Possibilities and theories for NTE

[Heaven Piercing Man]

You can't really compare the mess Q left us in with the vagueness of NGE.

This is more like if 25/26 had Shinji and Asuka, in front of the red sea and the corpses of GNR and the Eva Series, as a framing device for the psychoanalytic ending, and then EOE was never made.

[ElMariachi]

There’s also the “Shinji has amnesia” hypothesis. Where he exited unit 01 without Rei, piloted it to fight Kaworu, caused an impact, was trapped again and in unit 01 sent into space in the coffin. And just doesn’t remember.

That theory doesn't hold water neither, because if Shinji did came back during the time skip, then the WILLE people wouldn't had expected to have to explain to him what happened at the end of 2.0, since logically he should had been already briefed the last time he came, and yet Ritsuko did included the events of 2.0 in her briefing.
And if Shinji really didn't remembered anything from his first return, it would had been noted by Misato and her crew, like "what, you don't remember any events from after the first time you were absorbed in EVA-01?".

[BernardoCairo]

You can't really compare the mess Q left us in with the vagueness of NGE.

The End of Evangelion is a lengthy movie that takes advantage of it's already stablish cast of iconic characters. It doesn't need to waste time introducing who these guys are, because you already know that and care about them. That's why the scenes are so impactful (otherwise they would just be "cool looking" and nothing more). So, yeah. It's hard to compare it to the Rebuilds. But you know what? I'm not doing it.
When I said I wanted 3.0 + 1.0 to follow in the footsteps of EoE, I was referring only to how that movie balances its screen time between lore elements and intimate "character-to-character" moments. Of course, the balance of EoE still leans towards pure character development. However, it is still able to deliver in both fronts, in my opinion.
Honestly, the NTE movies also deal with this issue very well (especially 1.0 and 2.0). So, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect this trend to continue in 3.0 + 1.0.
As you suggested, 3.0 left many things open. Among them, the arc of several characters. I would like to see these stories being completed satisfactorily and I am sure it will happen!
As for the other stuff, not every detail of it has to be thoroughly explained. Just like in NGE, some things are probably going to be left for the viewer's imagination. We just need to see what actually drives the story forward and I'm sure that will happen too!

[kuribo-04]

I think NGE really is a good comparison. Gainax has said it included everything you need to know...and it does. You can guess at essential parta of the backstory through rewatches, and mostly through a fan community effort (it's what makes that part of Eva pretty fun).

And how was that info delivered? There is a really short scene with Misato attempting to let Shinji know about the stuff she's been obsessed over, but I dunno how much it says on first viewing.

And I don't mean Shin has to be confusing. I'm open to it being whatever it is. But I don't think it needs to be the answer for every question in 3.0.

I imagine most BIG questions will be answered anyway, cause they'll play into seeing the other side (Wille) and understanding character motivation for Misato, Asuka and co.
But I doubt Anno had a spreadsheet with the...like, 50 mysteries 3.0 didn't answer.

Just a few months ago I answered one of my biggest questions about 3.0 for myself. It's a possible explanation I like. And I kinda like that it took that long. Actually I might make a topic about that lol.

Edit: Here it is.
https://forum.evageeks.org/post/909505/Why-Shinji-is-retrieved-after-14-years-why-Nerv-waits-for-it/#909505

[BusterMachine4]

Nice, Kuribo! That's what I'm expecting as well. Hopefully Anno will include enough exposition in the final movie to make the Rebuilds fit cohesively, but conservation of detail is key. There's just not enough time for Asuka to go into a 2 hour infodump about every single question fans have been asking.

[kuribo-04]

There's just not enough time for Asuka to go into a 2 hour infodump about every single question fans have been asking.

Yeah, time is probably gonna be pretty essential (though we sadly still don't know the runtime).

And when the manga did the big info dump thing, it honestly felt pretty awkward to me. It's a scene between Kaji and Shinji, where he tells him stuff clearly meant for the audience that I don't know Shinji really needs.

Meanwhile, Misato telling Shinji in 1.0 "This is Lilith, if an Angel gets here, we all die" feels natural. And even the weird scene between Fuyutsuki and Shinji in 3.0 feels natural to me, since he is talking about what's up with Shinji's mother and Rei.

