Some stuff from the new stage greeting with Anno:

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— twitter-user (@username) date

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— twitter-user (@username) date

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— twitter-user (@username) date

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— twitter-user (@username) date

https://twitter.com/shirasuch_/status/1 ... 8087111680

- Q was supposed to not feature Shinji at all
- ultimately Anno thought it would be bad for the film if the main character wouldn't appear at all and hence Q's start was changed to when Shinji "wakes up", giving birth to lost 14 years
- Gendo and Fuyutsuki disappear, Kaworu and Kaji take the reins
- There are no details for the lost 14 years but scenario for them exists. Preview at the end of Ha is from that story.
- Naoko Akagi's settei wasn't written down with details and she was removed from NTE entirely

^
DeepL gives me something a little different :

I heard that Anno had a plan to make a movie about the 14 years of the gap between Q and the rest of the series, and not show Shinji-kun in the movie at all, which surprised Emi Ogata, who played Shinji-kun. In the end, that story disappeared and it became the story of Q, but I would love to see the details of that side story on film or even in writing.

While I admit that having Q beginning with Shinji's awakening and having the same confusion as him about wtf is going on was a brilliant move, I would had loved to see this timeskip movie!


The tweet with the arrows is the chain of events right after Ha, leading to Actual Third Impact (my comments in bold):

Near-surface activation at break (No idea what it's talking about, Google trad gives me "Near sir activated by defeat", maybe it's "Near Third is activated at (the end of) Ha"?) -> Gendou loses his position -> Kaworu and Kaji act as acting commanders and assistants to maintain the NERV and protect Misato and the others while Gendou is out of power -> Gendou somehow returns as NERV commander -> Gendou uses Zele (I suppose it's SEELE) or fights with her to cause the Third -> Kaji dies to stop the Third -> WILLE starts up -> to Q, I really want to see this story!

So, apparently the actual Third Impact was Gendo's doing, either by officially going back to the fold with SEELE (of course we know better) or literally by acting against them... THEN WHY THE FUCK IS Shinji CONSIDERED THE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS GODDAMMIT!?


The last one is a funny trivia : in episode 20 what Kaji was trying to do was a massage, and Misato thought it was something else and thus answered her (in)famous line "don't try to put weird things here!".


Another one :

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— twitter-user (@username) date

Anno talked about the 14 years gap was because Fumihiko Tachiki (Gendo's VA) asked him. And the tweet poster says that Anno "answered properly", no idea what that means.

ElMariachi wrote:The tweet with the arrows is the chain of events right after Ha, leading to Actual Third Impact (my comments in bold):

Near-surface activation at break (No idea what it's talking about, Google trad gives me "Near sir activated by defeat", maybe it's "Near Third is activated at (the end of) Ha"?) -> Gendou loses his position -> Kaworu and Kaji act as acting commanders and assistants to maintain the NERV and protect Misato and the others while Gendou is out of power -> Gendou somehow returns as NERV commander -> Gendou uses Zele (I suppose it's SEELE) or fights with her to cause the Third -> Kaji dies to stop the Third -> WILLE starts up -> to Q, I really want to see this story!

So, apparently the actual Third Impact was Gendo's doing, either by officially going back to the fold with SEELE (of course we know better) or literally by acting against them... THEN WHY THE FUCK IS Shinji CONSIDERED THE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS GODDAMMIT!?

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I think that part is only opinion of twitter user. That's why the user doesn't know if Gendo uses or figths SEELE for the Third Impact.

The user doesn't mentioned Anno said that in the greeting.

Konja7 wrote:Maybe I'm mistaken, but I think that part is only opinion of twitter user. That's why the user doesn't know if Gendo uses or figths SEELE for the Third Impact.

The user doesn't mentioned Anno said that in the greeting.

The way that tweet is written looks more like they are summarizing what Anno's saying, or else they wouldn't have added their opinion that "I really want to see this story!".
But we'll need the help of someone knowing Japanese to be sure.

So there IS a definite sequence of events to be puzzled out there.

I do like the idea that actual TI was Gendo's last ditch effort to stop SEELE. Or is the implication that he worked with them out of desperation?

