Ok, I'm like really dissapointed in how the action in this scene took place. Like, I mean, for me it was sooo ridiculous how Mari easily got rid of a bunch of Hi-Tech Evas built from Neo Nerv.

There were literally like a bunch of Evas fighting against Mari and she just literally got them together and threw them to the ground like if they were nothing but shitty technology (and then they even exploded for no apparent reason too).

It didn't give me the feeling of a complicated or dangerous battle and felt so cheap (at least for me). There were no real stakes in that action sequence and I felt it as unnecesary filler.

I didn't feel there was real danger in that fight sequence, and don't get me started with thise useless spears of Longinus which served no purpose like in EoE.

I think they should have started the movie with the OG pilots (well, Rei 6 Is not the original but you know what I mean) wandering through the red land instead.

It didn't click for me and left me wondering why un the hell they decided to create a boring battle sequence in which you know who's gonna win anyway. It felt cheap IMO.

Any thoughts you guys and girls?

AsukaShikinami10 wrote:There were literally like a bunch of Evas fighting against Mari and she just literally got them together and threw them to the ground like if they were nothing but shitty technology (and then they even exploded for no apparent reason too).

Yeah, the mechanics of this aerial dogpile have confused me too. Like, what?


I think what they were going for here was "Mari and Nagara are so clever that they whipped Unit 08 around in the air just so, so that 100% of the Mark 44As in pursuit made a beeline for exactly the same place at the same time and ended up in a traffic-jammed collision." Farfetched I guess!

@nerv bae yeah, but then Mari just simply tossed away all Marks.44A and they went kaboom for no apparent reason. What was the action that made them explode in the first place? To think it was core collapse seems a little far-fetched for me.

For me it was really silly how the Khara team handled that scene. It felt so cheap IMO and lacked real tension.

The Mark 044As blow up when they're crushed. Unit 08 smashes one underfoot to the ground and it explodes just from that, so it's easy for me to believe that a big pile of them would get smashed up and explode when dropped from altitude.

Regarding tension in the scene generally: Midori is a bit flustered as she reports the appearance of the Mark 044As, but Ritsuko calmly observes "They've formed a colony on their own. It's like a new creature now.", and asks Mari to intercept. Mari, being Mari, has fun doing so. There isn't much tension in the scene because the senior WILLE people understand that the Mark 044A colony isn't really a threat: it's more like an area-denial landmine than a true peer adversary.

In the following scene when the 44Bs and 4444C appear, the tension gets higher: the music ratchets up and Ritsuko's assessment is much more dire.

nerv bae wrote:In the following scene when the 44Bs and 4444C appear, the tension gets higher: the music ratchets up and Ritsuko's assessment is much more dire.

I wonder what the logistics are behind them moving to Paris and if they are just one shot evas made for the purpose of defending a dead city (why?) or if they're all around the world. As always we lack context but I now tend to think we shouldn't think about all these details too much because there's probably no lore/explanation behind it.

In the end everthing is always going according to keikaku, making all these artifical foes useless (the gold medal goes to the 07 series that has a lifespan of like a minute for like hundreds of thousands of units who somehow fit in the nerv pyramid). Most of these fights could be cut from the movie because they serve absolutely no purpose in addition of being messy; Gendo needs them to come awaken Eva-13 anyway...

The entirety of that sequence is a love letter to old mecha and tokusatsu, much like Operation Yamato later in the movie; I don't particularily care for the kind of action that makes up the end of the 44A part either, but it'S important to recognize who the target audience of something is, and if you came into the scene expecting "grounded" (very heavy airquotes here) mecha action, you are plain and simply not the target audience, and that's okay

Well, I personnaly don't expect anything too grounded; I like me some funky action sequences, but they need to serve a purpose, something 3.0 does well without overstaying their welcome. It doesn't feel very warranted in the last movie, especially the mess with the mark.07 series and those silly jumping arms.

Still, I absolutely loved the ships battle when they head for the black moon; everything's perfect.

Jinroh wrote: silly jumping arms.

