Relevance of "Giant God Warrior" short in Eva cont

[MarioAyanami128]

Back when I watched Eva 3.33 for the first time, the theater I was in did not present the God Warrior short before the main film, and only today did I just get the chance to watch it.
The thing is, the short is nothing short of enigmatic.
Many may be against my view, as they have always been, but I don't believe that Anno does things like this for no reason. The point is, I can't seem to make any direct connection to Rebuild's plot, except for aesthetic elements. Miyazaki and Anno previously worked together in a number of occasions, one of them being Nausicaa, which features the God Warrior. I understand that they may be paying tribute to their past work or just poking fun at Nausicaa, but for Anno to include the Ghibli short as part of the official running time of the film says a lot, and may serve as an indication that it may be part of Eva mythos in some way, either litherally or figuratively. I'm working on a few things that I believe may be the answer, but I wanted to hear from you guys what exactly is the short's relevance to Rebuild, or possibly the entire Evangelion continuity.

Btw, I searched through the forums and I couldn't find any topic regarding this subject. If such topic exists, please feel free to merge it. :)

[Monk Ed]

And you're sure you're not doing the equivalent of walking into a movie and supposing that the previews that always accompany the beginning of every movie in America are part of the continuity of the movie about to be shown even though all they are likely to have in common is genre or aesthetics? Or supposing that two movies played in a double feature that seem otherwise unrelated might be related? How rare is it anyway to have an unrelated short precede a movie in Japan?

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

Personal opinion? God Warrior has nothing to do with Evangelion. It was there to be a short before the movie began.

[Chuckman]

If this is true where's my fucking movie about James Bond joining the Avengers and Batman to pilot giant robots and fight Godzilla?

[MarioAyanami128]

I know this sounds laughable, but notice that the shorts that precede American films throughout numerous theaters aren't accounted as part of the running time of the film. God Warrior's importance can also be seen as it will accompany yet again Q, but in its first TV exbition. I never heard of a film which was preceded by a short and its short accompanies the main film, even in its TV showing.
While it is indeed quite disconnected in many things, I believe there may be connections to Eva.
There are very similiar themes, and again, I don't think Anno would choose for the short to accompany 3.0 in every single occasion for absolutely no reason.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

While it is indeed quite disconnected in many things, I believe there may be connections to Eva.
There are very similiar themes, and again, I don't think Anno would choose for the short to accompany 3.0 in every single occasion for absolutely no reason.

Well, “for absolutely no reason” shouldn’t translate into “in respect of me dear friend and colleague Mister Hayao Miyazaki who helped me get my start in the animation industry, leading me to where I am now,” either. I mean, that might seem a bit disrespectful.

Again, we’re discussing Japanese cinema. Whereas North American counterpoints are fascinating within terms of comparison, I don’t think they should be used as an example of international rule of thumb. If we can bring in some Japanese examples of short films and how they relate to the feature films they precede, then we’d be making some traction in the discussion here.

[svenge]

There is most likely no in-universe connection between the "Giant God Warrior" short and Eva Q. If there was any link between the two, it would have been included on the Hong Kong or Taiwan BDs (which did have all the other bonus features that the Japanese BD had).

To think otherwise would be like saying that the Roger Rabbit short "Tummy Trouble" had a connection with "Honey I Shrunk the Kids"...

[MarioAyanami128]

To think otherwise would be like saying that the Roger Rabbit short "Tummy Trouble" had a connection with "Honey I Shrunk the Kids"...

That is a very weak comparison to the subject at stake, since the people behind Roger Rabbit's short didn't work on "Honey I Shrunk the Kids", which isn't the case with "God Warrior" which contained a good ammount of people who had a history with Eva.

Answering FreakyFilm, I apologize, my intention wasn't to lower the importance of a possible tribute to Anno and Miyazaki's work. What I meant was that I don't think Anno would give such importance to the short while not linking anything to Eva.
Good examples in Japanese cinema that don't account short films' running times to the main film are the Pokémon films. The best example are the first ones, in which the main film had around 75-85 mins of official running time, excluding the 15-20 min short that precedes it. "Pikachu's Summer Vacation" running time wasn't included in the first Pokémon film's official running time, i. e..

[robersora]

... Maybe the reason for not making the Short available to international audiences is that Anno doesn't want to give the wrong idea to all the gaijin otaku who might not get the references.

[Sailor Star Dust]

And/or maybe it is a rights issue since it was created with Studio Ghibli?

[robersora]

I can't imagine that since the German distributor of ENT has released all of the Ghibli Movies except for Grave of the Fireflies. So if ufa Anime couldn't make it happen then there has to be another reason.

[ElMariachi]

^
But they have to negotiate the rights for every new content from Ghibli, as it is for any company that release new series/films/short films, so it's possible that the distributors didn't wanted to pay for extra-rights to another company for a 10 minutes short film that's in the Internet subbed in every language since months.