I watched 3.0 back when it came out in 2012, and it was an abortion. It was so awful that I abandoned the series for seven years. This is why I have been absent for so long. So I've digested it and here are my thoughts.

Hideki Anno is the Japanese George Lucas, except George Lucas had the integrity to not kowtow to filth-ridden otaku hurling their feces at him, but to lead his boat full steam ahead into the jagged rocks he wished to wreck his franchise upon. He had a dream for his franchise, to become sole owner of it and piss on it so that every one who worked on the original trilogy knew it was his and his alone, and he went through with it. Unfortunately, Anno lacked even that ugly courage.

As we all know, many on this forum did not care for 2.0, myself included. I will not rehash that argument other than to summarize my thoughts for those that weren't here. Namely, I thought the movie lacked verisimilitude and degenerated into cartoonishness, especially with regards to characterization. Apparently, 2.0 had caused similar controversy in Japan, namely that it did not pander to the Otaku hard enough. Production on 3.0 had already begun, but the outrage was such that it was delayed, the original script and story panels trashed, and the whole thing restarted from scratch. I genuinely would have preferred the 3.0 we saw in the preview at the end of 2.0, because what we ended up getting was pure s**t.

To start with, every hanging plot thread from the previous two movies is dropped completely by 3.0. Why was there a Third Impact even though Kaoru had stopped it in the nick of time? Why was Eva Unit 01 in space? Why did they reclaim Shinji from the Eva, but not Rei? Shut up. Anno felt the stubby, fat nerd fists rain down upon him like neetbux donated into Dream's abortion fund. He gave the worst fans what they wanted. They wanted bleakness? The entire world was now dead except for the people inside Misato's counterfeit White Base and Gendo's Clone Emporium. They objected to character development? All character development is frozen to the point that eva pilots no longer age, and every character is reduced to a complete caricature. Asuka is reduced to BAKA Shinji NO BAKA BAKA cat ears. Rei is reduced to a robot. Everybody hates Shinji, and everything Shinji does is wrong. The last one especially makes no sense as these were merely Shinji's false perception of reality based on his abandoment issues in the series and in the first two rebuild movies, but here they are made manifest. The homoeroticism between Shinji and Kaworu too subtle and ambiguous for you? We are very sorry, please have all the fujoshi bait you need. Ritsuko's haircut is terrible.

These are only the most pressing objections that I can remember, as I have no intention of watching it again. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, I look forward to your comments.

Edit: Re-reading my post I noticed how it comes of as angry rambling on my part. I'll leave it up in the spoiler above. So let me put some more points to it to make it more clear.

I get what Anno is trying to do. He gives us 1.0 and 2.0 as bait: Here's Eva with all the stuff you ever wanted. I mean, Shinji saves the girl at the end. I didn't particularily like those movies because it was pretty obvious that they were "dumbed down" to appeal to a more general audience and when Third Impact happened at the end of 2.0 I thought to myself: Yepp, making Shinji have the same motivation as Gendo will fuck up everything, that was the whole point of Evangelion to begin with. Don't kling to the past and all that, you can not turn back time, etc.

I get what 3.0 tries to accomplish. It want's to be a meta-statement about communication, in this case, between author and audience. "You didn't get it the first time around, there are still children out there refusing to grow up, so this time, I will make you happy". This movie is all about the message and not the plot. The plot is nonsensical on every level. But, and thats why this movie is such a desaster: Making the plot overly complicated and nonsensical detracts from the message or messages. Instead of focusing on what it has to say, it forces you to think about everything besides that, because our brain needs to understand things. We need a frame of reference to gather meaning from anything. Thats why there are discussions about symbolism, metaphysical mechanics and minute details like "Asuka is wearing Misatos yellow Shirt, but it doesn't fit her, thus Asuka is not a fully formed woman yet". We tend to see meaning in things that are meaningless, and the more seemingly meaningful things there are, the more we obsess about them.

That's why this movie is so bad. Asuka, at one point, says to Shinji that he not only is stupid, but also a brat. Yay, I get it, he needs to grow up and has to accept that he can not change the past. But the same Asuka says "Just let me kill you already" and "You didn't come to my aid.", or, after Shinji states his purpose for piloting Eva, says: "Just mind your own buisiness". Well, he does that already. That just makes her completely irrational, and since we are in a sort of dialogue with the characters, I give no credence to anything she says because she constantly contradicts herself. Same goes for Kaworu: He is not a reliable source of information, and his motives are not clear, so we can not take anything he says as good advice, and so on.

