Handling of DSS Choker Reveal(s) [split]

[Mr. M]

DSS choker on Asuka.

Boom.

[xolbor]

DSS choker on Asuka.

Oh man! Look's like Shinji has his crying rights removed, turns out he's not the only one that has to suffer because of his DSS choker
Or y'know, it could just be her jacket's zipper.

[Melkor]

Oh man! Look's like Shinji has his crying rights removed, turns out he's not the only one that has to suffer because of his DSS choker
Or y'know, it could just be her jacket's zipper.

How do we know this isn't just them backtracking and adding in the choker after the fact because enough people complained that Asuka didn't have one in 3.0? If Asuka truly was wearing one in 3.0, I feel like we would have at least seen it glowing through her suit during the events of 4th Impact. Not exploded like Kaworu's did, but maybe entered a pre-reactivation stage where those floaty things appeared. Either way, no matter what they do with the chokers to try to show us that Shinji wasn't the only one who had to wear one, it's probably going to feel like too little too late to a lot of people, especially after 8 years of fans raging over it. This is something that should have been shown in 3.0. It would have been so easy to just have a scene where we get a shot that shows Asuka wearing one, that way we as the audience would know, but Shinji wouldn't, making for some dramatic irony. The fact that they didn't even do that leads me to believe that they just didn't think of it, and only decided to give Asuka one now after realizing what a mistake it was to not do so in 3.0.

[Mr. M]

How do we know this isn't just them backtracking and adding in the choker after the fact because enough people complained that Asuka didn't have one in 3.0? If Asuka truly was wearing one in 3.0, we would have seen it glowing through her suit during the events of 4th Impact.

Maybe it's a DSS Chocker that was inactive due to the status of Pilot of Asuka, just to use in Extreme cases.

[Giji Shinka]

This is something that should have been shown in 3.0.

I think this is fine because it's relatevely small addition to the story.
There are far worse examples in Eva where something is introduced very late into the story, like in the finale of episode 24 (Two episodes before the end) where it is revealed that Adam is actually Lilith.

[Reichu]

How do we know this isn't just them backtracking and adding in the choker after the fact because enough people complained that Asuka didn't have one in 3.0?

https://i.redd.it/lkhinnu9lmj21.jpg

Look at the date.

I know it's fun to pretend that the staff of a movie series as ridiculously overstuffed with insane details as NTE might completely forget to consider something so obvious, and could not possibly have intended all along to reveal Asuka and Mari's chokers in 3+1. But for the implicit criticism of "fans need to get over themselves" that's here, your completely unhinged cynicism toward the creators is far worse. Can the Eva fandom please get away from this bad "Anno and friends actually care about my baka gaijin opinion so much they will bend over backward to acknowledge it every chance they get, especially if it makes the movies shittier" meme? You personally never seemed to resort to it much, which is why I wonder why in the world you would do so here. It's such an overused and trite Bad Take, and it needs to be left in a raging garbage fire where it belongs.

[ShikinamiBogard]

Well, Asuka was infected by Bardiel (and she's a Vessel for him now) so maybe She's showing up to Shinji that he's not the only one that have to carry with that sin.

And like they said earlier Asuka it's telling Shinji Chin up, be strong enough...

[Melkor]

https://i.redd.it/lkhinnu9lmj21.jpg

Look at the date.

I know it's fun to pretend that the staff of a movie series as ridiculously overstuffed with insane details as NTE might completely forget to consider something so obvious, and could not possibly have intended all along to reveal Asuka and Mari's chokers in 3+1. But for the implicit criticism of "fans need to get over themselves" that's here, your completely unhinged cynicism toward the creators is far worse. Can the Eva fandom please get away from this bad "Anno and friends actually care about my baka gaijin opinion so much they will bend over backward to acknowledge it every chance they get, especially if it makes the movies shittier" meme? You personally never seemed to resort to it much, which is why I wonder why in the world you would do so here. It's such an overused and trite Bad Take, and it needs to be left in a raging garbage fire where it belongs.

If they even had the chokers in mind all the way back then, then why didn't they just put them in the actual movie? That seems like a rather important detail to just leave out. I've never been a fan of movie franchises revealing important details in outside sources. That's basically the same thing that the recent Star Wars sequel trilogy has been doing where supplemental material like books and comics are being used as band-aids to fix major problems that people had with the movies. And no, I'm not complaining about Shinji seemingly being the only one who got a choker. My issue with the chokers is a different one. It's with the chokers as a concept. I didn't like the whole choker plot line because to me it felt like the movie was trying way too hard to be edgy. Like we get it, Shinji's situation sucks and everyone hates him. You don't need to further hammer in that point by also putting an explosive collar on him that could kill him at any moment too. There's such a thing as trying too hard. I would have preferred if they had just completely scrapped the chokers altogether rather than continuing to bring them up as a factor in the story, that way we can just forget about this whole thing and leave it behind.

