Awesome / Rebuild of Evangelion

Keep in mind that many of the original moments of awesome of the original series are kept in this incarnation, especially in 1.0. For the original series' own Awesome moments, see the original series' page.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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1.0: You Are (Not) Alone

• 1.0 took one of the most boring fights from the original series—Operation Yashima—and made it so awesome that numerous EVA fans consider the entire movie worth watching for this scene alone.
  • Ramiel. Just... Ramiel. Until Operation Yashima, this Angel blows through anything and everything NERV tosses at it—without effort. It predicts Unit-01's arrival and shoots it in the chest. When a shield comes up, it simply shifts over to another, even more powerful beam, and blasts the shield apart. In an odd way, it almost seems to have a twisted sense of humor with its action...until it gets shot and melts away an entire damned mountain to get at Shinji. Adding to the coolness factor is its ability to change its shape to modify its defense and offense, and the distinctive 'CLANG' it produces upon reforming into its iconic Octahedron configuration after unloading its Wave-Motion Gun.
    • Rebuild!Ramiel shows how far Evangelion as a franchise has come: In the original, it was just a cool square, but in Rebuild, it was a force to be reckoned with.
  • Operation Yashima itself deserves a mention. In the original series the entire undertaking was essentially "dump a bunch of power into a prototype beam rifle and have Shinji fire it from a mountaintop". In Rebuild, the operation includes a Big Badass Battle Sequence in which the static defenses of Tokyo 3 are all leveraged in an attempt to distract Ramiel from what's about to happen to it. The sheer scale of resources expended in that one battle dwarfs everything seen in the series up to the appearance of Zeruel.
  • The particle cannon that Shinji fires deserves a mention, too. It's a weapon that harnesses the power output of an entire nation to contain a great lump of antimatter that can blast through an AT field in a single hit. In the series, this cannon one-shots Ramiel. In 1.11, Ramiel takes two hits before going down (which warrants another Crowning Moment of Awesome for the Angel).
  • Despite the Rebuild moniker, some things don't change: Rei is still perfectly happy to put herself on the line and protect Shinji (and everyone in general), this time with a damn space shuttle as a shield. She's a Death Seeker, sure, but she's still a badass.
    • And this all leads to the Heartwarming Moment when Shinji rescues her from the smoldering wreckage of Unit-00.

