Necessity of story's, er, "quickening"

[EveryoneGotTurnedIntoTang]

What do you think of the 14 year time skip in 3.0? Was it really needed?

Personally, I have no clue why Anno and the rest of the producers decided to insert the time skip at all. For me, it has little purpose, it’s rather extraneous, and it reeks of clumsy writing.

I mean, why did they need to move the story ahead about 14 years? Did they need to set the movie in the future in order to explain why there’s the technology to create a flying battleship? Did they need an appropriate amount of time to explain how Misato gets the funds to create WILLE and commission Unit 08? To me, it seems like these issues could have taken a much shorter amount of time to justify. Like, six months (and a more plausible replacement for the Wunder ship)?

And what impact does it really have on the narrative? Sure, it ages up some characters and brings in some new ones, but then the movie has to go and explain that all the pilots haven’t seemed to age physically (and apparently mentally too) with LCL exposure, which is pretty stupid and insignificant unless Asuka and Mari absolutely have to be 28 in 4.0. (It also brings up possible plot holes; how are they not like 10-12 from the results of early training for piloting, unless they both somehow learned the ropes under a year?) And seriously, 1) Does aging the characters we’re familiar with actually affect them in some manner (besides their looks), and 2) Do the new characters do anything significant? So far, I’m assuming a big no for both.

Then there’s the matter of everybody hatin’ on Shinji for causing Rebuild!Third Impact. The 14 years thing boggles that aspect of the movie up for me. I mean, yeah, of course a cataclysmic disaster is going to be remembered in history. But from what I’m reading on these forums, everybody reacts to Shinji like he did it yesterday? How did their memories stay so intact over the course of more than a decade? There’s the long-term fallout following Third Impact to observe, yes, and people tend to remember traumatic situations more clearly, but does there have to be a 14 year time skip to justify such reactions? Why not a few months after the event? The event would be fresher in the characters’ minds, and the immediate fallout will be much more observable, making their reactions much more believable. It certainly won’t change Shinji angsting about the destruction he’s caused and how he’s out of the loop in events, unless all that was caused by learning that Asuka was an adult. I don’t think Misato has to go brood well into her 40s’ on how she made the wrong decision to encourage Shinji and other stuff.

And then there’s a possible, more practical reason for the time skip: removing extra characters. I could agree with the point that Toji, Hikari, Kensuke, and Pen-Pen would be dead weight for this movie, and things would be more complicated (if not effed-up) if Kaji was thrown into the midst of this plot shit. But do their absences have to be justified with *sigh* a time skip? The “Touji Suzuhara” name tag bit could have worked with any length of time after 3I.

Did the movie really need a time skip at all? 95%* of the stuff it supposedly affects could have easily taken place without 14 years passing. What’s your take on it?

*5% is obviously the monies [s:3gc2t13n]George Lucas[/s:3gc2t13n] Hideaki Anno is going to make for pumping the Eva cash cow with figurines of post-time skip characters. No doubt this is going to be a big success.

[os189]

I thought it was good.

They basically painted themselves into a corner at the end of the second one. So they had to do something drastic.

It's all disorienting to Shinji...he doesn't know where or WHEN he is...it really accentuates his isolation for the whole middle part of the movie.

[esselfortium]

The timeskip was necessary to set up WILLE and the completely altered political situation with NERV. Immediately after 2.0's Third Impact, the world would've been in a completely chaotic state of recovery and we'd have had a far different movie.

It probably didn't need to be an entire 14 years, but eh.

[EvangelionFan]

The timeskip was necessary to set up WILLE and the completely altered political situation with NERV. Immediately after 2.0's Third Impact, the world would've been in a completely chaotic state of recovery and we'd have had a far different movie.

And, judging by how little of the final film follows or even references the preview shown in 2.0/2.22, it is fair to say that the prospect of writing and producing such a film eventually became unappealing for those involved.

[TB3]

Thematically, when they decided to do a timeskip I suspect they chose 14 years to form a symmetrical time-gap - now the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Impacts are evenly spaced apart.

Logistically, the situation at the end of 2.0 is ideal setup:

A: 3I pretty much happened/almost happened with serious fallout, and NERV got the blame - the banhammer of the world came down with heavy force, disbanding them

B: Shinji and Rei are inside Unit-01 and neither Yui or Gendo's scenario can proceed without them (not so sure on Seele)

In NGE, using NERV's resources and (mostly undamaged facilities) Shinji was salvaged quite quickly - a few months.

This time, NERV took a physical and metaphorical handling and is in no condition to do anything - furthermore, Unit-01, being a near-divine WMD was probably impounded and thrown into orbit to prevent anyone from doing anything else with it, a reasonable measure (though its easy to see Seele pulling the strings).

