Whoa, I'm... I don't know what to say.

In some ways, I'm still in denial, still hoping that maybe it all will look different when I see it for myself, in some language I can understand, but EVA has taught me to ignore such impulses, and slowly, I'm feeling myself seeping into the next phase, the next stage, I am processing, and the initial reaction I was trying to describe is seeping away as I write and I wonder if I should hang onto it and the numbness it brings.

I have already begun to wonder if I might come to like this movie very much when I'm done processing it, and now I'm kinda going through all the Kuebler-Ross stages and noticing that this movie did something to me, just the mere synopsis combined with my own attachment.

At first, I was struggling not to be childish, as this show taught me, not to go butthurt as certain other ppl were when 2.0 didn't go their way, and I'm grateful that these feelings passed. I'm beginning to see patterns.
First, I wondered where it all went, this sounds like there's hardly any character-driven Moments, very much action/ the characters filling plot roles and less them feeling "tangible", lots of things that seemed to go nowhere - What about that added focus on Shinji's and Gendo's relationship? What about the slow and meticulous developement of Shinji's relationship to Rei and freakin Misato (losing Rei, that would not have surprised me this much even tough I expected the fact that she seemingly got saved to make an impact, but Misato? The warm comfort of home, that one, initial conection, the main connection for most the story ) there's not even any mention of trip scenes, and those hints at a possible relationship developement/dynamic with Mari, the first impressions...
All gone, nothing went anywhere - maybe it's supposed to be painfully gone.

How did Asuka not stop aging when she was five? Or does that mean that they only STARTED straining her when Gendo mentions it in 1.0? Deleted scenes say she was still trained 10 years... but how horrible is that, for the girls to have been... "altered" (Oh, there's the next phase and I'm losing grip of the last one) like that, to have *become* something else, to the point that they can't even remember the pasts that shaped who they are (maybe that's part of what broke Misato?") We haven't learned Mari's nor Asuka's backstory (There's still the Doll and Sadamoto's note of a "deleted scene" that showed Mari's past) but maybe we're meant to fill that loss.
Because that's what Shinji lost.
Sakura's initial appearance is such an epic blow of foreshadowing, because we'd never have suspected it to mean something (Just like we REALLy bought that Kishimoto would really kill those characters in the invasion of Pain arc - he picked the types of characters that usually die) that we finally get to see Touji's little sister - To think that Touji, Hikari and Kensuke died just like this, that the last time we briefly saw them was their last Moments, that that last exchange in the entry plug was Rei IIs last words, that they're all DEAD, that even SHE is dead...

I think I'm going to cry when I see that scene of Shinji trying to connect with Rei, to bring her her books (a consistently shown Hobby of hers, they noticed! I recently did a fanfic scene with Shinji and Rei bonding over her like for books, it's like Anno freakin read by thoughts just to punch me in the gut. Fuck, i was going to do "Shinji trying in vain to cennect to a replacement" and "Shinji joining with Gendo's plan" (which isn't quite what happened, but yes, he betrayed WILLE...) too, damnit. Does that mean I'm good or should I think of something else? Oh fuck. As if it even matters. ) to notice that she's GONe, GONE, GONE!
There's NOTHING, not even Rei IIIs cold distrust and resentment and lingering echo... You really feel that time passed. Rei 09, for god's sake... and she's being kept in some room like an animal, and it rams home the implications of what they made her to be, of how they can really clone her over and over again.
I think Mari and Asuka are gone, too. If they really don't remember... Can they even still be considered the same girls we met in 2.0? Does Asuka remember that little doll she used to own? (I've read that there's some interview in a yet unstranslated part of the CR were it's confirmed that it's that same Doll and that Asuka plays with it whenever she feels like she's not measuring up to the fake persona she wants to project) Does Mari remember her pets, assuming she still had them?

I can almost see Misato of all people holding on to the will to live like nobody else, forming an organisation, recruiting new people, engeneering the EVAs into a ship (it's not so different from how the EVAs themselves were engineered from "gods" Also, Nadia vibes there.) and becomming bitter over the years, this happened, but we didn't get to see it, didn't get to see the stories of all these people who must've been mere children back in 2015?

Maybe we're meant to gradually grasp that loss as Shinji will have to.

