Should the 14-Year timeskip remain a mystery? [Split]

[Charsi]

A simpler question: just how dead IS the world? Kaworu mentions mass extinctions, but that's a LOT of helicopters reinforcing the WILLE fleet, and that's a lot of ships manned by a lot of crew, too.

[Giji Shinka]

There isn't direct implication by anyone that people who live in somewhere else, outside from Wille's ship are all dead. I personally think that there are a lot of people living somewhere.

[andreh]

There isn't direct implication by anyone that people who live in somewhere else, outside from Wille's ship are all dead. I personally think that there are a lot of people living somewhere.

I think there are more people around the world.
my idea of the world in rebuild is this:
http://i.imgur.com/6Z8Mmrb.jpg
(maybe I have exaggerated, I confess )

[Jinroh]

What do you mean by "non-existent"?

Barely anything happens. The only important event is fourth impact and it's aborted before it even happens.

[Mr. Tines]

my idea of the world in rebuild is this:
http://i.imgur.com/6Z8Mmrb.jpg

I'm getting RahXephon flashbacks here -- or rather I would were it not for the uniformly red surface as seen from space in the opening minutes.

[TMBounty_Hunter]

No it would suck. Third impact is much more important and interesting than the (non-existant) events happening in the third movie.

Barely anything happens. The only important event is fourth impact and it's aborted before it even happens.

What happens isn't as important as to how Shinji deals with it.

People need to understand that they will never get ADVENTURES IN THE EVA WORLD and wanting that will only lead to disappointment.

Eva has always been about the character and the world exists only to affect or be affected by those characters.
Rebuild due to not having as long a running time has chosen to concentrate on Shinji. As long as Shinji is being kept in the dark about the 14 years the chances so will be the viewer.

[riffraff11235]

People need to understand that they will never get ADVENTURES IN THE EVA WORLD and wanting that will only lead to disappointment.

I would laugh for days if a trailer for Kieru Sekai no Densetsu started playing after the credits of FINAL.

[Warren Peace]

I'm really surprised by how uncomfortable some Eva fans are with the concept of mystery. I understand casual viewers being perplexed, but hardcore fans? I thought we lived for this stuff. There are more unanswered questions in EoE's final scene alone than in the entirety of Q. It was ambiguity personified. But now, people are suddenly wanting a more straightforward narrative? Well, welcome to Evangelion folks... that ain't what it does.

I mean, there was just a discussion about the supposedly "(non-existant) events happening" in a series that includes episodes 25 and 26. THAT'S how far outside the box this show has gone. If your definition of a successful Evangelion story hinges on how many mysteries Anno solves, you'll probably walk away disappointed. Then and now.

[The Killer of Heroes]

To be fair, there are people that hate both EoTV and EoE, but still love Eva overall.

I'm not one of them though.

[Stillborn]

Well, then best Eva FINAL would be 15 minutes long movie, that starts with GNR fighting a beam o' war with equally giant dragon, that have Gendo's visor, so we may speculate it's Gendo. Also we get the whole biblical reference of "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun", eventually GNR wins, and we see some never before seen peple cheering in unknown place. The end.

Afterwards this movie will be considered genious for how mysterious it was, and Anno, ritch as Midas after all the money he would cash, will be laughing at gullible fans, that will swallow everything with Eva in it's name, as long as he signs under it.

[Sgt. Griff]

my idea of the world in rebuild is this:

That's pretty cool. Didn't think about that.

[ElMariachi]

One should never post while drunk.

No, it's just Stillborn being Stillborn!
(No offense, eh!)

Anyway, i my opinion explanations about the 14 years time skip is necessary, not only for establishing Shinji's exact responsibility in the destruction of the world because that will determine just how deep his pit of despair is, but also and as importantly because knowing what happened will be a crucial part in Shinji's character growth : if WILLE(or anybody else) explains to him everything, that will mean that by imparting knowledge to him, he will no longer be considered a child, that whoever informed him consider that he's someone which can be trusted with this knowledge or if everything about the Impacts, HIP, SEELE... is common knowledge, then that will be the sign that Shinji is now part of this new world and not a child ignorant of how the world works(that would ties nicely with Mari's comment about "getting to know the world a little")

Also, Shinji will no longer be able to use his ignorance as an excuse(even though it is a good excuse about N3I, there was no way to know that EVA-01 was able to do that, even Ritsuko was completely surprised by it!), signifying his transition from childhood to adulthood, where people take their responsibilities.

Of course, since WILLE do consider him a child(illustrated by Asuka's "gaki" nickname), Shinji will have to earn their trust so they estimate that they can impart him with that knowledge, at least all the "secret" details about SEELE and HIP, the details of what happened right after N3I will need to be told to Shinji as early as possible, since apparently he have his responsibility in it, if not that would be really dickish : basically WILLE would be punishing Shinji, but won't bother to tell him for what.
And if he thinks that it's because he destroyed the world, but they did it "just" because he almost did it with N3I in 2.0 and actually didn't cause the world's destruction, then that would be detrimental for both parties.

[wiser3754]

I wouldn't be surprised there's two more movies coming out, one to fill in the blanks (fan service) and the other, the conclusion. The fact that FINAL has been pushed back all the way to winter 2015 backs my view on this.

[Eva 04]

Fuck no. They need to explain a lot of stuff. Like why did Misato and the rest split from Nerv? What happened to fighting the angels? There's so many questions that need to be answered.

[Monk Ed]

The fact that FINAL has been pushed back all the way to winter 2015 backs my view on this.

That remains speculation at this point.

[TMBounty_Hunter]

The fact that FINAL has been pushed back all the way to winter 2015

That is in no way a fact.

We have no official date. The real fact is we don't know anything concrete or reputable.

[The Killer of Heroes]

Fuck no. They need to explain a lot of stuff. Like why did Misato and the rest split from Nerv? What happened to fighting the angels? There's so many questions that need to be answered.

Isn't it kind of of obvious why Misato and friends split from NERV?

I mean Gendo wants to use Evangelions to cause an Impact. Misato wants to stop any Impacts from happening.

They kind of spell it out.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

Even so, it would be good to see it played out. Storywriting 101: Show is better than tell.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Even so, it would be good to see it played out. Storywriting 101: Show is better than tell.

Well, they didn't quite do the whole "telling" part either. All we see is them firing at a Nerv Eva and Misato was like "Oh, yeah. That's just what we do now." So, they showed us before telling us that part, I guess. Just not anything prior to that.

[Shinies]

I could agree that mystery in the series is part of its charm, that episodes 25 and 26 (which were complete mindfuck) along with parts of EoE (though personally I think that most of the movie had enough info on what was happening) make the fans theorise so much even to this day is something the whole series has going for it.

BUT, in 3.0 we got almost nothing on what happened on those 14 years and those 14 years are crucial to the new direction the movies took. I mean maybe we don't need everything spelled out for us but at least some extra bits of info aside from "3rd impact resumed, world gone crazy!" would be appreciated.