2.0: You Can (Not) Advance

• Asuka's entrance and brief fight with "Clockiel" counts. After harpoon shots are blocked by the Angel's AT Field, Asuka drops out of a plane in Unit-02, then performs a kick (complete with her trademark battle cry) that shoves the harpoons through the AT Field and clean through the Angel's head, spearing the core in the process. And she doesn't even hit the ground until after the Angel is dead.
• New-to-the-franchise EVA pilot Mari gets a few of her own:
  • Her battle with the Third Angel has her casually destroying the damn thing while singing a little tune (about finding your own happiness, no less).
  • Pretty much her entire fight with Zeruel is one of these, and it's summed up in one line: "POINT BLANK, SHITHEAD!"
  • "You want the other arm? Then take it! Just... FUCKING... DIIIIEEE!!!!!"
  • After an enthusiastic and futile solo assault, Mari manages to revive a mangled Unit-02 long enough to help Rei and Unit-00 get through Zeruel's AT Field.
    • This turns into another awesome moment: Rei throws Mari back and thanks an EVA pilot she'd never met with what could very well count as her last breath.
  • "Modo hanten! Ura codo: ZA BEASTO!" ("Invert Controls! Backdoor code: THE BEAST!")
  • During the fight with Zeruel, Mari finds Shinji and all but tells him to stop feeling sorry for himself. What makes this moment awesome? It works.
• With the fight against Sahaquiel, you can truly feel the power of the Evangelions when you see them destroying highways by simply running over them and jumping over two power lines in a single leap. And when you think this can't get better, the Angel changes course and Unit-01 has to use some kind of elevated bend to change direction. By now, the whole scene and music has reduced you to tears...and then Shinji uses his AT field—his rarefied sense of self in physical form—to cancel out his EVA's wind resistance. A giant robot the size of Godzilla breaks the sound barrier.
  • And then when Unit-01 actually reaches and 'catches' the Angel, we get to see how much of an upgrade Rebuild!Sahaquiel has been given from the original. Instead of a goofy-looking orange thing with a cartoony green eyeball in its center, here it's an utterly eldritch, shape-shifting monstrosity with consciously-changing rainbow color patterns, the ability to generate a humanoid body from its central eye's pupil that's half again the size of an Eva to fight 01 directly, and can move its core around with near-untraceable speed to avoid taking a fatal hit (and when Unit-00 finally gets fed up and grabs the core so Asuka can stab it, the energy given off by it burns and badly damages 00's arms). Not to mention that the Angel, already huge even by Angel standards in the original, is now about 4-5 times bigger, meaning this frighteningly bizarre being is now absolutely titanic in size.
  • When Sahaquiel "boosts" towards the ground after Shinji catches it, it can be seen that the entire hillside that Unit-01 is standing on sinks into the ground. The earth itself gave way before the Eva did.
• 2.0 recreates the infamous elevator ride between Rei and Asuka from the series; when Asuka goes to slap Rei this time around, Rei intercepts it.
• In the original series, Unit-01 crushes and cripples Toji, and Shinji threatens to destroy NERV Headquarters after getting locked in the loading bay. In the manga, he tries to start his job at the docking bay before Gendo raises Unit-01's LCL compression. In Rebuild, Shinji manages to level a good chunk of NERV Headquarters, set the fields around NERV HQ on fire, and start stomping on the pyramid (as he points out that he has at least four minutes on the clock—enough time to destroy half of NERV Headquarters) until Gendo raises Unit-01's LCL compression.
• In the series, Zeruel was a torso with toilet paper arms. In Rebuild, Zeruel lives up to the title of "Angel of Might": it wraps itself in flattened tentacles, uses an AT-Field with DOZENS of layers, survives an N2 bomb at point blank range without its AT-Field, and eats Rei and Unit-00 to transform into a new and disturbing form.
  • When Zeruel approaches Tokyo-3, like all the other Angels, it's bombarded by gunfire and missiles that have no effect. Unlike the other Angels, Zeruel pierces through every layer of armor below the city—the Geofront's strongest shields—with only one attack. Even the original series' Zeruel wasn't that powerful.
• When Shinji gets into Unit-01 to fight Zeruel, it has already consumed Unit-00 (and Rei), which means it can access Terminal Dogma without triggering the base's self-destruct defenses. Shinji saves everyone in NERV HQ with a punch to Zeruel, fights the Angel both inside and outside NERV HQ despite losing an arm, and keeps going until his EVA loses power. In the series, Unit-01 goes berserk and fights Zeruel on its own. In Rebuild, Shinji starts Unit-01 up by sheer force of will and—while still piloting the EVA—annihilates Zeruel.
  • The original Japanese: "Give Ayanami... back to me!" The dub: "I want Rei. Give her back!" No matter which one you watched, at that point, you probably stopped making fun of Shinji. (So did the EVA fandom.)
  • His. Eyes.
  • Those who watched the series first probably assumed Shinji had lost consciousness as he did in the original—and for good reason, since the EVA has gone berserk and it's wiping the floor with the Angel's ass. Then the camera shows the entry plug...and we can see Shinji is both still conscious and still piloting the EVA. On top of that, he delivers probably the most epic Badass Boast in the entire series: "I don't care what happens to me! I don't even care what happens to the world! I am bringing Rei back—even if it's the last thing I ever do!" At that point, the "Holy Shit!" Quotient went off the charts.
    • If you believe Shinji still controls Unit-01 at this point (and he hasn't willed it into Berserk Mode), you can consider what he accomplishes in this scene as nothing short of miraculous. Acting purely on instinct, Shinji becomes the first person to wield the full power of an Evangelion at will. He uses Unit-01's AT Field to create a replacement limb for the one Zeruel blasted off, blocks another blast from Zeruel's Eye Beams at point-blank range, and unleashes Eye Beams that only the Angels had used up until this point. Unit-01's beams annihilate Zeruel's entire multi-layered AT Field in one shot and nearly slice the Angel in half. If you ever wanted to see what the Evangelions can do beyond hitting, knifing, or shooting things, Shinji answers all of your prayers.
  • In all honesty...Shinji is like a panda in this world. What do pandas do? They look sad—right up until you piss them off. Shinji isn't just a badass sad panda, though—he became so badass that he turned his EVA into a god by willing it to happen. There is a reason some fans call him Simonji now, and this scene is that reason.
  • If you believe that theory about every incarnation of Evangelion (both in series and in Super Robot Wars) to be canon and just further attempts to get it right, then all that time hanging about with Ryoma Nagare, Koji Kabuto, Amuro Ray and other known badass mecha pilots must have paid off.
• The moment before Unit-01's ascension to godhood, this exchange happens between Shinji and Rei:
  Rei: "It's fine, Ikari-kun. Even if I disappear, I'll be replaced. I'll be replaced."
  Shinji: "You're wrong! There's no other Ayanami but you! That's why I'll definitely save you!"
  • The dubbed line further enforces how many fucks Shinji gives about any obstacle standing between Rei and himself:
    Shinji: "You're wrong! You're the only Rei there is! And I'm saving you! Right now!"
    • Shinji reaffirmed Rei's worth as a person and said he would save her even if he has no idea how to save her. For all intents and purposes, he told the outlook of the television series to go fuck itself.
• In the same sequence, we see Shinji push his very being into the core of Zeruel just to retrieve Rei with what can only be described as a titanic amount of effort. Upon breaching the barrier all the skin from his arm and face are flayed away by the alien environment within, but his desire to save Rei is so strong he refuses to back down and powers through the pain just to reach her.
• Kaworu appears at the end of the film with Unit-06 and the (Not) Lance of Longinus to save the world; given his role in the original series, this act becomes beautifully ironic.
• And why did Shinji want to save Rei? As she did in the series, Rei makes a big Heroic Sacrifice attempt to stop Zeruel—not with a N2 mine, but a missile that can safely be categorized as a BFG. Her reasoning—if she kills all the Angels, Shinji will never have to pilot the EVA again—is pretty damn heroic, too. Rei thanks Mari for her help and orders her to retreat; she does this in her traditionally super-calm voice of hers, but since this is Rei, she's all but growling in comparison.

