4th Film Info (READ OP) + Speculation

[Monk Ed]

Cut it out with the insults and antagonism.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

So... a 100-120 minutes movie should take the MAX of 3 MONTHS to be complete....Now you asked me: Why is taking so long?

It's taking so long because you're forgetting story, layout, the pre-production process, the modeling, the texturing, the lighting, and the post-production sequence. ;)

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Anime TV show with a production schedule of one week per episode results in the quality animation of Episodes 25 and 26 of NGE. (You know; still photographs, on-screen storyboards, rough animations, and pictures of the dialogue script.) The earlier NGE episodes I heard were given longer production schedules. For reference, Episode 18 of Nadia took about 2 months to produce, with Anno doing much of the animation work himself. And that's for about 18 or 20 minutes of animation. (Not including OPs and EDs.)

Now expand that to schedule to a 90+ minute film. I have a hunch that 4.0's script is already finished, as much of it was probably already finished being planned out well before 3.0's script was finished. (And they're already calling for animators, which suggests they're finishing up pre-production.) So now we're waiting on 6-8 months of animation, not counting all of the CGI effects work and animation that has to be retaken and/or re-rendered if Mr. Anno is experimenting with different "camera placements" on an animated shot.

[Gendo'sPapa]

You can't rush perfection. Or pure Anno madness. They should take as long as they need. If they need 20 months to animate it, they should take 21.

[Monk Ed]

I don't care if it takes 2 or 3 more years. My biggest concern, weird as it is, is what time of year the Blu-Ray rip becomes available. I really want to watch it for the first time in the summer or thereabouts (spring works too, most times).

[TheFriskyIan]

He could take ten years for all I care, just as long as we're not left in the dark. My biggest gripe with media entertainment I'm waiting for is that when the company goes dark during the production, they mean it. The least they could do is give us some posters, or character designs or something to tell the fans "Hey we're working on it!" For 3.0 it felt like they just kind of crammed all the attention almost immediately before release given the time it spent being made.

[ElMariachi]

For 3.0 it felt like they just kind of crammed all the attention almost immediately before release given the time it spent being made.

Since most of the film's power came from the surprise of the 14 years time skip and the desolated remnants of the world, that was kinda understandable.
Had Khara released the new characters designs earlier, everyone would have understood that a long time skip happened just by seeing Fuyutsuki's face and that Misato and co defected from NERV thanks to the fact they don't have a NERV uniform anymore.

[wiser3754]

Though when this four part series is over I think I'm gonna marathon the damn thing with a stop watch & keep a record of how long we actually spend looking at the damn thing. I'm betting at least 5 minutes of the entire franchise running time is going to be dedicated to close ups of that thing!

There is one scene I remember in 3.0 where you see the top of the SDAT player, it's when Kaworu notices it on the ground. When he picks it up, he slowly pushes the tape back down into the slot and again, slowly raises it (SDAT player looked CG, too perfect). I don't own 3.33, and I've only seen this scene once, but I swear it had a USB/HDMI like output on the top.

Anyway, besides that, the player wasn't working/won't output sound and Kaworu agrees to fix it. Who's to say that, when the power came on during that truth scene with Shinji and Fuyutsuki, Kaworu accessed the MAGI and recorded over Shinji's tape with as much pertinent information regarding Third Impact, EVAS', HIP, SEELE etc? .DAT is an audio format, yeah it's defunct, but you can still convert audio to it's format.

Remember, by the end of 3.0, Shinji has not used the player so he (and us) doesn't know that if the audio on that tape is the music he always listens to. However, if that's true about what Kaworu has recorded to it, I hope Rei Q has picked it up.

Granted, to me this is a simplistic approach to potentially exonerate someone, but all I'm doing is just throwing out there.

Add, destroy, face palm, contradict, roll your eyes or give me a humble STFU, I just watch and speculate for the sake I'm trying to get an idea of what FINAL's road will take us down.

[TheFriskyIan]

Remember, by the end of 3.0, Shinji has not used the player so he (and us) doesn't know that if the audio on that tape is the music he always listens to. However, if that's true about what Kaworu has recorded to it, I hope Rei Q has picked it up.

