[Daniel Lind]

Originally Posted by Myssa Rei

I'm not really sure anyone who HASN'T got a good understanding of Japanese can even comment on this properly. We have raws, but no subs.

We've had subs based on a camrip for a while now. They're mostly spot-on.
However, regardless of the spoken language, comprehending Q is not such easy of a task. You see, no viewer simply speaks the language of terms and cryptic references that characters spout instead of lines. The most complicated language material in there is technobabble that accompanies complex space operations or Wunder launch and they carry practically no information for the viewer. The rest is not that hard to follow (as much as anyone can anyway) especially with the Japanese subs on hand, although there was a difficult monologue by Gendou and at first I paused to sit down and discern it thinking it might finally have some exposition that will piece this together. Nope.

I mean, can I really fault Eva for obfuscating its own setting? Isn't that kinda what it always did? Although here, it's been perfected to an artform. It's really amazing how the creators do everything in their ability to ensure that it is impossible to understand just what exactly is the story.

That doesn't mean what's happening on the screen is all that complex however. The happenings of the movie are simple and can be summarized without fluff quite so:

Spoiler for Q:

Gendou attempts to trick everyone again into producing a near-apocalyptic state through Shinji to advance his nebulous plan.

And that's it, and that's what happens. Not before a bunch of contrivances!

Through Kaworu we learn that

Spoiler for Q:

Near-Third Impact has wiped out practically everyone on Earth save for a small part of the population. Similarly, most of the Earth's buildings and organizations are destroyed. We're never shown what is kept intact in any place on Earth so it's safe to assume everything has perished. That raises a question, who, how and out of what built wondrous machines way beyond the technology shown in the original Evangelion show that do absolutely ridiculous reality-bending feats? I'm refering to both Wunder, Wille's ship and Nerv's units. Especially Nerv's units actually because Nerv is utterly busted and doesn't appear to have anyone in there but Gendou, Fuyutsuki, a new Rei and Kaoru.
Moreover, it's puzzling how selective Near-Third Impact was. Gendou, Misato, Mari and a bunch of other relevant characters despite being near the epicenter are fine and kicking, but everyone else in Tokyo-3 are dead. Moreover, Toji's little sister Sakura is fine, but not Toji, oh no, despite her also living in Tokyo-3 before.

So what the hell is that? None of the locales, objects or devices we're shown are estabilished. There's simply no point of reference to any of the events transpiring on screen. But have 3DCG mecha porn though, that's always a good replacement, right?
The plot thickens when it is revealed that

Spoiler for Q:

Kaoru himself was tricked into making Near-Fourth Impact happening. That scene at the end is just a bunch of crap. It is implied two are needed to operate Eva 13 and that's what they've been "training" for with Kaoru by playing piano (nice reference to one of the best episodes of the original Eva, I'll admit). However the second Kaoru realizes what's happening he stops to think and... Shinji just keeps piloting Eva as normal. In fact, he manages to lock out Kaoru out of controls through a device that just happened to pop up when necessary. And that's on top of Kaoru thinking to himself about things just enough for events necessary to Gendou to transpire. Isn't that a bit too much? That's Palpatine level of contrivance! Was Gendou's plan riding on everything playing out like it did, both in 2.xx and in Q?

So yeah.
- Dialogues filled with terms that no viewer knows the meaning of
- Lack of estabilishment of setting
- Contriveances to keep the bare plot going
- 3DCG spam
- Plotholes! A new to Eva, it used to be just setting obfuscation, but now there's certain plotholes. Isn't it great.

It feels like there's another, probably less boring movie, we've missed in between 2 and 3.