Do we need to know about the timeskip?

[Sailor Star Dust]

No, not really. I remember a Next Time Preview for an episode that got skipped.

Hey, me too: http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/9233/20-Preview-vs-222/

And remember, that was back during 1.0. All of the NTE previews have been rough ideas of what we can expect. NTE isn't some weekly episode deal like the NGE TV series was.

No one (myself included) is bringing a truly critical eye to any of this.

Huh? Jorno did a good job with analysis just a few posts up. People complaining what Eva is and isn't is nothing new (even when we "only" had NGE/EoE, that was the case). That's just the nature of forums and fandom.

[ElMariachi]

I like how you use the Star Wars reference when one of my biggest gripes with the series is the huge gap in development between Empire and Return.

A little off-topic I know, but what do you mean by that?

[Ray]

Luke goes from being an inexperienced kid who barely knows the basics, gets his backside handed to him by Vader. To a cool calm collected master of the art who can hold his own with Vader. In the space between the two films, but we the audience are never given any information on HOW he became a master if he never completed his training with Yoda (outside of expanded universe material that Noone but die hard fans know about). It's probably the biggest reason ROTJ is considered the weakest film of the original trilogy. But not knowing about the details of the time skip didn't take away from the emotional Impact of ROTJ and the story of Luke Redeeming his father.

I suppose 4.0 could still work on an emotional level without knowledge of the events of the timeskip. As long as the emotional impact is delivered. Namely Shinji finding redemption and Reconciliation with his friends and family (and seeing Gendo get his comeuppance). We don't need to know EVERYTHING just some bones to flesh out this conclusion.

But Star Wars and Evangelion are two entirely different animals, so I don't know how much the comparison applies.

[Monk Ed]

@ xyz346 : Thank God at last another member who tries to be positive! I was beginning to think that it was an endangered species of members!

Huh? Hey! You say that like I'm not even here!

For my part, I've just sort of gotten to the point of kicking back, relaxing, and smiling at how people are responding to Q. (Not in every instance.) The fact that people are going round and round in circles about Shinji's possible responsibility for an event we know so little about and are making such extreme claims about what his responsibility means shows me that the film hit the balancing point exactly. That takes skill; it's hard to get people talking this much about things that in most other series would be either foregone conclusions or not interesting enough to even consider. The fact that this kind of thing is even a discussion point -- let alone one with so much fuel in it as to have filled a significant portion of this subforum in different forms -- shows just how well it succeeded.

I'm not worried about how things will turn out -- but I'd have to say I'm glad that everyone else is.

EDIT: ...Okay, I take back what I said about "smiling". I suppose a better way to express it is that I prefer that it's a hot topic than for people to be just completely disinterested. I'd rather more people had my own attitude about the films, but then, who doesn't wish more people (or everyone) thought like they did? I was actually glad to be pulled away from here by my studies for three weeks, because I really needed a vacation from the kinds of extreme pronouncements I keep seeing people make about Shinji and what his alleged level of responsibility for various things "should" entail. I think that what people fill into the gaps of the timeskip and the reactions of Wille say a lot more about them than about the film or for that matter about Shinji, and makes for an important reason as to why the timeskip is (at least for now) such a mystery.

To put it another way: Even if we never do find out, it's not about whether we need to know what happened in the timeskip. At this stage at least, it's about the judgments and assumptions we're making in light of our lack of knowledge, and what light that casts upon our own souls.

That said I think the effect I imagine will best be expressed if we do learn more about the timeskip in Final. But I won't hold it as a workmanlike unshakeable requirement for it to be a proper finale.

[ElMariachi]

Huh? Hey! You say that like I'm not even here!

Sorry, I should had say "Thank God at last another new member who tries to be positive!"


Anyway about your other point, I admit that Anno masterfully managed to make an event we know almost nothing about (and which isn't even the main focus of the movie!) and make it interesting enough so we keep talking about it a year and half later!

And not only that, he made everything so mysterious that even after two long revelations info-dumps by Kaworu and Fuyutsuki, we still don't have any idea of what was the game of the faction that got completely exterminated in this movie!
Hell, Anno even managed to make some people (me included) doubt freaking Kaworu!

