Rocko52 wrote:SPOILER: ShowQuestion, but is the "Version 3" of the "The End of Evangelion - Concurrency Project" listed in places an iteration of the one talked about on the last pages of this thread? The one linked via google drive has quite different edits. I wasn't a huge fan of third iteration I watched, but enjoyed it. Here were my thoughts on that:
"I really love the idea of this project. But I have to say, I doesn't really feel right to have the episode 26 Instrumentality pieces BEFORE the whole sequence of:
Shinji melting into Instrumentality, the Pyramid Sand Castle Phase, through the end of Komm Susser Tod where he strangles Asuka.
There is when Shinji initiates the final stage of Third Impact, by wishing for everyone to "die", the process of Complementation begins. Especially because of how low he is there, how the Pre-Instrumentality visions from EoE are meant to confront and crush Shinji, while the Episode 26 (and 25 as well imo) scenes all seem to occur deep in Instrumentality, and is where Shinji undergoes his intense interrogation and reflection that results in him accepting his existence in reality. To me, that should place the triumphant Shinji breaking through the glass screens and "Congratulations" just around when he is talking to Rei and Kaworu in EoE, and results in Unit 01 breaking out of Lilith. That is the triumphant high of EoE (before the devastating glimpse of how very real pain will continue to be) where Shinji rejects instrumentality and opens the path for all who wish it to return to human form.
Of course that's just how I would have done it, and I very much enjoyed this edit. I have no editing skills, but I just felt like sharing. To me it feels very jarring to have the highs of Shinji's breakthroughs just prior to "Congratulations" immediately before his descent and initiation into Third Impact and Instrumentality. It doens't make emotional/thematic/psychological sense to me. And though I know it would be hard to fit in, I would love to see the "alternate reality" scene from Episode 26 fit in there somewhere. The live action scene(s) of EoE serve a different purpose, showing a world without individuals or hope in a sense; while the alternate reality school scene is meant to illustrate how Shinji's existence is not tied to piloting an Eva and that he could completely put himself in a different situation if he fully accepts his existence as valid."
I would point out that Instrumentality is, by its definition, a state of being where individuality does not exist. It is not possible for Shinji's interrogation to occur deep within Instrumentality, as you put it, because Shinji and the others do not exist as individual beings at that point. So, essentially, all of episodes 25 and 26 have to take place before Instrumentality proper, at which point Rei pulls him out and says "okay, but are you sure?" The timing doesn't work otherwise. It's true that the triumphant points in 26 and 26' don't match up, but one possible reading of that discrepancy might be that the "victory" in 26 was a fakeout -- we interpret it as Shinji breaking free of his past, but it might just as easily be him accepting Instrumentality. That would make the TV version a downer ending instead of a triumphant one, but it definitely works in the context of EoE.
Don't quote an entire post, just the part most relevant to what you're going to say (if you think a quote is necessary).
-Zusuchan