In the scene after Fuyutsuki talks with Gendo over Kaworu showing Shinji N3I, you can see Shinji laying on his bed listening to it, also after Uncle Fuyutsuki's slide show presentation, Shinji was briefly listening to it for a moment while sitting on his bed before throwing it across the room.

[wiser3754]

In the scene after Fuyutsuki talks with Gendo over Kaworu showing Shinji N3I, you can see Shinji laying on his bed listening to it, also after Uncle Fuyutsuki's slide show presentation, Shinji was briefly listening to it for a moment while sitting on his bed before throwing it across the room.

Damn it, oh well, I knew it was too simplistic for an idea so scratch that I guess.

[ElMariachi]

OK, that post will be a mix of speculations of what happened at the end of 2.0, of the events of the time skip, of the events of 3.0 all the way through to a speculation about 4.0., with a touch of the relationship between Shinji and Asuka, bear with me, that post will be long and contain a critical mass of speculation and fanwankery, but after all that's what this topic is for!

The more I think about it, and the less what Kaworu said about the Impact which destroyed the world makes sense : absolutely nothing of what he said fits with the events we saw at the end of 2.0, which supposedly are when Shinji destroyed everything. Kaworu said it himself : "Ikari Shinji-kun, once Awakened, Eva-01 opened the Door of Guf and became the trigger for Third Impact."

Yet, what do we know about the Impact who changed the world?
- the epicenter was in Lilith's Chamber

- there was an huge fight that implicated a lot of the military, since we saw wrecks of tanks, hummers and VTOL everywhere, even so far as in Lilith's chamber

- Lilith was somehow involved, since her chamber was the epicenter and her body moved and grown in size.

- the 12 Angel was also implicated, since he was in the chamber too

- Unit-01 probably had some part in it too, since the FoIs are in her image

OK, so Kaworu is trying to make us viewers believe that in the end of 2.0, between Shinji triggering N3I and Kaworu skewering EVA-01 or just after, NERV HQ was lifted in the sky, Lilith awoke and took Rei's face, then turned the entirety of Tokyo-3 into core material and summoned the FoIs, while the JSSDF assaulted the place with hundreds of tanks and Mark.06 was turned into an autonomous unit, and just for the icing on the cake the 11th Angel had the time to come and be killed and the 12th infiltrated Lilith's Chamber, just before Mark.06 sealed it by pulling out the spear form EVA-01, going down the Main Shaft and impaling itself, the 12th and Lilith... of yeah and during all this time the FoIs were crawling everywhere trying to reach Lilith's head who got decapitated in the brawl...


Something must have happened between, even more that one "something", a lot of "somethings"!

We know that from the moment Shinji began to reach for Rei inside Zeruel's core, he didn't registered about his surroundings anymore(he didn't recognized the vortex during 4I, meaning that he didn't saw it during N3I), and that from the moment he took Rei in his arms and thanked her about his father, he completely lost consciousness for 14 years. So whatever happened during the time skip that wrecked the world like that(let's call it "the event" for simplicity's sake) isn't Shinji's direct doing(since the event must have happened after 2.0 as I argued above)

Now we don't know the details about the event, maybe the JSSDF launched an assault to try stop the 12th Angel, maybe they were already here as the replacement of NERV personnel which was arrested by the UN, maybe SEELE grew wary about how things were evolving and tried to resurrect Lilith before time at the same moment that the 12th Angel attacked, maybe the 12th Angel managed to reach Lilith and Mark.06 pulled out the spear from EVA-01 as a last resort and said Unit-01 took the opportunity to resume her Impact... who knows.