And the result? By the end of Q we still don't have any fucking clue about what happened to Shinji or the world 14 years ago!

No doubt, Anno is still the same master troll playing with his audience!

[Stillborn]

In other words... It was confusing as shit, no one knows of what happened since no info was disclosed and whole movie looks like it's full of plot holes... And that is sign of genius... how?

[pwhodges]

Well, at the least it succeeds in making someone who doesn't like it and thinks it's poor still talk about it a lot!

[Stillborn]

That's hardly an achievement. Insult someone sufficently and they will be talking about it for a long time. And that's hardly something worth the talk. Movie is just a bigger medium able to upset larger group. Of course it will cause talk even by those who don't like it. Every troll or jerk can cause commotion. What so brilliant about it?

[Rei IV]

Great post, Monk Ed. When I read it, I was like....



Great to see some optimism.

[ElMariachi]

In other words... It was confusing as shit, no one knows of what happened since no info was disclosed and whole movie looks like it's full of plot holes... And that is sign of genius... how?

It's more complicated than that : sure it was extremely confusing and we still don't know what happened, but at the same time Anno sneaking in littles clues and details here and there that let us speculate about the events(Rei episode 26 AU shirt from the preview in a box next to Rei Q's bunk, Kaworu's inconsistencies in his explanations...), as well as subtly telling us that he didn't simply forgot about these mysteries or didn't cared, but that he has a plan for this and that Q wasn't the moment for revealing the truth, and thus that the plot-holes you're talking about aren't actually plot holes. All of this so we find this new and almost alien world still interesting.

In short, Anno turned Q into a big detective story on top of the mecha and psychological horror genres, and we have still to see the next and last chapter to see the final pieces of the puzzle fit together, while the ones already present open the way to many speculations to keep us intrigued.

[Ray]

Will there be ENOUGH TIME in Final, to fill in all the gaps, and solve the mystery? That's what I'm really worried about. That's what we are all concerned about. I hope Anno is smart enough to give himself a long running time. He can pull it off with all the money he must have gotten from 3.0, the bigger question is. . . WILL he pull it off?

@Stillborn

Heres an excerpt from a deconstruction of 3.0 that I think sums up 3.0 as a whole, and actually helped me come to terms with the time skip. I posted a link to it on your walls talking about reviews. While quite a few people don't agree with it or my opinion of it. All I ask is you consider it for a minute

So as a piece of cinema, it’s a rather strange production. But as a conversation? As a distillation of what makes Eva Eva?

It’s brilliant.

Evangelion 2.22 is Eva divorced from what gave the original its emotional and thematic power – Evangelion 3.33 is that emotional and thematic power divorced from all else. It actually digs deep on the messages of the original, using its 14 year timeskip and incredibly narrow focus to discard every single thing that doesn’t make Eva Eva. And instead of getting caught in the fan-pleasing trappings of the original, it focuses wholly on its core points – the futility of dwelling in the past, the pain and necessity of honest connection, and the need to find self-generated pride and your own way forward. No longer is Evangelion content to hide its human focus and strident message behind a sci-fi facade - this is what Evangelion is, and this is what it has always been trying to say. This is Shinji’s story – the story of a scared boy who isn’t sure how to move forward, and the story of every single person out there the truth of his journey reflects.

-Once More With Fury: Rebuilding Evangelion

[Jornophelanthas]

In other words... It was confusing as shit, no one knows of what happened since no info was disclosed and whole movie looks like it's full of plot holes... And that is sign of genius... how?

Yes, Rebuild 3.0 causes confusion and has a lack of information about what happened in the setting, but consider:

1. Causing confusion was deliberately intended by the film makers. It causes the audience to identify with Shinji, as he wanders through a world that he does not understand. This can be seen as a metaphor of the teenager entering the world of adulthood, and clumsily and painfully trying to find his way there.
The lack of continuity between Rebuild 2.0 and Rebuild 3.0 is thus a metaphor for the lack of continuity between the world of childhood and the world of adulthood. And we, the audience get to experience that lack of continuity!

