I do hope my sarcasm came through, there I don't see why people assume chaos is a bad thing. A lot of my favorite films were created in the midst of it. Messiness fit NGE like a glove. The show may have sacrificed a streamlined story, but in exchange it gained... well, most of what we love about it, probably.

Initially when 2.0 came out, I wondered if Asuka becoming the Baridel victim was intentional. Mainly by Gendo as a way to enrage Shinji enough so he could focus more on Rei--but that would be giving Gendo too much credit that he knows every single event that's going to happen. And it also takes away the impact of Asuka wanting to pilot Eva-03 for Rei and Shinji's sake. At least Seele acknowledging the 9th overtaking Eva-03 was "Just as planned!" (regardless of the victim) is somewhat more believable. (Though Gendo/Fuyutsuki could fall into the same category like Seele that they only (vaguely?) know what Angel has which capabilities.)

Also, speculation: I hate to say it (because it'll make Reichu cry), but I read Kaji's scrapped line to Gendo as him implying the Eva itself has its own will, not just a human soul. (Sort of what the manga did with Yui and another element/aspect inside Eva-01.) IF that is the case, then it's good that line was completely scrapped because it wouldn't make any sense in context (eg: established rules are Eva=human soul, nothing else), unless NGE rules really are being rewritten that heavily for NME. (Which, in some ways, should be expected, but...) And/or, maybe Kaji meant that the pilots inside the Eva somehow imprint their own will/soul on the unit, not just the soul that's already trapped within Eva? (Perhaps it would be connected to the "losing human form" deal, but that didn't yet happen to Shinji at that point!) Who knows, we still need to see how NME alters the mythology for its own reasons, after all.

Anyway, this scrapped information is very interesting stuff, thank you! Of course we'll have to wait awhile, but already I'm amused to see what scrapped versus kept ideas Q and Final will have... (And how the fan reaction, including my own, will be. )

I was thinking along the same lines as SSD. Kaji's line could have been reserved for 3.0 and possibly beyond, because if Shinji had been "imprinting" on Eva-01 things would really be different from the old series.

Perhaps Eva-01 contains only a portion of Yui's soul, Yui as a mother, the part that would care about Shinji? It's quite possible that Rei contains parts of Yui's soul as well as Lilith's soul this time. It would also explain why anything getting Rei and Eva-01 together is so dangerous: it's completing Yui's soul, which in turn is connected to the soul/animus inside the Eva. Yui probably wanted to go into the Eva, but Gendo probably succeeded in coaxing out some of her in Rei. It would explain how Rei got to look just like Yui.

It's possible that the Lilith aspect of Rei is already capable of being in multiple locations at the same time, and all the Chibi-Rei are powered by the part of Lilith that is in multiple places at once.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:Initially when 2.0 came out, I wondered if Asuka becoming the Baridel victim was intentional. Mainly by Gendo as a way to enrage Shinji enough so he could focus more on Rei--but that would be giving Gendo too much credit that he knows every single event that's going to happen. And it also takes away the impact of Asuka wanting to pilot Eva-03 for Rei and Shinji's sake. At least Seele acknowledging the 9th overtaking Eva-03 was "Just as planned!" (regardless of the victim) is somewhat more believable. (Though Gendo/Fuyutsuki could fall into the same category like Seele that they only (vaguely?) know what Angel has which capabilities.)

Rei would have been piloting Eva 03 before Asuka volunteered, so maybe Gendo was planning for what happened with Zeruel to happen with Bardiel. Rei merging with an angel, Shinji going crazy to save her, near Third Impact... just one angel earlier.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:Initially when 2.0 came out, I wondered if Asuka becoming the Baridel victim was intentional. Mainly by Gendo as a way to enrage Shinji enough so he could focus more on Rei

Wasn't the decision to select the test pilot ultimately made by Misato? It's pretty certain that she had to consult Gendo about her choice, but since she most likely chose Asuka herself, Gendo didn't have to pull any strings.

I hope this Angelic merger stuff makes it into the next movie. Honestly, what i'm really excpecting out of it is the Children gaining some weight of their own, stepping out of the role of "hapless victims" they've been in throughout the series and EoE. Something like the kids gaining tha ability to influence the events of the plot without needing an Eva to do it would be a real break from what has been established so far, for better or worse.