But one thing is clear for me : WILLE can't possibly think that the event was orchestrated by Shinji : they knew at least from Operation US that Shinji was absorbed inside Unit-01's core all this time, they probably know it since 14 years ago(I doubt that they didn't even tried to look inside EVA-01's entry plug when it was safely skewered!), they can't possibly think that Shinji was patiently waiting inside EVA-01 for someone to pull out the spear so he could resume his mayhem, even from a cynical point of view he wouldn't do that since he already got what he wanted : he pulled Rei out from Zeruel and absorbed her.
If EVA-01 had a part in the event(and it must have one, since the FoIs are in its image!), it must be the Evangelion itself who did it, or maybe Yui, or Rei if her soul is Lilith's : if the 2.0 preview is any indication, Mark.06 wasn't wielding the LoC when it descended through the Main Shaft, meaning that the Lance, and EVA-01 being skewered by it, were in Lilith's Chamber too. Maybe Lilith's main body had a mental connection with EVA-01(assuming that Rei have her soul and EVA-01 is from her body like in NGE) and reacted to it by taking the image of self of her soul(Rei) and made copies of the body where her soul currently resides to do whatever she wanted to do with them(explaining why the FoIs were copies of EVA-01), or maybe that was the other way around : Mark.06 pulled out the LoC from EVA-01, which awakened her and resumed 3rd Impact, making Lilith's body react and take Rei's face.
But anyway whatever happened, I really doubt anyone would believe that Shinji consciously(or even unconsciously!) decided to turn the whole surrounding landscape into core and had the knowledge or the desire to transform said core-ified landscape(and maybe the poor souls present in the city) into copies of his robot!
If WILLE really though that Shinji was responsible for what happened, they wouldn't have put him just a fancy collar : he would have been clapped on iron and thrown in a containment cell at best, and received a bullet in the head even before he awakes at worst.

And that serves as a perfect transition toward WILLE and Shinji's stay in the AAA Wunder.
Basically WILLE's orders to Shinji were : stay with us and do nothing(at least until we told you what to do), and DON'T. PILOT. AN. EVA.
Pretty simple orders, and even if Shinji wanted to throw his teenage crisis, let's remember his situation : he's in a giant battleship full of trained soldiers, in a cell and closely monitored. Yet WILLE put a fucking bomb around his neck! Why? If they want him to stay put and don't get into an EVA they already have all the means necessary for it. Even if that 0.00% synch-rate with EVA-01 was revealed to be an error(or a lie) and Shinji still can synchronize with EVA-01, how would he did that? Did they feared that Shinji would crawl into an air vent all the way to the Wunder Main Engine or one of the EVA cages in a ship he doesn't have any idea about the layout, then launch the EVA start-up sequence and get into the entry plug and awake EVA-02 or 08, or worst 01?(which is currently inside a giant armored womb!) Why would he even want to do that?
Also the DSS Choker couldn't be because WILLE feared that neo-NERV would try to take him, since they were completely taken by surprise that Mark.09's objective was Shinji and not EVA-01, so they didn't even though that neo-NERV would have any interest in him!

So there must be another reason for them to put him the DSS Choker... and that reason could be explained by Kaworu : when he took the Choker from Shinji he revealed that it was initially created specifically for him. So the DSS Choker is a device created to monitor, control and kill an Angel in human form, and WILLE put it on a scrawny 14 years old boy...
See where I'm going? Maybe the main reason for WILLE putting the Choker on Shinji and all the coldness and hate they showed isn't because of what he supposedly did, but what he supposedly is!

Now why would they suspect Shinji of not being human? There is the whole deal with the plug depth and the fact he's been absorbed by a godly Evangelion during a decade and half of course, but maybe something else happened that made their suspicion grow even more : you remember that entry plugs had cameras to monitor the pilots right? We saw it in NGE when Shinji was absorbed in EVA-01 and also in 1.0 just after Ramiel obliterated the mountain. We also know from the aftermath of the fight against Sachiel that the EVAs have black boxes were all kind of data is recorded for further analysis and use. Said black boxes couldn't record anything when EVA-01 went Berserk, so it's not a very big leap to think that when Shinji pseudo-evolved EVA-01(a mode even more powerful that Berserk) the black boxes couldn't record anything, especially taking into account the Technicolor festival that was going on inside the plug! But there is a moment were the camera could have managed to record something :

SPOILER: Show

Shinji's eyes started to glow red seven seconds before EVA-01 began its pseudo-evolution, and even if it was dark inside the plug, his eyes were glowing like car lights, so if images of these seven seconds were recorded, there is no way in hell anyone could have missed them! And who else got red eyes and have a human body? Rei, someone created by Gendo to obey his orders(and maybe is something more if Rei II had Lilith's soul like in NGE), and Kaworu, an Angel!(and there is now way that Misato and Co. didn't met the guy who saved the world with a flying EVA!). Now Shinji showed the same kind of eyes, and exactly seven second later his Evangelion got to a then unseen state of power where it completely destroyed the most powerful Angel and almost triggered the end of the world!

