Neon Genesis Evangelion Forum

It's good to know you are going to see End of Evangelion. People weren't really happy with the TV series finale. So, they made Death and Rebirth. People didn't like that. This led to End of Evangelion. It was better-ish.
 
Isn't is amazing how much the series changes from the light almost sitcom beginnings to some seriously metaphorical mind f&^%# it becomes? I always remember that scene of Shinji holding that picture of Misato. She's bent over and written on the image is basically "Look here" with the line drawn to her cleavage, and this was written by her.

@FoxxFireArt:    ...no, its not that "people weren't happy with Death& Rebirth so they made EoE" its that "End of Eva was behind schedule, so they raced off a rough cut version of the first third of End of Eva along with a clip show of the series"
 
 
While I could easily tell you where to find the Director's Cut episodes online, my fansite has a strict no-bootlegs policy.  ADV never put Evangelion on The Anime Network's streaming services, because the DVDs were such a cash cow it wouldn't make sense to.
 
If you've been having fun, you kind of need to buy the Platinum Edition DVD box set by ADV.  
 
Oh, and skip Manga Entertainment's "Death & Rebirth"
 
The entire reason D&R exists is simply because End of Eva wasn't finished yet, and fans were getting impatient.
 
 The two halves are "Death" and "Rebirth".  "Death" is a clip show of the series, intercut with a few new scenes....which were then spliced out, and put into the "Director's Cut episodes"  - the version of Death that has all the NEW scenes cut OUT is "Death 2.0"
 
Manga Entertainment's English dub release is based on Death 2.0, so its literally just a clip show; you won't even see the new scenes.
 
As for "Rebirth"....that's just the rough-cut first THIRD of End of Eva, only the first third.
 
And her's the kicker:  the only good thing about "Rebirth" is that its like watching a 95% complete version of End of Eva...which is interesting because you get to ask "what decisions were changed by the final version?" to compare and contrast -- only animation diehards will like this.  
 
But again:  Manga Entertainment's release of Death and Rebirth.....doesn't use the REAL "Rebirth", the rough-cut version of the first third of End of Eva;  they used the ACTUAL first third of the End of Eva movie, "because it looks better"....when the literally only selling point for "Rebirth" was that it was the ROUGH version of End of Eva; it was like replacing all of the animatics on a DVD with the actual scenes, and saying "well before it was just storyboards, who'd want that?"
 
Ugh
 
the problem is that i this day and age....many people don't want to sit through "two movies" so they watch "Death & Rebirth" then give up.
 
So really, avoid Death & Rebirth
 
It's the Platinum Edition DVD box set (containing the Director's Cut versions of episodes 21'-24') and then The End of Evangelion (which is stated on screen to be essentially "the Director's Cut version of episodes 25 and 26" - their official title is even "25' and 26' " the notation used for Directors Cuts)

"  Okay okay okay… I’m sure I’ve got this wrong so, by all means, correct me where my interpretation is off.  "

" I will now educate you....on how a REAL vampire does battle!" -- Alucard, Hellsing OVA 2

 
Well this is why I made my fansite, ReVolutionOfEvangelion.org, and started running national-level convention panels to make an "Explanation of Evangelion" (we've got the whole thing recorded on my site, make sure to watch my panels when you're done, but not yet you'll be spoiled)
 
The answers to Evangelion are all there, you just have to pay attention.  I will try to keep this succinct so it sinks in, please respond with questions: 
 

• The biggest mistake that you seem to be making, which I think a lot of people make, is that there is one giant "conspiracy" singular, then they try to fit all of the pieces together:
• Actually, there are two:  Seele has a master plan, but Gendo is plotting behind their back and turning on them. 
  
• Seele's plan never involved Rei; Rei is Gendo's secret project to get Yui back.
• So there are actually two plans, working to use the Evangelions to their own ends.

 
As for the Angels:
 

• In case you haven't figured it out now, the Angels were never the primary antagonists.  They're animals, and not really malevolent.  They do want to "return to Adam and reactivate it from its dormant state" -- Third Impact, which would kill the human race -- but its an evolutionary drive, nothing more. 
  
• The real bad guys were Seele - a secret power cabal which is a generic mish-mash of the Illuminati and Freemasons (they're like the Council of 13 from Venture Bros).  They run the world's governments.  Nerv is "a special sub-branch of the United Nations" ...but Seele runs the UN, so they run Nerv.  Nerv is the secret organization created and funded by Seele to create the Evangelion units.
• Seele wants to create "The Human Instrumentality project" - notice that they even state directly in episode 2 "we have to get rid of the Angels, only then will conditions be ready for Instrumentality" - Angels would interfere with it, you see.  And they NEVER considered "defeating the Angels" to be their actual "mission", it was always the Human Instrumentality Project
• As Kaji mentioned in episode 8, the Adam embryo he gave to Gendo is "the keystone of the whole Instrumentality project"
• Seele are the primary villains of the series.  Gendo, Ritsuko, and Nerv in general are also, in many ways, the "Bad Guys".  Everyone was working for "the Bad Guys" this whole time.

