Firefox came out in 1982 and was adapted from a 1977 novel of the same name by Craig Thomas. The story follows Eastwood as a retired Air Force Major who is now living in Alaska. He's pulled out of retirement because the Soviets have developed a kind of super-jet known as the "Firefox" that can fly fast, is invisible to radar, and is even controllable by thought.That's all very scary and the Americans and British are worried the Soviets could mass produce this thing. Since Eastwood in the movie is the son of a Russian immigrant, he's recruited to infiltrate Russia, steal the jet, and fly it back to the U.S.
Okay so that basic plotline doesn't immediately seem to have much in common with NGE (And really seems more along the lines of Metal Gear Solid), but about halfway through the movie its revealed that the Firefox's thought controls only work if you "think in Russian". This ultimately culminates in a dogfight at the movie's climax where Eastwood is piloting a Firefox and is being pursued by a second Firefox the Soviets happened to have. Eastwood has to destroy this one too of course not only to save his own life but also so the Soviets can't mass produce THAT Firefox. It all works out because at the very end Eastwood is able to think in Russian and activate his Firefox's weapon systems and shoot down the enemy pilot.
All this business about having to operate thought controlled weaponry in the correct language immediately think of a certain bit in NGE episode 8. I don't have an immediate clip here, but I'll quote the dialogue from the EGF's own wiki:
Episode 8 wrote:Asuka (Starting up Eva Unit 02): "LCL Füllung. Anfang der Bewegung. Anfang des Nervenanschlusses. Auslöses von Links-kleidung. Synchro-start." (message displays: "FEHLER")
Shinji: "Its...a programming error?"
Asuka: "It's thought-noise. I told you not to disturb me."
Shinji: "What do you mean?"
Asuka: "You're thinking in Japanese aren't you? If you must think, do it in German!"
Shinji: "I'll try...baumkuchen..."
Asuka: "Baka!"
The exact wording depends on which English translation you look at, but I've definitely seen Asuka's command to Shinji here written directly as "Think in German!" before. Even without wording that specific though, its hard not to notice the similarity to Eastwood having to "think in Russian" in Firefox.
So is it possible Anno is parodying, of all things, Eastwood's Firefox here? I've looked around on the internet and the EGF wiki to see if anyone else had ever made the connection but haven't found anything. While Eastwood has had some popularity in Japan over the years, I've never heard of Anno being a fan of his or having seen any of his films before and it seems a bit outside of Anno's wheelhouse of more otaku-oriented callbacks anyways like mecha anime or science fiction novels (But then again, there is sort of a sci-fi element to Firefox isn't there?). Of the Eastwood movies you could reference though, Firefox is definitely one of the more obscure ones and well past a decade since the film would have had any direct relevance (According to that Tarantino review, it wasn't an especially popular film and didn't even review super well). But it's not like Anno has never referenced American films before (Such as Blade Runner reference in the GunBuster science lessons), and if its a reference it doesn't seem too different from how other allusions are done in the series.
It's not even difficult to imagine the possible allusion thematically aligning with the general themes of the series. Shinji, is presented with a challenge an American action hero faced before and is unable to overcome the trial. Action stars like Eastwood in this era are fairly masculine figures of course (Even if in Firefox Eastwood's character is suffering from PTSD of sorts), while in this scene Shinji is an especially feminized position wearing one of Asuka's plugsuits (And of course she and her EVA-02 will be vital to defeating Gaghiel), and comically failing to "think in German". This emphasizes Shinji's being a complete inversion of more typical heroes you'd see in Hollywood action movies and such.
That analysis is all well and good but its predicated on the allusion being intentional and I can't really find any evidence either way. It's worth noting though that one of NGE's contemporaries in Macross Plus is often thought of as being inspired by Firefox though (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). However despite many people saying Kawamori was influenced by Firefox and noting similarities between it and Macross Plus, I've yet to find a direct quote from him or proof about that either. So its all a bit of a mess. Personally I'd be less surprised if Kawamori was inspired by Firefox than if Anno was, but I'd still like stronger evidence to prove that. It's still not completely improbable Anno has seen the movie too and is referencing in NGE, but I'm not quite confident in even arguing that it was just generally floating around in the Otaku database in the 90's yet either.
So at the end of the day I see at least three general possibilities:
1) Anno has seen the movie Firefox (Or perhaps read novel it is based on) and is directly parodying the movie here in episode 8 of NGE.
2) Anno had seen Firefox before but any callbacks were done on purely unconscious level.
3) The similarities between Firefox and the episode 8 scene are a complete coincidence.
I do lean toward 1, but I'm not 100% convinced of my own idea yet. I personally think it's there's a decent degree of probability that Anno is referencing the movie, but what do you guys think? Is there any strong evidence for or against this notion that I've missed? Are there other media involving having to operate thought controlled machinery using a foreign language that are a more likely source for the NGE scene?
This has been a fair amount of writing about a simple gag.
