Quality of NTE containment thread

Blockio · Postby **Blockio** » Tue May 11, 2021 7:41 pm

Let's all take this back a notch, shall we?
Shinji Ikari Expy makes a very important point: The justifiability of in-universe character decisions is not indicative of the quality of a movie. Eva goes out of its way to show that people make questionable decisions, even when their intentions are good. "This movie makes a character I like do something I don't like, therefore it's bad" is not a good argument, and ad hominem accusations in either direction of this divide aren't going to get us anywhere.
Knock it off, all of you.

Axx°N N. · Postby **Axx°N N.** » Tue May 11, 2021 9:02 pm

Blockio wrote:Let's all take this back a notch, shall we?
Shinji Ikari Expy makes a very important point: The justifiability of in-universe character decisions is not indicative of the quality of a movie. Eva goes out of its way to show that people make questionable decisions, even when their intentions are good. "This movie makes a character I like do something I don't like, therefore it's bad" is not a good argument, and ad hominem accusations in either direction of this divide aren't going to get us anywhere.
Knock it off, all of you.

It's not a good argument, I don't disagree, but I also don't see anyone making that argument.

I don't think anyone is taking issue with the film not justifying the questionable decisions, or that there are questionable decisions at all. I think the problem is with the believability of the character writing and dialogue regarding said decisions. A film can have characters with unjustifiable positions that still feel natural and believable from a character standpoint. Or not. And I feel like that point has been made already by those that hold it, whereas anyone actually arguing "Wille being mean to Shinji means Shin is bad" seems to only exist in the accusation.

Postby **pwhodges** » Wed May 12, 2021 5:02 am

swagbuckking1 wrote:If Shinji was to be kept in a cell, why place an explosive collar on him? If Shinji was not inside an Eva, again, why place an explosive collar on him? People always forget that Ritsuko did not think Shinji could ever escape the Wunder because she didn't think NERV would come for him. They thought he would never pilot an Eva again so once again I ask, why place the DSS choker on him?

Ever heard of "belt and braces"? Even Ritsuko knows that not every eventuality can be foreseen, and with the stakes being so high this over-the-top approach to precautions is entirely logical.

swagbuckking1 · Postby **swagbuckking1** » Wed May 12, 2021 5:32 am

pwhodges wrote:Ever heard of "belt and braces"? Even Ritsuko knows that not every eventuality can be foreseen, and with the stakes being so high this over-the-top approach to precautions is entirely logical.

Does the "belt and braces" approach apply when we already know she never anticipated Shinji falling into NERV's hands? At what point does "belt and braces" become paranoia. And if this is a purely pragmatic measure on Ritsuko's part, why rub salt into Shinji's wound by stating it's a symbol of his "punishment" when imprisonment alone would suffice. These two facts do not compute together.

pwhodges wrote: Even Ritsuko knows that not every eventuality can be foreseen.

EDIT: One cannot assume the mentality and the thought-processes of the characters if they are not explicitly shown or implied in the film. This is diving into speculative territory. The only things we know about the extent of Ritsuko's knowledge is that she did not think NERV would come after him. Combine this with Shinji's intended imprisonment, and the DSS choker appears to become an unnecessary measure.

pwhodges wrote:And with the stakes being so high this over-the-top approach to precautions is entirely logical.

EDIT 2: Another thing I remembered is, if it is in the characters motivations to go all in with their "over-top-approach", then that is absolutely fine . Hell, it's not even necessary for the film-writers to explain the characters rationale behind these measures. However, it must be stated that the more extreme actions Misato takes against Shinji, the less believable it is for Misato and Shinji to then reconcile in the future. You run the risk of writing the characters into a corner. It is perfectly fine to have the characters react in an extreme manner, *if* you can write a realistic way for them to come back from that. Misato taking a bullet for Shinji does not come across as believable for me, as she was the one that gave permission to the crew to shoot him in the first place; as much as I hate to say it but Sakura and Midori were just following orders.

When we account for the fact that Misato ordered:

From these, it just appears that Misato and Shinji's relationship is unsalvageable at that point. And yes, I am willing to include her not detonating the choker and also taking a bullet for him (please see my post on the effects of solitary confinement and Shinji's mental health for further information why).

