Unit-02, which to me, along with the fact that she holds a rank with the European Air Force implies that she never really was a part of Nerv Japan's piloting roster, but more like an "outside contractor", a European pilot under European supervision who happened to be piloting in Japan.

As such, when Eva-03 is handed over to Japan, the first choice for a possible candidate to pilot it is a Japanese pilot. Shinji is out of the question, so the winner by omission is Rei.

When Misato asks her to pilot, she basically asks a member of the armed forces of a foreign country to make a guest appearance in piloting an Eva that is now under Japanese jurisdiction.

Misato did make a comment about handing over Asuka's case to the department of staff early on in the movie, so there were probably some naturalization process going on, but given that it was Nerv Europe who ultimatley decided what Asuka can and can't do, those probably weren't completed yet.

"2., But even so, why was Unit-00 left online?"

Although it was kept operational, it was pretty strongly implied that it was never intended to sorty again, at least not in Seele's version of things. Gendo probably still wanted to use it, since he asked Seele for further reources to speed up repairs on Unit-00, and it was denied. Gendo probably though it was a good idea to keep 00 around anyway, probably as a tool in his Operation Oedipus. Gendo probably has less sway over what happens with which Unit than viewers give him credit for, but i think it's a a safe bet that he could pull a few strings.

"3., Wait, what? This doesn't make sense at all. Why would Seele cripple it's own potential by discarding 00 and making Europe put 02 into storage when the Plot Device Treaty only requires them to put away one Eva?"

Seele isn't the only player in deciding what happens with the Evas. Most of the dealings around the sealing away of Unit-02 seem to have been carried out by Nerv Europe in conjunction with a third organization, IPEA.

Rebuild is painting a picture of a world where Seele isn't quite omnipotent. Different branches of Nerv seem to have varying degrees of freedom, and IPEA is made out to be something of a watchdog organization that can probably slap even Seele on the wrist if they deem it to be necessary.

Case in point, the destruction of Unit-05, Bethany Base and the Third Angel. That whole stuff is implied to be (by the name IPEA flashing on Unit-05's screens during it's startup and the Seele logo on the Third Angel) a joint endeavour between Seele and the IPEA, and Seele got gypped out of both the Unit and the Angel. It is even mentioned that this is considered a setback, however minor.

Entering the realm of even more hardcore fanwanking, i guess that Mari and Kaji both have something to do with the IPEA and a possible agenda to stop Seele from doing whatever it is they want to do with the Evas.

"4., This whole IPEA thing seems like something the writers pulled out of their asses for this movie.

Yes it does.

"5., The Vatican Treaty itslef seems like a dumb idea anyway. What's the purpose of that?"

Plot device, but some clever chap has speculated that limiting the number of active Evas that can be in close proximity to one another as three at most has something to do with the four Adams we can see in Misato's Second Impact flashback. Look up the appropriate thread, i'm lazy.

"6., This is just retarded. You just wrote a shitty geopolitical essay based on tidbits, fanwanking and speculation."

Well yeah, but the tidbits that allowed me to speculate like this are there, so it's not like i pulled all this stuff out of my ass. Just some of it:P.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The fansub made it out to be that Eva-03 is going to be dummy plugged. Eva-03 talk, talk of dummy plugs, talk of how we don't need children to pilot anymore, more talk about Eva-03, etc. Thought it was pretty obvious.

I don't know, i thought the implication was that the Dummy Sytem would replace the pilots in the long run. The only D.S. we see implemented is the one usde on Unit-01.

What? Where the hell did the movie state Rei was gonna be the test pilot for Evangelion unit 03?

Rei getting a medical checkup from Ritsuko, the idead the Eva-03 is sent over to replace 00, and Rei thanking Asuka are pretty strong hints.

[Sachi]

SaltyJoe is correct and made the point I had planed to make. Nerv Japan did not have full jurisdiction over either Unit-02 nor Asuka; the two had merely been serving alongside them for a while, but remained under Europe's command. Since a country is limited to only three active Evangelions, it's only natural that they would put away the one the wasn't their own (even if Unit-00 was damaged).

I'm also under the impression that Unit-03 was never meant to replace any Evangelion in the Japanese roster; they merely had temporary jurisdiction over it in order to run the activation test. After that, Unit-03 would likely be claimed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. or Europe, and shipped somewhere else. So, Unit-02 being in storage was also meant to be merely temporary, lasting the duration Unit-03 (short-in-plan) stay in Japan.

As for the decision of who was to pilot Unit-03, I don't believe any implication was made that Rei might have been the one to pilot if Asuka had not volunteered. The audience was merely presented with Misato's control of the decision of potential test pilot, and she was deciding between Asuka and Rei. Asuka volunteered, so the decision was made easy. Rei is grateful for this, because she did not want her dinner party to be ruined.