[BernardoCairo]

I think NGE really is a good comparison. Gainax has said it included everything you need to know...and it does. You can guess at essential parta of the backstory through rewatches, and mostly through a fan community effort (it's what makes that part of Eva pretty fun).

Yeah, definitely! In my opinion, the biggest example of this is the First Impact. You think that such an important event would be thoroughly dissect by the series. But that's simply not the case. And you know what? That's completely fine!
The First Impact is not really relevant to the core story being told between these characters. So it would be a waste of screen time to explain it in detail to the viewer. But it is actually interesting, nevertheless. Thus, the answers to it are still in there for us to look for (at Misato's laptop, if I'm not mistaken). For me, that makes everything even more fun to watch and discuss with friends and strangers alike!

[GhostlyOcam]

I'd say that the mystery surrounding Third Impact is an essential question that has to be answered to some extent, considering it was presented as something that's intentionally made to pique the audience's interest and marked an important turning point for the story and characters, unlike NGE's First Impact which we know happened at some point in the past but we don't really need to know much about it with how small its impact (lol) is to the overarching narrative.

Judging from the EVA-EXTRA staff commentary, I think we'll be getting some of those juicy answers:

They mentioned that the main complaint they kept getting over and over after it premiered was that people didn't understand it, but since 3.0 and Shin were supposed to originally be billed together, they hope that people can expect most of those answers in the second half.

[Huagh]

I agree very much with your take Kuribo. I think the only whole 14 year time skip is a rather small thing to the narrative of the rebuilds. It’s there so the world that Shinji comes back to is different and the world has moved on from him. Well, except for two characters in particular, that being Misato and Asuka who have pent up emotions against Shinji for, what I think, is something more than the past 14 years of hell they have been going through. I think most of what we are ever going to get in regards to the past 14 years is what Kaworu told Shinji about the world in Q.

[Ray]

That theory doesn't hold water neither, because if Shinji did came back during the time skip, then the WILLE people wouldn't had expected to have to explain to him what happened at the end of 2.0, since logically he should had been already briefed the last time he came, and yet Ritsuko did included the events of 2.0 in her briefing.
And if Shinji really didn't remembered anything from his first return, it would had been noted by Misato and her crew, like "what, you don't remember any events from after the first time you were absorbed in EVA-01?".

I do not think they would have told him that? I mean weren’t you saying that the reason they didn’t explain anything to him was because they were suddenly under attack and had to put him away until the danger was passed?

It never made any sense to me that Wille treated him the way he did if he was only responsible for the collateral damage to Tokyo-03 at the end of 2.22. I mean yeah collateral damage to Tokyo was bad but he succeeded in stopping the Angel. Humanity is still alive even if it is a lot worse off than it was. And that’s a step up from what would’ve happened if he hadn’t pilot it at all to stop the angel/save Rei. End of humanity.

So something had to happen during the time skip otherwise the behavior they had towards him in the third movie just doesn’t make a lot of sense. I mean by no means roll the red carpet out, but treating him the way they did it was kind of still illogical, unless he was responsible for something far worse than just destroying Tokyo three. And he can’t have been responsible for something far worse unless something happened between the end of the second movie and the end of the decade long time skip.

The story needs to get Shinji off the hook for his actions somehow. Kaworu needs to be wrong and Shinji only needs to be responsible for his actions in 3.33. Otherwise all sense of in verse consistency is going to be lost and the story is going to progress in a way for him to be in the Eva again that breaks the rules setup in several previous movies.

[BusterMachine4]

I think you're forgetting another option, the option that most fans (including me) seem to have accepted: Part of Gendo and SEELE's execution of Third Impact during the time skip involved reawakening Unit 1. In that scenario, the whole deal with Unit 6 and Lilith was just part of it: Unit 1 also had to be reawakened in order for Third Impact to resume. WILLE stopped the Impact by blowing Lilith's head off, but by that point most of the damage had been done. It allows Kaworu's speech to be technically true (although one-sided and manipulated), and it rationalizes that speech with the events seen in 2.0 and 3.0.

[Kendrix]

^^^ 95% this, with the remaining 5 being the evil Kaworu bits.

EVA 01 was involved because FoIs.
Also there used to be a spear in it and now there isn't.

