To answer the OP: even if that were the case (which I don't think it is considering how subjective these things are), it really wouldn't mean anything. Movies are not about teaching their audience a lesson, but about telling a story through their imagery and sound designs. I don't think EOE and Shin were created with the core intention of helping people out, even if they did in hindsight.
EOE was created so that screenwriters could push their characters to the absolute limit (that's why it could only be the very end of the story, its climax). I think that was the main driving force behind it.

The problem of the ending is simply that, on a very basic level, it is not a satisfactory ending and it's carried by the emotional pay-off of seeing the pilots all grown up and happy in a normal world (except Asuka, fuck her specifically).

Joseki wrote:The problem of the ending is simply that, on a very basic level, it is not a satisfactory ending carried by the emotional pay-off of seeing the pilots all grown up and happy in a normal world (except Asuka, fuck her specifically).

What’s wrong with Asuka?

ChrisTamv wrote:46h pretty much confirmed that the red L - field contamination around the Earth is caused by and spreads around the Failures of Infinity, which turn white and dissolve in the end, therefore taking the Earth contamination along with them. This doesn't cover the water contamination though, whose disappearance I can only explain as being the result of the "Gates of Hell" in Antarctica, which were always in direct contact with the surrounding oceans, finally closing in the end.

-46h confirmed the red land was spread by the Failures of Infinity after the Third Impact was stopped (the fast corification at the beginning seems to be directly caused by the Third Impact). However, there isn't confirmation that the presence of Failures of Infinity was necessary to mantain that red state. After all, the sea doesn't need FOI to be mantained red.

At the end, we could assume Shinji's wish to dissapear the Evas include repairing the world from the damage caused by Eva and similars (like Adams or FOI). That explain why the ground and the sea return to normal.

Honestly, it wouldn't make sense that Shinji would only wish for the Eva to dissapear, while planning to leave a doomed and uninhabitable world to humans.

ChrisTamv wrote:This is imo the second most likely interpretation of the ending (which I lowkey wish was the most plausible one because of how much more straightforward it is). However a big problem I have with it is that without the element of being transported to a parallel reality, the last scene can only make sense if it happens after a significant timeskip, during which humanity has been able to rebuilt to a good extent and Shinji has been able to get educated to a degree that he can get an office job at a company which should function normally in this post - apocalyptic setting. However Shinji and Mari don't look that old here...

My current theory is that Mari only could save Shinji after a good amount of time in the minus universe. That's why he decides to return as an adult.

That said, it doesn't answer why Shinji has an office job.

C.T.1290 wrote:What’s wrong with Asuka?

Nothing new, but the fact that the movie goes out of its way to:

- make her wear a latex fetish ripped plugsuit on the beach
- not allow her to make a decision for herself or even speak at all
- hide her more normal, not perverted adult look in the background in the train station

Honestly it's infuriatingly pathetic what the movie does to Asuka specifically, only matched by the removal of any LGBTQ+ element (happy pride month everyone).

ChrisTamv wrote:How is getting over Eva as a franchise that has become source of unhealthy escapism (even without extending it to unhealthy escapism through media in general which has been a message in development since 2.0), "completely opposite" to the intended message?

I can see an argument made for Shin effectively exploring grief and a variety of maladjusted behaviors. But I don't see how it has anything effective to say about escapism in relation to media. Mari reads a lot of books, Asuka plays a lot of games, and the latter (or at least, its degree of extremity) is an expression of some larger issue of Asuka's. But like, Mari's insane amount of reading and idealistic dream are treated as matter of fact. And anyway these are super, super minor elements. The way you phrase it almost frames Shin as some kind of concept movie dedicated to parsing our relationship with media, or escapism, or anyone's relationship to the franchise that isn't Anno. Nearest I could stretch, maybe Kaworu's codependency could be said to resemble an audience's attachment to a character and their unquestioned desire to vicariously experience happiness, plus their negative reaction when that demand isn't met... but like, the film proceeds to indulge in that desire and give the audience a happy ending. What exactly is being outlined or challenged?

