As for actors/actresses to play the main characters:
•Max Von Sydow as Fuyutsuki (I was thinking Edward Mulhare or Lee Marvin would be cool, but they're dead)
•Michael Ironside or Tim Curry as Gendo Ikari
•Johnathan Frakes as Kaji (he could do an okay Gendo, but he's far better as a smooth talking, businessman type, like his voice actor role in "Gargoyles").
•Thora Birch as Asuka. Granted, she's not a red-head, but her performance in "Ghost World" proves she could pull off the whole bitchy, psycho Kraut chick.
• or Samantha Morton (Agatha the pre-cog from "Minority Report") as Rei. Someone mentioned this earlier. Unfortunately, she'd be 27 or 28 by the time they started pre-production (she was born in '77), so she wouldn't be anywhere close age-wise, and therefore my second choice. However, she could also be a pretty good Misato.
Anywho, I wonder how the battle scenes with the eva's will look like, will it look like something from a Godzilla vs King Ghidora movie, or will it actually look like something worth watching?
I've been thinking about this lately. The whole concept of hand-to-hand combat in giant robots or monsters is pretty pathetic. If you've got something that big fighting something else that big, the only place that would be decent for that kind of combat would be Kansas or Nebraska (out in the middle of some giant, flat plains). Combat chassis that size aren't practical for sniping, camping, or other forms of stationary bombardment. If the Angels could be easily defeated by camping Evas, NERV could spend far less by using towed and self-propelled artillery, using the simulation Eva bodies (the immobile ones in Terminal Dogma used for synch-ratio testing) to generate the AT-fields.
The most effective form of combat for the Evas, and the Angels, would be something similar to the hybridized hand-to-hand and dogfight combat seen in the several Macross OAV's. You've got a highly maneuverable mecha, which can traverse any given environment, and engage an enemy at supersonic speeds, while being able to fight relatively well at subsonic and transonic speeds.
If they're going to portray Eva combat in this new movie, they have to show the Evangelions using permanently mounted 20 and 30mm DU gatling guns (i.e., the General Electric 20mm Vulcan, or the M-134 mini-gun in 7.62mm NATO). The pallet guns, and other human-based weapons (ex: prog knives, sniper rifles, etc) don't make sense, when a far superior weapons system can be incorporated into the binders, and wired through the Eva's nervous system/entry plug system. The weapons systems can be rigged with explosive bolts, allowing the pilot to jettison the excess weight when he/she runs out of ammo. This system would also allow different weapons packages to be developed as armor-plated modules, which can be easily swapped in the Cage/Terminal Dogma (something like the Liger system as seen on "Zoids").
The actual combat would greatly resemble modern dogfighting at transonic speeds, and the mobile warfare perfected by General Patton, and practiced today with the M1-A1 Abrams tank (which can shoot while travelling at 60 mph). The Evas would have the advantage of fighting on home-turf (Tokyo-3), so the pilots would know how to apply the environment to their mobile warfare most effectively. The best strategy for the Evas to win against the Angels, would be to keep moving, using their knowledge of the terrain, weapons caches, and the Eva's mobility for close range combat. Meanwhile, using the Evas' AT-field to cancel-out the AT-fields of the Angels, long range towed artillery (such as the 175mm Howitzer) fired from bunkers and pillboxes surrounding the hillsides of Tokyo-3 would pummel the Angels.
Therefore, the Evas would only serve as a destraction, taking a tactically defensive role against the Angels, while the long range towed artillery (aircraft-based systems would present too great a danger to the pilots, given their lack of protection, and close proximity to the Angels) finished them off. However, as the Angels become more bizzare, such as the 5th Angel, the Evas would take on the offensive role (this is where Misato's hair-brained, last-ditch effort strategies come in during the movie, which would offer the screenwriters a chance to expand her character, and show the Earth-shattering war of attrition NERV is fighting against the Angels).