It feels more like a continuation to EoE than to the 2.22 I saw - at this point, Rebuild has become darker than EoEs ending. (At least we knew everybody was going back and Shinji had found something at the end. The cosmology seemed much more "malleable", instead of the horrible notion of PERMANENT DAMAGE. Awfully permanent damage. That's Q in a word: Permanent Damage. NowThe ending of Q certainly evokes EoE, with Shinji and Asuka out in the landscape. Is this how ppl felt when they were "rewarded" with EoE for their complaints about EoTV? )
It feels like it could come after EoE, if you wanted an account that combined most of each continuity, with Shinji having destroyed the world and stuff.
Except, he's not even that guilty, it is important to distinguish that the thought of "fuck the world" came to him after the Bardiel incident, what happened during the next battle was more like "Wait. I can deny that the others gave a fuck about me, but not even in my childish-tantrum--mindset can I deny Rei!" and he didn't know he could do what he did (if anything, the fact that he apparently had no clue untill Fuyutsuki told him confirms that)

It hurts my soul. He screwed up, yes, but this is just too much. It's so bloody REALISTIC and it speaks for anno that he went such a bold, daring step, and actually destroyed the status quo, and maybe that's supposed to detach the otakus, really by destroying what drew them in, the parts I missed, the parts theys expected, like the dwelling on the characters and such.
What's he gonna do now? What the fuck is Shinji supposed to fucking DO now? Oh fuck, I'm reaching the despair stage, I think. And I haven't seen the fucking movie yet.
I can't picture that state, or maybe I can try to, I'm thinking of the darkest days of my youth and how I could sometimes no longer understand how I sometimes thought that'd I'd never been happy at all, and suddenly I remember the feeling, and it's still so FAR from what Shinji must be experiencing. He's NOT GOING TO AGE, damnit. Oh, being stuck in an "imcomplete"/§damaged" mind state has always been one of the things that really freak me out - ever heard of that curious case of the perpetual toddler? Or those wrinkled psychic kids from AKIRA...At least the Children are in an age that's halfway... lucid and sorta able to have sex, but still. I'm CRYING NOW, and I haven't seen the fucking MOVIE YET! No, not quite, the tears won't come, but I was sure they would.
Maturation isn't the same thing as senescence, BTW. It's quite possible that only their maturation was stunted, but that their telomeres are still shortening, and that they'll go all grey and wrinkly in their child bodies by the time they're 50 or so.
I must think of that one Bleach volume poem - "Tell me I'm hated most in the world". That's literally the worst that could POSSIBLY have happened to him, to him who's so afraid of being hated.
post Shinji may still have been recoverable, but this... this...

I think he's gone, too.

He's done it. He's blown it all to hell, damn them all. Not sure if I mean Shinji or Anno, but damn them all!

but no matter what, I don't think the reset button is the answer.
That's what this movie ultimately was about, and it went awry for a reason. He could not NOT deconstruct that, I guess. The attempt to undo the events ended up triggering another BOOM. The thought of "redoing" things is just another escape, and that's not what Rebuild wants to give us.
You can not Redo.
Damn us all. Damn us all.


@those who've seen it: Did Mari and Shinji actually interact? Does it look like she's dead?

Kendrix wrote:It feels more like a continuation to EoE than to the 2.22 I saw - at this point, Rebuild has become darker than EoEs ending.

oh boy, you're not going to enjoy my magnum opus I'm working on right now. I do feel for you. I'm not Rei shipper but, well, sucks for them/you...

So, uhh, anyone? My question about Third and Fourth Impacts still hold!

According to 2ch, when Fuyutsuki shows Shinji a picture of his mother, there is another person resembling to Mari in the background.

Why does everyone assume that Final is going to continue this darkness? 3.0 could very well be the darkness before dawn, Shinji's lowest point that he manages to pull himself (or is helped out of) out of at the end.

^
^
Wut?

Hyper Shinchan wrote:Some more photos which probably haven't been already posted, Mari and Kaworu:

SPOILER: Show

Yes, yes, yes thank you for posting the Mari page!

After reading the summary, this movie sounds even more exciting than I initially thought. It's clearly not old Eva anymore - I didn't expect otherwise - though I do seem to recognize a few themes that have been redone. Shinji's feelings of rejection and ultimate breakdown following Kaworu's death are still here, though delivered through a different device, the fact that the world literally does hate him now. The ending sounds very similar to how EoE ended, only with the change that some of humanity survived instead of only Asuka.

With the series more or less covered plus EoE, 4.0 should truly be an all-new ending. If I had to hazard a guess, it will be mainly about Shinji's introspection and self-evaluation, set against the backdrop of the battle between Wille and NERV/SEELE.

One question I don't believe I've seen addressed - is it stated whether or not Gendo is in on SEELE's plan to cause Fourth Impact with the Spears? I've seen the discussion of his scene with the Lilith head, but the question of whether he knew what Keel was planning I haven't been able to find a clear answer for.

