Evangelion 4.0 is finally coming together. The entire Rebuild of Evangelion quadrilogy of films was originally envisioned to be a quick remaster of the original content slowing diverging into a new ending totally finishing Evangelion forever. But, those divergances began early in 2.0, and 3.0 went in a completely different direction than Anno intended in the beginning. Really, both 3.0 and 4.0 are the new ending to Evangelion. Thus, the title 3.0 + 1.0 is more fitting than just 4.0.
But, Anno had complications on how to truly end the franchise he created and made him famous. He grew up. He no longer saw himself as Shinji, but as Shinji's father, Gendo. He didn't understand Shinji and couldn't think of an ending that made sense. He became depressed from working on this problem too much, and 4.0 laid stale.
He started working other projects to keep his mind free. He worked with Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli Film on The Wind Rises. He started finding his joy for filmmaking again, and brought that joy to Shin Godzilla. We renewed interest and the help of staff at Khara, and finally found his way to completing Evangelion.
And now we're here in 2019, and the first footage of Evangelion Final was shown to the world. The actual event happened at Anime Expo in Paris, but it was telecasted to the world. There were 3 or 4 locations in Japan that picked up the stream are showed it to whoever wanted to attend. Details were exclusively given on the Evangelion Extra app.
I went to the location in Nagoya. It was held at the Arsenal shopping mall.
It was completely open. Anyone could come by and watch. The event started at 8pm, but I arrived around 5pm to get an idea of what was happening. Around 7pm, the screen started showing a loop of highlights from the first 3 movies giving a synopsis of what has happened so far, and a short teaser of where we're going.
At 8pm, the screen switched to the telecast from Paris. Some of the actors were in attendance and talked about their work on Evangelion and on this final film. Anno was not in attendance, but I think he gave them a short video introducing the clip.
The synposis played again showing highlights from 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0, and then starting interjecting a few new quick shots of 4.0 that have not been shown before.
Then, the first 10 minutes of Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 was shown. It showed a destroyed blood soaked Paris, and Misato's crew on a flying battleship hovering above an obelisk in the city. The crew land on the obelisk and try to activate it.
Then, a swarm of flying enemies spot them and come to fight them. Mari is deployed in her Evangelion, stitched together in crude left over mechanical parts. She fights them and destroys hundreds. In the distance, automated Evangelion units approach in a synchronized march. They siphon their power to a larger unit with a massive mounted cannon. Misato's flying squandron of ships move to defend from the shot. The cannon fires and blasts through them, but the obelisk is saved. Parts of Paris are destroyed in the deflected blasts.
Mari rips off the Eifel Tower, uses it as a massive spear, and charges at the cannon, but is pulled back by some of the remaining flying enemies. However, she is still able to move and twist around to plunge the Eifel Tower spear into the cannon and destroy it.
Misato's crew succeeds in unlocking the obelisk, which liberates the old Nerv headquarters in Paris. All of the reserve equipment is available, so they can begin completely repairing their Evangelion units.
The clip ends and everyone cheers.
It's pretty funny how the presenter was talking about how much the development staff of Evangelion 3.0+1.0 loves Paris and used Paris as an inspiration, but the movie completely trashes the city and rips apart the Eifel Tower to use as a weapon.
The presentation is concluded, and that's the end of the event.
Evangelion 3.0+1.0 was expected to be released in 2020, but the release was canceled because of the coronavirus. It was eventually finally release in March 2021.
Note: This post was made in Apr 2025 and back-dated to the time of the events