I did have the impression that Kaji got to stay when Gendo left & everyone else was imprisoned because he'd been on SEELE's payroll but then used that position to help Misato's rebellion - I like the detail that he & Kaworu were explicitly protecting/helping them tho.
There was lost potential there with Misato maybe thinking he'd betrayed them just as she notices she's pregnant, but then in the end he helps them & she finds he was on their side all along, but he dies soon after, & maybe Misato is left feeling doubt that she could've prevented shit if she had trusted him & kaworu more.
Same as with Mari getting to know her & Asuka... 2.0 basically seems to set up conflict between them with Mari stealing Asuka's EVA, remarking on the "nice smell" & Misato commenting on Mari's loner attitude but forced to launch her anyways cause they're out of options.

I do hope we'll see the drafts published eventually. I so wish to know what Mari was discussing with the Reis, everything else we can more or less figure

The "movie with no Shinji" is something that wouldn't work for a tetralogy cause it would break the flow too much, but which could have worked if they had made it a bunch of OVAs (and also plit 2.0 in 2 with one movie largely like the one we got (with the extra time used for cut Misato stuff) and another focussing more on Asuka & Mari & ending with the sahaquiel battle, using all the draft stuff & supposed cut Asuka stuff)

My ideal repackaging of the Rebuild would be 7 90ish minute Ovas:
1. 1.0
2. The Asuka & Mari movie (with epp 11's worth of Rei stuff maybe), ending with the sahaquiel battle - including the bit where Mari participates in that fight & Asuka feeds her noodles afterwards. End with the sleepover scene.
3. more or less the rest 2.0 as we know it, except the 1st half hour is swapped for more Misato stuff and also the extended bardiel scene with Asuka's face ripping off. Also put the reishin kiss back in, like i specifically want that ultra weird scenario of the angel goo Rei kissing eva 01
4. The interim movie
5. Q
6. The village section of Final
7. The grand finale

I know that it probably would've break the narrative's flow (much like the excellent live action scenes from EOE), but c'mon! I would've killed for a movie without Shinji! Frankly, NTE is already disjointed by nature (both in tone and overall structure). So whatever!
Damn, that's all I really wanted, to be honest. Give me more Misato and Asuka! These are interesting characters (one of them is essentially brand new). Maybe take this opportunity to make me care about Mari and give Kaji's character a proper conclusion. Heck, even Kaworu could've benefited from more screen time. Sure, he works best under a limited time frame. But that's the case for the original series (in which the "monster of the week formula" was at play).
Oh well. I'm not sad because we didn't get to see this version of the movie. It's insane to be sad over something that simply doesn't exist (lol). I personally don't care too much about Q. So I wouldn't mind if it was replaced by this. It sounds amazing in paper. Maybe Khara could've pulled it off. The only downside is that Q and Shin's events would probably be crammed into the same movie (psychedelic).

I personally wanted to know how Mari and Asuka became friends, how Kensuke and Asuka became roommates (to the point of him being so important to her), how Misato felt about being pregnant and Kaji's position at Nerv, how Kaji and Kaworu felt about each other and their goals and what Gendo did during his exile. Also, what's up with Fuyutsuki's donkey, of course.
I'm not asking for a beautiful psychologic and philosophical journey (like the one seen in NGE). Just show me more about the world! Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about what we got. This all sounds incredibly interesting, though! Maybe the fact that it's a mystery makes everything even more intriguing.

I would like to know more about how Kaworu and Kaji work together. And how they try to protect Misato and the others.

Also, I would like to know how the events for the Third Impact were developed. And what connection it has with the Near Third Impact.

There is also a Rei clone likely having a role in the Q movie without Shinji. Maybe even an explanation why Rei's soul has long hair in Shin.

I really want to know the details about this movie that doesn't exist.

That's all really interesting and confirms the HA preview was indeed the events of the timeskip. I'm personally fine with how it turned out, while I know a lot of people were unhappy with 3.0, I found it very effective in creating a feeling of loneliness and desperation.

Yeah, the emotional torque was unparalleled and I'm not sure it could have worked that way if we'd seen what the others were up to.

