http://forum.evageeks.org/post/876280/Rebuild-outside-of-Evageeks-Many-reactions/#876280Answering on here as per "topic bitches" request.
What a story "needs" tell us nothing
It does though.
It shows which things missing cause a movie to be bad. And in NTE, mostly, I feel mothing is missing.
Well, 25% of the story are missing.
Imagine NGE at episode 19, with the rest missing.
We would only have hints at Asuka's real nature.
A well developed supporting cast allows the main character to have more meaningful interactions that also offer a window to further their own characterization or character development.
Yes, but that is just another tool.
Having a film be a musical allows you to add a lot of abstraction, having the characters say things they normally wouldn't, which allows to know things you wouldn't otherwise. That doesn't mean each film needs to be a musical.
Hitchcock's Vertigo really only has two actual characters, and we know almost nothing about them. It's still a masterpiece of character drama.
Different movies need different things. NTE is a different story than NGE.
What benefit does not having a well developed supporting cast offer? Why does this benefit outweigh the benefit i just outlined?
It's not necessarily that it has a benefit. It's just not bad either. Just like each potentially good thing that isn't in good movies.
Although in 3.0 it certainly was a benefit. It served the story.
Also, the fact that the supporting characters aren't as complex as in NGE doesn't mean they aren't at all. Anno is amazing at characterization and he communicates a lot with little.
And just to further illustrate what I was saying. What if in an alternate universe there is a version of NGE in which Hikari and the class teacher are really deep characters? Is NGE bad now for having those two be simple?
You could extend that infinitely.
Change shouldn't be made because it can be made, it should be made because there's something you're hoping to get out of this change.
You are still thinking about NTE in terms of NGE.
NTE doesn't change NGE, it's a separate thing with the same setup, because that setup allows for themes that Anno likes to be explored.
I just thought of another example. Anno's own Ritual had two characters only. It was another really good character piece.
Only focusing on Shinji and flooding the movies with pointless additions like Mari rather than just focusing on a well developed supporting cast greatly decreased the quality of rebuilds. It's simply bad writing.
I said this in another post, but Mari didn't eliminate other scenes. If she weren't there, the movie would just be shorter.
And it's not bad writing. Bad writing would be to shoehorn in as much character stuff as possible into the movie format, which is shorter and has a different rythm than the TV format, and have it be a half hearted attempt.
Anno made a story appropiate for the film medium.