Anyone else feel dislike towards EoE nowadays?

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Re: Anyone else feel dislike towards EoE nowadays?

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Postby ZQFMGB » Tue Jun 12, 2018 2:22 am

Well, I feel a bit salty about the ending and Shinji don't getting in the fucking robot when he can, but I still think it's a great Eva movie (after all, Evangelion isn't supposed to make me feel comfortable). So, subjectively, yes, I feel dislike towards some elements of EoE.
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Postby Amitch91 » Sat Jun 16, 2018 11:56 am

View Original PostZQFMGB wrote:Well, I feel a bit salty about the ending and Shinji don't getting in the fucking robot when he can, but I still think it's a great Eva movie (after all, Evangelion isn't supposed to make me feel comfortable). So, subjectively, yes, I feel dislike towards some elements of EoE.


Agreed in terms of the ending, because it isn't a conclusive ending (meaning that we are unsure of what happens after Shinji and Asuka re materialise) but, i like that, i like that i can have my own theories on what happens after, so, in all, a slight bit of dislike towards the ending, but thats all

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Re: Anyone else feel dislike towards EoE nowadays?

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Postby fnikhall » Sun Jun 24, 2018 1:48 am

Honestly I've always been partial to the TV ending. Maybe it was because I saw it first, I don't know, but I really felt more of a message come through that ending than EoE. EoE seemed to just jam everything explainable in the last half and it seemed too condensed imo. I liked the pacing of the TV ending better and I felt like it conveyed its message better. Having said that, I still love EoE too. It's all sorts of crazy, but in a good way. And all of the animation is fantastic and fluid and it is more entertaining to watch than the TV ending. So I like both for different reasons but if I had to choose one I would choose TV over EoE.
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Re: Anyone else feel dislike towards EoE nowadays?

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Postby MetroidHatchling » Sun Jun 24, 2018 11:43 pm

I just (right now) finished watching EoE for the first time in about 15 years. I didn't like it at all the first time I saw it and pretty much have ignored its existence ever since. Reading through this thread made me curious about it again though, so I rewatched it. It's still as weird and messed up as I remember it. I'm still not sure I really understand it very well or feel like I relate to it as well as EoTV. I really love NGE's ending and imo EoE is a pretty unnecessary ending. However, I do like some of the insights you get from EoE that aren't apparent in NGE like what Seele is trying to do, what Gendo's ultimate goal is and how he was going to go about doing it. I can't remember if Magi being Ritsuko's mother was mentioned in NGE or not, but there was certainly a lot more shown regarding the reality of what was happening rather than going straight into the emotions and symbolism like EoTV did. So I think it's an interesting window into the world and understanding a lot of the background stuff that's going on. (Also Eva 02's fight with the mass produced evas was pretty cool up to that horrific end.)

I'm not sure about Shinji's character in this though. He seems very different from NGE. I guess in this he's just broken down so much that he's hardly even the same person but I dunno. I guess they were trying to depict that he was really at his absolute limit. I really liked the scene with Misato at the elevator, probably my favorite scene in the movie, and it seemed like that would've motivated him to pull himself together a bit but it actually seemed to make him break down even more.

I don't know how I feel about EoE now. Part of me has warmed up to it a bit as maybe a kind of morbid fascination? But still part of me feels disgusted by it and appalled by what I saw. I remember being in complete disbelief when I first saw it as a kid, just absolutely shocked and horrified thinking "Why is everyone dying? That's not okay! What is going on!?" and being furious at Shinji for letting Asuka die and choking her. I didn't understand it AT ALL. I feel like I can a bit more now that I'm much older, but I still... don't like it. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get out of it. It's certainly an interesting piece of film and animation but it's kind of painful to watch. I started thinking about halfway through "Why am I watching this again? Am I trying to hurt myself?" I don't really know what sort of message I'm supposed to take away from it. What was the deal with the beach scene? I thought he just went through a whole monologue about how he was gonna try to accept life and seek happiness and the next thing he does is choke Asuka and start sobbing and then credits. I don't get it...

I don't regret watching it again. It's definitely something I've been meaning to see again for a while, but it's something I'm unlikely to watch again any time soon. Anyway, those are my thoughts as someone who just rewatched it for the first time since I was a kid.

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Re: Anyone else feel dislike towards EoE nowadays?

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Postby kuribo-04 » Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:16 am

∆ I think what EoE adds is raw humanity. NGE was a very real and human story, but the couple things EoE does that you couldn't do in a TV show really make it complete imo.
For a message like "despite whatever happens life is worth living" to ring true, the work delivering that message has to prove it actually understands what going through those things means.
EoE shows a lot of raw and sad stuff, but that makes you feel less alone with whatever problems you might have. It's the old "put your problems on a piece of paper, write em down". EoE puts problems in front of us for us to analyze, think about and rationalize.
Things that are overwhelming in real life can seem less so when seen through art.
And at the end of it all our characters decide to go on living. If they can, so can you.
The beach scene is a puzzle, it depends on what you see in it. I see it as a reminder that problems aren't magically solved, you'll never get that with Anno. The characters now have mountain to climb, they are drained. But Asuka's caress is a reminder why Shinji chose this world. Because you need other people.