This is just a definite conformation for things that we more or less already had puzzled out

Kendrix wrote:My ideal repackaging of the Rebuild would be 7 90ish minute Ovas:
1. 1.0
2. The Asuka & Mari movie (with epp 11's worth of Rei stuff maybe), ending with the sahaquiel battle - including the bit where Mari participates in that fight & Asuka feeds her noodles afterwards. End with the sleepover scene.
3. more or less the rest 2.0 as we know it, except the 1st half hour is swapped for more Misato stuff and also the extended bardiel scene with Asuka's face ripping off. Also put the reishin kiss back in, like i specifically want that ultra weird scenario of the angel goo Rei kissing eva 01
4. The interim movie
5. Q
6. The village section of Final
7. The grand finale

For your idea to work, Mari's backstory would had to be completely changed, since during Ha she's supposed to be dead so she had to stay under NERV's radar, and openly piloting the pilots Eva (before Zeruel's battle where shit hit the fan) would had definitively been noticed by Gendo!
Also she wouldn't even be able to eat with the others, since she already had the Curse of Eva by that time and couldn't eat anymore. (unless they actually can eat, but don't digest/take nutrient for it, it's unclear)

hui43210 wrote:That's all really interesting and confirms the HA preview was indeed the events of the timeskip. I'm personally fine with how it turned out, while I know a lot of people were unhappy with 3.0, I found it very effective in creating a feeling of loneliness and desperation.

Indeed, the feeling of disorientation, loneliness and despair wouldn't had worked nearly the same had a timeskip movie been released beforehand. In fact, it even takes away from the emotional impact of Part A of Shin when Shinji discover that Toji, Kensuke and Hikari survived.

To have it work, you need to have Q continuing up to the moment when they reach Village-3 and meet their adult friends, then have the flash-back movie, and afterward have Shin with the rest of their stay in the village and the end of the movie.

And even with that configuration, you lose part impact of the timeskip movie because you'll know in advance how it ends, with the world destroyed, Shinji's friends surviving... and it would spoil Kaji Jr! (unless you change the end of Q to have him appear at the village with the adult friends)


And... I'll be honest, even if they do announce a spin-off about the timeskip, I wouldn't be nearly as interested on it as would had been before, knowing that this setting is much more "empty" than I though and that every struggle, sacrifice and trying to adapt to this new world will be nullified by Shinji retconning everything to its pre-Second Impact state.

Kendrix wrote:Yeah, the emotional torque was unparalleled and I'm not sure it could have worked that way if we'd seen what the others were up to.

Yeah. The way awakening of Shinji after the timeskip will need to be totally different if a movie without him show the events between Near Third Impact and Near Third Impact.

The mystery and confusion that the audience share with Shinji wouldn't exist.

Not to mention that the last film of will need to cover the evemts of Q and Shin.

ElMariachi wrote:And... I'll be honest, even if they do announce a spin-off about the timeskip, I wouldn't be nearly as interested on it as would had been before, knowing that this setting is much more "empty" than I though and that every struggle, sacrifice and trying to adapt to this new world will be nullified by Shinji retconning everything to its pre-Second Impact state.

I suspect a spin-off would focus on the events between Near Third Impact and Third Impact. I doubt Khara has so much interest on the way humans survived after that.

Kendrix wrote:Yeah, the emotional torque was unparalleled and I'm not sure it could have worked that way if we'd seen what the others were up to.

One may ask: was it worth? Honestly, it depends on who you ask. Some people will say yes while others will say no. It's a matter of taste. We are talking about a movie that is confusing by nature. It wants to make us to feel in Shinji's shoes. For all intents and purposes, the characters talk about things that neither the protagonist nor the audience understands. Interestingly, we are not following the heroes throughout the narrative. This creates an intriguing dynamic, I believe. It's definitely not something new. This is a basic narrative device. However, it's unique within Evangelion's cinematography history.
Frankly, I'm usually not a fan of stuff like that. I personally prefer condensed, organized and clear storylines. When it comes to Q though, I'm mostly fine with it. I'm just not sure if it was worth throwing away entire chunks of the story (which were referenced later) for it.
In any case, I feel they could've done it in a different way. What bugs me isn't that they discarded the original Q. Things like that happen all the time. The weird thing is that it's still part of the story at some level. They wrote Q and Shin with it in the back of their heads. It feels like we're not seeing the full picture and that's somewhat awkward to me. It's ok to be a bit confusing on purpose. That's not what's happening here. Things such as the Third Impact are too complicated when they don't need to be. Why separate the two events when you're not going to explore what took place 14 years ago? I would personally streamline the whole situation. "Unfortunately, Kaworu wasn't able to stop Third Impact in time and the Earth was partially damaged as a result", or something like that. Unify everything under a single Impact and Shinji's responsibility for it will increase tremendously. I'll save the details for a proper post on "What would you change about Evangelion?"