However that does not mean it is impossible. Going into 3.0+1.0, I would have liked a scene where Shinji and Misato are having a shouting-match, where he screams his frustrations from his treatment and where she is forced to confess her *true* feelings towards him. From Hyuga's dialogue, it is known that some WILLE members are aware that Shinji never intended to cause NTI; I will assume Misato is one of those people. Instead I would have preferred her explaining her resentments towards Shinji, were because he "left her" for so long. This would reconcile her over-the-top response with her being human, emotional and a woman that, in her own twisted way, deeply cares for Shinji, that she needs him and doesn't want him to leave her ever again. This might seem "irrational" but it would have certainly added a lot of depth and justification to her character; "A mother resentful for her son leaving her even though he had no control over it". I would have liked something like that, but maybe I was expecting too much.

Shinji Ikari Expy · Postby **Shinji Ikari Expy** » Wed May 12, 2021 10:29 am

I'm going to attempt to bring this back to the original topic. Sorry for the derail.

The most unrealistic thing about Rebuild is the revision of Gendo and Fuyutsuki's characters. In NGE they struggle to deal with lots of unforeseen circumstances. In NTE, they are practically omniscient in their ability to predict everyone else's behavior. The fact that two depressed old guys held off the remaining military might of humanity for 14 years is borderline comical, although I'm not usually one to complain about world building issues. In some ways, it makes them more imposing villains but it makes them less interesting as characters, I think -- they seem like something other than human.

I'm not sure how I feel about the timeloop + reset ending. I think if Shin had been released on schedule (the early 2010s), it would have made a bigger impact, although it still would have been piggybacking off of Madoka Magica's ending (or would have been perceived that way). In 2021, it's almost a cliche. Given the scenario in Q, I can't see any other way of ending it happily.

Overall though, I feel Rebuild is thematically in line with all of Evangelion and gives the audience an emotionally satisfying ending. Anno realized, I think, that EOE left a lot of people unsettled, as great as the ending was, and there was clearly a desire for something that would leave us all feeling like Asuka, Rei, Shinji, et al get a chance at happiness. Rebuild does this, but only after pushing all the characters even harder and challenging the audience in new ways.

Getting to see all the kid characters as adults is so cool and feels like a fitting way to end the franchise.

The Rebuilds feel like fanservice, but they are good. They're fanservice done well IMO.

Kendrix · Postby **Kendrix** » Wed May 12, 2021 10:35 am

I, for my part, can’t believe Shin EVA deadass gave us an ending where everybody gets validated and almost everybody lives while still being open enough that you can basically imagine anything afterwards, and people are whinging about it because their fave ship didn’t get priority treatment or whatever

Blockio · Postby **Blockio** » Thu May 13, 2021 1:02 pm

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Fucking this. Shin has just about the best ending you could ask for, yet people are so assmad that Anno didn't go out of his way to personally include their ship.

Postby **hui43210** » Thu May 13, 2021 2:27 pm

At this point my headcannon is that Shinji and Mari do indeed become a couple and get married as that seems to be the pairing that angers shippers the most.

Seriously, it's okay to not like the movie, but if your preferred fictional relationship in Eva not "winning" makes you this mad you need to reevaluate your life.

ElMariachi · Postby **ElMariachi** » Thu May 13, 2021 7:11 pm

Shinji Ikari Expy#922598 wrote:The most unrealistic thing about Rebuild is the revision of Gendo and Fuyutsuki's characters. In NGE they struggle to deal with lots of unforeseen circumstances. In NTE, they are practically omniscient in their ability to predict everyone else's behavior. The fact that two depressed old guys held off the remaining military might of humanity for 14 years is borderline comical, although I'm not usually one to complain about world building issues. In some ways, it makes them more imposing villains but it makes them less interesting as characters, I think -- they seem like something other than human.

