[LAEM] What should ultimately happen to Shinji's classmates

[V]

Okay, realistically, if they make a movie trilogy, they introduce Kensuke, Toji, and Hikari as "these other classmates" who we eventually learn "are actually potential Eva pilots"

In the anime, they just stop meantioning them; they don't even get a proper sendoff, and we're just left to assume that when most of the civilians are evacuated (after self-destructing Eva-00 makes a mess of things) that they must have left. They do not return in End of Eva.

The last we see of them is just late in the series when things are falling apart, a quick shot of Hikari and Kensuke back in class noting that Toji will be in the hospital for the forseeable future and Asuka, Shinji, and Rei are also out.


****But if they make a live action movie......it's not necessarily "Chekov's Gun" (if you see a gun on screen it must eventually be fired)....but....it would be jarring to the uniniated if Toji, Hikari, and Kensuke simply don't appear in the final film.

I'm not saying they should forcibly insert them into a bigger storyline. It might just be a cameo explaining where they are.

I mean I guess we should assume that they were reverted to LCL just like everyone else on the planet during Instrumentality.

One of the things I think the series didn't live up to is that despite being fairly generic characters initially....when you actually get to watch episodes 16-19ish Hikari and Toji turn into this nice little couple of secondary characters. But then they just don't go anywhere. Hikari, despite limited screentime, becomes more than just "bossy class president" and seems genuinely nice around Toji, and Toji's tough guy athlete exterior doesn't really hide that he's a pretty nice guy if a bit of a blockhead. I mean, compared to Asuka, Rei, and Shinji, Toji and Hikari are fairly well balanced emotionally, and are starting to move into a relationship fairly easily until Toji gets fried. Kensuke, meanwhile, is just a fun joke of what obsessive otaku are; mind you, I do consider Comic Book Guy a national hero, so I don't think that's malicious.

Anyway, I think the strength of any movie is always its secondary and even minor characters, popping in and adding a wide range of textures.

I mean I actually hope they have a trio of "the NERV technicians" who are basically nerdy Keebler-elves who pop up in the base and actually run everything. Maya's fun because she's so naive an innocent and such (plus, she likes girls, that always brings in the crowds), Hyuga's basically an adult Kensuke who has basically got a good handle on life (he's a competent technician but he still likes reading Manga on the job and has a crush on Misato which is kind of endeering instead of creepy), and Aoba....to be honest in EoE he just turns total bad-a$$. One thing I'd like to see is for Aoba to actually try shooting the wall of Rei avatars that come after him, but to no avail.


So that's the problem: folloing movie rules, they can't just drop Kensuke, Toji, and Hikari from the final film the way the anime does. So I wonder what they'd do with them.

[THE Hal E. Burton 9000]

I can't remember where I saw it. But there was a quick deleted scene from EoE that showed Toji in a wheelchair with one of his legs partially amputated at the hospital (and maybe Hikari with him?). The scene was supposed to happen either before or after the infamous "Shinji's Adventures in Boobieland". Anybody correct me, if I am wrong.

[slothen]

lol whoever heard of NGE being jarring to the uninitiated? boo hoo!

[Ornette]

I can't remember where I saw it. But there was a quick deleted scene from EoE that showed Toji in a wheelchair with one of his legs partially amputated at the hospital (and maybe Hikari with him?). The scene was supposed to happen either before or after the infamous "Shinji's Adventures in Boobieland". Anybody correct me, if I am wrong.

In episode 25', a scene has not been animated, but remains in the
original scenario and on the storyboards. It was suposed to take place
between the one with operators discussing about Nerv's future (cuts 27
to 30) and the one with Misato wondering about Seele's projects in her
car (cuts 42 to 44).
You could see Tôji and Kensuke saying good bye to Shinji before their
evacuation in Germany (Hiakri and other classmates left in the
morning). Kensuke is filming Nerv planes in the sky and Tôji is
playing basketball in a wheeling chair.
He has his two arms. No prothesis. You can see it on cuts 37 to 39
(it's really obvious on cut 38).

(I have no scanner, so you'll have to trust me... or to find the
storyboards... ^^; )

Here's a thread with the storyboards and BB's translation:
http://evageeks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=57771

[THE Hal E. Burton 9000]

GOOD LINK

Ornette did the work so I didn't have to!