Kendrix your post actually pretty damn accurate to how I feel. And how felt about original Eva. Hell to this day, it's still just painful. Yeah I feel, but it tends to be all bad, where Eva's ending is concerned. Hurt, anger confusion, etc. I've gotten better, and I can apriciate things objectivly, but if I let myself feel any emotion about it, its bad. Basicly the releif I feel is, of the that sucked, but it's over and hopefully I'll never have to feel it again.

Ynnead wrote:Why does everyone assume that Final is going to continue this darkness? 3.0 could very well be the darkness before dawn, Shinji's lowest point that he manages to pull himself (or is helped out of) out of at the end.

We feel that way because it's so damn dark and depressing. The state of things is actually feeling worse than the end of the show, and that's a hell of a feat. About the only thing that's better is that Asuka is so far in pretty good shape. You just can't see how it can get better without a reset, or a dues ex machina asspull. Now keep in mind that if Anno can pull it off, then it will be an amazing feat.

Ynnead wrote:Why does everyone assume that Final is going to continue this darkness? 3.0 could very well be the darkness before dawn, Shinji's lowest point that he manages to pull himself (or is helped out of) out of at the end.

Except he's stuck in a body with stunted growth, the world (or whatever's left of it) hates him, his only parental figure tried to murder him and his love interest ist dead, leaving him with a lookalike that reacts even less to him than Rei III did. He's probably universally regarded as the Hitler of the 21st century, he's displaced in time.
(You think she existed? And got killed in the interim, in one of these missing EVA units? I never thought I'd miss Rei III, desperately wish for AT LEAST Rei III, I was happy she wouldn't show up and yes, she didn't, but not in the way I hoped and now... Not sure what to make of Rei 9 yet, didn't really get a "feel" for her from just the text. )
He tried to freakin ATONE and it got his last friend killed.


Seems like Asuka doesn't hate him as much as she'd like to ("Do something!", she did drag him with her) but I've just read somewhere that she's switched to calling him "Gaki-Shinji" (="kid"), so the distance is probably too high to be overcome...

To think that he remembers going to school in what's a few days ago for him.

This being EVA, there will probably be an ending that can at least be considered positive in an esoteric sense, but I just don't see how.
to think that Hikari and the Stooges are dead just like that.



Man! Tokyo-3 REALLY didn't look THAT badly damaged back then... Nor does it seem like Anno planned for the damage to be worse than after zerogoki going poof, but changed his mind along the way. Ouch, just ouch.

Oh my, I was curious to read Kendrix's reaction but she looks like the most devastated person around here, I feel for you. I like Rei and I also like her relation with Shinji but probably I can easily compensate with Kaworu, just like I became a fan of Kaworu after Rei II died back in episode 23, somehow I don't feel that bad about Rei's "disappearence" and I'm also looking forward to this "soulless" Rei, I feel like I can't have a real opinion about her until I can watch the movie. Yet I can understand what you're talking about, destroying all that development built over two movies really sucks.

Darkwing wrote:I've gotten better, and I can apriciate things objectivly

My opinion of NGE keeps getting worse instead...


EDIT:

Nando wrote:Yes, yes, yes thank you for posting the Mari page!

You're welcome but there are already high resolution scans in this thread, if you didn't notice it.

...

Hyper Shinchan wrote:
You're welcome but there are already high resolution scans in this thread, if you didn't notice it.

Oh, thank you. I did miss it.

Nando wrote:Oh, thank you. I did miss it.

No problem, remember to do that copy/paste thing to open the mediafire links.

Kendrix wrote:How did Asuka not stop aging when she was five? Or does that mean that they only STARTED straining her when Gendo mentions it in 1.0? Deleted scenes say she was still trained 10 years...

It's possible that her training didn't involve piloting Evangelions or even dealing with entryplugs, and LCL, until recently; Evangelions couldn't have been ready until some time before the events of the movies, like in the old series (they had that 2014 text inside the entry plugs, I don't remember if they kept it in NME though).

I can't help but feel like there was something more planned, especially for Mari and Gendo *sigh* but at the other hand, I can see how discarding that/making us believe that could be an efficient tactic. I don't know. Maybe it'll look different after a bit of sleep or viewing the actual movie.


Again, I'd like to ask those who've seen it and/or are better informed than me about Mari's scenes.

I felt she'd provide nice conflict with Misato, with her own plans and unwillingness to work with adults, but it makes sense that this wouldn't come up if she had 14 years to work it out.


Also, talking Rei head <~~~> "contract with Lillith"?
I feel like there's a whole movie missing in-between here.

So question, did Asuka being 28 have a major effect on Her first conversation with Shinji after he got out?

...

According to 2ch, when Fuyutsuki shows Shinji a picture of his mother, there is another person resembling to Mari in the background.

Heh?!

StratoSakuya...AF wrote: Heh?!

Mari is trunks Perhaps?

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