That's a criticism I've also seen in online critics, that if you stop five minutes to think about the world-building, the setting crumbles on itself: WILLE alternating between having so little resources that their pilots still use their old plugsuits and then have then in bulk for everyone, the ssettlement" being a glorified refugee camp sitting at 250km from neo-NERV HQ without any defense and never being attacked, neo-NERV able to produce a bazillion Evas out of thin air while WILLE can barely repair the two they have, and as you said Gendo and Fuyu having precognition and predicting EVERYTHING their enemies does... (at least Fuyutsuki's line about Shinji joining the Wunder and Rei Q's death implies that they have a mean of spying on them, but it's never explained how)

That's why I wonder if we'll ever get a spin-off about the timeskip, because then they'll have to expand on this world-building, and that'll be very hard to justify everything we saw.

Shinji Ikari Expy#922598 wrote:I'm not sure how I feel about the timeloop + reset ending. I think if Shin had been released on schedule (the early 2010s), it would have made a bigger impact, although it still would have been piggybacking off of Madoka Magica's ending (or would have been perceived that way). In 2021, it's almost a cliche. Given the scenario in Q, I can't see any other way of ending it happily.

Personally, the timeloop has almost no impact in the story except explaining why Kaworu is so obsessed with Shinji, and maybe explaining why Shinji came back to the real world as an adult by him having obtained the memories from all the loops (if we interpret the epilogue as happening just after the beach scene between Shinji and Mari), so it doesn't bother me that much.

The reset on the other hand, bother me much more, because it goes against the narrative installed by the previous movies (and even part of Shin itself): I suppose that you know the concept of narrative theme, that what the characters says and what the image shows us will have a payoff later in the story. And that narrative has been that rebuilding what was broken takes time and the collective effort of everyone and that you can't just erase all of your mistake in one miraculous trick, as shown in Ha with the water purification and sea life preservation laboratory, in Q with Fututsuki's "Breaking the world is easy enough. But rebuilding it, that isn't so easy." line, Shinji's total failure to "redo" everything, Mari telling him that he should get to know how the world works, Kaworu telling him that he needs to find happiness and a place to call home (aka find his place in this world), the very title of Q "You Can (Not) Redo", and Shinji himself deciding that he'll dedicate his life to atone for his mistakes... and then the end of Shin let him "redo" and erase all of his mistakes (even resurrecting the people who died) with one giant magic spell.
I know that Anno wanted his big happy ending for everyone, but I feel that he has gone too far against the saga's established narrative to give said super happy ending.

On a lesser note, that's also the grip that I have with WILLE in Q and Shin: the narrative in Q is geared toward them being in the right vis-à-vis Shinji, with Asuka declaring that Shinji is a "brat" for escaping with NERV and with us the audience knowing that Gendo was a bad guy and that going to him was a bad idea, the implication is that things would had gone better for Shinji had he stayed with them in the Wunder. Likewise, them fighting Shinji so he stops piloting EVA-13 and don't touch the spears (even though they don't seem to know about the whole two spears switcheroo thing) narratively implies that no matter what happened with the spears, they are in the right to not want anything to do with them, because they are the good guys (in fact, this apparent narrative convention was one of the reason why I started to believe that Kaworu's intentions might had been more complicated and that there were things he didn't told Shinji).
Then came Shin which reveals that actually, they were in the wrong: had Shinji stayed with them, he wouldn't had lived through the experiences that made him mature and be ready to fight Gendo in the final battle, I wouldn't go as far as swagbuckking1 and say that he would had been reduced into an insane and suicidal wreck, since I'm sure that Sakura, Mari and Asuka would had periodically visited him and that he would had eventually been authorized to leave his cell (under surveillance) if only to stretch his legs, but he wouldn't had gotten to experience the love and forgiveness of his friends in Village-3 that were the real catalyst of his emotional growth, so at the end of everything, him leaving and siding with Kaworu was a good thing.
And as for trying to stop him from taking the spear, WILLE was in the right, but for the wrong reasons: it wasn't because him going into an Eva can only bring bad things, or because whatever happens, relying on the powers of the Evangelions is not the way to go because there's always catch. With Shin showing that it is possible to "Redo" everything with the power of the Evangelions, they were right to try to stop Shinji in Q because of completely external reasons: because Gendo swapped the Spear of Cassius for another Longinus, which means that had the second spear been the correct one, Shinji and Kaworu would had been in their moral right to beat the shit out of Asuka and Mari, as well as Misato and her crew, and trample on all the fighting they did during the past 14 years to let Shinji and Kaworu do whatever they wanted with the spears.