You could then think that WILLE could suspect him of having deliberately triggered N3I if he really is an Angel(or part of), but his behavior showed that it wasn't the case since if he wanted to trigger 3I, he had plenty of opportunities before : when Misato showed him Lilith, he just had to go red eyed, throw an ATF wall/laser beam/grow claws and eviscerate her/whatever and the path to Lilith would be clear. Or when Zeruel was advancing to Central Dogma without encountering any resistance, Shinji had just to wait and Zeruel would had made the job done, so seeing that he fought against the Angels, even when he was the very last thing between them and Lilith, it proves that "Shinji Ikari" really wanted to protect mankind.

Now with that theory in mind, it potentially fits with a lot of things we saw in Q :

- first the "BM-03" designation : WILLE kept it for Shinji's whole stay in the Wunder, even after the medical report confirmed that the body was exactly like Shinji's, he's still designed primarily as "BM-03" and the Shinji Ikari is just tentative(Sakura said it clearly, and the schematics during the briefing state the subject of the "Comprehensive Briefing" as "BM-03"), maybe they don't want yet to give him his name because they think that he could be one of the four ADAMs whose soul was put inside an human body, like Kaworu(hey, maybe he is one of the four ADAMs whose soul was put inside an human body!), I doubt WILLE is seeing Kaworu as anything else than the "First Angel", even if he have a human name, so no reason to treat one of his potential brethren differently!

- then the DSS Choker itself : as said earlier, it's basically a bomb with remote control that also monitors when the wearer is synchronizing with an Evangelion(that's probably how WILLE detected EVA-13 activating), not only it's embedded with Angel Sealing Hex Runes, generates what looks like ATF or energy crystals to blow off the wearer's head, but when Kaworu removed it from Shinji the inside of the collar is revealed to glow red and emit a humming very similar to the ones of the Angel Sealing Hex Pillars, supporting the idea that one of its functions is to seal the powers of the wearer(Kaworu still could move EVA-13 to make it impale itself, so it's not totally efficient, but hey, it's Kaworu!), and indeed one of the DSS Choker functions is called "Suppression Function", that could mean "suppression of angelic powers".
Now for a scrawny 14 years old boy such as Shinji, that kind of device is complete overkill. But for a 14 years old boy potentially possessing powers of an Angel, such device is perfectly adapted! Especially if Kaworu's powers are similar to the ones he showed in NGE, and I don't see why he should be weaker that his series counterpart.

- the WILLE crew's behavior : they don't like Shinji, that is obvious, when he asked to pilot, you saw Koji let a "tch" with a look of disdain... if Shinji was really the responsible for the destruction of the world, Koji wouldn't had let a simple "tch", but more liked tried to gut him alive. Hell as I said, if he really was the responsible Shinji wouldn't even have been let out of the stretcher restrain, or even brought to the Command Bridge, but would have been sent straight in a cell! Maybe the crew hate him because he's potentially an Angel(or par Angel, or altered with angelic properties, whatever), and Angels are exactly the cause of this blood-red rock of a planet they have left(the 12th Angel wasn't in Lilith's Chamber by accident, he must have been able to reach her!), besides last time he piloted, he nearly set off an Impact! And finally, don't forget that Shinji is still a kid, and WILLE didn't seem to be the sort of organization that had kids in its ranks since Asuka and Mari reached their 20 years old. So maybe their look of contempt was a way to show their annoyance in front of a little kid who want to "play war", something that's adult's business. The viability of this point will greatly depend on how the other pilots(especially Asuka) are viewed by the crew, I hope FINAL will give us some scenes of interactions between the pilots and the lambda WILLE members.