ElMariachi wrote:Indeed, the feeling of disorientation, loneliness and despair wouldn't had worked nearly the same had a timeskip movie been released beforehand. In fact, it even takes away from the emotional impact of Part A of Shin when Shinji discover that Toji, Kensuke and Hikari survived.

This is simple to work around actually. Just cut the movie before Kaji saves the day. That way, the audience won't know exactly who survived or what happened. You know, HA kind of did a similar thing (at a lesser extent, of course).

Konja7 wrote:Not to mention that the last film of will need to cover the events of Q and Shin.

Yeah, that would have been crazy. They probably would find a way to work around it, though. After all, this was the original plan.

ElMariachi wrote:^

The tweet with the arrows is the chain of events right after Ha, leading to Actual Third Impact (my comments in bold):

Near-surface activation at break (No idea what it's talking about, Google trad gives me "Near sir activated by defeat", maybe it's "Near Third is activated at (the end of) Ha"?) -> Gendou loses his position -> Kaworu and Kaji act as acting commanders and assistants to maintain the NERV and protect Misato and the others while Gendou is out of power -> Gendou somehow returns as NERV commander -> Gendou uses Zele (I suppose it's SEELE) or fights with her to cause the Third -> Kaji dies to stop the Third -> WILLE starts up -> to Q, I really want to see this story!

So, apparently the actual Third Impact was Gendo's doing, either by officially going back to the fold with SEELE (of course we know better) or literally by acting against them... THEN WHY THE FUCK IS Shinji CONSIDERED THE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS GODDAMMIT!?

破(Ha) is often translated as "break", so your translation "Near Third is activated at (the end of) Ha" looks accurate.

I forgot that Kaworu was in a blue uniform when we saw him in the 3.0 trailer at the end of 2.0, and now I realize that he was wearing the Nerv commander uniform and not Kaji's inspector uniform during those scenes. I can buy Gendo being kicked out of power due to Seele blowing their collective fuses over N3I - which Kaworu had stopped, after all. That means that the mysterious trailer scene of Gendo and Fuyutsuki with a donkey standing on top of ruins probably had something to do with how Gendo got back to power in the first place, going and getting/doing something that got him back into Seele's good graces and reinstated.

This still doesn't answer the big timeline question of what Gendo and Misato were doing during those 14 years - Shin Eva confirmed that there wasn't all that much time between N3I and 3I proper - but it's an interesting start, nevertheless.

UrsusArctos wrote:I forgot that Kaworu was in a blue uniform when we saw him in the 3.0 trailer at the end of 2.0, and now I realize that he was wearing the Nerv commander uniform

Yeah! I was about to point that out! Look at his clothes. Familiar, huh?

I'm collecting more info in my trello, here: https://trello.com/c/xgOJh1Lj

I've also took note we haven't coalesced information on the ANN radio show, the June cast greeting, the Utada/Anno stream, and more.

YES, I KNEW IT! I told you guys that the 3.0 preview was a discarded plan for the actual movie, but did you listen? NO! You just acted like the preview was supposed to be some weird mindscrew and that 3.0's story was planned from the beginning! So there, I was right! How do you feel now?

Okay, calming down for a moment, it seems like most of the stuff Anno says was in the original story for the movie we were already able to figure out: Kaji and Kaworu command a rebellion in NERV, Gendo and SEELE start the second phase of Third Impact, Kaji sacrifices his life to stop them. But it's interesting to find out that Gendo and Fuyutski actually left NERV for some reason, and that the "rebellion in NERV" was actually NERV itself. If I had to guess, I'd say that the infamous "donkey scene" was Gendo and Fuyutski looking at the corpse of one of the Adams (which would later become Eva 13), Kaji's NERV fought the 11th Angel in the middle of the movie, and SEELE used the 12th Angel to hijack Mark 6 and restart Third Impact.