Ao3 · Postby **Derantor** » Fri May 14, 2021 12:39 am

ElMariachi wrote:I know that Anno wanted his big happy ending for everyone, but I feel that he has gone too far against the saga's established narrative to give said super happy ending.

Exactly! That's part of the reason why I have a hard time believing that the ending is actually that super happy to begin with. You laid out a lot of what leaves a sour taste in my mouth in your post already, so I won't repeat it, but I agree with most of it.

I think the ending could have worked better if Shinji actually had to sacrifice something for it. As it stands, he loses nothing, in the end. I'm thinking of Frodo, who saved the world but was too broken to remain in middle earth, or the ending to Avengers: Endgame, which had a similar restorative ending, but saw Tony Stark dying. And don't get me wrong: "redemption through death" is the oldest trope in the book, and I wouldn't have been much more fond of the movie if it used that trick, but it would have at least been something. In the context of Eva, if Anno truly wanted something new and out of the box, the ending where everybody works together and the fate of the world does not hinge on the emotional state of a single person would have been something he could have explored. All the groundwork was already there. Instead, we basically get EoE but happy, this time around.

Edit: @Blockio & hui43210 & Kendrix: Well ... true. But then again, I haven't read anything in this thread related to shipping. At least not on the last couple pages.

swagbuckking1 · Postby **swagbuckking1** » Fri May 14, 2021 4:43 am

ElMariachi wrote:
Then came Shin which reveals that actually, they were in the wrong: had Shinji stayed with them, he wouldn't had lived through the experiences that made him mature and be ready to fight Gendo in the final battle, I wouldn't go as far as swagbuckking1 and say that he would had been reduced into an insane and suicidal wreck, since I'm sure that Sakura, Mari and Asuka would had periodically visited him and that he would had eventually been authorized to leave his cell (under surveillance) if only to stretch his legs, but he wouldn't had gotten to experience the love and forgiveness of his friends in Village-3 that were the real catalyst of his emotional growth, so at the end of everything, him leaving and siding with Kaworu was a good thing.

In my defense, I did mention that suicide would be one of the things Shinji may do:

swagbuckking1 wrote:If Shinji never left with Mark 09 and Misato successfully kept him "protective" custody, then one of three things would have happened when WILLE actually needed him to save everyone:

A: He would not have been in the mental state to pilot Unit 1 and Gendo would have completely wrecked him due to shit synch ratios.
B: He would have told Misato and co. to fuck off and die. We've seen this nihilism before from Shinji (after the 5th angel). His incarceration alongside the humiliation and guilt from wearing the choker will have ratcheted up by a million.
C: He wouldn't have piloted because he would have killed himself. There's only so much a 14 year old can take and when subjected to a fate that causes even hardened criminals to resort to self-harm, genital mutilation and suicide, then what chance does Shinji have?

Obviously a story cannot progress if the MC kills himself, so I think the most likely option would be B, if he was kept on the Wunder. If WILLE suddenly needed Shinji to pilot again, he would refuse and would let them all die (mirroring EoE). Incarceration breeds resentment.

EDIT:
At the end of the day, the point is WILLE ended up needing Shinji to save the day, and what they had in store for him and also trying to kill him (Ritsuko telling Misato to detonate the DSS Choker, Sakura/Midori trying to shoot him), all turned out to be wrong. If they killed him, or just left him in his cell, either way he wouldn't have been able to save them and it would have resulted in their death. This mimicks a lesson that I have learned growing up: "Never burn your bridges with someone, no matter how much you despise them, because you never know if they will be the one to help you in the end."

I hate to say it but, had Misato played it cool like Gendo (who literally just spoke five lines to Shinji) and gave him orders but without any of the hostility (The DSS choker, the imprisonment, the shoot-to-kill order), I don't think the events of Q would have happened. Unironically, Gendo did the smart thing with Shinji; kept his distance, gave him a playmate (Kaworu) and just let him wander to do his own thing (as long as he stayed) like finding books for Rei and playing piano with Kaworu. I wonder how things would have turned out if WILLE did the same with Shinji? But, to reiterate what others have said, I also just find it absolutely hilarious how Gendo was able to pull everything off so perfectly. It's just plain funny.

bogusman · Postby **bogusman** » Fri May 14, 2021 9:35 am

Blockquote hidden in spoiler - please do not quote full posts! - Derantor

SPOILER: Show

Derantor wrote:
ElMariachi#922728 wrote:I know that Anno wanted his big happy ending for everyone, but I feel that he has gone too far against the saga's established narrative to give said super happy ending.

