[Greg88]

Originally Posted by arias

It's hard to say, we're bordering on fighting about whose opinion is right if we continue.

Oh, i didn't say that you are wrong. Just that that i disagree and presented my own thesis. No opinion is absolute.

Shinji is very much connected to Rei regardless of what Gendou did.

Definitely, Rei and Shinji share a very strong connection, with the Oedipal-undertones still there in spades. However, note that after the Eva-03 incident, when Gendo betrays and hurts Shinji (from Shinji's perspective), Shinji turns his back on everyone: Rei, Misato, his classmates... all because Gendo, the one person who Shinji really wanted to connect with, caused him pain.

In fact, from this perspective, downplaying the Shinji/Asuka dynamic was a great idea, now that i think about it: it shows that the real reason why Shinji displayed such an extreme reaction after the Unit-03 thing is not that he was nearly forced to hurt someone he knew (certainly not an upper on it's own, granted), but that it was his father that nearly made him do it.. and then did it without him anyway. He both betrayed and threw him away, in Shinji's mind (this is something that is clearly stated by Shinji himself in the following train-sequence).

If you watch the elevator scene, she says she feels paka-paka when together with Shinji, and that she wants Shinji to feel paka-paka when together with her as well, and for Shinji/Gendou to feel paka-paka when they are together.

Indeed, Rei wants them to be happy together. But when i say that the main thing in this movie was the Shinji/Gendo relationship (or lack thereof), i'm examining things from Shinji's point of view. Right up until he saw Rei getting eaten by Zeruel, his father was on his mind the most. He talks about him to Misato, Asuka, he gets happy when he phrases him, and even views Rei's dinner party as an opportunity to get closer to Gendo (when he is lying on his back, thinking about the dinner, the first thing that pops into his mind is "I wonder if father will be there"). Which brings me right to...

Finally, Shinji is in a much better state in Rebuild than ever in Eva. While he still has psychological problems in this one, he exerts his will in such a powerful, dramatic and glorious fashion at the climax in a way that draws admiration never before done in the Eva TV series + two movies.

Admirable? In a way, yes. Dramatic? Definitely.

But note Shinji's state of mind while doing it:

Originally Posted by GAR Shinji

I don't care about the world.... nor about myself....

He wants to shut himself from the world ("The world my awful father exists in."), and most importantly, he lacks a solid, internal center, with which to find his own balance. He still relies on external relationships (with his father, with Rei) to find happiness, and can't really find anything worthy to live for within himself. So personally, i think he is still as desperate as he was in the series. It's just coated with a surface of high budget romantic machismo.

In the original it almost felt like NONE of the characters could catch a break, and there was no redemption, up until the final rolling credits of End of Evangelion... "Kimochi warui."

Rebuild can have a happier ending, of course. I just think that there are still struggles ahead. And that makes sense when we consider that there are still movies to go, no?