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Originally Posted by Mr_Paper
As for the movies, well, they are Anno's way of telling the whining fanboys to "STFU!" When the people who couldn't understand the ending started complaining left and right, it made major headaches for Anno and everyone associated with the show. At conventions and panels when people asked/complained about it he told them "Too bad!" or "Deal with it!" The movies were made to shut them up, an end to which they served quite well. They provided the action filled, flashy and dumbed down ending that most people wanted when the original ending proved too much for them.
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Oh come on now, the situation was more complex than that. Despite spiteful remarks he had made eariler, it was never made clear that Anno was outright opposed to the theatrical version, and I see nothing in EoE that gives that impression.
Anno didn't half-ass the film by any stretch of the imagination. Personally, I thought he did a better job of exploring the psychological status of each character and bringing to them a sense of finality in the film than he ever did in the series. The most notable reason being that the film actually focused on all of the characters, unlike the TV ending which basically ignored every cast member apart from Shinji.
The "reunion" with her mother in the film highlighted Asuka's self-inflicted isolation better than the endless repetition of the TV ending did, Rei's reluctant sense of liberation was clearer and more significant, and more was said about the entire psychological basis of Gendo's character in about three lines of the film than was ever said in the entire series, let alone the ending where he was barely given an objective analysis from the perspectives of Rei and Shinji. Not to mention that Shinji's character arc is brought to a much more believeable "acceptance of life" in the film rather than the totally uncharacteristic "big, happy change" he experiences in the TV ending. In fact, I think Misato was the only character that benefitted more from the TV ending than the movie ending, but I'm from the camp that thinks you need to watch both versions to get the most out of it, and would rather enjoy both endings than get wound up in petty elitist squabbles about which one is better based on how few people are able to appreciate or understand it.
Just because EoE was done without the concept of dropping the narrative doesn't mean its nature, psychological or otherwise, was "dumbed down".