Exactly! That's part of the reason why I have a hard time believing that the ending is actually that super happy to begin with. You laid out a lot of what leaves a sour taste in my mouth in your post already, so I won't repeat it, but I agree with most of it.

I think the ending could have worked better if Shinji actually had to sacrifice something for it. As it stands, he loses nothing, in the end. I'm thinking of Frodo, who saved the world but was too broken to remain in middle earth, or the ending to Avengers: Endgame, which had a similar restorative ending, but saw Tony Stark dying. And don't get me wrong: "redemption through death" is the oldest trope in the book, and I wouldn't have been much more fond of the movie if it used that trick, but it would have at least been something. In the context of Eva, if Anno truly wanted something new and out of the box, the ending where everybody works together and the fate of the world does not hinge on the emotional state of a single person would have been something he could have explored. All the groundwork was already there. Instead, we basically get EoE but happy, this time around.

Edit: @Blockio & hui43210 & Kendrix: Well ... true. But then again, I haven't read anything in this thread related to shipping. At least not on the last couple pages.

I also agree with that. Well this ending perhaps more like khara teams happy plot for anno getting out of Eva, and Rebuild's "damage control".
I'm glad if the team are happy, anno (maybe) happy, many audience are happy though , but i don't think this is not what i personally prefer to end. It's happy enough but not wise enough.

Konja7 · Postby **Konja7** » Fri May 14, 2021 10:39 am

Honestly, I think the restoration of the World was likely always part of the plan for Rebuild ending. Maybe not at the level on Shin (Anno being so happy may influence that), but I think the planet would be habitable again.

They've already show a solution for the planet situation exists on Q.

Blockquote hidden in spoiler - please do not quote full posts! - Derantor

SPOILER: Show

ElMariachi wrote:On a lesser note, that's also the grip that I have with WILLE in Q and Shin: the narrative in Q is geared toward them being in the right vis-à-vis Shinji, with Asuka declaring that Shinji is a "brat" for escaping with NERV and with us the audience knowing that Gendo was a bad guy and that going to him was a bad idea, the implication is that things would had gone better for Shinji had he stayed with them in the Wunder. Likewise, them fighting Shinji so he stops piloting EVA-13 and don't touch the spears (even though they don't seem to know about the whole two spears switcheroo thing) narratively implies that no matter what happened with the spears, they are in the right to not want anything to do with them, because they are the good guys (in fact, this apparent narrative convention was one of the reason why I started to believe that Kaworu's intentions might had been more complicated and that there were things he didn't told Shinji).
Then came Shin which reveals that actually, they were in the wrong: had Shinji stayed with them, he wouldn't had lived through the experiences that made him mature and be ready to fight Gendo in the final battle, I wouldn't go as far as swagbuckking1 and say that he would had been reduced into an insane and suicidal wreck, since I'm sure that Sakura, Mari and Asuka would had periodically visited him and that he would had eventually been authorized to leave his cell (under surveillance) if only to stretch his legs, but he wouldn't had gotten to experience the love and forgiveness of his friends in Village-3 that were the real catalyst of his emotional growth, so at the end of everything, him leaving and siding with Kaworu was a good thing.
And as for trying to stop him from taking the spear, WILLE was in the right, but for the wrong reasons: it wasn't because him going into an Eva can only bring bad things, or because whatever happens, relying on the powers of the Evangelions is not the way to go because there's always catch. With Shin showing that it is possible to "Redo" everything with the power of the Evangelions, they were right to try to stop Shinji in Q because of completely external reasons: because Gendo swapped the Spear of Cassius for another Longinus, which means that had the second spear been the correct one, Shinji and Kaworu would had been in their moral right to beat the shit out of Asuka and Mari, as well as Misato and her crew, and trample on all the fighting they did during the past 14 years to let Shinji and Kaworu do whatever they wanted with the spears.

