Compared to a lot of modern anime, I think Hideaki Anno meant that you can't just watch NGE and then be done with it, if you look up videos on YouTube and try to understand the plot I think you'll appreciate the series a lot more, however what I enjoy most of the series is the Christian/Hebrew symbolism and Anno's take on loneliness with all the characters. The rebuild movies is more of a critique of the anime community (do take this with a huge grain of salt) because Anno wanted NGE to serve as something to convince it's audience of how bad escapism is or something, but because the series was so good, it was the complete opposite. That's what I like about the rebuild movies. I'll link a couple of videos that will explain NGE a lot better, ps. Hope this helped you or whatever but here you go :)