Flash-backwards for 4.0?

Discussion of the new series of Evangelion movies ( "Evangelion Shin Gekijōban", meaning "Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition"). The final instalment made its debut in Japan on March 8, 2021.

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[SPOILERS] Flash-backwards for 4.0?

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Postby alexalfaro » Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:23 am

I do not know if someone else agrees with me, but I think maybe Anno decided to change the temporal order, as a racconto, with movies 3.0 and 4.0.

The jump of 14 years leaves so many questions, and scenarios change so abruptly -so overwhelmingly-, that I see no other solution more satisfactory to start 4.0 from the end of 2.0, and then come to some point that entrelaze with 3.0 and continue to the end.

I seem reasonable that if 3.0 and 4.0 have been created at the same time, Anno had decided to alter the temporal narrative to move us to the same level of confusion and perplexity that Shinji.

At least, for me, would be a perfect solution
Last edited by alexalfaro on Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:39 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Postby Reichu » Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:30 am

alex, please see the anti-spoiler rules (stickied in Feedback and main Rebuild forum) which are in place for another month. Threads must be marked "[SPOILERS]" and cannot include overt spoilerish information. ("About the 14 years" is a little borderline.)

[s:2g5pjsc4]Also, there are a few threads already addressing a similar problem. I'll try to find a suitable one to merge this into, but in the future please make use of the thread list and search tool.[/s:2g5pjsc4] Okay, apparently everything I was thinking about was in the big 4.0 thread. I suppose I'll leave this alone for now -- needs a better title, though... -- and maybe beef it up with posts from the other thread if I'm feeling masochistic.
Last edited by Reichu on Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:39 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Postby Jornophelanthas » Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:34 am

Interesting possibility. The closing scene of 3.0 does remind me of the final scene from EoE.

But no.

The story is not yet finished, as there are still Evangelions in the world, NERV still exists, Gendo still has an agenda to pursue, and Shinji's development to emotional maturity is incomplete (and not in a satisfactory way).
Besides, Evangelion is a story about Shinji, and your scenario would not have Shinji in it. That alone is reason enough not to go with your interpretation.

Having said that, I do not rule out an extended flashback of the big battle in the crater that left Lilith and Mark-06 as its casualties.

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Postby FreakyFilmFan4ever » Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:42 am

I could site the 4.0 preview as evidence that Anno's going forward with his narrative, and not backwards. But since when were the previews really that reliable?

Though, I will state that the 14 year gap really doesn't bring up so many questions that all need answering. The biggest event that occurred in that time frame was Misato convinced other people to break away from NERV with her and started Wille. We really don't need anymore explanation to that beyond Misato's reaction to Third Impact at the end of 2.22. Sure, how exactly she did that would be really cool to see. (Oh, God! Would that be awesome to see!) But we don't need to she how she did it; we just need to know that she did it.

I assume everything else would be similar. Gendo is still trying to do whatever it was he was trying to do since 1.11, and SEELE is doing likewise. It's just that what exactly they're doing is still a bit hazy and information comes slowly and discreetly. (As it does in every one of Anno's Evangelion narratives.)

So, I guess I'd like to see a list of questions that honestly arrise solely because of the 14-year time gap. You know, something other than "What the heck is up with Mari?" "What's Gendo up to?" What's SEELE up to?" or anything else that we (should) have been asking since 2.22. So far, the only question about the 14-year time gap that was truly unanswered by 3.33 I've seen on this forum is "Why the 14-year time gap?" and the answer to that one should be obvious by now: empathy with Shinji's disorientation.

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Postby Giji Shinka » Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:45 am

@alexalfaro
I too would like to see that, but people are always saying that: "this is Shinji's story no need for others! People have to figure out things for themselves!" (Not insulting)

Normally i would accept this, BUT this is for people who might not have seen the original series.(Rebuilt was said to be more easier to understand for new comers) And, if they show nothing from before the time skip and explain some stuff (Adams and stuff), people are left really, really confused. (Rebuilt is so far, for me, more complicated than original series ever was.)
Last edited by Giji Shinka on Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:37 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Postby alexalfaro » Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:28 am

@Giji Shinka
In fact, you've hit the point, when it was supposed that rebuild would be "understandable" for someone who had not seen the series, the movie becomes confusing even for those who are fans. And from that point of view I believe in the possibility of a large racconto or small flashbackwards

@FreakyFilmFan4ever
Absolutely agree with your opinion, the lack of information not leaves many crucial questions, but seem that struggled to create more doubts than are necessary: one third impact zero zone-and moon-unrecognizable, the failures of infinity (WUT?!), a bleeding yui-rei head against the bridge deck, lilith affected in a way incomprehensible, a spear that who knows where it appears, futile mentions about Touji and Kaji ... it is as if Anno had made a detailed development of the 14 years, then decided to leave only the final scenarios, traces, that multiply a thousand the why?