 
But with that out of the way, lets tackle your theory here:

  Rei was created by the explosion that resulted from the first Eva’s activation, but she isn’t a de-aged version of Shinji’s mother. Instead, the expelled energy somehow split her soul (or her essence or whatever) up, so it has some kind of link with the Evas.

No.  What...explosion?  There was never an explosion.  "expelled energy makes you bond?"...eh...well I guess dumber things have happened in poorly written anime you've had to review over time...
 
 Major points you need to recall (lets approach this Socratically ) : 
 

• Evangelions are cloned from recovered genetic samples of Adam, the First Angel, discovered in the Antarctic GeoFront.  The Hakone GeoFront is in Japan.  They built Tokyo-3 in Hakone near Mt. Fuji, as opposed to anywhere else in the world or even other regions of Japan, because they found the GeoFront there.  Tokyo-3 was built *around* the GeoFront.  Director's Cut material clarifies that the GeoFronts are "identicial and clearly artificial" and "Made by an intelligence other than Man".  The Angels are of extra-terrestrial origin.  They've also been there for about 4 billion years.
• As Fuyutsuki figured out in the flashback episode 21, Gendo and Seele knew exactly what they were doing when they sent the Katsuragi Expedition to Antarctica in 2000 to find Adam (led by Misato's father).  they intentionally started Second Impact.  Seele killed off half the human race in the process, but the result was to reduce Adam to a controllable, embryonic form.
• Fuyutsuki's office in episode 21, which Yui comes to work at, says that the field of research they specialize in is "Metaphysical Biology".  Metaphysical Biology is to Evangelion what "Super Science" is to Venture Bros.  (a magic wand)

 
Are you with me so far?
 

• Rewatch Ritsuko's rant at the end of the episode and pay attention to her words:  you can't clone a soul, a clone is just a copy.  Just lifeless flesh in a vat.  You need a soul to function, but you cannot clone a soul.  
• Evangelions are clones of Adam.  But they had no souls, they were lifeless flesh.  So to animate them...well, Ritsuko directly says in this episode "Evangelions contain human souls"
• Where do you get a human soul?....
• This is why Evas are different from Angels.  Why when Misato in episode 16 accused Ritsuko that "Evas are just copies of that thing in the Antarctic", Ritsuko angrily retorts "Evas are NOT just a copy".  Evas are a human soul in an Angel body. 
  
• Remember in episode 19, at the start, when Shinji asks Misato why Toji was Eva-03's pilot?  And she says that she wasn't told, but she's figured out that apparently, "Class 2-A" was a pool of potential Eva pilots?
• Shinji's mother "disappeared" after the "Contact Experiment" with Eva-01 when he was a toddler.  As you saw in episode 22, Asuka's mother went insane after a "Contact Experiment" with Eva-02 (rewatch the episode they mention it was a Contact Experiment).
• Kensuke mentions in episode 4 that he has no mother.  Toji in episode 3 mentions only that his father and grandfather are around, but can't visit his sister in the hospital due to work; he implies he has no mother.  Hikari cooks for her sisters, because there's no one to do it at home; she has no mother.
• Can you name a single child in this show that has a mother?
• Episode 20 mentions that the experiment they try to do to "get Shinji back" from being merged inside of Eva-01's LCL...is based on a similar experiment 12 years ago that didn't work; this was the one that was supposed to get Yui Ikari back but didn't.
• "Metaphysical Biology" apparently involves some pseudo-science involving electro-magnets or whatever to actually manipulate "souls" - though I STRESS that "the soul" in the Eva-verse is not a necessarily religious concept; its similar to the "Ghost" from "Ghost in the Shell", which is stated to be that off-screen in the GitS-verse, a scientific experiment proved the existence of "the soul" as an electro-magnetic phenomenon (or some variation) and the only functional difference between Motoko Kusanagi and a sentient robot is this vaguely defined concept.
  

 

 Nerv has then been bio-engineering Rei’s because they’re necessary for a human pilot to control the Eva. So there are individual Rei’s floating somewhere inside Shinji and Asuka’s Evas, in their “dummy plug.” However, if Nerv ever needs to take control of an Eva, they wake the Rei’s up and then control them by proxy? 

No.
 

• Rei was never part of the original plan for Evangelions.
• Gendo freaked out when Yui was lost, and started making clones of her.
• Rei Ayanami is a clone of Yui Ikari's recovered genetic material.  If "Rei" is pronounced properly in Japanese, its even supposed to rhyme with "Yui".
  