Like the Mark 044A colony, I think the silly jumping arms are intended by NERV to serve more as area denial / harassment than peer adversary.

I really dislike how they do action in these movies. Action is just here to being explosive and "cool", not to really integrate anything into plot, and this Paris thing it's really the ultimate expression of that. I just hate when movies do things for the sake of it.

nerv bae wrote:Regarding tension in the scene generally: Midori is a bit flustered as she reports the appearance of the Mark 044As, but Ritsuko calmly observes "They've formed a colony on their own. It's like a new creature now.", and asks Mari to intercept. Mari, being Mari, has fun doing so. There isn't much tension in the scene because the senior WILLE people understand that the Mark 044A colony isn't really a threat: it's more like an area-denial landmine than a true peer adversary.

I remember when the Paris fight clip was released before the movie release, Ritsuko's line made us talk about the hypothesis that this might be how neo-NERV keeps the pressure on WILLE, by releasing drones all around the world to settle colonies by "Van Newman probing" themselves, which might be why WILLE keeps cruisers and battleships with canons on its fleet.

The whole vibe of that fight could be interpreted as a way to convey how "out of place" Mari is in Evangelion as a whole: until now all the fights were against one enemy (the Angels) or a handful of them (the drones in operation US, EVA-13 and mark.09 in Lilith's Chamber...) and treated with a lot of gravitas and tension, and ever since the timeskip, all scenes outside of battles were tense and depressing (even the scenes between Shinji and Kaworu had an ephemeral vibe, that it's only the eye of the storm), and we're straight out of 3.0 where everything has gone to hell... and we follow by Mari basically having a tokusatsu fight while having the time of her life flying around, the closest fight we got to this vibe is Asuka's introduction in 2.0.
Nonetheless, this mood whiplash could feel jarring when you compare it to all other fights since the timeskip (to say nothing of its general mood).

Other elements that might displease people are the following:

• disconnect with the events of the movie: when exactly does this fight takes place? Mari mentions that she'll go save Shinji, meaning that its before the trio was retrieved by Kensuke, so does that mean that WILLE just left Asuka behind and instead made a beeline for Paris while managing to build those improvised arms for Unit 8 in a couple of days (the trio's trek couldn't had lasted more), to get material to repair an Unit that they won't even be able to use if they don't take back their pilot (that they left behind)? Also, Mari's last words in this scene is how now she'll save Shinji... and then nothing, Shinji and Co are picked up by Kensuke, and Mari completely disappear, not even mentioned, until the last part of the movie when she greets Asuka back in the Wunder, not even a mention that she wanted to go search for them but that Kensuka was faster to tie up the two scenes, which contributes at making it feel kind of disconnected with the rest of the movie (in the end it only serves to justify 08's new armor and 02's Jet Alone cyborg body)
• coherence with the setting: I admit that that one is a nitpick of mine, but why did NERV transformed Paris into a warehouse for Evangelion parts? It would had been way easier and practical to build it anywhere else in the countryside instead of carving up the capital. Before, all the places in the franchises had an in-universe reason to be where they are and the way they are: NERV US was in the desert of Arizona, far from densely inhabited places (and with vast spaces to test their Evas), Bethany Base was in the North Pole to keep the researches on the Third Angel far from any prying eyes (and be able to detonate the base in case of containment breach without anyone the wiser), Taghba base was on the Moon because that's where Mark.06 and Kaworu were and again to keep it far from the eyes of everyone not in SEELE's inner circle, Tokyo-3 had to be built in Hakone because that's where the Black Moon and Lilith are buried, and it was built the way it was specifically to help support the Evangelions in battle... but I can't find any logical reason for the NERV EU warehouse to be in the Champs Elysée in Paris of all places, except that Anno wanted to have a cool fight in Paris.
• the design of the enemies: that one is a bigger pet peeves of mine. The drones' design in 3.0 looked elegant with their roots in Eva technology being clear, but still looking like their own thing:
  
  SPOILER: Show

  
  
  
  
  Now come Thrice and you have that:
  
  SPOILER: Show

  
  
  
  
  I'm actually supposed to take that seriously? Mind you, this is not limited to the Paris battle, as even the final battle goes full in the tokusatsu vibe, with the "Arm-units" that look straight out of Megaman, the Adam's Vessels looking like a Sentai bad guys squad with only the color differentiating them, or the Mark.07 (the only ones having a genuinely unsettling design) being like the mooks being beat by the sentai team by the dozen.