Its also possible that they pulled it out to deal with the mk 6 disaster and hoped the eva wouldn't blow them up

[Blockio]

Fwiw, Gendo is working even more openly against Seele in NTE than he did in NGE, so broad stroking together both of their plans into one doesn't really work when it comes to the details

[BusterMachine4]

^^^ 95% this, with the remaining 5 being the evil Kaworu bits.

Dude, I'm against evil Kaworu just as much as you are. I just don't think Kaworu is some sort of saint like you do, and I think it's obvious that he was withholding a lot of important information in order to make Shinji go along with his plan. I don't think he's "literally a child rapist" or whatever, I just think he's a flawed character, with a somewhat warped sense of what's right and wrong.

[Jäeger]

^^^ 95% this, with the remaining 5 being the evil Kaworu bits.

Dude, I'm against evil Kaworu just as much as you are. I just don't think Kaworu is some sort of saint like you do, and I think it's obvious that he was withholding a lot of important information in order to make Shinji go along with his plan. I don't think he's "literally a child rapist" or whatever, I just think he's a flawed character, with a somewhat warped sense of what's right and wrong.

Of course he is not a saint, and his role in 3.33 goes beyond what he did in NGE : he is "manipulation of someone who is hitting rock bottom 101". And despite enjoying more screentime than in NGE, a character underdeveloped in comparision with his 1996 counterpart. At least, taking into account just one movie. My opinion? Is a character who works only the way it did 25 years ago.

[EscapismIsBad]

Gendo is working even more openly against Seele in NTE than he did in NGE, so broad stroking together both of their plans into one doesn't really work when it comes to the details

I agree, but let's take into consideration NTE tends to exaggerate some features of the old work to make it more understandable to the audience and time issues don't let Anno be so subt like NGE.
Seele's relationship with Gendo/Nerv is clearly worse here than NGE, Ha is pretty a competition between Seele and Nerv since the beginning and the end if you think about it, every main action which happens in the movie is either from Seele or Nerv (Destruction of Bethany Base, Key of Nebuchadnezzar, Mk 06 being finished, Destruction of American Nerv Base, Bardiel, 01 awakening and Mk6 and Kaworu descending from the Moon with Cassius).

[ElMariachi]

I do not think they would have told him that? I mean weren’t you saying that the reason they didn’t explain anything to him was because they were suddenly under attack and had to put him away until the danger was passed?

It never made any sense to me that Wille treated him the way he did if he was only responsible for the collateral damage to Tokyo-03 at the end of 2.22. I mean yeah collateral damage to Tokyo was bad but he succeeded in stopping the Angel. Humanity is still alive even if it is a lot worse off than it was. And that’s a step up from what would’ve happened if he hadn’t pilot it at all to stop the angel/save Rei. End of humanity.

So something had to happen during the time skip otherwise the behavior they had towards him in the third movie just doesn’t make a lot of sense. I mean by no means roll the red carpet out, but treating him the way they did it was kind of still illogical, unless he was responsible for something far worse than just destroying Tokyo three. And he can’t have been responsible for something far worse unless something happened between the end of the second movie and the end of the decade long time skip.

Indeed WILLE didn't had the time to brief him on everything, but of what they had the time to explain, his awakening of EVA-01 14 years was part of it, it's even the first part of the debriefing! So logically they wouldn't be explaining this part to him if he already came back once, and I don't see Anno pulling a retcon that actually they asked him offscreen if he remembers what happened the first time he came back and included that part in their debrief when he answered that he didn't, this is Anno, not JJ Abrams.

As for why does WILLE treat him with fear, there could be many reasons, the fact he can somehow transform an Eva into a laser-throwing killing machine and start an Impact all by itself is already a good reason to fear him. And even if EVA-01 had a part in Third Impact proper, that was EVA-01, not Shinji. The part I disagree with is for some the need to have Shinji being directly involved into starting Third Impact, to the point of inventing a crazy story with Shinji clone spies hijacking 01 and defeating Mark.06 one-on-one to start it.

[EscapismIsBad]

@FXArmaros98
So, ANIMA does have 3 Reis (technically 4 discounting the original) which pilot 3 EVAS reminiscent of Unit 00 in a post (failed)Third Impact world and patrol the world to defend Nerv right?