I don't think Q tries to show WILLE in a so positive light.

WILLE are the good guys, but the hostility towards Shinji is represented negatively. I don't think they're made to be likeable characters in that aspect (except Misato), that's why the story doesn't focus on them after Shinji goes to Neo-Nerv.

So, I think they always tried to show WILLE as a well-intentioned group with a lot of fear and rage.

Lavinius · Postby **Lavinius** » Sat May 15, 2021 7:26 pm

Every character I really care about has been neglected or destroyed in NTE.

Ritsuko?
Barely exists. Reduced to one more bridge bunny among the fifty new others. Also I don't like her new haircut.

Rei?
Important up until the end of Ha, and then barely extant past that. Despite being Lilith she has no further meaningful role. Shinji forgets about her halfway through Q, and then she's just one more incoherent extra in final. It staggers me that Anno can just throw such a pivotal character in both the cosmology and in the lead characters' relationships- Rei is supposed to be extremely important to both Shinji and Gendou- off like she's nothing like that. Lilith, the planetary goddess, the one with whom the covenant the plot is centered around was made, the beloved of Shinji and the... something of Gendou- is reduced to nothing. It's unbelievable.
And then her neat-looking new Black Moon turns into an ugly Spear??????????????????

Kaworu?
The most hyped character of all, potentially the most fascinating- he's certainly one of the most fascinating in the ~21 minutes he gets total in the original- and yet in four films, we learn about him... that he's madly in love with Shinji. That's it, that's the extent of his character.
I can't stress this enough. We have a whole film devoted to him, and in that time he doesn't even talk to anyone but Shinji.
Rebuild never gave us any contact with the Angels- why not have Kaworu be their representative, offer something of their perspective or background? No, and the Angels are just a meaningless nuisance in Rebuild anyway.
Seele also- he's Seele's boy, after all. And yet we're never given any real idea of what this entails.
What's his relationship to Rei (Q)? Is he disturbed to see Lilith's fragmented soul treated like that? Is he glad to see his ancient enemy reduced & bound to a pawn in Gendou's plans? We don't learn a thing.
What's his take on Gendou?
If you follow the plot closely, it seems that Kaworu is the vessel of Seele's hopes, of the Angel's hopes, for Instrumentality, and his betrayal by Gendou is their fall as well. But nothing is done with this, and most fans completely glaze over this. (And then Final has Gendou talking as though Seele and the Angels are still some kind of threat, after he killed them all quite easily.)
And then Final comes along, and he gets one scene... with Kaji of all people, talking about him and Misato. Which brings up nothing substantial about his true nature or intentions. ~~Yes yes, I know, and I fully believe it. But that has nothing to do with anything else in Rebuild! And they don't even muddily indicate that that's the angle they're taking!~~
Oh, and why is he in love with Shinji? Because he's timelooping. Nevermind that this timelooping has absolutely no context or meaning to anything anywhere else in Rebuild, nor in the original for that matter. Nevermind that it still doesn't actually explain his obsession, or anything else about his character.

Yui?
Reduced from being the most based woman in the history of the universe to being a mere damsel in distress for Gendou. Apart from going berserk against Sachiel, Yui does literally nothing until showing up just to kill herself. Even the intriguing angle that Gendou took his wife's name is removed for the sake of the reveal that Rei is related to Yui... which even NTE-only viewers already knew.

Gendou?
Gendou gets treated better than most- I'm happy with the idea of a Shinji/Gendou confrontation & truce (I'll have to watch this part of the film, if nothing else, to see how decent it is in execution). But even so, Rebuild has before this reduced him to a quasi-omnipotent cartoon villain, and his plots have gone from ruthless & pragmatic to contrivedly cruel for the sake of making him ZOMG SO EVIL. Why exactly was it necessary for him to murder all the little Shikinamis? And yet this is the version of Gendou we get the reconciliation arc with.

Fuyu?
Alright, he doesn't seem much worse off than he was in the original. He did get one of the best scenes this time. He didn't even get to see Yui though.