I do have a bad feeling about where they're going with the Eva/pilot stuff, and I'm sure I'll be very disappoint. Oh, well, at least I can always put on episode 19 to console myself... The apparent reduction of Yui's role in the Eva strikes me as quite odd, though, considering how enormously psychoanalytical it all was in NGE, and how they're pushing the Shinji/Gendo/Rei psychoanalytical crap harder than ever in NME. Evas are so much cooler as giant barely-controlled-monsters-inhabited-by-mysterious-maternal-presence than giant barely-controlled-monsters-that-embody-angsty-teenage-desire.

BTW, Ursus, we still don't know if Rei has any connection to Lilith. That stuff seems pretty nebulous right now, IMO.

Lilith or no Lilith, I'm pretty sure that Rei has at least something of Yui's soul in her.

What makes you think that?

She's awfully touchy-feely around some random kid for her to be an ancient dead space god, isn't she?

SaltyJoe wrote:Wasn't the decision to select the test pilot ultimately made by Misato?

Yeah, but the order of scenes went like this:

Misato talking to Kaji about choosing the Eva-03 pilot and how it's on the same day of Rei's party Asuka getting a notice about the party/apparently calling Misato Ritsuko understanding that Asuka was the pilot/Rei wanting to thank Asuka.

So the decision was left up to Misato, but Asuka volunteered herself.

It's pretty certain that she had to consult Gendo about her choice, but since she most likely chose Asuka herself, Gendo didn't have to pull any strings.

Yeah that's true.

AuraTwilight wrote:What makes you think that?

Not sure if I agree that Rei has some of Yui's soul, but, the Yui=Rei connection is made a lot more evident in 1.11 and 2.22 at least. (Rei and the "Ikari Rei Ayanami Shinji" deal, Gendo imagining Yui when he looks at Rei, Shinji thinking that Rei and Yui smell the same when inside Eva-01...)

Azathoth wrote:She's awfully touchy-feely around some random kid for her to be an ancient dead space god, isn't she?

Well, we still get bookend!Rei (she even blinks this time around and has some weird hazy aura around her during the cut of Shinji staring at her) and helltrain!Rei for whatever it's worth but those could be explained through some other reason (I guess?) if Rei doesn't have Lilith's soul in NME.

So uhh, on-topic, any more juicy unused scenes/scripts?

Sailor Star Dust wrote:So uhh, on-topic, any more juicy unused scenes/scripts?

Yeah. I'll be posting a bunch of Eva-04 stuff here sometime or other.

One interesting little one I just noticed and decided, for some reason, that I had to share: After Eva-01 falls into Nerv's [s]vagina[/s] inverted-pyramid reservoir, and Ritsuko and Misato chat in front of Eva-03's dismembered remains (this got changed to a Ritsuko- and Misato-less clean-up scene, as we know), we see Shinji and Asuka's files on Gendo's desk (alt. image: Nerv pyramid being fixed). Fuyu and Gendo are in the office, and Fuyu is looking out the window. He turns to Gendo, and says, "Stop the brainwashing (for me). Ikari. Yui-kun is sad."

Then they cut to Rei sitting outside 1st Cranial Nerve Whatever holding a bento box (I think) and saying "Ikari-kun...", which takes us into Shinji's hell train. (The "dive into red goo" transition isn't present yet.)

So is Fuyutsuki just guessing(/projecting), or does he actually have a way of determining "Yui-kun"'s mood? And, dammit... THERE ISN'T ENOUGH YUI IN THESE DAMN MOVIES WHY DID YOU CUT THAT

The removal of the "brainwashing" reference seems odd, too, since it's mentioned as a possibility in the first movie, and all...

Reichu wrote:WHY DID YOU CUT THAT

...Is this part of the reason many fans have been annoyed by 2.0 Complete Records Collection interviews or is there some other reason I'm blanking out on? A few scenes like this cause mild annoyance, but ultimately the film-making (and other creative processes) are going to go through a lot of different stages and changes. And yeah, cliche as it sounds, there are 2 films left for other interesting material to make it's way in.

But yes, it is bizarre how so many interesting scenes were ultimately cut. I guess time constraints for the film are one reason, but I'm wondering if another possible reason is these scenes were developed and scrapped at the different stages of the script process? Basically, a few from the final script (the "Omit Scenes", mainly) and the rest from the drafts...? I dunno.

Er, excuse the tangent.