And so, why include so many trivial questions, when there are far more important questions to be resolved, and only one film to answer them?

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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:33 am

You can still do a flash-back/fill-in-the-blanks from Shinji's perspective simply by having Asuka tell him about the world he brought about 14 years ago. They'll probably spent quite a bit of time together walking and unlikely to be quite all the time.
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Postby Jornophelanthas » Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:36 am

View Original PostFreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Though, I will state that the 14 year gap really doesn't bring up so many questions that all need answering. The biggest event that occurred in that time frame was Misato convinced other people to break away from NERV with her and started Wille.


I disagree. We are missing a VERY important piece of the narrative.

Between the moment Kaworu skewers Unit-01 and halts Near-Third Impact that was initiated by Shinji, and the landscape of destruction Shinji witnesses in the Geofront and in Lilith's chamber, surely stuff happened that was none of Shinji's doing.

- Army invades and is destroyed (broken tanks everywhere);
- Mark-06 is in Lilith's chamber, merged to its head and impaled on a spear;
- Lilith is a corpse with its head removed;
- From Lilith's position, it is clear that it had been moving of its own accord;
- Hundreds of red Evangelion-like corpses are littered across the landscape, all headless;
- The ground of Lilith's chamber is covered in giant skulls (probably belonging to the headless red corpses);
- The moon was pulled down to the earth's surface (while it was still way up in the sky when Kaworu descended in 2.0).

My point is that Shinji caused Near-Third Impact, but that there was an actual Third Impact that happened sometime afterwards, possibly initiated by Kaworu and Mark-06 and apparently aborted at a relatively late stage.

(The Fourth Impact that Shinji and Kaworu initiate together in Unit-13 is a continuation of this actual Third Impact, except that it had been sabotaged from the start because the Spears were not right.)

Therefore, the carnage that Shinji witnesses is not (all) the result of his own sin. A lot more sin than Shinji's own is forced upon him.

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Postby FreakyFilmFan4ever » Sat Apr 27, 2013 10:01 am

View Original PostJornophelanthas wrote:- Army invades and is destroyed (broken tanks everywhere);
- Mark-06 is in Lilith's chamber, merged to its head and impaled on a spear;
- Lilith is a corpse with its head removed;
- From Lilith's position, it is clear that it had been moving of its own accord;
- Hundreds of red Evangelion-like corpses are littered across the landscape, all headless;
- The ground of Lilith's chamber is covered in giant skulls (probably belonging to the headless red corpses);
- The moon was pulled down to the earth's surface (while it was still way up in the sky when Kaworu descended in 2.0).

With the exception of the moon's new position, I'm not sure how much of that is specifically a result of the 14-year time gap. (I'd only give the moon 14 years because, well, it's the goddamn moon.) It would have probably started movie at the end of 2.22, then finally reach where it has by 3.33. (You can't have that thing moving too fast without it crashing into Earth.... or something. I'm not sure which creative liberties they'retaking with physics in these films.)

I'm sure an army invaded after near Third Impact because, well, some major catastrophe was going on at the time. Time to stabilize all that nonsense with a massive army full of tanks, aircraft, and other things. (We did see some aircraft among the skull as well.) Maybe near Third Impact woke Lilith up and the troops rolled in and took her out via decapitation. I mean, there was a giant gapping hole leading right up to NERV headquarters at the end of 2.22, it's not like they can't just air-lift right on in. (Maybe Lilith was igniting a similar incident that occurred in 2.22's beginning with "Tunniel." The evidence of the responses seem similar in both cases, so one might clues for interpreting the other.)

As for all of the headless corpses, I wonder if that's just Gendo or SEELE trying again and again to continue with Human Instrumentality without Shinji. Then after a while they threw their hand in the air and said "Fuck that! Let's send Unit 04 to space and retrive Shinji!" Or maybe they just spent 14 years making empty Eva bodies in preparation for Shinji's return.