2. The lack of information is not a large series of plot holes, it is a story element. It is important to the plot that Shinji does not know what happened, and only receives choice tidbits of (often unreliable) information.
In fact, Shinji's incomplete knowledge of the world may even be considered a defining feature of Post-3I Earth: It is a world about which we know very little, and in our sense it is incomplete. Perhaps that is a point Anno wants to make.

3. Rebuild of Evangelion is a work in progress. The four films that make it up are not well-defined episodes that each have a clean beginning, middle and end. The four movies are a single story. Some of the information we lack in 3.0 may be forthcoming in FINAL.
Other information may not be needed at all. And still other information is optional (to be further developed in spin-off products). I believe that what MUST be presented in FINAL is information that will shape Shinji's character development. This may include some more information about what happened between the end of Rebuild 2.0 and the big disaster of Actual Third Impact, but perhaps not even that. Anything else is not necessary for FINAL, but it could possibly be interesting enough to justify an Expanded Universe spin-off (such as what happened between the end of Rebuild 2.0 and the big disaster of Actual Third Impact).

4. Finally, you may be used to a situation where the audience is omniscient, and knows about all relevant developments in the movie's setting. This is a privileged position of comfort, because you always know more about the world than the main characters. (e.g. "Hurry up! The bomb in the elevator shaft that you don't know about is set to go off in ten seconds!")
Rebuild of Evangelion does not put you in that comfy seat with the free popcorn, which is very much the Hollywood style. Anno decided not to give us that kind of knowledge, and it is a legitimate choice. Just because blockbuster Hollywood movies tend to spoonfeed their audience with the main plot, does not mean that this style of storytelling is a requirement for a good story. Far from it, in fact.
Some films are meant to be watched in a big movie theater with lots of comfy seats and buckets of popcorn. Other are meant to be watched alone at night in a dark room.

[ElMariachi]

@ Ray : I don't agree with this analysis : the silliness of the action arc that 2.0 reproduce is as much a part of Eva than the latter darker arcs.

In fact, it's during said action arc that the character forges the bond that will be the core of the second part of the series.
Also, all the sci-fi elements and mind-blowing Angels are also part of Eva, there's no "tripping to the bone" of anything in 3.0, just a new direction taken for the story of Eva.


As for your first point, I trust Anno to manage to tell us what we really need to know, for example now it's not really important to know what SEELE's covenant with Lilith was about, since they're dead (unless it's relevant to the fight against neo-NERV, like if EVA-01 is made of Lilith and Rei as Lilith's soul like in NGE, and she decide to play her own game), also how WILLE was formed, or how Asuka and Mari became friends, all of this is already inferred from what we already saw in 3.0.

When you look at it, unless some unexpected twist (like the above example of Lilith still playing her own game), the only things we really need to know is what happened with the 12th Angel, Mark.06 and Lilith (it'll explain at the same time if it's this event which destroyed the world or Shinji's N3I) and how the world is faring outside of Tokyo-3's arena to see if the situation is really hopeless or if mankind still stands a chance (and the fact WILLE even exists and have all these resources at its disposal point to the later)

Of course, knowing more of the time skip would be nice, but in the absolute these are the only things we absolutely need to know. Besides, I'm sure that Khara will later exploit the time skip with side material and spin-offs!

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

I don’t agree with this analysis : the silliness of the action arc that 2.0 reproduce is as much a part of Eva than the latter darker arcs.

Yes, this. It would be interesting to watch both 2.0 and episodes 7-12 in an endless loop and define Evangelion by only those aspects.

That being said, it’s totally cool if no one wants to do that simply because they just don’t like those aspects of Eva anymore. (I say “anymore” because a lot of people started watching the show simply because of its bigger action aesthetics.)

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

Will there be ENOUGH TIME in Final, to fill in all the gaps, and solve the mystery? That's what I'm really worried about. That's what we are all concerned about. I hope Anno is smart enough to give himself a long running time. He can pull it off with all the money he must have gotten from 3.0, the bigger question is. . . WILL he pull it off?