- Ritsuko's comment about the DSS Choker being a symbol of both his punishment and their mistrust in him, maybe the two symbols refers to two different things :
* Punishment : because like it or not, Shinji did got pretty close to launch an Impact that would have exterminated all life in the world, and had Kaworu not be there with the LoC, that "Near" 3rd Impact would have been a full 3rd Impact.
* Mistrust : now why would WILLE not trust Shinji? OK they can't trust him to pilot an EVA, but aside from that the boy didn't showed any sign of being hostile to WILLE(he complied to anything they said and even asked if he could help them!), and judging by how ballistic he was against his father after the Bardiel fight, it's clear that he won't want to get back to his side(unless "Rei" asks him of course...)... so maybe what they mistrust is his alleged angelic side, who knows how that part of him would react to having EVA-01(whom he spent half of his life fused with) very near inside the Wunder? Or maybe in a fit of anger he can lost his shit and lose control of this part with catastrophic consequences!

- Asuka's behavior : out of everyone in WILLE, Asuka seems to be the one who took the most personally Shinji's evasion with ReiQ and what he did with EVA-13. Most important is the fact that after his escape, she start considering him not as an idiot("baka" Shinji), but as a brat("gaki" Shinji), she really looks to be the one who's the more pissed off at him, even Misato and Ritsuko kind of shrugged off when he leaved them with Mark.09.
Why would Asuka took Shinji's behavior so close to heart?
Well my theory is that Asuka was on a similar position than Shinji, and when you look at it, her story from the middle of 2.0 onward is an almost parallel of Shinji :
* she got absorbed inside a fusion of an Evangelion and Angel(EVA-03 + Bardiel for her, EVA-01 + Zeruel for him),
* was in a coma for some time during which a lot of shit happened(undetermined time, but at least N3I and Shinji's and Rei's disappearance happened without her witnessing it, and 14 years and almost everything important happened without Shinji being conscious)
* have to wear something embedded with Angel Sealing Hex Glyphs and probably can't take it off(eyepatch for her, DSS Choker for him)
* have some funky shit happening with her eyes, which sometimes starts to glow(left eye glowing blue for her, both eyes glowing red for him), and it's not a little discreet glow : we can see the light from behind her thick eyepatch, and Shinji's red eye were like car lights inside his plug! All of this pointing to possible angelic alteration of their body(compares with the glyphs they have to wear)
* on a more meta-level, both are "freaks" : aside from the glowing eye business, Asuka has the "curse of Eva" which prevent her from aging, while Shinji is an "Impact Trigger"(meaning basically a walking fuse for Apocalypse machines) and could also be suffering from the same curse than Asuka(and Mari)

Seeing what happened with Shinji during her coma, Asuka must had it rough when she woke up : everyone must have been wary around her, since they don't know what kind of "mental contamination" she could have suffered(mental trauma can't be quantified until the patient wake up, it's reasonable to think it's the same thing here), and Ritsuko already considered her as a "specimen" rather than a human being, and that was even before N3I. So it's perfectly possible that during some time after he awakening, NERV/WILLE/the UN(whatever organization was in charge of her at that moment) treated her very coldly, as a potential danger who couldn't be trusted, even less with an Evangelion, someone that SEELE could use to further their plans thanks to her "new state", and she had the same package than Shinji : quarantine cells, lots of tests, armed guard everytime she was moved somewhere, people looking at her with fear/hate/disgust... and she had to gain back their trust, little by little, and it was probably a long and hard work, and since 14 years later she's piloting EVA-02 and tasked with important missions, that means that she managed to gain back said trust... but who knows, maybe she's still suffering from wariness from the common people of WILLE, after all we didn't saw Asuka interacting with anyone beside Misato, Mari and Shinji and she's a 28 years old woman in a 14 years old body with here supposed dead eye occasionally glowing blue beneath her eyeptach!(that would also explain why she designs the others as "Lilin")
And maybe, just maybe, she though that with Shinji she found someone in a similar position than hers, someone who had to live similar life-changing experience... someone to relate too and would make her feel less alone in the world. Of course that would deeply wound her pride to admit that, that's why she's so aggressive toward Shinji when they met in the interrogation room. That would also be an explanation for Misato and Ritsuko's inaction when she thew the megaton punch : both knew that she did that to hide the fact that deep down she's glad to see him and have someone to relates to.(pure tsundere behavior!) Mari's teasing soon after also ties nicely with that interpretation : "- How's Puppy Boy?" "- He has the same stupid lowly face!" "- So you went there to just see his face?"(and not because your glad to see him again?) "- No! I've gone there to punch his face!"(and certainly not because I'm glad to see a familiar friendly face or anything like that!)