This would be nice to know because this is EXACTLY what I think will happen in Shin Evangelion ( the deleted footage of 3.0, 3.0 preview in 2.0 and existence of Mk 10 support this idea) and it would be an ANIMA reference, even before knowing more about ANIMA i had thought about that idea unknowing it was a reference to EVA itself! It's so nice seeing EVA reference itself, now it's just time to wait for Mk 11 and 12 to show up in Final Impact and we see more variations of the revamped EVA 00 design much like Mk 10 itself!

Waiting for more ANIMA parallels.

[cyharding]

Indeed WILLE didn't had the time to brief him on everything, but of what they had the time to explain, his awakening of EVA-01 14 years was part of it

And when Shinji remarked during that briefing that he didn't understand, Ritsuko replied that they understood that, insinuating that they knew time stopped for him at the point when he was fighting the 10th Angel.

[FXArmaros98]

@FXArmaros98
Waiting for more ANIMA parallels.

@ EscapismIsBad well some parallels that I found with ANIMA is this:

SPOILER: Show

You read up to the fourth volume right? So I guess you would know that Armaros is apparently using the Ark and the sphere of Longinus to change the Earth and Moon's position in order to push the world directly to a later stage where Instrumentality takes place. In 3.0 we see that the Earth has become almost uninhabitable due to Barrier L and that the distance to the Moon appears to be reduced. Is it possible, therefore, that as in ANIMA to complete the Instrumentality also in the Rebuilds it is necessary to destroy the world, to exchange it with the moon?The Mark 06 looks like Armaros, many fans in fact say that it was not Shinji and the Evangelion Unit 01 that caused the world the most disastrous effects we see in 3.0 but Kaworu and the Mark 06 instead. Armaros turned out to be the Evangelion Unit 01 and the Shinji of a world that precedes that of ANIMA and ironically before this information arrived on this forum many of the fans most loyal to the crazy theories about loop and time travel said that Mark 06 was EOE's Evangelion Unit 01. Another funny coincidence between Armaros and the Mark 06 is that while Rebuild Kaworu is the pilot of the Mark 06 in the original version of ANIMA, Kaworu's voice had initially defined Armaros as his dark alter ego.

Plus This

SPOILER: Show

In both ANIMA and Rebuilds there are 2 different types of spears. In ANIMA the Spear of Lucretius appears, here's what I know about it,a description that I found on the Internet from a Japanese boy on the spear of Lucretius consequently a preview on Volume 5:A weapon created by Shinji and the Evangelion Final Model. Lucretius, the Roman republican philosopher from whom the name derives, wrote that human misery began when he saw an inexplicable natural phenomenon and became frightened, and saw the interference of the gods there. He also mentioned "the end of the universe and the limits of recognition".Since Shinji unknowingly created the spear of this god, a large transitional structure "World Tree" that should originally be in another dimension appears as an "image" in front of you, and the spear is the limit of recognition by Shinji: "Eden" Achieved. Is it possibletherefore that Cassius's Spear could have some kind of bond that Shinji, perhaps of a spiritual and ancestral nature?

I also want to talk a little bit about the probability of a possible time travel. I know that many members of this forum and many fans see the idea of ​​time travel as a foregone twist that would detract from the appeal of these films and a more logical conclusion would be better for what they have shown us so far, but I feel that if this is really the direction in which Anno is going, I think we will still be able to have the film that does not disappoint us. Do you really believe that Anno would not realize that he wrote and then sold a bullshit? Personally I think that if there is time travel it will not be shown to us as a shortcut to solving Shinji's problems more easily but as an even tougher challenge. For the evidence to support time travel these are: Evangelion Unit 01 still has its arm and core intact, why would Wille or Gendo waste time repairing Evangelion Unit 01? Maybe Gendo needs Evangelion Unit 01 to be repaired to be able to reunite with Yui? Furthermore, the one we see in the trailer seems to be Tokyo III and in the preview we see the Evangelion Unit 01 in its old cage of the Nerv. Again why would anyone waste time fixing everything if the world is about to end?I have so many doubts because we don't know how Evangelion 13 will end and Evangelion Unit 01 has dueling in apparent Tokyo III, but it is likely that in the film some things will turn out to be quite different from what they have shown us so far.Whether there is time travel in the film or not, I won't be disappointed in any way.