Extrapolating from that point, the resulting fourteen years is the time it took for the world to 'recover' from 3I, for Misato's public image to re rehabilitated, and for Wille and Wunder to come into being, while all the while she and others make plans to recover Unit-01 and take the fight back to NERV.

Makes a kind of sense from my end - it also puts us into completely new and unforeseen territory, which I find kinda exciting! :)

[Reichu]

And, judging by how little of the final film follows or even references the preview shown in 2.0/2.22, it is fair to say that the prospect of writing and producing such a film eventually became unappealing for those involved.

It occurs to me that much of the stuff shown in the preview could have reasonably taken place during the timeskip, and in some instances is even implied to have done so. The impounding of the Nerv staff, and Mark-06 going down to Central Dogma, presumably to impale itself (!!), for example.

The Rei shown could be members of the "Ayanami Series" that are no longer in existence (or are mere severed heads in a wall, anyway) 14 years later. (Is the Rei in Q actually the 9th Rei, or do people just call her Rei 09 because of her plugsuit?)

One way to reconcile that loss of the preview content, I suppose? And of course, recall that Shinji isn't shown at all during!

[Kodaemon]

@Reichu Huh, haven't thought of that, makes sense.

I'd still want to see the Adventures of Gendo, Fuyu and Donkey, though.

[rhfxz1s]

It occurs to me that much of the stuff shown in the preview could have reasonably taken place during the timeskip, and in some instances is even implied to have done so. The impounding of the Nerv staff, and Mark-06 going down to Central Dogma, presumably to impale itself (!!), for example.

The Rei shown could be members of the "Ayanami Series" that are no longer in existence (or are mere severed heads in a wall, anyway) 14 years later. (Is the Rei in Q actually the 9th Rei, or do people just call her Rei 09 because of her plugsuit?)

One way to reconcile that loss of the preview content, I suppose? And of course, recall that Shinji isn't shown at all during!

I think the idea of Rei #9 is perfectly plausible given the timeskip. All kinds of shit could have happened during that time that would have killed the other Reis.

[Jayfive]

(or are mere severed heads in a wall, anyway)

Brrr. Add that one to the list of Eva-related nightmare fuel sources along with collapsing GNR and maggot-ridden Asuka corpse.

(Is the Rei in Q actually the 9th Rei, or do people just call her Rei 09 because of her plugsuit?)

Im tempted to say the latter based on what ive read. Ive been referred to her as Dark Rei, both in terms of attire and importance to the story. I was under the impression that no-one knows who she is in relation to the Rei of 2.0

All kinds of shit could have happened during that time that would have killed the other Reis.

Im getting a mental image of the Bunny Suicides cartoons but with blue wigs.

[Choo1701]

One way to reconcile that loss of the preview content, I suppose? And of course, recall that Shinji isn't shown at all during!

2.00/2.22 Trailer's > The rebuild movie "that never was"?

It's funny, because I was expecting a 'Shinji-lite' movie from the trailers (especially with Unit 01 having a spear through it's back) and then maybe hit the ground running for 4.0.

[Kendrix]

I think they're so irrationally pissed because it's been a decade, not in spite of it - a decade of fending for themselves in a destroyed world, of watching things go downhill and witnessing depressing events they couldn't handle.

No doubt that Misato would suffer greatly from feeling responsible for Asuka's (whom she had just bonded with back then) and Mari's condition, with their growth stunted and them forgetting their pasts/ some proper loss of indentity taking place, and in all this time, Shinji isn't present to remind her of what she liked and felt about him, to show that he is human, not a demon, not an universal scapegoat, not a reviled symbol of all that's wrong with humanity, but a confused teenager who didn't know what he was doing an, in fact, doesn't KNOW he caused the end of the world until someone tells him, which, if anything proves once and for all that it wasn't a concious choice on his part. He becomes just a faraway memory, the stime spent with him becoms shorter and shorter compared to the growing time of living in the painful present, amd Kaji quite possibly died, and all these events may have warped such a faraway memory.
also, she encouraged him. Maybe she felt guilty about that and projected her anger at herself at Shinji, just like she did with her angel revenge trip.
Misato is one of the characters who was the closest to being a "hero", but she always had a vengeful streak and teethered on the edge of going too far for revenge - Her going revenge-before-reason on us is something she did have potential for.
Why a bunch of people who had to grow up in a desvastated world because of him (ie, the newer WILLE personel) would hate him is essentially asking why a person who grew up in the fifties and reached early adulthood in the sixties would hate those responsible for WWII.

It's really horrible, his greatest fear is being hated, and now he's stuck in a world where he's reviled like he's Hitler or something, I keep thinking he should just kill himself even if my more rational parts tell me that this would be missing the point of the show. What can he do? What can he possibly DO?

And the reset button is out of question, this much became clear from the climax - that the chance of resetting things is just an illusion. What is there *left* for him?