[ShinjiStranglesAsuka]

But then how would they kill Kaworu in a spectacular fashion?

I don't mind hiding the potential idea that Asuka & Mari are also wearing chokers because the reveal of it would help Shinji realize that he's a lil punk bitch and that the world doesn't revolve around him. There are other people who are just like him, suffering the way he is but they're not running off starting impacts in an effort to try and magically fix things. I want 3.0 + 1.0 to live up to its title, Shinji realizing that he can (not) redo what happened, but he is also (not) alone.

[Gendo'sPapa]

If they even had the chokers in mind all the way back then, then why didn't they just put them in the actual movie? I've never been a fan of movie franchises revealing important details in outside sources.

Because 3.0 is very intentionally outside of the action scenes limited to Shinji's POV and his interactions with Asuka & Mari are few and far between.

Really the issue here is just that a lot of 3.0 is the setup for reveals and character exchanges in Final but then there was an unexpected 8+ year gap between films. When they started production on 3.0 the plan was probably to dive right from that film into production onto Final for a 2015 or 2016 release. Then Toho came along with a deal too good to pass up - make your own Godzilla film but it has to be now - and everything was put on hold for a few years.

If it's never revealed in Final that Asuka & Mari have been wearing chokers the whole time THEN the argument this was something added to an outside source holds ground. But since I am 100% certain no one in this forum has yet seen the film then that is an empty statement.

[Melkor]

Really the issue here is just that a lot of 3.0 is the setup for reveals and character exchanges in Final but then there was an unexpected 8+ year gap between films. When they started production on 3.0 the plan was probably to dive right from that film into production onto Final for a 2015 or 2016 release. Then Toho came along with a deal too good to pass up - make your own Godzilla film but it has to be now - and everything was put on hold for a few years.

I remember once hearing somewhere that 3.0 and 3.0+1.0 (back when it was still called 4.0) were originally intended to be made and released within short succession of each other, as sort of like a two part final act (a la Avenger's Infinity War and Endgame). How accurate is that? Was there an interview of some sort where that was stated?

[Reichu]

I don't think it was ever called "4.0", actually. This is just a fan meme. The initial NTE teaser has it called "Final", and it stayed "Final" until the title was officially revealed to be 3.0+1.0 instead. (Yes, this means the movie is not called "Final" anymore.)

And +1 to everything Gendo'sPapa said.

[Gendo'sPapa]

I remember once hearing somewhere that 3.0 and 3.0+1.0 (back when it was still called 4.0) were originally intended to be made and released within short succession of each other, as sort of like a two part final act (a la Avenger's Infinity War and Endgame). How accurate is that? Was there an interview of some sort where that was stated?

When the project was originally announced a million years ago the way Khara marketed the films made it sound like 3.0 & Final were really going to be two shorter films of 45 min to an hour that were going to play in theaters back to back. It would likely be something like End of Evangelion where there would be an end credit sequence in the middle to break things up. Clearly the idea grew from the original conception and I think they abandoned that sometime after or during production of 1.0.
Also weirdly enough, on the official Evangelion website for a long time before the release of 3.0 in late 2012 there was a page link for Final that when clicked would direct the viewer to a graphic saying “Coming in 2013”.
So the plan always seemed to be 3.0 & Final were supposed to release close together.
I feel the final two films are probably designed to play well together kinda like an Avengers Infinity War + Endgame experience as you said - as we can see in the Paris Setpiece released last year what with Unit 8 being a wreck and no Asuka, Thrice Upon A Time takes place like right after the end of 3.0 - and when viewed as a whole a lot of the complaints of 3.0 - both valid and less valid - will feel more like natural setups for solid storytelling. It’s just they didn’t make the two films at the same time and an unexpected project AND a freaking pandemic made the gap between films much Much MUCH longer. Lol.

It really is a good thing Shin Godzilla was so damn good. Imagine how awful the extended wait between films would have been if it had been a terrible waste of everyone’s time?