I actually don’t mind the designs of those drones, there’s something unsettling about them basically just being kitbashed Eva’s.

However, they just make like zero sense in-universe. More broadly speaking, literally nothing about neo-NERV makes any sense. It breaks all suspension of disbelief for me that Gendo and Fuyutsuki just willed all of these Eva’s into existence with no explanation.

^
I wouldn't had minded (that much) these kind of designs if they appeared since the start, in 3.0. That could had been used as a theme that SEELE/NERV's plans had gone to hell after 2.0 and that now they and WILLE on the other side are desperately throwing everything they could salvage and kitbash at each other.
But the fact that the previous drone designs exist in 3.0 and the absurd amount of gear neo-NERV show in Thrice make this vibe impossible.

ElMariachi wrote:Other elements that might displease people are the following:

• disconnect with the events of the movie: ... Also, Mari's last words in this scene is how now she'll save Shinji... and then nothing, Shinji and Co are picked up by Kensuke, and Mari completely disappear, not even mentioned, until the last part of the movie when she greets Asuka back in the Wunder, not even a mention that she wanted to go search for them but that Kensuka was faster to tie up the two scenes, which contributes at making it feel kind of disconnected with the rest of the movie (in the end it only serves to justify 08's new armor and 02's Jet Alone cyborg body)

The Prime translation gives Mari's dialogue here as "The end crowns the work. Now a cannibalized Unit 02 can be built anew and Unit 08 can be modified to be overlapping-compliant. No matter where you are, I'll come get you. You just wait, Puppy Boy." From this dialogue I think it's very clear that Mari is anticipating rescuing Shinji from the anti-universe after Gendo's schemes come to fruition, rather than from the red earth he's wandering while she's in Paris.

^
I would also like to add that all Neo-Nerv's Evangelions seem to be really useless an Easy to handle with. We were supposed to believe they were the ones with the best technology all this years from what we saw from 3.0 (the autonomous systems that build massive amounts of Eva units and their respective accesories).

There is tension within the battles in 3.0, but in TUAT there's zero difficulty on WILLE's part to take care of Neo-Nerv's Evangelions. They seem to be pieces of junk put together for the sake of makimg battle sequences possible.

Mari easily gets rid of literally hordes of Evas with no problem at all. Even the hype I got from seeing hordes of Mk.07s vanished when watching the meaningless action sequence, like I mean, what was the point of those units if they didn't even got weapons ffks sake.

nerv bae wrote:The Prime translation gives Mari's dialogue here as "The end crowns the work. Now a cannibalized Unit 02 can be built anew and Unit 08 can be modified to be overlapping-compliant. No matter where you are, I'll come get you. You just wait, Puppy Boy." From this dialogue I think it's very clear that Mari is anticipating rescuing Shinji from the anti-universe after Gendo's schemes come to fruition, rather than from the red earth he's wandering while she's in Paris.

The "You just wait, Puppy Boy." implies that she's talking about a situation where Shinji is right now (the classical "wait for me, I'm coming"), it doesn't make any sense that Mari would be talking about getting him out of the Anti-Universe unless she can see the future.

AsukaShikinami10 wrote:^
I would also like to add that all Neo-Nerv's Evangelions seem to be really useless an Easy to handle with. We were supposed to believe they were the ones with the best technology all this years from what we saw from 3.0 (the autonomous systems that build massive amounts of Eva units and their respective accesories).

There is tension within the battles in 3.0, but in TUAT there's zero difficulty on WILLE's part to take care of Neo-Nerv's Evangelions. They seem to be pieces of junk put together for the sake of makimg battle sequences possible.