That would perfectly go with Kaji's affirmation(and Evangelion's message) that Shinji isn't the only one suffering, of course there is all the people who had to struggle during those past 14 years, but having someone else who actually had to go through the same kind of ordeals than him, of feeling rejected because of what said person became after its experience in the EVA would even better get the message across to Shinji.

... but then what happened? Unlike her who stoically bore everything she was subjected to(fear, mistrust, loneliness) and worked hard to gain back her place in the group, Shinji took the first opportunity to run away! And with pseudo-Wondergirl no less! All of this because he was too content to have his "Rei" back rather than listening to what Misato was trying to told him! A completely selfish behavior, like a "brat" would react! Unknowingly, Shinji broke her hope to have something to relate to, since he behaved the exact contrary than her and did everything people feared she could do because of her "changes" : he got angry against them, defected, got manipulated by SEELE and Gendo and helped them to further their plans by almost triggering 4I!(although unknowingly)
There is good reasons for her to be pissed!(of course, that doesn't mean that she's completely right : WILLE have been overall passive-aggressive dicks to him, strapped a bomb around his neck and told him that he didn't saved Rei just at the moment that appears what by any means looks likes Rei and asks him to come with her, everything was telling Shinji that Misato lied about Rei, and thus could be lying about everything else)

And maybe Mari's request to Shinji to "help the Princess" referred to that too : "go to help her by looking for her entry plug", or/and "help her while you will be stranded in the desert"... or/and "help her to feel less lonely, since even I can't relate to her about what she suffered after waking up!"(after all until further notice and aside from the curse of Eva, Mari don't have Asuka's freakish traits)




OK, so now my predictions of what could happen in Final, regarding everything I said above :

At some moment during their trip in the desert, Shinji will regain some consciousness, Asuka will take the opportunity to lectures him about what he did when he escaped the Wunder and when piloted the EVA despite the fact everyone told him that whatever happens don't do it.
Then Shinji snaps and a huge argument broke right in the middle of the desert, Asuka telling to Shinji that he's nothing more than an immature brat who only think of himself and never listen to what others people tells him, Shinji will retort that she don't understand anything about him, that he really wanted to fix everything because he couldn't bear the though of being responsible of destroying the world and making everyone's life miserable, to which she will respond that, again, he was only thinking about himself, about how the "poor little brat" was sad angry that everyone didn't gave him a nice and warm welcome after he almost triggered an Impact just to save Wondergirl... an that she don't see what the hell he's talking about "destroying the world and making everyone's life hell".
Of course Shinji will be confused about her statement and will ask what she means.

Cue big infodump from Asuka about what happened during the time skip : at the very worst, his awakening of EVA-01 was just the first step of a long chain of events in SEELE and Gendo's little war that led to NERV being under the JSSDF jurisdiction and too weakened to stop the 12th Angel... the worst his actions did were to make their job at NERV more difficult by putting two pilot and one EVA out of commission, making them having to rely on SEELE's Mark.06 to keep Lilith safe, which in the end failed. The Door of Guf that Shinji opened when he awoke Unit 01 was closed by Kaworu and his Spear before it could do any damage... just like she and Mari just did when he almost caused a catastrophe, again!
And that the reason everyone in WILLE treats him coldly is because he proved 14 years ago to be an unstable walking Tyke Bomb, just as he proved it again when he piloted EVA-13 against their stricts orders, and because Lilin tends to mistrust everyone who was altered by EVA...

