Questions on Sahaquiel from Evangelion

[Crossroads Inc.]

Ok.. So I was re watching the 'Drop' that the angel "Sahaquiel " made in the original Evangelion the other day...
For those that didn't see Evangelion, Sahaquiel Is a massive monster that shows up in Earth Orbit. Its plan of 'attack' is basically to drop down using it's immense masses a kinetic weapon. In the show, it is said if it hits, the energy released by the kinetic impact would utterly annihilate Tokyo as well as the fortress below it. To stop, they decide to "Catch" the monster using forcefields (AT-Fields).
For those that want to watch the original and new versions, they can be found below.
Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_4AEl4ZgR8
Remake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-mZ_XMEoTU

Now... Here is the thing. In BOTH versions they do 'catch' it, and even push it back up. There is much drama about keeping it from hitting AFTER they catch it, so they can then stab it's core and kill it.
Well.. If you have already CAUGHT it, haven't you effectively negated it's kinetic energy? Instead of straining and grunting in the effort of holding it up, why not just DROP the thing, and kill it at your leisure. The monster showed no sigs of being able to attack other then just falling on things...

So, other than dramatic license, why would you still have to hold the thing up?

[Batman]

At least going by those videos, for something that's supposed to be a KKV Sahaquiel had a pretty benign descent rate to begin with, unless the AT fields come into play long before the EVAs visually catch it? (Essentially don't know beans about Evangelion) Yeah, sucks to be you if it lands on you, but destroying Tokyo I don't see, leave alone after it's caught.

[Formless]

Going only by the original, notice that the instant Shinji says "[AT] Field at maximum!" the whole area is flattened and the lighting turns dark. I would say that yeah, there is some sort of interaction even at that distance, which could be very far away since this creature is huge and traveling at high velocity. Its like trying to estimate the speed of a train simply by eyeballing it, its usually going a lot faster than most people guess unless they know better because humans are terrible at guessing the speed of massive objects.

As for their plan, what plan? Earlier in the episode you have Misato say that she's placing the Eva's based on "woman's intuition" in lieu of knowing the most likely impact zone. It seems like they were in a hurry and didn't have much time to prepare for the attack in this case. They don't know much about this specific angel, but they do have the previous angels they've killed as reference to their general capabilities. They've seen repeatedly that angels can use their AT fields as weapons directly (such as the prism looking thing with the particle cannon), use their AT field to propel themselves, the ability to shapeshift and undergo spontaneous metamorphosis (E.G. the angel that could function as two entities at once, the embryonic angel that they tried and failed to capture intact from a volcano), and of course the ability to self destruct spectacularly. Indeed, they may have been worried that if the angel's own Plan A failed it might try something else like use the AT field to drill through the ground, then self destruct once inside their city sized bunker. Or transform into something a bit more menacing, then do who knows what. And from the way Shinji and the angel seem to begin doing a pushing contest, with Shinji momentarily gaining ground before losing ground again, its likely that Sahaquiel was indeed using its AT field to gain extra thrust in addition to its acceleration due to gravity. So rather than take chances with an alien being that's powered on vacuum energy, they (and by they, I mean "Asuka, Shinji, and Rei", the only three people whose decisions ultimately matter in Eva combat) decide to kill it immediately.

It still explodes, of course, and the crater is quite deep but with little evidence of blast effects on the surrounding forest. To me this suggests a highly penetrating explosion directed mostly into the ground. The pilots could probably feel the angel directing its energy downwards as much as possible, which prompted their decision.

[Ford Prefect]

All of this shit is actually addressed in the episode. Speculation based on a couple of clips is pointless.

Critically, Sahaquiel isn't a purely kinetic impactor. In both versions it is reliant on using its AT field as part of its suicide attack. They can't 'put it down' because the only thing stopping Sahaquiel from destroying all of Hakone is Unit-01 being in the way.

[Cykeisme]

Lining up with what Ford Prefect said, even when I didn't have this additional information, I figured that generally all the really dangerous stuff that both the Angel organisms and Evangelion units do revolves around their telekinetic AT fields.. so it looked like whatever it was attempting to accomplish would involve using its AT fields in some way, after it had reached the ground.

It could self-destruct like a bomb, or drill into the ground, or project some kind of telekinetic pillar into the ground, or whatever. Whether or not they knew specifically what it would do, the idea was just that the Evas had to stop it.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Yeah it makes sense given how unpredictable they are.

It had been a while since I saw the Ep, and when I searched on youtube, all I could find where the action sequence, no parts where they just talked about it... Basically it does seem its a case of "If it it just makes CONTACT With the ground, we could all be totally fucked."

[Tanasinn]

Honestly, almost any combat question in Evangelion is answered with "because AT FIELDOU!"