EoE is a very personal film, those can or can not resonate with you. To me it's the most important piece of media I've ever consumed.
I wouldn't worry too much if you don't like it as much, but you can try watching it through different lenses.
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Postby MetroidHatchling » Mon Jun 25, 2018 4:05 pm

That's a much more positive take than I got from it but I understand what you're saying and it makes sense now. The first time I saw it 15 years ago really all I saw was death and terrible things happening to characters that I cared about and I was so shocked and confused as to why this was made. I suppose my second viewing yesterday was filled with a lot of apprehension over revisiting it as I expected it to be an unpleasant experience but I wanted to see if there was meaning underneath all the terrible stuff that I had missed as a kid. From your response it seems there is and I still managed to a lot of it, but that's one of the things I love about Evangelion as a whole. Every time I watch the series I realize new things, notice new meanings and get something new out of it.

Might be a weird metaphor but it could be kind of like smelling a good peaty scotch whisky. At first all you can smell is burnt earth and smoke (I've heard people say it smells like burning diesel which turns a lot of people away from it) but once you acclimate your senses to it and sit with it for a while you realize there's a whole world of aromas underneath. Fruits, flowers, spices, oak, vanilla, etc. It becomes quite enjoyable, and once the intense peatiness and smokiness stops being so overwhelming you can enjoy it as a whole and explore the complexity of it.

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Postby kuribo-04 » Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:48 am

∆ It's a movie that depends a lot on how you take it.
I'm sure a lot of the film was just Anno venting, which can be uncomfortable to watch.
In my case the TV ending left such an impression to me, that even though EoE was very dark I felt like at the end the message would be the same, even if told in a very different way.

Actually a lot of people have told me they don't see the film as positive as me.
I don't think one way is the correct and the other the wrong.
But I enjoy my view of it more :P
I'd rather take a positive takeaway. Or maybe I just don't wanna see the bad side lol
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Ryuko: "I'm gonna knock ya on your asses!"
-Asuka: THINK IN GERMAN!!! -Shinji: Öh... Baumkuchen...
Hayashida: "As game developers, our work is special. All of us here can put smiles on very many people's faces with our work."
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Re: Anyone else feel dislike towards EoE nowadays?

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Postby pwhodges » Tue Jun 26, 2018 11:35 am

After all, why choose a bad outcome whean there are known to be other options.
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Postby DarkBluePhoenix » Tue Jun 26, 2018 1:47 pm

Well, you need to strike a balance with shows you watch. Not everything needs to have a happy ending with all the loose ends tied up neatly in bows. Before watching EVA, the anime I'd seen generally had positive endings (Zoids, DBZ, Pokémon, Digimon, Gundam, Wing, G Gundam), and I generally assumed that all anime worked off this premise.

It was certainly jarring not to have a joyous or celebratory ending, or having a lot of questions left unresolved, but having seen one like it, it was an eye opener that got me more interested in anime, because real life doesn't always answer everything or have a happy ending, and there are more anime like this out there to enjoy.
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Postby kuribo-04 » Tue Jun 26, 2018 1:54 pm

IIRC Tsurumaki said one of the points of EoE was endings don't have to be ideal in anime in all cases.

SPOILER: Show
DBZ actually has a tragic ending, as the character assassination of Son Goku is completed and he decides to leave his family for years, telling them he'll visit them "sometimes" despite having a teleport ability. Truly dark.
Shinji: "Sooner or later I'll be betrayed... And they'll leave me. Still... I want to meet them again, because I believe my feelings at that time were real."
Ryuko: "I'm gonna knock ya on your asses!"
-Asuka: THINK IN GERMAN!!! -Shinji: Öh... Baumkuchen...
Hayashida: "As game developers, our work is special. All of us here can put smiles on very many people's faces with our work."
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Postby ShonHam » Tue Jul 31, 2018 10:25 am

I personally love it and it's relation to the original series, what with how they both coexist - not in two different forms of canon. It's one of those films that I see as masterful in almost every regard, and inspired me massively as an aspiring artist, sorry for sounding pretentious. Although everyone is welcome to their own opinion, so I'll respect yours of course!
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Postby Adrian » Tue Jul 31, 2018 6:34 pm

Rather than disliking it more over time I've kinda gone the opposite way. I was really hoping for a clearer ending than the original series when I first saw it when it came out and was fairly disappointed in that regard. It looked incredible, had amazing content, but I wasn't savvy enough to do the required reading of in between the lines to get it. I also had no way of connecting to the internet either, so reading up on it in places like this wasn't an option. Now that I've been able to rewatch and get some perspective on it I like it quite a bit. It was the same thing with the original series ending, too.


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