With a little chance we will also have some intel about Kaworu, which would help us to understand why he was still with SEELE and neo-NERV if he supposedly wanted to save mankind.
My own theory is that while Kaworu genuinely wanted Shinji's happiness, he though that he could inly reach it through Instrumentality and subtly manipulated Shinji with half-truths and omissions to convince him to go with him pull out the spears. In short that Kaworu was still loyal to SEELE, but got himself manipulated when he discovered that Gendo tricked everyone and that there was two LoL in Lilith's chamber.
I tell more about that theory in this topic : [url]http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/14454/Theory-about-Kaworus-intentions/[/url]

Personally, I think that such a revelation would be interesting, firstly because, frankly, there is no way to rise up and move forward from something as terrible as destroying the world, even accidentally, that would be something that will haunt him and everyone around him forever and poison any relationship he could build.
Secondly, and more importantly, because that revelation wouldn't give Shinji a "free from guilt" card, but quite the contrary that will hit him even harder, think about it : the revelations that shattered his mind, the almost Fourth Impact, Gendo's plan advancing and Kaworu's death, all of this happened because he only though about him and didn't listened to whatever others had to say, all of this could have been avoided! But now it's too late, he have Kaworu's blood on his hands and he will have to live with that fact for the rest of his life. And with people around him to make him get a hold of himself(Asuka, Mari, Sakura, maybe Misato too) he will find the strengh to move forward and draw lessons from his errors and grow as a better person!
And he still have to make amends for N3I, N4I and the destruction of EVA-02, so he won't get out easily, he will have to do like Asuka years before : to work hard and selflessly to gain WILLE's trust and prove them that he has changed and is now someone they can rely upon, even if there is some angelic funk with his body.(he too will probably have to wear something embedded with Angel Sealing Hex Glyphs just to be sure, but this time will willingly wear it, maybe it will be another Choker but without the "muder sticks" function!)
And I don't think that WILLE will let him pilot an EVA(if they even have one available!), because he's still an Impact Trigger, but can help them in another way, just put him in the kitchen, and he will manage to make skyrocket the crew's moral!

...Well until the plot requires him to get back into the fucking robot of course!

My main point with this theory is that the revelation will take place early in the movie, and put Shinji in the right mindset to find hope in the place he will reach, because even if FINAL is two hours long, there is still a lot of thing to put in : the exploration of that place of hope, Shinji crawling back from his pit of despair, character development for ReiQ, Asuka, Mari, Misato... eventual character exploration of the members of WILLE so that we actually care about them, and of course neo-NERV shenanigans and the final battle!
If Shinji spent half of the movie as a catatonic wreck his recovering of hope will have the risk to be too abrupt to be believable, especially looking at how much he has been mentally destroyed in Q!


... I think I just broke my post length record...

[Giji Shinka]

Thank you ElMariachi!
I was super impressed. Really good analysis. Your post increased my hope about FINAL even more.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

Holy fuck, El. That was huge, nearly essay length. I'm quite impressed with the quality of this analysis.

[chee]

I understand this movie now.

[Gendo'sPapa]

Bravo! Loved that post!

[iihieiii]

There is no doubt that 3.0 has a lot of "messages" and a "plot intensity" - when you really look at it. BUT. The real problem is that the way Anno show us and work on this messages and concepts in the movie are - at least - Confusing and "Hidden"...

So... we need to think really hard... research on forums... on google... talk to guys like ElMariachi lol... think a little more... and still nothing...

...just to show us what actually can make some kind of sense - or not...

And that is what Evangelion truly is... there is no right or wrong... just... "make the conclusion for yourself"

You really have to THINK and SPECULATE... and EVEN THEN you don't get the answer (what I hate T__T)

So I believe that's why a lot of people don't quite understand (like me =/) or hate 3.0.

Damn you ANNO!! This things could be way more worked and shown on this movie without having to "mind semi-rape"

(I hope nobody minds that I cleaned this post's formatting and spelling up a bit. - Monk)

[Giji Shinka]

I'm pretty sure we(And Shinji) won't be confused about things by the end of 4.0 anymore, because if Shinji wants to do thing right he NEEDS to know everything: Impacts, Adams, Lilith,(Well, i think that this part and 3rd impact is going to be explained to ReiQ, by Asuka ofc.) and other important things that happened during timeskip. (And Asuka/Wille has to tell him what they think of him and not be all mysterious)

So no need to worry iihieiii.

