Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 trailer summary

Well, it took long enough for a variety of reasons, but better late than never. This is a summary of the October 15 trailer of Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0, highlighting a few key points and their significance, although it isn’t quite everything in that action-packed trailer!

For more trailer discussion, do head to the dedicated forum thread for it, but if you’re just here for the summary, read on!

The trailer begins with Asuka and Mari changing into white plugsuits in a room with a divider between them, a section of blue glass with a crisscross pattern visible behind them. Asuka’s plugsuit has “02” on it and red highlights, while Mari’s has “08” and pink highlights, both of which will be seen more clearly later. Both pilots press buttons on their wrists to fit their plugsuits to form.

Asuka is on the left and Mari is on the right, mirroring the positions taken by Shinji and Kaworu in their own similar plugsuit-fitting scene, and both girls have white plugsuits to the boys’ bluish-black. However, the background is radically different – in this case, a room on the Wunder or another Wille facility, and both Mari and Asuka are separated by the twin bunk bed between them when Kaworu and Shinji had no physical separations. This appears to be a shared living quarters of some kind, with a chair and table visible in front of Asuka, and dark green cases, presumably for the plugsuits, in front of the pilots.

The new white plugsuits appear to be specialized or advanced models of some kind, with gray lines on them activating as the plugsuits fit to form and revealing a shifting rainbow pattern of colors, reminiscent of the rainbows associated with Angels and the gates at Fourth Impact. Both suits additionally feature X’s on the back of the neck, a design feature not seen otherwise, and perhaps tying in to the prominent X on the face of Eva Mark X. Oddly, both plugsuits have what appear to be raised heels – Red for Asuka’s and Pink for Mari’s.

Misato stands in front of three white hexagonal blocks that may be three Magi supercomputers, in a facility that may be on the Wunder or another Wille base. Her expression is unreadable, and it is hard to understand what might be so important about what she’s looking at here. The odd lighting and background make further details impossible to discern.

Asuka, “Rei Q” and Shinji walking through the red landscape and passing in front of the remains of a train station at what looks like the outskirts of a town/city. This may be based on a real station in the Hakone area, but it hasn’t been identified of this writing. The three of them are the only colored objects in a field of red core material. Asuka is looking at the device she was holding at the end of 3.0 and walking ahead, paying no heed to the other two. Rei follows her, but stops in the middle of the train tracks and turns around to face Shinji, who is despondently trailing behind.

Rei Q appears very surprised by something that’s in front of and below her. The background is sky, giving no hint of location. Sharp-eyed fans pointed out the similarity to a piece of Khara calendar art from 2013 showing the feet of Shinji, Asuka and Rei as they stood on a (normal, not core) railway track, with a tortoiseshell cat beside them. Could Rei be surprised to see another living creature? Or is the calendar art simply calendar art, and not an unused concept for this movie, and Rei is looking at something else to be revealed?

The Black Moon floats horizontally and slowly drags along Mount Fuji, against a blue sky and with a line of clouds on the horizon. This shot gives scale to the utter monstrosity that is the Black Moon, which appears to be somewhat darker and redder than when it was pulled out of the Earth in Evangelion 3.0. The last time we saw it, it was lying on its side on the Earth, with  Failures of Infinity spilling out of it. Why is it floating again and moving? Are Gendo and Fuyutsuki flying the thing? The sky shows no sign of an impact, adding to the mystery of what is going on.

This is a shot of Rei Q, identifiable by the green sections on her plugsuit. She holds Shinji’s SDAT and holds out a hand, most likely seen from Shinji’s perspective. The color of the sky behind her suggests either dawn or sunset. This shot interestingly mirrors Kaworu holding Shinji’s SDAT and holding his hand out to him in 3.0.

Asuka approaching what looks like a cubical cell or living quarters of some kind, with an additional space and what looks like a tent on top. Although the glass is similar to the one behind her when she and Mari were changing into their plugsuits, this cell appears to be too small to be the same room. Since a previous trailer depicted Shinji and Kaworu in a similar cell, it’s possible that this is the location in which they are held. Asuka is in a red plugsuit, and it is not clear if this is the same plugsuit she was wearing at the start of the movie or a new one.

