Remake / Sequel Discussion

[michaelovan]

I just got back from EVA 3.0 and, while my Japanese is by no means fluent,

SPOILER: Show

I'm pretty confident that, in a discussion between Shinji and Kaoru, descending below the Geofront, Kaoru confirms the suspicion that ROE is a sequel. He says something to the effect of this (third impact) having happened before, alluding to millions upon millions of skulls resting on the earth, far below the Geofront.

I think that it's still arguable that it isn't a sequel, by the way. Kaoru doesn't straight up say, "Hey, Shinji, you already caused third impact a long time ago in another dimension, remember?" Kaoru is an Angel and, as such, I think a certain amount of omnipotence can be awarded to him.

The person I saw the film with, my Japanese fiancé who has no interest in Eva, kind of confirmed what I thought I had heard, but just in case we were mistaken, please feel free to clarify.

[Xard]

Thanks for that.


Now I'm waiting for LiLi's two cents

[Mr. Tines]

SPOILER: Show

He says something to the effect of this (third impact) having happened before, alluding to millions upon millions of skulls resting on the earth, far below the Geofront.

SPOILER: Show

Which could be speaking of what happened to the FAR-equivalent in this alternate, whose remains are entombed in their vessel, which in the primary timeline we knew as the Black Moon.

[Hyper Shinchan]

Thanks a lot. I'm waiting for some other comments from people who saw it that could clarify this thing. It looks interesting.

[michaelovan]

Yeah, I would love for another set of eyes and ears!

[Jayfive]

He says something to the effect of this (third impact) having happened before, alluding to millions upon millions of skulls resting on the earth, far below the Geofront.

Based on what has been said everywhere, those are Eva skulls. Too big to be human.

Im wondering maybe if there was a Earth populated by being like Eva that were wiped out at some stage.

[Reichu]

Based on what has been said everywhere, those are Eva skulls. Too big to be human.

Don't look a whole lot like Eva heads. Evas have really narrow heads with eyes spaced further to the sides of the head and proportionately bigger teeth.

Then, they did make the mistake of giving a prototype Eva an effectively homonoid skull in EoE, so maybe I'm giving khara too much credit here.

At the OP, the scenario represented, wherein Impacts result in giant skulls accumulating in Central Dogma, has no precedent in NGE canon. So Kaworu's comment would, yet again, only have bearing on the history of NME's universe.

[michaelovan]

Based on what has been said everywhere, those are Eva skulls. Too big to be human.

Could be. But looked very, very human to me. I'll have to watch it again!

[Jayfive]

SPOILER: Show

2nd row, left hand side. Eva's feet/legs no? SO if you bear in mind that an Eva's foot is bigger than a car, then if not actual eva skulls, they are the remnants of something eva-sized.

[Hyper Shinchan]

Or they could have fucked up proportions even though they're working with digital animation, who knows.

[Choo1701]

Don't look a whole lot like Eva heads. Evas have really narrow heads with eyes spaced further to the sides of the head and proportionately bigger teeth.

Then, they did make the mistake of giving a prototype Eva an effectively homonoid skull in EoE, so maybe I'm giving khara too much credit here.

Well using human skulls (lots of skulls by the looks of it) is a lot more symbolic, and easier for the audience to connect too than whatever an Evangelion skull looks like.

[Grub]

Maybe they're all skulls from reincarnations of the same eva-sized entity?

[Xard]

Or they could have fucked up proportions even though they're working with digital animation, who knows.

Not really beliavable IMO

[Reichu]

Well using human skulls (lots of skulls by the looks of it) is a lot more symbolic, and easier for the audience to connect too than whatever an Evangelion skull looks like.

Honestly, an (accurate) Eva skull wouldn't look different enough from a human skull for the symbolism to be lost in any significant way. Eva heads are fundamentally distorted human heads, and their skulls would be distorted human skulls. The human skull is nothing if not an incredibly flexible icon.

[Jayfive]

But isnt that only based on data from NGE? We've not seen anything in rebuild to confirm this AFAICR.

I'll happily plump for 'eva-sized beings' for now :)

[Chuckman]

From what I've seen so far, it has occurred to me that it's possible that the series is neither a perfect loop (a "groundhog day") nor a direct sequel (because that's stupid) but an imperfect time loop where certain events resonate with each other (Bardiel still happens, but the circumstances are different) and junk from the last iteration survives or manifests somehow (all of the clues/references) or is drawn into being by a sort of existential inertia.

If this is the case, I don't expect a direct, explicit confirmation.

[Kodaemon]

This has been my interpretation pretty much from the beginning - NGE happened, in another timeline/dimension/whatever, and "echoes" of those events influence the current Rebuild reality.

I get lumped with the silly literalist sequel theorists anyway.

[Bagheera]

Something that's been vaguely acknowledged here and there but never really discussed outright is the possibility that the NTE has nothing to do with NGE/EoE but is still a loop within its own right. I mean, I don't really see evidence for that, either (apart from some of Kaworu's lines), but it's nevertheless possible to have repeating events without need for a sequel proper.

[Chuckman]

This has been my interpretation pretty much from the beginning - NGE happened, in another timeline/dimension/whatever, and "echoes" of those events influence the current Rebuild reality.

I get lumped with the silly literalist sequel theorists anyway.

Something that's been vaguely acknowledged here and there but never really discussed outright is the possibility that the NTE has nothing to do with NGE/EoE but is still a loop within its own right. I mean, I don't really see evidence for that, either (apart from some of Kaworu's lines), but it's nevertheless possible to have repeating events without need for a sequel proper.

They exist as separate fictions, full of intertextual references, callbacks, and echoes of each other.

They exist as separate dimensions, full of echoes of each other, similar events, eddies in the flow that show up concurrently within the two.

These are in essence the same thing, especially given that EoE is full of imagery that acknowledges itself as a fiction, and especially in light of the high school comedy AU that appears within the series itself.

To use the musical metaphor that infuses the series, Rebuild Shinji is not his predecessor in a direct way, they're the same song in a different key.

I find it fascinating that the fandom and fans of this sort of material in general have so much interest and difficult working these things out. If a novelist writes multiple drafts of his book, what is their relationship to each other? Do the characters live in parallel universes, or a time loop?

Is that what's happening here?

"Is it a sequel or not" is too restricted and literalist a question. I'd rather bend my mind.

[Gekusu]

Regarding the skulls:

SPOILER: Show

That is an Eva leg in the picture. And yes, there are a LOT of skulls - as well as floating corpses that are probably more Eva-like than human. There is mention of 1st Impact if I'm not mistaken. Due to this, I also think that perhaps the scene is indicating that there was pre-human race to which the skulls and corpses could belong. Presumably 1st Impact wiped out this race.

As for what that means in terms of sequel or not, I don't know. I just see Rebuild as a separate entity from the series until it is concluded and we can piece everything together. I'm just happy for more official material, even if we don't really understand how it all works...