Over all, I do share people's frustrations with the time skip not being explored more. Even if seeing the events before 3.0 would make the movie's disorienting effect less powerful, it would be nice to see this scrapped plot as a movie in between 3.0 and 3.0+1.0, like with the Star Wars viewing order that puts the prequels after Empire Strikes Back. Without those events being shown, though, the Rebuild story feels somewhat incomplete.

BusterMachine4 wrote:YES, I KNEW IT! I told you guys that the 3.0 preview was a discarded plan for the actual movie, but did you listen? NO! You just acted like the preview was supposed to be some weird mindscrew and that 3.0's story was planned from the beginning! So there, I was right! How do you feel now?

We've... speculated about this since before you hit puberty.

Also HOLY SHIT, those tweets need to be translated properly to be appreciated! DeepL isn't cutting it! Here's my translation of tweet number one:

When Director Anno spoke about the 14-year timeskip at the final stage greeting, he addressed why Kaworu was wearing a commander's uniform. Fuyutsuki and Gendo were removed from power at Nerv, following the end of Ha. Kaworu became commander, and Kaji became Vice-Commander. Anno said Q was originally supposed to be a film about how this happened.

Editing in tweet two:

Q was originally meant to be about the 14-year timeskip, and Anno planned to not have Shinji in the entire film. Shinji's voice actor, Ogata Megumi, was surprised at this. In the end, that idea was set aside, and Q became the film we got.

Editing in tweet three:

Near-Third Impact in Ha → Gendo ousted → Kaworu and Kaji assume command in Gendo's absence, aid in the preservation of NERV and in protecting Misato and co. → Gendo somehow reassumes command at NERV → Gendo uses SEELE, another battle occurs, starts Third Impact → Kaji dies to stop Third Impact → WILLE is born → Q begins

Editing in tweet four:

Regarding Kaworu, Kaji, and the reason they assumed command and assistance duties at Nerv, Kaworu did it for Shinji, while Kaji did it to take care of his seed research and to help Misato plus the WILLE faction. Both of them had their own interests to take care of, as well as the people they loved and wanted to see happy, and worked together to that end.

Nothing useful in tweet five, it's just the person's personal impressions. Tweet six is the poster retracting his personal statement that this was the first time anybody had spoken about the original plan for Q; while it was the first time Anno said anything publicly about it, Tsurumaki actually mentioned it in the Newtype interview from the June issue on pages 138-139.

Finally, editing in the tweet showing the image from episode 20:

At the final stage greeting for Shin Eva, Director Anno said that in episode 20 of NGE, in the scene with Kaji and Misato where the camera focuses on the dresser, he told TV Tokyo, "It's a massage scene" in order to get permission to broadcast it.

Apparently the crowd went nuts.

Nuclear Lunchbox wrote:

At the final stage greeting for Shin Eva, Director Anno said that in episode 20 of NGE, in the scene with Kaji and Misato where the camera focuses on the dresser, he told TV Tokyo, "It's a massage scene" in order to get permission to broadcast it.

Apparently the crowd went nuts.

sometimes this is what you gotta do in the name of true art

i ultimately agree with their decision but i still wanna see the drafts for the timeskip movie/ wish it could've been its own ova or something

BusterMachine4 wrote:YES, I KNEW IT! I told you guys that the 3.0 preview was a discarded plan for the actual movie, but did you listen? NO! You just acted like the preview was supposed to be some weird mindscrew and that 3.0's story was planned from the beginning! So there, I was right! How do you feel now?

There has been speculation about the idea that the 3.0 preview was the original plan.

I think what nobody imagined was that Shinji wouldn't appear in that movie. That's why the idea of a movie about 3.0 preview always seemed contradictory with Anno saying the timeskip was always planned.

The situation is more clear now. Anno always planned the timeskip when Shinji awake, but the original plan included a whole movie without Shinji first.