More on-topic, another Yui reference would have been interesting, but perhaps they decided to save any "Gendo, Fuyutsuki and Yui's" past flashbacks (whether related to their past in The Birth of Nerv or something completely new, who knows) for Q. Gendo certainly has been brainwashing in the sense of pushing Shinji and Rei as close together as possible for his goals--I really do wonder if there's going to be some sort of "screw Gendo's/Seele's plans" epiphany (so to speak) from Shinji/Rei/Yui (and maybe Kaworu) in Q.

Reichu wrote:[*]Before the cut where Eva-01 punches in Eva-03's face: Eva-03's upper body tries to crawl away, but gets grabbed and violently slammed into the ground again. (That sounds so awesomely grisly; I hate that this was cut.)

I share your enthusiasm, but I understand why they'd abandon it. The sequence ALMOST goes over the top as it is... push it any further, and things may have gotten silly.

Shinji is Lilith, Rei is an XX clone of him with Yui's soul, the other ~nami series of pilots are altered versions of Rei and none of the evas have souls at all.

/fanwank

NemZ, I don't know whether I want to see that happen or not.

Somehow, I suspect that Eva-04 was meant for more complex plans than just blowing up. Perhaps Seele intended to do whatever they did with Tunniel with Eva-04, on the sly and without Gendo's knowing.

Reichu wrote:"Stop the brainwashing(...)Yui-kun is sad."

There's a demotivational poster in there somewhere.

I don't know, brainwashing sounds a bit too drastic. What Gendo is being shown doing could be described as manipulation at best. Or maybe this bit refers to the Dummy System being used? It's sort of brainwashing and Yui was shown to be pretty "sad" when Gendo tried to use it again.. but on the other hand , Gendo messing with Yui this badly and knowing about what he is really doing to her doesn't really mesh with his character.

Anyways, i'm glad to see that the Khara team's gears are really turning regarding the plot, but with 2.0 leaving so much dangling in the air, i fear that 3.0 will turn into an exposafest.

Thanks for the translations, and an even bigger thanks in advance for the future scans of the storyboards! (there will be scans, right?)

SaltyJoe wrote:I don't know, brainwashing sounds a bit too drastic. What Gendo is being shown doing could be described as manipulation at best. Or maybe this bit refers to the Dummy System being used?

I think Fuyutsuki is referring to Gendo's mistreatment of Shinji. (Yui: "Take care of Shinji for me.") Right after Fuyutsuki tells Gendo to "stop the brainwashing", the storyboards cut straight to the hospital where Shinji is tripping out. Some mysterious "brainwashing" treatment was probably being administered there, after his temper tantrum. And, after they "stop" it, Shinji wakes up and finds himself surrounded by MIBs ready to process him.

And, yeah, there will be scans. Eventually.

By the way, I haven't picked up the Funi 2.22 DVD yet. Are the "Omit Scenes" translated?

Reichu wrote:Right after Fuyutsuki tells Gendo to "stop the brainwashing", the storyboards cut straight to the hospital where Shinji is tripping out.

Woah! That's a pretty important bit of info. It really gives the scene the context which you suggested. Man, i do hope that at least some of these ideas will be kept for the next movies.

SaltyJoe wrote:I don't know, brainwashing sounds a bit too drastic. What Gendo is being shown doing could be described as manipulation at best.

Remember, though, that Fuyutsuki mentioned this to Gendou as a possibility in 1.11. I don't know how serious he was being, but he certainly does seem to be suggesting something more drastic than Gendou's use of Rei as carrot-on-a-stick.

Ultimately, though, all brainwashing is is systematic and complete manipulation.

Azathoth wrote:Remember, though, that Fuyutsuki mentioned this to Gendou as a possibility in 1.11.

Honestly, i thought they just dropped that concept after 1.0. And that still may be the case, considering that all these storyboards were ultimately discarded.

But the "could have been/still could be" implications are staggering. Shinji is getting brainwashed while having visions about Rei and trains. And Rei is sitting outside his room. Does this mean that, through some plot convolution and telepathy hax, Rei herself is the instrument for headscrewing Shinji? Such a twist would be insane.

Or is it the other way around? Rei knows about Gendo's methods, and is trying to protect Shinji?

God, if they kept this and Kaworu talking to Asuka mid-mindtrip i would have gotten a "WTFMINDISBLOWN" out of the movie instead of an "Okay, interesting... kinda... sorta..." . Khara is probably keeping the heavy artillery for the next movie. I'm already salviating.