Or maybe they did everything in the 14-year time gap in the same way they restrained Eva Unit 01 in Episode 20 of the TV show. You know... jump cut to the thing in a different state and hope no questions are asked. Because that's totally how Gendo handles things... with jump cuts.

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Postby Jornophelanthas » Sat Apr 27, 2013 11:41 am

View Original PostFreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:With the exception of the moon's new position, I'm not sure how much of that is specifically a result of the 14-year time gap. (I'd only give the moon 14 years because, well, it's the goddamn moon.) It would have probably started movie at the end of 2.22, then finally reach where it has by 3.33. (You can't have that thing moving too fast without it crashing into Earth.... or something. I'm not sure which creative liberties they'retaking with physics in these films.)

I'm sure an army invaded after near Third Impact because, well, some major catastrophe was going on at the time. Time to stabilize all that nonsense with a massive army full of tanks, aircraft, and other things. (We did see some aircraft among the skull as well.) Maybe near Third Impact woke Lilith up and the troops rolled in and took her out via decapitation. I mean, there was a giant gapping hole leading right up to NERV headquarters at the end of 2.22, it's not like they can't just air-lift right on in. (Maybe Lilith was igniting a similar incident that occurred in 2.22's beginning with "Tunniel." The evidence of the responses seem similar in both cases, so one might clues for interpreting the other.)

As for all of the headless corpses, I wonder if that's just Gendo or SEELE trying again and again to continue with Human Instrumentality without Shinji. Then after a while they threw their hand in the air and said "Fuck that! Let's send Unit 04 to space and retrive Shinji!" Or maybe they just spent 14 years making empty Eva bodies in preparation for Shinji's return.

Or maybe they did everything in the 14-year time gap in the same way they restrained Eva Unit 01 in Episode 20 of the TV show. You know... jump cut to the thing in a different state and hope no questions are asked. Because that's totally how Gendo handles things... with jump cuts.

If the army won, why would they leave their tanks and helicopters all crashed and abandoned in the Geofront?

The situation that Shinji, Kaworu and Rei 3.0 encounter requires some explanation. It is not entirely unreasonable to assume that whatever happened there was one spectacular Evangelion battle, possibly worthy of a flashback.

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Postby Jinroh » Sat Apr 27, 2013 12:02 pm

View Original PostJornophelanthas wrote:My point is that Shinji caused Near-Third Impact, but that there was an actual Third Impact that happened sometime afterwards, possibly initiated by Kaworu and Mark-06 and apparently aborted at a relatively late stage.

I totally agree and that's what I've been saying all along. One detail I don't agree with though, I'm sure what initiated the whole mess might be the 12th angel, and not Kaworu.

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Postby Reichu » Sat Apr 27, 2013 12:10 pm

If you want to talk about the weird impact-y stuff that happened during the timeskip, we have a thread for it. (More than one, even.) This thread is about whether or not 4.0 should spent its time on a flash-backwards.
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Postby Charsi » Sat Apr 27, 2013 12:36 pm

View Original PostJinroh wrote:I totally agree and that's what I've been saying all along. One detail I don't agree with though, I'm sure what initiated the whole mess might be the 12th angel, and not Kaworu.


This is the biggest thing that doesn't make a damn bit of sense. Everyone's blaming Shinji, and yet, something impact-ey obviously happened between Shinji's little escapade and when he wakes up again.

I'm more than happy to go to that other thread to talk about it, but - something happened. Why the hell is everyone blaming Shinji? It doesn't pass the smell test. The only way 3.33 makes sense if everything after the credits - Kaworu's spear toss, descent, etc.. never happened.

So should 4.44 involve a flashback? Certainly. I'd like to see how Shinji cops the blame for something he didn't do.

The only thing I can think up (on the spot fanwankery) to go from 2.22 post credits to 3.33 is that Eva-06 gets up to no good, and they have to stop it. The only tool they have to immobilize it is the spear currently immobilizing Eva-01. So they yank the spear from Eva-01 to stop Eva-06 right at Lilith's doorstep, and Eva-01 goes straight back into 3I mode.

That's how Shinji *might* cop the blame. But a flashback is pretty necessary imho. There's a huge hole and we're left with guesswork.