3.0: You Can (Not) Redo

• As Asuka tries to retrieve Unit 01 from the Tesseract its entombed in, she is attacked by the an Evangelion Mark.04, which uses mirrored threads to reflect light and attempts to cook her alive, not unlike a magnifying glass. Just as it looks like she will perish, Asuka angrily demands Shinji get off his ass and do something. Shinji then subconsciously activates Unit 01 in response to her calling and lasers the shit out of the enemy before falling silent again.
• The Launch of Wunder. Misato kills an angel this time!
• The final battle outdoes everything up to that point in both the series and the Rebuild films: Unit-02 and Unit-08 versus a godlike Unit-13 assisted by the Mark.09.
  Shinji, sitting in Unit-13 for the first time (and otherwise being more or less a complete rookie), goes up against Asuka in her Unit-02'. Asuka has over a decade-and-a-half of piloting experience...and Shinji still No Sells everything she throws at him until she runs out of power. Even then, Asuka seems more pissed over him actually hitting her than about him completely kicking her ass.
  Unit-13 eats the Twelfth Angel and immediately goes into the same state Unit-01 was in during Shinji's Unstoppable Rage against Zeruel: It turns completely white, grows a pair of wing-like protrusions from its Vertical Mecha Fins, and two(!) halos. You can see the fear on Asuka's face when this happens; Mari's reaction is more along the lines of This Is Gonna Suck. The music during the scene doesn't hurt, either.
  As Shinji realizes the true magnitude of his actions, the Wunder rams into the EVA and fires a point-blank barrage...that fails to cause any damage. At this point, the Mark.09 flies in with its own halos, Eye Beaming the ship several times before it latches on and almost manages to hijack it from its own crew—until Asuka rejoins the fray. After an ineffective ranged attack, the Mark.09 retaliates with an Eye Beam, which Asuka dodges. She uses the beam's blast wave to throw herself at the Mark.09, engages Beast Mode in mid-air, catches another beam with Unit-02's mouth, slaps aside a third one, and rips out the enemy EVA's throat with Unit-02's teeth. The Mark.09 immediately regenerates and tries to do the same with Unit-02—only for Asuka to apologize to Unit-02 and arm the self-destruct before ejecting. Oh, and the music during this entire sequence? "The Wrath of God in All Its Glory".
  • And before Asuka does that, she manages to snap Rei-Q out of her identity crisis in the middle of the fight:
  Rei-Q: What would Rei Ayanami do?
  Asuka: Like I'd know, what would you do?
  Cut to Rei-Q ejecting from the Mark-09
  • And Asuka doesn't sacrifice Unit-02 because she's worried about losing to the Mark.09—she does it only because she doesn't have the time to kill it the normal way.
• Kaworu snaps out of his Heroic BSoD by stabbing Unit-13 (and Shinji and himself by extension) with both spears, then allows the DSS Choker to decapitate him. When that doesn't stop Fourth Impact, "God's Gift" kicks in as Unit-08 leaps off of the Geofront into a sixteen-plus kilometers drop, physically tears Shinji's entry plug out of Unit-13, and singlehandedly stops Fourth Impact as the song reaches the choral part about the world's creation.
  • A more subtle CMOA comes from Mari's lines here: She doesn't get mad at Shinji for anything more than not standing up for himself. Third Impact, Shinji abandoning the Wunder, and even his re-entering the EVA are all seemingly forgiven. She also spares his life—something no other character in the movie likely would have done. The act is immediately followed by the Geofront crashing back down onto the Earth, overshadowing Mount Fuji by several orders of magnitude.