[ShinjiStranglesAsuka]

My complaint about Shin Godzilla has to do with how goofy the the SFX looked. But I guess when you're only working with a $15m budget that's to be expected.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

While the reveal that every pilot is wearing the DSS Chokers would certainly be a shocking one, the theory really isn't anything new on this forum. I mean, we already know from Eva Q that Wille was making DSS Chokers for people other than Shinji to wear, so I don't know why people concluded that Wille was targeting Shinji specifically. It would cost WAY too much in research and development to create a whole device that blows up the head of an Eva pilot if their Eva goes berserk if only one person was gonna wear at AND you were actively keeping him away from piloting Evas to begin with anyway. It only makes sense that other people would be wearing it. They would HAVE to be wearing it, especially since other people were piloting Evas far more often than Shinji did in Eva Q.

[Settie]

Well the choker was made for Kaworu, not Shinji. If the whole point of a choker is to prevent impacts, that's another +1 in Misatos hypocrisy pile and while i'm not against such revelation, it does seem odd.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

If the whole point of a choker is to prevent impacts, that's another +1 in Misatos hypocrisy pile and while i'm not against such revelation, it does seem odd.

How is that hypocritical on Misato's part? Was she trying to start Impacts while telling others they couldn't? Was she all "Do what I say and not what I do," about Impacts? (Because that's kinda what the word "Hypocrisy" means.). Like, you could argue Misato was a lot of things, but I don't think she was doing Impacts as a secret little side-hustle while telling everyone else to back off from them.

[Melkor]

When it comes to the Rebuilds, I'm judging these films solely from the perspective of what we are presented with in the films themselves and nothing else, much like how a causal viewer watching them would. If a movie has to rely on outside sources to explain or justify its story decisions rather than the narrative itself, then hasn't it sort of failed in its purpose as a movie? This is coming from someone who despite all its flaws still greatly enjoyed 3.0. As weird as it may sound to some, it is possible to enjoy something while also criticizing it and seeing that it has problems. No movie is 100% perfect. Having criticisms about something doesn't automatically mean you hate everything about it. If I were to condense it all into a single thought, I'd say that my one major gripe about the movie was that at times it felt like the movie was trying way too hard to be overly dramatic. Most of the lore or story complaints I had about the movie, like the chokers and the debatable necessity of the 14 year time skip, all in some way stem from these attempts at creating melodrama.

Another thing we should keep in mind regarding 3.0, which was probably a major factor as to why the movie turned out the way that it did, was Anno's mental state and some of the current events that were going on at the time. During the production of 3.0, Anno was going through another bout of depression, and there was also the 2011 Tohoku earthquake that was fresh on everyone's minds. You can clearly see the influences of both present in the events of the movie. In a sense, these things ended up effecting the creation of the movie and bleeding into it. If those two factors had not been present, I can't help but wonder how 3.0 might have turned out. Would it even have been anywhere close to the same story?

[Reichu]

If a movie has to rely on outside sources to explain or justify its story decisions rather than the narrative itself, then hasn't it sort of failed in its purpose as a movie?

Are we still talking about the DSS choker stuff? That's perfectly justified by Q itself and it would make no sense to reveal it beforehand. It's part of the withholding of information that's very deliberately done to make the entire movie a treatise on alienation. Shinji wakes up in a completely changed world that he doesn't understand at all and he thinks he is being specifically targeted and punished for reasons he doesn't understand. The mutual breakdown in understanding and communication results in rejection of the people he should trust most, resulting in running back to his true abuser, and to isolation, manipulation, devastation, and everything else. The emotional reality of the film would be utterly compromised by scratching that fan need for instant gratification.

Like, I know the wait sucks, but do you really believe the overarching vision for a story should be thrown into the shredder to cater solely to the here and now? These films will still be around long after they have all come out! "In this movie about identifying with someone who is confused and alienated and witlessly digging themselves deeper, let us break the immersion by letting the audience know RIGHT NOW, without a SHADOW OF A DOUBT, that everything is okay! Shinji is not the only one being punished! Observe this Asuka and Mari fan service scene where they suit up together and you can see their chokers -- and their boobies too! " I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but honestly. Is that really what you want? How would that actually make Q a better movie?

The "melodrama", as you put it, is IMO just part of Anno being emotionally honest. Sometimes feelings are a frothing mess of melodrama. Depression, for example, can be extraordinarily melodramatic. Melodrama isn't bad if it's used to channel something raw and real, like how ridiculous people can get when those neurotransmitters are running amok, making them act like complete fucking idiots, who will later curl up into a mess of tears and self-loathing thinking, just as melodramatically, "I'm a stupid piece of shit and I hate myself and nobody will ever forgive me for being such a piece of shit and even if they do they're wrong because they shouldn't forgive me".

[TheFriskyIan]

EDIT: Didn't read the whole thread.