Second part is, those messages are ... pointless. Everybody knows they have to grow up, everybody knows they have to DO stuff to actually achieve anything in life. Those messages are told every day, everywhere. People chose not to listen and bludgeoning them over the head with those messages again, especially if the messages are buried beneath layers and layers of fan service and nonsense, will not achieve anything. It is also completely irrational to tell people "Stop liking that! Forget about Eva, start living!", as people do not choose what they like or how long they like it. Sure, there is such a thing as acquired taste, but that doesn't touch the gut reaction we have. There is also a clear disconnect between what Anno percieves and what the audience percieves. It is pretty clear that Anno himself can not let go of Eva. Otherwise he wouldn't have come back. It is not his fault, of course, sine Eva is still so popular. But here's the problem: Most people DO get over Eva. It just seems like they don't because there is a constant trickle of new people introduced to the series, repeating the process over and over again, giving the impression that people never change.

Anno doesn't seem to get his own message. Eva is out there. It will grasp people and people will obsess over it, people will misunderstand it and not get what he wanted to say. "His own words getting lost." He can not take back Eva, the success it had, anything about it. The NTE can not redo Eva, nor can it supplant it or improve it. Even if the NTE exists solely to piss off fans so much that they give up on Eva as a whole, they can just go back and watch the original.

And finally, when the whole reason you are telling a story is to get your message across and every single plot point serves that message, the story suffers. If the story muddles the messages, thats doubly bad. It would then be better to just write your message down and hope that people understand. Adding to that, he comes off as a hypocrite. As far as I understand it, he has complete control over the rights to anything related to Eva. Just look at all the merchandise out there. You can live off of Eva merchandise, including drinks, food, razors, pillows, furniture ... It is completely ridiculous. Now, if Anno was serious about his supposed messages - would he allow that? Certainly not. So either he lives in a state of severe cognitive dissonance, wanting ALL the money for himself while simultaneously preaching his ghospel, or he doesn't have anything coherent to say in the first place.

For example, "You have to love yourself before you can love others" is reductionist nonsense. You can first love somebody else or an idea and use that to better yourself, using that to come to terms with yourself thus loving yourself in the end. It is also downright unhelpful in some cases. If I was rapist but I love what I am doing and love my spouse, this message helps me better myself how, exactly? Same goes for the Otakus: If they love being alone and not caring about anything, they will just continue doing what they do, loving others all the same (even if those others exist only in their head). The same goes for "You have to have pride in yourself." Nobody is proud of themselves just because. Pride is generated by interaction with the outside world, by outside validation, by referencing others. It is a product of the environment that you live in, it is shaped by how you grew up and where you see your world heading. If somebody truly has no love or pride for themselves, the only way to get out of that cycle is to turn to the outside world. Mental health professionals exist for a reason. "Only you can change yourself" falls into the same category. One of the first things done to help children in abusive families is getting them into a new, safe environment. They change because of outside influence, not rational inner discourse, and most importantly, without themselves noticing. PTSD for example is treated by EMDR, because no amount of rationalization can erase your trauma. Similarily, "Anywhere can be paradise as long as you have the will to live" is an outright lie. "To experience anything you have to continue living" would be the more accurate statement.

Anyways, wether 3.0 has a message, is just there to generate money or is just Anno masturbating over his ego/hating himself/everybody else, the fact remains that it is on the face of it a badly written movie full of bizarre choices. The only way it can make sense is in contrast and context of all of Eva that came before PLUS the discussion surrounding Eva, requiring you to become obsessed with Eva in the first place to then get "healed", and even then, the sense that it makes depends on the willingness of the viewer to give it meaning, but that can not be forced.

So yes, I dislike this movie because it is "Not Eva" and because it "Subverted my expectations". There is a certain quality to Eva that I like, and I wanted more of that. That's of course highly emotional and personal, so there is no way or need to justify this feeling, since Eva means whatever you think it means, right? This movie doesn't have that (Rebuild as a whole lacks that quite substantially). When I go to an icecream stand and demand vanilla ice and get something labeled "Vanilla" that tastes like salty peanuts dipped in Orang-Utang feces ... you get my point. If I wanted to experience something unrelated to Eva I would have watched something unrelated. And no, Anno does not decide what makes good Eva. He can only throw stuff out there and hope that it sticks. And yes, my expectations were subverted. I expected a movie worth watching and was dissappointed. Or to be more precise, I expected a mediocre movie and got a bad one instead. Maybe the movie does exactly what it wanted to do. Maybe it is the most perfect example of what it tried to do and is a masterpiece in that regard. That doesn't make it any better or worse, and it doesn't make me appreciate it any more or less.