[V]

Thank you; this is very helpful (I need to make it a point to read through all of the threads on here since 2004...eventually)

Wait....they were evacuated after Eva 00 self-destructed and took out much of the city, right?

Wait, I try to figure this out but one happens after the other pretty quickly:

Zeruel causes massive destruction to Tokyo-3, but we can see they are starting to rebuild from the damage and the pyramid is actually standing again.

Then Eva-00 blows up; how much of the city did it take out?

YEAH, I forgot; they did mention that everyone was evacuated before episode 24.


***Good to know that Toji might have kept his arm; that was a point of contention amongst some I've talked to.

****Okay, that's a scary thought: even if Kaworu dummy plugs are being re-used for the MP Evas and they don't need human pilots....the Eva pilot children are still "special" (genetically compatible?) and I doubt the UN would just let them go away and lose track of them.

Maybe they're just herding them all together in Germany the way they did in Tokyo-3? But why? I mean if they were worried about them getting killed in the assault on Tokyo-3...dude, the world would end if they succeeded, what did it matter?


Okay, here's a thought: to make the MP Evas even MORE disturbing in the live action movies....what if they basically dope up Hikari, Kensuke, etc and put them in the real entry plugs for the MP's? Something like changing the explanation to that "well the dummy plugs let use remote control them, but you still need a living human pilot to sit in it as a warm body, basically, in order to turn the darned thing on"....which would make it so that Asuka is basically slicing all of her classmates up. I daresay, that would be pretty FFing graphic.

[Thedoctorinaevauniverse]

Okay, here's a thought: to make the MP Evas even MORE disturbing in the live action movies....what if they basically dope up Hikari, Kensuke, etc and put them in the real entry plugs for the MP's? Something like changing the explanation to that "well the dummy plugs let use remote control them, but you still need a living human pilot to sit in it as a warm body, basically, in order to turn the darned thing on"....which would make it so that Asuka is basically slicing all of her classmates up. I daresay, that would be pretty FFing graphic.

I really like this idea, if done correctly it would give Asuka an even bigger tragic quality that even eclipses Shinji's ("aah so you miss your mommy? I JUST MURDERED ALL MY FRIENDS!"

[Kaysow]

The Chekhov thingy does good things to Eva. Not showing us what we're expecting to see makes it all different, and we obviously like that.
Maybe Shinji didn't know what happened, maybe he was too focused on other stuff, I dunno.
But for LAEM, they'll certainly make things easier to follow, so a proper sendoff=probably.

[Gendo'sPapa]

If they did Eva live action there'd be a happy ending (which I see happening in Rebuild but its Anno's so I forgive).

Proper sendoff. Shinji gets a kiss. Rei gets a smile. Asuka is less of a bitch. Kensuke is....well....he'll be in the applauding crowd and sprout a one-liner. Hikari will be pregnant (took it from another thread) and Toji will stay dead (I really feel the largest mistake made was letting Toji live the Eva 03 incident)

[C4]

I'd love it if they just killed Shinji's classmates. Preferably, Touji would survive the Bardiel attack, if they were going to recreate that, so it would make it even more painful when he dies with everyone else. Everyone being killed in the Unit 00 explosion is a little too tidy for me, I'd like it much better if they got killed during an angel attack late in the second, or early in the third movie, and Shinji(and possibly Asuka) would have to react on the fly. I'm really digging a liberal interpretation of the series right now, which is what it's going to have to be anyway, but I'm actually hoping that they digress a lot.(They probably will, but they'll probably do so in the other direction, watering everything down and making it sterile.)

[Ironfoot]

The last thing the audience wants to see are young teenagers dying en masse in a bloody and ruthless slaughter. I would understand it if Shinji's classmates are accidentally killed during the Eva-00 self destruct, but otherwise, I don't see the innocent slaughtering of kids to be of any purpose other than to create controversy, which the movies would already have at that point. But this kind of controversy is a BAD kind of controversy. Where elseware people would discuss the philosophy and the scientific elements of Evangelion, including the teenager pilots heading into situations where they could DIE (unlike other children's movies where the kids are seemingly immortal ala Harry Potter), people do not warm up to the concept of kids dying in movies and it could create a bad reputation as a "kid slaughter" movie, or "children genocide" and other such nonsense.