3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time

• The first 10 minutes of footage is all sorts of kickass.
  • Mari goes full-on One-Man Army against a swarm of Evangelion 44As as WILLE attempts to restore Paris while being protected by literal flying battleships. When she seems to have won, the Evangelion 4444C appears and near-completely wrecks WILLE's shit. How is it defeated? The Wunder throws a downed battleship towards the 4444C for a distraction, while Mari finishes it off with the upper half of the Eiffel Tower.
• WILLE restoring Paris and its old NERV branch to retrieve Evangelion parts and munitions. Features gorgeous amounts of Scenery Porn as the red core material is removed. Also doubles as a Heartwarming Moment.
• WILLE's charge at NERV HQ, with Asuka and Mari fighting their way through endless waves of Eva 7 series units to reach Unit-13, culminating in Asuka releasing the power of the Ninth Angel, thus partially turning herself and Unit-02 into an Angel in an attempt to destroy Unit-13.
• A villainous one for Gendo and Fuyutsuki, who completely predict every single one of WILLE's moves and counter them, using Wunder's sister ships to ambush and neutralize it, retaking Unit-01, and tricking Asuka into attacking Unit-13 so it can absorb her and kickstart the Additional Impact.
• Misato's ordering the rest of WILLE to get off AA Wunder, before throwing the ship at Additional Impact in a suicidal ramming attack by her lonesome to deliver human-made Spear created from the spine of AA Wunder to Shinji. She dies knowing that she at least did one good thing for her distant biological son she conceived with Kaji, who is now safe in the Village. Mama Bear captain at her finest.
  • The AA Wunder is not initially designed for combat at all. That she made it that far speaks volume of Misato and her WILLE crew.
  • The above gets even more awesome when taking into account how Gendo and Fuyutsuki had anticipated and manipulated their opponents throughout the battle, but this action (and the miracle of human willpower creating a new spear) takes Gendo completely off-guard and he realizes at once that he has been beaten.
  • Misato undoing her hair and returning to her energetic old self is another one. Definietly Anno throwing a bone to Misato fans who didn't like her new characterization.
• The ending, where Shinji has a final conversation with Kaworu. The First Angel asks if Shinji will be fine with not turning the world back to what it was in the past, only for Shinji to say 'It hurts. But I think I'm fine with the pain.' After the abuse and sheer devastation the cast inflicted on each other and the world, the young boy grows up and choose something his father admitted he never could: moving on.
  • Shinji and Gendo's fight, all of it: While the two are evenly matched, eventually Shinji finally reaches Gendo in one simple way: Have him speak about himself. After Gendo finally explains his motives and reasoning for doing the evil actions he did (Caring more about isolation and solitude, only for Yui to change that, to which her death made him feel pain), he finally is hit hard with how he pushed Shinji away, prompting him to apologize to his estranged son.
  • It takes a special kind of gut to bring up all those extremely controversial and horribly drawn endings of the past Evangelion adaptations and turns those montages into a plot point that actually make sense. in a way, it is a bold admittance and final parting message on the part of GAINAX/Khara staffs that "We make mistakes now and then, but its important to learn from the past and move forward."

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