The next shot shows someone with pinkish-red coveralls and plugsuit-like shoes holding a plastic bag of drinking water and eating a meal. The Wille logo on the water and the background confirm that this is a position on the bridge of the Wunder. Could this be Shinji, having joined the Wunder crew? What would have made Misato relent and allow him to join? For what it’s worth, the hand shot and food shot are reminiscent of the shots of Shinji in 3.0 eating food paste from a tray at Nerv, although the food from Wille appears to have quinoa, fresh greens and slices of green apple or cucumber to go along with the beige and red pastes. Interestingly, Russian is included as a language alongside English, indicating Wille’s international composition.

The next shot shows a red Rei, made of core, her hair animated to move slightly and moving red speckles of “core glow” seen in her iris. Has Rei Q been turned to core? Is this a different Rei that has been turned to core? Is this the 3.0 + 1.0 version of the Rei-Lilith monstrosity from the End of Evangelion?

This is followed by Shinji, his eyes opening, looking up. There appear to be dark circles around his eyes, suggesting tiredness. He does seem to be showing subtle signs of interest, or determination as he looks on, his eyes widening. The angle of the shot obliterates all background and therefore context, so it is hard to say who or what he is looking at, or what he has decided to do.

Eva-08 and Eva-02 descending into the center of Final Impact on top of two aircraft carriers, perhaps the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) on the left and the USS Gerald Ford (CVN-78) on the right? The identification of the two aircraft carriers is complicated by the removal of their hull numbers from the bow in favor of the Wille symbol. Eva-02 is in its rebuilt configuration using the equipment seen in previous trailers but Eva-08 is attached to a bizarre, towering, organic looking object that utterly dwarfs it in size and defies easy description. Both of these were in fact glimpsed briefly during the preview of the first ten minutes of the movie, but what they are exactly is anyone’s guess.

Asuka turns around, and calls out to Mari, who apparently shouts a response to her from the same scene. The red and pink highlights on their respective plugsuits are visible but the rainbow effect is gone. Looking closely at their monitors, you can see that Eva-02 has been redesignated N-EVA-02, while Eva-08 is now Eva-08 gamma (which looks like a y).

The next shot shows the bridge of the Wunder going on alert as a new Eva appears outside. This Eva appears to combine the colors of the Mark.09 and Eva-03, and features a red glowing light in the center of the X-shaped marking on its face. While this may be the Eva Mark.10 seen in the lantern festival drawing, this Eva lacks the slight “crest” seen on the lantern festival model and the Mark.10 previously seen didn’t have the noticeable “chevron” along the side of the face. Is this the previously revealed Mark.10, with an updated design, or is this another Eva? It appears to be unusually huge when seen from the bridge of the Wunder, but this may be due to magnification from the bridge cameras rather than an indication of the Eva being unusually large in size.

Of further interest, additional bridge seats appear to be occupied, and the bridge crew appear to be wearing something similar to plugsuits. The next shot shows Ritsuko shouting an order into a phone while on Wunder’s bridge, revealing a very plugsuit-like neck to the garment that she is wearing. Misato turns around and speaks but the background is an abstract core-red rather than the Wunder bridge display, suggesting that this is from another scene entirely. Her visor appears distinctly red-tinted in this scene.

The next shot shows what can only be called a dark counterpart of the Wunder. There appear to be numerous small detail differences, such as the lack of a visible “bridge”, the presence of what looks like a glowing blue object of some description attached to its underside, and with silvery throne-shaped objects replacing Wunder’s three satellite dishes, The vessel fires with an effect similar to that of the 6^th Angel in Evangelion 1.0, out of spheres with glowing pink apertures that are shaped like an eight-pointed Star of Venus. What is this ship? Gendo and Fuyutsuki were seen in a space uncannily similar to Wunder’s bridge at the end of 3.0, so could they be flying this thing and taking the battle to Misato? The red background and the flying Failures of Infinity indicate that this vessel is in the presence of Final Impact.

Flying pink balls of energy surrounded by rainbow halos fly past Wunder with its A.T. Field active, which is also surrounded by red and with Failures of Infinity flying around it. This indicates that this shot follows the previous one, meaning that Wunder and “Dark Wunder” are having a duel during Final Impact. Looking closely, Wunder has multiple Arleigh Burke-class and Kongo-class destroyers (along with possibly ships of other classes) balanced along its wingspan, and the two aircraft carriers seen previously are visible under the Evangelion cages. Eva-08 is visible briefly and heavily shadowed, sitting upon the George H.W. Bush for its plunge into the epicenter of the impact, indicating that the scene of the two Wunders fighting each other happens before Eva-02 and Eva-08 drop into what appears to be the epicenter of Final Impact.