Upon release I saw numerous suggestions that the film is more esoteric than it seems and that the endless horde action scenes are "bad on purpose" as a statement on media, but then like ... in later interviews Anno said those things were done for the fun of it. I get the tokusatsu homage in minus-space, and the argument that it's meta in a genre sense that Shinji and Gendo lock into endless combat only to talk it out but... that has nothing to do with escapism. Is Gendo escaping into the battle because he thinks battles are cool, or in any fashion similar to otaku? It's a more specific problem Gendo has with avoidance, among other things. You could argue that scene is proof of instruction, "robot battles are not the way, viewer." But like, I don't associate Eva with battles in the first place. I relate its draw to what makes it unique: how it does away with its initial premise and descends into the psychological ... if anything, NTE has used battles as a draw and featured it as a pervasive element way, way more than the franchise did prior to NTE's existence in the first place.

I've seen 0 attempts to justify the more gratuitous than ever fanservice, and the higher degree of it intruding where it doesn't fit tonally, but it's worth mentioning it for emphasis.

I seriously loathe the premise that Shin was meant to drive a stake through the heart of misguided fandom, not least of all because the definition of "misguided" changes depending on who's asserting that premise. If we travel back in time before Anno & co did all they could to tamp down on reading the end through some kind of shipper lens, there were numerous theories about how the ending sequence was meant to cause intentional grief among shippers. Inherent to that argument is the tacit claim that the most notable, central dynamic regarding Eva is who Shinji shacks up with. However, that's another argument without textual support. Thrice led, in fact, to an uptick in people "waifuing" Mari, which is only natural considering Thrice gave more attention than ever to her, including her breasts. In the actual text, nothing whatsoever was done to separate NTE from what ostensibly created fandom toxicity in the first place. If the intent was to put a silence on waifu wars, it wouldn't have even approached something so visually ship-y, nor have its own tacit argument that the ultimate destination (and thus point of all that precedes) rests on who Shinji shacks up with.

The way Thrice is sometimes talked about, someone unfamiliar would go in expecting Tarkovsky or Cassavetes. But like, it has action for action's sake and ecchi with no real unifying point other than that it's an entertainment product.

I would honestly love to see the Shin that is a concept movie to the core, thoroughly about the franchise itself and our relationship to it as fans. I imagine it would have a scene where Asuka walks into a real life Evangelion Store, and newly aware of how fetishized she is, feels overcome with abject revulsion.

Axx°N N. wrote:But like, I don't associate Eva with battles in the first place. I relate its draw to what makes it unique: how it does away with its initial premise and descends into the psychological ... if anything, NTE has used battles as a draw and featured it as a pervasive element way, way more than the franchise did prior to NTE's existence in the first place.

The bulk of your criticism is fair and I strongly agree to the notion that some shots are less than savory (looking at you, ripped plugsuit), but I do take issue with this one point in particular, you are conflating your own experience with the general reception here; Eva is absolutely looked at as an action show first, which NGE leaned into a lot more heavily than NTE does.

Eva is absolutely looked at as an action show first

If this was true when it came out, it certainly isn’t anymore, because nowadays Eva is looked at almost universally as a “psychological” show first and foremost. Whether or not it’s actually true, Eva’s reputation is by far “psychological show masquerading as shonen mecha anime” rather than “shonen mecha anime with psychological elements”.

That's not really true; this is a perception largely limited to the English-speaking anime discourse; things look much different in most other places; from all I gather, that crucially includes Japan.

I always got the impression that Eva was perceived in Japan as being notable for its psychological elements. There's a glut of academic books, Anno released the psychology-themed Schizo/Perano, and most interviews with Anno about Eva end up getting pretty introspective. I'd also argue that the fact Shin disposes of its battle scenes in favor of waxing philosophical shows that Khara understands that that was the expectation/precedent/tradition to live up to in the end.

I don't see how it can be said that NGE leaned into the battles more, I feel as if NTE is way more action-intensive.

The Japanese Wikipedia article for Eva mentions in the lead-in that the genre "Sekai-kei" (セカイ系) is associated with Eva and that Eva is often attributed as the originator. It's a vague amorphous term, but even its wikipedia and TvTropes articles get pretty heady.

Oh yeah, it is definitely a big part of the image, but there's a false dichotomy in the notion that you either look at Eva a an action show or as a psychological show; it is both, and from every piece of insight I have about Japanese reception, it is largely percieved as both on pretty equal footing. It is not, to quote the specific phrasing I was arguing against, "looked at almost universally as a 'psychological' show first and foremost".