Evangelion disappointing as Sci-fic?

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Evangelion disappointing as Sci-fic?

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Postby Magneto » Fri May 05, 2017 5:14 pm

I think there is an interesting Universe to be explored, but everything is left aside to explore symbolism
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Re: Evangelion disappointing as Sci-fic?

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Postby pwhodges » Fri May 05, 2017 5:32 pm

Not symbolism - the effects people and events can have on people's minds.

The sci-fi is just a framework, and is not crucial to what the story is exploring; the religious symbolism similarly. Some fan fiction explores those elements more, though.
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Re: Evangelion disappointing as Sci-fic?

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Postby Sachi » Fri May 05, 2017 6:03 pm

I think there's enough information presented to make the science fiction aspect of it really worthwhile. Setting aside the giant robots, alien monsters, and loads of technobabble, I find that the mythology created within the universe to be extremely fascinating to explore. The First Ancestral Race was dying, and came up with the Seeds of Life, Spears, and Moons to propagate different kinds of life throughout space, with some vague instructions on how to use them should the need arise again. This tidbit alone is brilliant. I've always been drawn to the concept of planting basic lifeforms and extremophiles into a probe (ie, a comet) to someday, possible millions or billions of years in the future, be destined to crash land on a suitable planet and spread across the whole damn thing. IMO, this is the most practical way life will ever be spread about the universe, should we fail at coming up with better ways to go there ourselves. Eva plays around with this idea a little, of course mixing in a load of other complexities, such as the Seeds. That's where the Sci-fi gets even more compelling; the Seeds are practically gods, and the way the series blurs the lines between science and religion in general is great. Really raises the question of if our early religions somehow revolved around what was actually unknown technology that was too advanced to comprehend. There's enough within the series that pays significant homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, without actually having a whole lot in common when you examine the two.

And I think that's still just the tip of the iceberg. We could go on about the quantum mechanics, the business with the souls in Evas, the Rei clones, the S2 engines, Tokyo-03 as a fortress city, etc. NGE is an incredibly dense world of science fiction, and I love it. The fact that much of the world is left for the viewer to find for themselves makes it that much better for me.
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Re: Evangelion disappointing as Sci-fic?

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Postby CommanderFish » Sat May 06, 2017 12:13 pm

I think it depends on what you define as being good science-fiction.
For me, personally, the more time I spend on this forum the more this question predominantly answers "no."
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Re: Evangelion disappointing as Sci-fic?

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Postby Mr. Tines » Sun May 07, 2017 1:37 pm

Coming to NGE with 40 years reading SF by preference under my belt, I was really rather pleasantly surprised by the series as a work in the genre -- though knowing that the core of GAINAX got their start in the fan scene, working well within the genre was something one would hope they would achieve.

For all the other influences upon it, it managed to capture the millennial/apocalyptic zeitgeist of the field, and achieve (in the series at least), something that is rarely done -- the mad scientist's scheme to save improve the world actually works out, without the "but muh human condition" reaction winning out (and without even the equivalent of Rorschach's diary lurking like the Serpent in Eden). You don't need to explain the Forerunners who left the quasi-transcendent magitech behind, because those are a stock item out of the props department, and just exist(ed) to enable the conspiracies to bootstrap a Techno-Rapture with their relics.
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Re: Evangelion disappointing as Sci-fic?

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Postby Kendrix » Fri May 12, 2017 6:36 pm

Well, it's closer to being a "Cosmic Horror Lite" than Russian-esque "hard Sci-fi" and has a lot of emphasis on personal journeys, but I never bought into this whole snobbery within the speculative fiction fields (though I'd also dispute the claim that it's all the same.) - certainly making something with well-researched hard sci fi takes a different skill set that should totally be appreciated and I appreciate it if there's no overt wonkyness about known fields, but in the end no one can account for what isn't known yet - which is not to say "anything goes", some things are more realistic than others, but nothing's 100% realistic unless the author can actually build it (and win a nobel prize instead of being an author) - besides realism is NOT the only valuable thing about a story, though of course people have preferences about which appeals they like. In the end it comes down to a degree of concrete vs. metaphorical.

In the end the difference in often in the philosophy and EVA is pretty much on the "Sufficient Analyzed Magic" side of things that maybe isn't accurate tech but shows the philosophy - in the end science is nothing other than figuring out the rules of nature (whatever they are in a given world) and using them to your advantage - All the weird monstrous stuff gets quantified and analyzed and studied and dealt with, and the human drive/approach to do that is analyzed at lenght.

Like, PWM and giant Robots may be trash but there's some methodology in there - The whole theme of humanity messily reverse-engineering the forces that threaten them, which they've done since the fire, the themes of ethics o using costly & powerful means and of fractured identity - Like it's not correct to say that it has very little meat even if it doesn't fully focus on Sci-Fi aspects the way some other works do.

- Besides, Anno puts some work into the selective realism of some elements - the planning of the missions, hints that they take place in a political climate, we see more planning & organizing than actual fighting at times, puts emphasis on showing technology, researched actual space physics for Q...
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Re: Evangelion disappointing as Sci-fic?

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Postby Magneto » Sun May 14, 2017 6:02 pm

View Original PostCommanderFish wrote:I think it depends on what you define as being good science-fiction.
For me, personally, the more time I spend on this forum the more this question predominantly answers "no."


I realize this, sometimes think I like Eva for the wrong reasons.
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Re: Evangelion disappointing as Sci-fic? B/

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Postby Alaska Slim » Mon May 15, 2017 2:27 am

View Original PostMr. Tines wrote:Coming to NGE with 40 years reading SF by preference under my belt, I was really rather pleasantly surprised by the series as a work in the genre -- though knowing that the core of GAINAX got their start in the fan scene, working well within the genre was something one would hope they would achieve.

For all the other influences upon it, it managed to capture the millennial/apocalyptic zeitgeist of the field,

Would I be wrong in saying that it's also highly influenced by Neo-futurism in terms of architecture and the triumphant materialism on display by the larger-than-life tech?
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Re: Evangelion disappointing as Sci-fic?

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Postby Chuckman » Mon May 15, 2017 3:31 pm

There's not much futurist about Eva. They build big and go crazy with tech because it doesn't matter if they run out of resources as long as the make it to the mass suicide/genocide date and it all returns to nothing.
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Re: Evangelion disappointing as Sci-fic?

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Postby Director Black » Mon May 29, 2017 9:13 pm

I see Eva as a heavily spiritual sci-fi series, an angle that hardly gets explored. What sci-fi ideas that are clear and present in the series (Giant robot, giant monsters, post-apocalyptic setting) gets turned into using those tropes by exploring the nature of human. The best example is when we find out that Yui's soul is fueling Eva-01 and makes us consider all the psychology, philosophy, and symbolism all wrapped in it.
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