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Postby Jinroh » Sat Apr 27, 2013 12:48 pm

Because he "initiated" third impact. If there was a follow up, he didn't need to take part. The fact is, without Shinji initiating it, nothing would have happened afterwards, that's the whole logic behind it.

We might as well fuse it with the other thread, the discussion is interesting. Knowing if it should be incorporated in the fourth movie or not is, on the other side, totally pointless since we barely know anything about these events.

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Postby Charsi » Sat Apr 27, 2013 1:00 pm

I posted the idea over in that thread anyway.

It doesn't make sense for people to be all angry at Shinji if his N3I is stopped, but then Eva-06 goes and does some monkey business with Lilith and people turn into evas. How is that Shinji's fault if his eva is immobilized in the geofront?

"Well you started it, but the 12th Angel did all that stuff turning people into giant Evas and pulling the moon closer and covering the world with crosses, therefore we're blaming YOU!" ... Really? This is former NERV people. They'd know if an Angel came along, made it's way down to Terminal Dogma, and finished off 3I. Thinking they'd blame Shinji when they're in the best possible position to know the true party responsible doesn't really work for me.

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Postby Jinroh » Sat Apr 27, 2013 1:12 pm

We won't have the answers to these questions until they show us what really happened. Knowing how the world changed, who/what was involved, and what we see in the 3.0 preview, I can assume it deserves at least a whole movie.

So I don't think it could be integrated as some sort of summary or flashback in 4.0, the events are just too numerous and important. And everyone seems to know what happened in 3.33. Everyone except Shinji.

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Postby pwhodges » Sun Apr 28, 2013 5:28 am

The demands (OK, requests) for a substantial flashback in 4 come from the same idea as the criticism of 3 for not providing the same information - that is, that the parts of the quartet should form a continuous narrative, as, say, do the books of The Lord of the Rings. However, this is not the only way to tell the story of an individual (and we have been told that Rebuild is about Shinji specifically); instead, one can focus on certain key parts of their life and experience and let the reader (viewer in our case) figure out the connections between the parts, as far as they matter at all - my example for this might be Le Guin's Earthsea books.

So, although I'm sure there will be flashbacks in 4, to highlight key points in Shinji's personal development, I'm equally sure there will not be a narrative flashback spending any appreciable time telling stories that do not directly contribute to the final exposure of Shinji's state of mind.
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Postby Giji Shinka » Sun Apr 28, 2013 5:32 am

View Original Postpwhodges wrote:So, although I'm sure there will be flashbacks in 4, to highlight key points in Shinji's personal development, I'm equally sure there will not be a narrative flashback spending any appreciable time telling stories that do not directly contribute to the final exposure of Shinji's state of mind.

Yeah, i'm hoping for this too.
Besides, there simply isn't enough time to explain and answer all questions from previous films in 90-110 minutes.(obviously) (No time to show long flashback sequences either)

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Postby Shinoyami65 » Sun Apr 28, 2013 8:11 am

I don't think they could encompass just Lilith's awakening in less than 90 minutes, at least not without severely detracting from the rest of Final. Maybe we might have a cryptic monologue from Gendo or Misato describing the events while there is a montage of flashback images, but I don't think we'll actually see the entirety of what happened unless it's released as another film or some other kind of media.
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Postby Gendo'sPapa » Sun Apr 28, 2013 5:29 pm

I don't think there's going to be any substantial flashbacks to the 14 year timeskip in the next film. A lot is going to be left unsaid. Unless if Kaji is still alive & shows up to give Shinji an infodump like he does in the manga.
BUT I do think the 4th film might open with a flashback. Unless the next film jumps forward in time a few months Wille does not have an Eva on hand to open the film with a kicker of an action scene. I'm thinking either:
A) Full on flashback of when Yui was absorbed into Unit 01. We know from 3.0 that Shinji was there so this could work as a great way to actually show us some of Yui's character & get to know her - Yui is someone who presumably is going to play a large part in the finale in a metaphysical sense - & have the sequence be a scary horror-esque moment. Unit 01 goes nuts & we can be re-introduced to the horror that is Unit 01, something which is also bound to come up in 4.0. (I proposed this as a great way to open 3.0 but the story went in a vastly different direction than any of us being expected)

B) If Kaji is dead, we see his death & how this affects Misato.

C) One of the bigger events from the timeskip that played a large role in the story of 3 & 4.


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