Mari easily gets rid of literally hordes of Evas with no problem at all. Even the hype I got from seeing hordes of Mk.07s vanished when watching the meaningless action sequence, like I mean, what was the point of those units if they didn't even got weapons ffks sake.

The easier to fight drones in Thrice is part of the mood whiplash I was talking about, since in 3.0 all of neo-NERV's drones were extremely dangerous (although to be fair the 44B was also depicted as fearsome and managed to injure Unit 08). The real whiplash is when the Adam's Vessels get the same treatment, going from an unkillable Mark.09 full of nasty surprises in 3.0, to the four of them curbstomped by Mari.

Concept arts from Yamashita implies that the Mark.07 were originally supposed to have another role, since in their first version they were supposed to be suicide bombers full of a liquid that turns to core everything it touch. (maybe there were initial plans to have the Village attacked?)
I suppose that part of the disappointment is that their had a counterpart in the Mark.06 shaped MP-Evas from the first NTP of Thrice, where they were all armed and 8+2, while defeating a lot of them, was still visibly struggling and could be overwhelmed at any moment.

ElMariachi wrote:The "You just wait, Puppy Boy." implies that she's talking about a situation where Shinji is right now (the classical "wait for me, I'm coming"), it doesn't make any sense that Mari would be talking about getting him out of the Anti-Universe unless she can see the future.

Mmmmm, disagree, I don't think that's implied. Further, the only purpose of making Unit 08 overlapping compliant is so that it can incorporate Adams Vessels and navigate the anti-universe, right? That's why she's in Paris -- to further her (probably secret from WILLE) plan to rescue Shinji from the anti-universe after he inevitably follows Gendo in there. I understand this requires Mari to perform Gendo-level crystal ball-gazing but it's the only way I can make sense of why she would mention overlapping compliance in Paris.

Yeah, but that is possible if only Mari knew the Gates of Hell were still open after so many years, because as we watched in the movie, Misato seemed surprised to see the Gates of Hell were still open after so many years.

So did Mari had her own agenda and hid as much información as possible from WILLE and Made them use the overlapping system because she knew it would be necessary at some point or I don't know what Anno was thinking at all when he made all those separate sequences (also the wait for me Puppy-boy line doesn't make any sense to me dicen how the movie and her interactions with Shinji were handled).

So did Mari had her own agenda and hid as much información as possible from WILLE and Made them use the overlapping system because she knew it would be necessary at some point

You and I both know that, given the extent of Mari’s character development in the Rebuilds, this is unfortunately all too plausible.

AsukaShikinami10 wrote:So did Mari had her own agenda and hid as much información as possible from WILLE and Made them use the overlapping system because she knew it would be necessary at some point or I don't know what Anno was thinking at all when he made all those separate sequences (also the wait for me Puppy-boy line doesn't make any sense to me dicen how the movie and her interactions with Shinji were handled).

But that rise the question that if the rest of WILLE didn't know about Gendo's plan to go in the anti-universe (or even that the door to it still existed), then why did they installed this overlapping system?

And if that was indeed Mari's plan from the beginning, if she knew about Gendo's true plans and prepared in advance to counter it with the overlapping system, then there's the Fridge Logic that all she had to do was to inform WILLE that needed Asuka's angel and the Wunder so they would avoid going in Antarctica and instead wait somewhere to have neo-NERV forces come to them under their terms, or at least not going in Antarctica blind. But instead they let them go headfirst into a trap where many of them could die, just so her old pal from college days would have the opportunity to patch things up with his son?
Also, how could she know that Shinji would be willing (or even in a state) to talk to his father? She only know him from when he was an infant and met one time quickly 14 years ago where all she did was falling breasts first on his face and sniff him!

ElMariachi wrote:
But that rise the question that if the rest of WILLE didn't know about Gendo's plan to go in the anti-universe (or even that the door to it still existed), then why did they installed this overlapping system?

^
This.

Exactly what I was thinking today. It doesn't make any sense that WILLE planned from the very beginning of Operation Paris the implementación of the overlapping system, since they didn't even know the Gates of Hell were still open.