[iihieiii]

So no need to worry iihieiii.

You just read my mind =)....i'm only afraid of ANNO....he is definitely the TROLL MASTER lol

Also EoE "traumatized" me lol

Hope 4.0 kick some ass ;) BTW....it was only me but why ANNO doesn't start another Anime how over again from 4.0 on? Jez...it should be freaking awesome

[Monk Ed]

That was a really long post that could benefit from a condensed version. (I say this having just spent the past 20-odd minutes reading the whole thing.) A condensed version will facilitate discussion, and, if so, I might split the whole thing out into a topic of its own, because there's a lot to talk about in that monster post.

[ElMariachi]

I'm flattered that you liked my "essay", it took me literally one day and half to write it and format it so it's comfortable to read for everyone!

Now as I said, there is a lot of fanwankery in it and my theory is based on many things that weren't confirmed in Rebuild, notably the "Rei with lilith's soul" and "EVA-01 from Lilith's flesh" part.

That theory is also born from my conviction that Anno could wan to surprise us by making FINALE more lighthearted than Q(not that it's really difficult, but it's Anno we're talking about!), after all we all saw NGE and EoE, and we all know that from episode 19(Bardiel) onward things only get worse and worse and worse, until the final in EoE were everyone dies but in this chaos Shinji manages to find the inner strength to move forward, finishing the series with a slight note of hope...
And of course seeing how in Rebuild from the fight against Bardiel onward everything got only worse, currently culminating with a Grimdark Q, we're all expecting a super-Grimdark FINAL to end the Rebuild!
So how could Anno better surprise us than by making FINAL begin darkly, then progressively more and more hopeful as we(and Shinji) discover more and more about that famous "place when he will learn hope", with Shinji picking up the shattered pieces of his sanity and putting them back together... and this time without another event that will destroy him even more?!(besides he's so broken right now that nothing could break him further!)

As for Asuka having to get through a similar position than Shinji and maybe still being a little ostracized by the rest of the crew, the idea came from the fact that so far she's the main character from NGE that got the less interactions with Shinji(Misato, Rei, hell even Kaworu interacted more with him than Asuka!), and since they seems to have drifted apart a lot with this time skip(coupled with the fact they knew each other during their stay at Tokyo-3 for less time than in NGE), something like that to give them a common ground would let them interact beyond trying to kill one each other.
I mean the plot didn't make it so they tragically fought one each other and ended stranded alone in a desert(well ReiQ is with them, but she can't really count as a disturbing presence!) just to cut to Shinji back in a cell in the Wunder, implying that Asuka just dragged a catatonic Shinji until they got picked up by WILLE!
Not taking the opportunity to have some long desired character development between Shinji and Asuka would be a real waste!

Something that I would like to see is that during the trip in the desert and the argument between Shinji and Asuka, she accidentally let slips how much shit she had to gone through like Shinji, because of what happened that let her with one eye, for example Shinji complain that how he's supposed to trust WILLE when they put a fucking bomb around his neck, and Asuka, furious, retort that he should stop whining, that he's not the only one who had to live through that... then cut herself short before revealing too much.(because I don't see Asuka willingly admitting that she had to live through a similar thing that Shinji)

It will have the double advantage to see some human weakness in Asuka, who in Q was only showed as the ace pilot and angry judging figure toward Shinji, and get Shinji interested about what she meant, and to know more about he will have to try to know better Asuka, to really understand her, and that could be the first step for Shinji to learn to try to understand other people instead of being so centered in himself.

EDIT @ Monk Ed : well I really though about posting this monster in a new topic, but since it's a mix of various things that could fit in various different posts("Filing the gap", "Asuka and Shinji relationship", "Asuka's role in 3.0 and beyond", "the WILLE people"...) with speculation about FINAL, I decided to post it here, but if you think it would have better its place in a new topic, then go ahead!

Oh, and that monster post is the condensed version!
I really had a lot of things to say and examples to add to support my points...

I... I'm scary... right?