The fear of the pilots dying is quite enough, not to mention the pilot feeling the Evangelion's pains and wounds. I didn't even mention all the blood that's going to flow down from Asuka's face after she's hit with the Lance.

Also, Toji and Kensuke would realistically NEVER have a chance to pilot the MP Eva's. In order to do that, they would have to be abducted, and that's a card SEELE would never play, especially with the fact that it takes a human pilot MONTHS to train on an Eva where on a Dummy Plug system, it takes far shorter time to install and program.

[V]

Proper sendoff. Shinji gets a kiss. Rei gets a smile. Asuka is less of a bitch. Kensuke is....well....he'll be in the applauding crowd and sprout a one-liner. Hikari will be pregnant (took it from another thread) and Toji will stay dead (I really feel the largest mistake made was letting Toji live the Eva 03 incident)

Well personally, I don't think Asuka should kiss Shinji; but what they should do is what "Fight Club" did:

Basically the final shot of EoE is of Shinji hunched over Asuka, crying.

***but the shot on all of the covers of EoE stuff is of several minutes later, when Shinji is standing and Asuka is sitting up, and they're both gazing at the Sea of LCL and the severed head of Super Giant Rei sinking into it.

Basically they're just gaping at the apocalyptic landscape.

***Well it reminds me of how the final shot of "Fight Club" was of the *Social* apocalypse and all of the downtown buildings exploding, and the Narrator and Marla are looking at it stunned and afraid about the future but then instinctively hold each others hands and the screen fades to black.

So going with the whole "Asuka and Shinji are the new Adam and Eve" motif, and male and female facing the future together etc etc etc, they should make the end a fight club-like shot of Asuka and Shinji gaping at the apocalyptic landscape and absentmindedly holding each others hands for support.

[Space Penis]

IIRC there's a line in #24 about them being evacuated with everyone else.

Well personally, I don't think Asuka should kiss Shinji; but what they should do is what "Fight Club" did:

Basically the final shot of EoE is of Shinji hunched over Asuka, crying.

***but the shot on all of the covers of EoE stuff is of several minutes later, when Shinji is standing and Asuka is sitting up, and they're both gazing at the Sea of LCL and the severed head of Super Giant Rei sinking into it.

Shinji: "You met me at a very strange time in my life."

I'd love it if they just killed Shinji's classmates. Preferably, Touji would survive the Bardiel attack, if they were going to recreate that, so it would make it even more painful when he dies with everyone else. Everyone being killed in the Unit 00 explosion is a little too tidy for me, I'd like it much better if they got killed during an angel attack late in the second, or early in the third movie, and Shinji(and possibly Asuka) would have to react on the fly.

One thing that always bugged me about the original series was how the threat of the Angels to the rest of the city was never really apparent beyond property damage. Aside from Toji's sister being injured, there's very little we see in the ay of civilian casualties. The rest of the classmates buying the farm would be a interesting way of accomplising it.

And besides, later on the story begins to focus on and revolve around the massive emotional and psychological problems the cast have. Hikari, Toji and Kensuke are entirely too well-balanced to be interesting in that context :P

[Ornette]

IIRC there's a line in #24 about them being evacuated with everyone else.

Shinji:
Everyone, including Toji and Kensuke, lost their homes and left.
My friends... I don't have anyone I can call a friend anymore.
There's no one.

Right before he meets Kaworu for the first time on the lake. Dunno if they were really evacuated as opposed to them leaving because they have nowhere to stay in the city.

[V]

Shinji: "You met me at a very strange time in my life."

Indeed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFZyXTf-SvE

[Tokpile Quohog]

yummm....Pixies.... :)

[Sachi]

they cant kick out Toji, how will the whole 4th chold propaganza start? can't have a 3rd Eva without a 4th child

[ThroneofDravaris]

They should just skip Evangelion and release Fight Club again.

[Sailor Star Dust]

what if they basically dope up Hikari, Kensuke, etc and put them in the real entry plugs for the MP's?

This thought was previously mentioned in the Touji's Wheelchair topic on maybe that's why they were sent to Germany. It was dismissed though.

[Sachi]

i supposed they could combine the characters of Toji and Kensuke
just like the could combine Hyuga and...(damn) whats that other guys name?