Gendo's Glasses wrote:I had very little problems with the NTE but the final film really left me thinking that they needed more of a plan and less of a jarring shift between the third and fourth film. 3.0+1.01 seemed like it was walking back a lot of the more unsettling parts of the Rebuilds (Touji dead, no magical fixes, Kaworu is shifty, there is no overarching SEELE plan) and I'm really waiting to see someone provide a reading of the Rebuilds as a whole given how much the last film seemed to be going 'Well, actually...'
Although I'm pretty sure there are some changes between 3.0 and 3.0+1.0, I think there are other aspects really complement.
In 3.0, Shinji is "punished", because he tries to escape from the pain and responsability. Instead, in 3.0+1.0, Shinji takes responsability and accept the pain, that's why Shinji could defeat Gendo and restore Earth.
Also, I don't think Kaworu is shifty in 3.0. They likely always planned him to be on humanity side. His vague explanations exist because Anno can't really explain all the events between N3I and Third Impact in 3.0.
The big shift is between 2.0 and 3.0. Anno has confirmed that 3.0 would originally be a movie directly after 2.0, where Shinji won't appear. That's why so much seem to happen between the N3I and the Third Impact.