Overall I enjoyed the film series, although it's not without its flaws. The first film played like an abridged form of the first part of the show, as did most of the 2nd film, aside from the introduction of the new pilot, and the last part of the film, obviously. Relationships aren't given a lot of time to develop, especially Asuka's, but if one has seen the TV show one fills in the dimensions not shown in this series. It seemed quite bold to end that film on the apparent Third Impact. However, the third film opening with a 14 year time jump is even more jarring. From this point on, the movies stop making much literal sense. Not much is ever explained, and one can really only understand or glean broad strokes. At least with the first two films one had the TV series to fall back on, but since the story diverges in three, there's nothing to fall back on, so a lot of the technical aspects of what the hell is going on. There's just flying ships now, ok. And almost all of NERV has left and become WILLE, while NERV only apparently has Gendo and Fuyutsuki. I don't know how they keep the lights on, let lone build new ships and Evas. Lots of concepts come fast and furious, only to largely be discarded once their narrative purpose has been served. There's some sense that certain words or phrases are thrown about just to lend the series a sense of mystery, without much regard for coherence.

The third film is the most problematic. It's the shortest, and not a lot happens, and characters and the story is underdeveloped. Shinji goes rather quickly from the shock of realizing he created a near third impact to agreeing to pilot an Eva again, to then being so gung ho about the mission as to ignore Kaworu's concerns. Shinji's friendship with Kaworu seems rush, and his relationship with the new "Rei" doesn't seem to go much of anywhere. And then the story seems to end similar to how the second film ended, with another "near" third impact.

The fourth film is better, although at 2 1/2 hours long, it seems to be picking up the slack left by the third film. Thematically, this is the most interesting and resonate, as it expands and reconsiders aspects of the original show. Narratively, a lot of this is still a mess, although the interlude in the refugee village is nice and straightforward. The movie actually takes time to slow and let Shinji process his grief and reconnect with humanity. It also marginally explains a bit more about what happened during the 14 year gap. I still don't understand where Shinji was for those 14 years, the third movie opener suggests maybe Eva 01 was in space that whole time? And I don't know what the hell Kaji was supposed to have done to have stopped the Third Impact, I thought Kaworu had stopped it by spearing Eva 01 at the end of the second movie. The end battle with the ships and flurry of Evas doesn't make much sense except for the thematic sense of one last desperate attempt to stop the Human Instrumentality from occurring.

And, of course, the final battle has to come down to Shinji and Gendo, and quickly becomes metaphysical. A lot of meta references here, with them fighting through various locations now presented as "sets." I actually thought the initial two Eva fight in the cityscape seemed off, the Evas were too light on their feet and the buildings were getting pushed around like miniatures, and then Shinji flies into the edge of the set, so it was actually intentional. The revelation of Gendo's motivations, that he was essentially the same as Shinji when he was young, and the loss of Yui drove him to focus on returning to her by any means, including destroying humanity. There's also the implication of a "cycle," that this isn't just an alternate version of the tale, but maybe one that came after the first. The ultimate ending is more hopeful than the original series and End of Evangelion, restoring Earth and most of humanity. There is the question of whether Shinji and Mari actual escape the "Anti Universe" though, since the Evas all vanish after Mari arrives in it to rescue Shinji. The scene of Shinji sitting alone on the shore slowly reverts though the various levels of animation, suggesting that Shinji is dissolving or vanishing, up until Mari arrives to jolt him back. The final scene suggest Shinji and Mari return to the real world, although there's also the possibility they're in a world of their own creation at the end.

Mari herself was a bit of a puzzle for me. She just shows up and is there. She literally has one scene with Shinji quickly in the 2nd film, then doesn't see him again until the 4th film briefly before the battle. And yet, she's the person that end up with Shinji. I looked her character up after watching the last film, and I guess she appeared in the manga in a slightly different form, but it's unclear if this was before or after she appears in the film. It seems like she was an original creation for this film series.