Certainly, I can scrounge around and say "it's not all bad!" But it essentially is:
*The reset ending is utterly, utterly despicable.
*The visual design is often hideous & childish. Even if Anno's intention is to give the impression of a child smashing together his Ultraman / Bionicle figures without rhyme or reason, it's not an æsthetic I'm at all pleased with.
*The plot is pointless. A needless rushed retread of the original series for the first half, and then everything with Wille & Shinji is railroaded & cheap. Misato acts utterly irrational and antagonizes Shinji. Then Shinji is utterly passive (which could be IC in itself) for the rest of the film and the next- until Misato just admits she was irrational, that Shinji wasn't guilty at all, and it's all better.
*As for the lore- Adams, Angels, Seele- it's so deliberately obscure and so much of the worldbuilding makes absolutely no sense that, as interesting as its ideas might be, it can hardly redeem the whole- if there is something worth caring about there to begin with.
*The reset ending is utterly, utterly despicable.
*The reset ending is utterly, utterly despicable.
*I can't stress it enough. A half-passable ending, that doesn't spit in the face of literally every thing that's gone before, is right there in the most cliche toolbox. Shinji stops the Impact, then flash forward to him fourteen years later working hard to rebuild the world with Wille, saying something trite about how there's always hope, and that with determination and friendship you can make anywhere heaven even without Evas. There, that's at least not an utterly abhorrent ending.
*I simply do not care about the Wile E. Wonder.

Konja7 · Postby **Konja7** » Sat May 15, 2021 7:59 pm

AGAIN, DO NOT USE FULL QUOTES IN YOUR REPLIES. This goes for everybody. Quote the relevant parts, or use @Username to reply to a certain user. - Derantor

SPOILER: Show

Lavinius wrote:Rei?
Important up until the end of Ha, and then barely extant past that. Despite being Lilith she has no further meaningful role. Shinji forgets about her halfway through Q, and then she's just one more incoherent extra in final. It staggers me that Anno can just throw such a pivotal character in both the cosmology and in the lead characters' relationships- Rei is supposed to be extremely important to both Shinji and Gendou- off like she's nothing like that. Lilith, the planetary goddess, the one with whom the covenant the plot is centered around was made, the beloved of Shinji and the... something of Gendou- is reduced to nothing. It's unbelievable.
And then her neat-looking new Black Moon turns into an ugly Spear??????????????????

It seems Shinji has romantic feeling for Asuka in Ha, so it seems his feelings for Rei weren't romantic.

Rei II is a little relegated, but Rei Q seems to have development. I mentioned this because Rei II seems to have Rei Q memories.

That said, we still have a little arc for Rei II in the movie. She is the reason why Shinji can't pilot the Eva-01 in Q, since she wants to give Shinji "the happiness to not pilot the Eva".

Rei (like Kaworu) also need to let Shinji go and find her own place.

SPOILER: Show

Lavinius wrote:Kaworu?
The most hyped character of all, potentially the most fascinating- he's certainly one of the most fascinating in the ~21 minutes he gets total in the original- and yet in four films, we learn about him... that he's madly in love with Shinji. That's it, that's the extent of his character.
I can't stress this enough. We have a whole film devoted to him, and in that time he doesn't even talk to anyone but Shinji.
Rebuild never gave us any contact with the Angels- why not have Kaworu be their representative, offer something of their perspective or background? No, and the Angels are just a meaningless nuisance in Rebuild anyway.
Seele also- he's Seele's boy, after all. And yet we're never given any real idea of what this entails.
What's his relationship to Rei (Q)? Is he disturbed to see Lilith's fragmented soul treated like that? Is he glad to see his ancient enemy reduced & bound to a pawn in Gendou's plans? We don't learn a thing.
What's his take on Gendou?
If you follow the plot closely, it seems that Kaworu is the vessel of Seele's hopes, of the Angel's hopes, for Instrumentality, and his betrayal by Gendou is their fall as well. But nothing is done with this, and most fans completely glaze over this. (And then Final has Gendou talking as though Seele and the Angels are still some kind of threat, after he killed them all quite easily.)
And then Final comes along, and he gets one scene... with Kaji of all people, talking about him and Misato. Which brings up nothing substantial about his true nature or intentions. ~~Yes yes, I know, and I fully believe it. But that has nothing to do with anything else in Rebuild! And they don't even muddily indicate that that's the angle they're taking!~~
Oh, and why is he in love with Shinji? Because he's timelooping. Nevermind that this timelooping has absolutely no context or meaning to anything anywhere else in Rebuild, nor in the original for that matter. Nevermind that it still doesn't actually explain his obsession, or anything else about his character.