• Gendo's entire actions through the series are a massive plot focused entirely on "get Yui back", using Rei. 
  

 
As for the Dummy Plugs....thats not really an essential part of either Gendo or Seele's plans.  Basically,
 

• Either this episode or next episode, Hyuga mentions that they've started mass-producing Evangelions at the other global facilities.  The nine "Mass Production Model" Evangelions
• The Dummy Plugs are a convenient way to make Evas that don't need actual living pilots.
• No, they are not "remote controlled".  Its an auto-pilot system.  They used the first one in Eva-01 in episode 18 to kill Eva-03 ...if it was remote-controlled, they would have stopped it. 
  
• If an Eva has an auto-pilot system but no real pilot, it has no morals.  It'll do whatever the heck you tell it to do. 
  
• Basically, a Dummy Plug is an Entry Plug mocked up with a "blank" clone of "Rei Ayanami" (its just a body in a vat), which tricks the Evangelion into "turning on".  As we saw in episode 18, this only gives it animal-level intelligence at best, but it will do what you tell it to do.
• Yes, this means that there are blank Rei clones floating in another, closed-off section of the Entry Plugs now, for Eva-01, Eva-00, and Eva-02.  We never see them but they're in there, not in the cockpit part though. 
  
• They only put these in RECENTLY though, and they are NOT an essential part of the process.
• Seele basically wanted to have an autopilot system so that the upcoming Mass Production Model Evangelions will be their tools, with no need for pilots who have opinions of their own.  Gendo obliged them by making "clones of a pilot" (which is what makes it work), but he used *Rei* so he'd have an EXCUSE to Seele about why he has a whole tank of clones of Rei (he didn't tell them that Rei is a clone of Yui, they don't know he wants to get Yui back). 
  
• No, Rei clones are not "necessary" for  a human pilot to control an Eva.  The Dummy Plugs are an autopilot system that makes a human pilot unnecessary.  They actually mention the development of the Dummy Plugs, in the background, since *episode 13* (there's a point which is one of Maya's few big scenes, when she tells Ritsuko she's not sure if its moral to create the Dummy Plugs)

 
 
So in short, the problem is that Seele has one plan and Gendo has another;  the Dummy Plugs are an autopilot system for the Evas.  Gendo's plan involves Rei, but Seele's never did.  There only needs to be ONE Rei, but Seele wanted "clones of a pilot" for the Dummy plug, which was a convenient excuse to make many Reis.
 
There have been 3 "alive" Rei clones:
 

• Rei 1.0 - the little girl we met in episode 21, strangled to death by Naoko Akagi. 
  
• Rei 2.0 - the Rei we met in episode 1 and who we knew for most of the series.  Dies in episode 23.
• Rei 3.0 - "I think I'm the Third One" - the new Rei is...different, from Rei 2.0.  They are the same yet not the same.  Rei 2.0 was utterly stoic and never showed signs of emotion.  Rei 3.0 now angrily snaps Gendo's glasses in her hands (those glasses symbolized how she idolized Gendo; now she has utterly turned on him)...and Rei 3.0 even starts openly crying.

 
But you have to ask yourself two questions:
 

• If Evangelions are clones, and thus don't have souls on their own, where did they get souls for Evas?
• If Rei is a clone of Yui, and clones don't have souls....where did they get  a soul for Rei?
  

 
The answer to this question, "who is Rei Ayanami"?, is yet to be fully revealed.  
And when it does come, you'll see what link there is between Rei and the Evas.
 
Have I solidified my standing as an "Eva Expert" yet? That moron Taliesin Jaffe seems to be able to simply walk into a room at cons and say "I'm Talliesin Jaffe,  therefore I am an Eva Expert!" without actually...proving it. 

On the use of Händel's (I could've sworn there was supposed to be... something on... something) Messiah: I respectfully disagree. Asuka's ordeal is supposed to be very uncomfortable to watch. Gainax made it stand out by coupling it with that piece. It's about as subtle as getting smacked in the face with a sledgehammer, but still, it's very effective. Also, something will creep up in the next episode that'll probably have the same effect on you, Mr. Pinchuk. 
 
As an aside, you should probably track down Hideaki Anno's foreword to Evangelion after you finish it (I'm probably one of the few people who think 25-26 is the "real" ending of the story and not EoE, but tastes differ). It'll explain why Evangelion, in essence, isn't about EVA Units, mechs or fan service.

@bocam:  I have flagged this blatant public posting to illegal english dub video and I demand that this post be deleted.

@ReVolutionOfEvangelion:  thanks. i had a lot of the dots, but i wasn't sure how they connected.  thank you for helping me connect the dots.