I've seen a lot of shows in which information was jam-packed into final episodes, and some of them have managed to pull it off. Knowing Anno, he'll be in that category.

[pwhodges]

Of course, I suppose there's another option - the "Harry Potter" one:

Final, part 1!



(I doubt it, though.)

[Ray]

Yes, Rebuild 3.0 causes confusion and has a lack of information about what happened in the setting, but consider:

Causing confusion was deliberately intended by the film makers. It causes the audience to identify with Shinji, as he wanders through a world that he does not understand. This can be seen as a metaphor of the teenager entering the world of adulthood, and clumsily and painfully trying to find his way there.
The lack of continuity between Rebuild 2.0 and Rebuild 3.0 is thus a metaphor for the lack of continuity between the world of childhood and the world of adulthood. And we, the audience get to experience that lack of continuity!

Exactly! This is similar to the point I was trying to make with referring to "Once More With Fury". 3.0 was meant to be exclusively about Shinji's emotional journey, not the childish Michael Bay fanservice trappings of 2.0. It's meant to be an adult film that deals with adult themes at the forefront, that just so happens to be part of a science fiction universe and narrative. While 2.0 had the Michael Bay spectacle at the forefront with the emotional elements present, but on the backburner.

@ElMariachi

I agree 2.0 and the spectacle in the original series was meant to be establish the emotional connections with Shinji, but (at least until they can hopefully be reestablished in 4.0) only to make it all the more painful when they were ripped away. It's in the nature of tragic narrative to dangle happiness before the main character and the audience, to emphasize the emotional impact when its taken away, at least as far as it pertains to the original series.

But in Rebuild? If Anno's going for a tragic or bittersweet ending again, then we don't need to know about the timeskip. But if he's going for a positive ending, he NEEDS to give us at least a little information.

Did Shinji really kill the planet and 3/4ths of humanity? Is the human race really on the brink of extinction? Does the Human race consider Shinji the 21st century's Hitler? If Sakura is alive, what happened to Touji and Shinji's classmates? Is Shinji irredeemable because of his actions? WHY IS Misato SUCH A COLD HEARTED B(Bleep) TO HER OWN SURROGATE SON?

@pwhodges

Evangelion FINAL Part I: This Is (NOT) The End?

[ElMariachi]

And why can't the emotional journey and the Michael Bay fanservice cohabit? 3.0 was very strong on the emotional journey, but still had the insane EVA-02 vs Mark.09 fight and Operation US, widely considered as the best action scene of the Rebuild and maybe the franchise as a whole. (until an anime adaptation of ANIMA is made of course! )

But in Rebuild? If Anno's going for a tragic or bittersweet ending again, then we don't need to know about the timeskip. But if he's going for a positive ending, he NEEDS to give us at least a little information.

Did Shinji really kill the planet and 3/4ths of humanity? Is the human race really on the brink of extinction? Does the Human race consider Shinji the 21st century's Hitler? If Sakura is alive, what happened to Touji and Shinji's classmates? Is Shinji irredeemable because of his actions? WHY IS Misato SUCH A COLD HEARTED B(Bleep) TO HER OWN SURROGATE SON?

On that we agree, except the "Misato is a bitch" part, for someone who's a potential world-ending danger, someone they weren't sure if he was Shinji or some angelic horror waiting to kill them all at first opportunity, and considered a war criminal, Misato was fairly accommodating to Shinji. Sure the passive-aggressiveness was uncalled for, but not to the point of turning her into the devil. Beside they got their karma backslap for their attitude when Shinji got fed up and left with Mark.09.

[TMBounty_Hunter]

Of course, I suppose there's another option - the "Harry Potter" one:

Final, part 1!



(I doubt it, though.)

Technically they've already used it since the original announcement said 3.0 and Final would be a double feature, each being 45min.

[CJD]

Of course, I suppose there's another option - the "Harry Potter" one:

Final, part 1!



(I doubt it, though.)

Shut up and take my money.