In fact, it's never said Kaworu is in love with Shinji. People who see the movie say his relationship with Shinji seems friendship.

Kaworu's wish/obsession seems to be "make Shinji happy". The dialogue implied that this wish originated because Kaworu wanted to find a meaning for his existence (his eternal loop really affected him).

In fact, Kaworu seems to have always been on human side, since he was even friend of Kaji. He was just pretending to be on SEELE side (after all, SEELE plans don't fit with Kaworu's wish of "make Shinji happy").

The18°angel · Postby **The18°angel** » Sun May 16, 2021 1:42 pm

Maybe in a few years we get Evangelion 3.0+1.0 director cut edition 6 hours long with everything from worldbuilding to character development and backstories and the ending becomes set in stone with all the ships being fully confirmed and based

Axx°N N. · Postby **Axx°N N.** » Wed Aug 11, 2021 3:09 pm

The18°angel wrote:Maybe in a few years we get Evangelion 3.0+1.0 director cut edition 6 hours long with everything from worldbuilding to character development and backstories and the ending becomes set in stone with all the ships being fully confirmed and based

Was looking back over this thread due to this exhange here, and funnily enough this last (I think) joke post looks less like a joke to me. Now, I don't think anything resembling this will happen, but in the interim between this post and Shin's imminent western release, we've already gone from Anno saying "I never want to look at Eva again" to "I don't feel like approaching these characters at all right now, but maybe some day?"

Throws a wrench into framing (and approaching) NTE as "the last last last go," which is funny because the NYT interview the recent quote is from at the same time snubs EoE as not a definitive ending, and seems to (in a PR sense) mythologize Shin as "finally, the franchise-culminating true ending to everything we've all been waiting for." Seems to me only the initial Japanese audiences got to watch with benefit of the doubt it would really be the certain end, because that just seems to not be the tone anymore.

The18°angel · Postby **The18°angel** » Thu Aug 12, 2021 6:30 pm

Well evangelion could go the same route as Ghost in the Shell. Same characters with some changes in their backstories and with the setting having a few changes. Being diferent continuitys but just diferent takes in the story and characters

sephirotic · Postby **sephirotic** » Thu Aug 12, 2021 11:03 pm

My biggest issue with Rebuild is simply the fact that it cannot replace the original series, it does not do anything better than the original does in terms of:

1) Character development,
2) Convincing world building
3) Story Telling.
4) Final message

Most of problems in item 2 and 3 only arrived when Anno decided to turn the Mysterious Kabalistic lore behind the Evas up to eleven... ...thousand with 3.0.
3.0 ruined the rebuild forever.

You absolutely cannot watch Rebuild without watching the original series first without ruining the experience for the original series.

I still can't get the fact that the movie promised in the final preview of 2.0 was never delivered and that it would have been much more interesting to see than 3.0. Regardless, the lack of deep character development in favor of an impossible cartoonish exaggerated lore in 3.0, that continued on 3.0+1.0 and the poor CGI completely ruined 3.0 for me.

Rebuild for me is only fun because I absolutely love the original Evangelion and still is my favorite piece of fiction ever, so more action, more of the characters interaction is always fun. But when I think that some new fans will see Rebuild before the original series first or never even see the original series makes me sad and wish for Rebuild to be erased from history.

Konja7 · Postby **Konja7** » Thu Aug 12, 2021 11:23 pm

sephirotic wrote:Rebuild for me is only fun because I absolutely love the original Evangelion and still is my favorite piece of fiction ever, so more action, more of the characters interaction is always fun. But when I think that some new fans will see Rebuild before the original series first or never even see the original series makes me sad and wish for Rebuild to be erased from history.

Honestly, the idea that new fans couldn't enjoy Rebuild movies seems extremely exagerated.

I saw NGE first, but I was never a big fan. Instead, I really enjoyed and become a big fan of Rebuild movies.

Quality of NTE containment thread

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

Re: The flaws and/or artistic validity of Shin and NTE as a whole

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