When watching with someone who hasn't seen NG Evangelion, do you include the watching of the Episode Previews? Do you feel they contribute to the creation of the mindset that is appropriate for watching Evangelion, or do you think that they spoil far too much to be worth watching? The episode preview for 23 reveals the death of Rei II, for example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb17Qt1MdIM

I think they are as part of the episodes as anything else. Some people don't like watching previews, I think not too much is lost in that case.
But I don't think knowing Rei dies is an issue, for example. Sometimes knowing going in is good. That's what Anno wanted in that case. The audience going in fearing what would happen (and knowing nothing about her "resurrection").

The pedestalization of spoilers is stupid, a ploy implemented by JJ Abrams in order to make his mediocre stories resemble something more interesting. For example, in many cases stories tend to have happy endings. This is nothing new or surprising. Then JJ will show up with a trailer and be like “What if I distract you from that formula by forcing a pointless mystery into the story?” And then, despite the fact that the narrative Oslo’s so formulaic, people still get all bent out of shape if you ruin it by telling the audience before hand that the story adheres to the formula and has a happy ending. In most cases, if your story is truly interesting the spoilers don’t ruin it, in fact it can even enhance the story.

The preview announcing Episode 23 is actually the perfect example of this. The preview states that’s Rei dies, but that’s not the spoiler. The spoiler is that Rei lives! And how she continues to keep on loving despite dying is the result of awful, horrible experimentation, and it even suggests that Rei might be forced to keep living against her will.

Also, the “Next Preview” music should be enough to justify any anything Anno decides to show in that preview. It’s a great tune that gives positive energy to anyone stressing over the events of that show.

Spoilers are what tell me whether I want to follow a story.

pwhodges: I don’t know if I’m into this whole Star Wars thing.

Empire Spoiler: You know, Darth Vader is Luke’s father...

pwhodges: That’s pretty lit, fam. Imma have to watch it and see how Luke handles that.

Heh - pretty much!

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:The pedestalization of spoilers is stupid, a ploy implemented by JJ Abrams in order to make his mediocre stories resemble something more interesting.

I think Abrams has room to improve, and there's stuff he's done that I wasn't much of a fan of, but I think you are underselling some of what he's done. Like with Star Wars VII the big mystery was where Luke was, and I certainly didn't expect him to

Generally I agree with you though on the whole spoiler culture thing.

Most people who will experience Evangelion for the first time via Netflix are probably never going to see the Next Episode previews (at least on first viewing) because--at least with newer SmartTV versions of Netflix and computer versions--the episode + credits get minimized and the next episode auto-plays roughly 20 seconds after the credits begin.

In order to get to the tail end where the next episode preview is, you have to restart the episode and physically drag the cursor to the end of the credits.


I still think that revealing major plot spoilers in your trailer--like Kaworu being revealed as an angel--is fucking dumb.

I still think that revealing major plot spoilers in your trailer--like Kaworu being revealed as an angel--is fucking dumb

Studies have shown having some info beforehand improves the overall experience.
There's something exciting about watching a story while getting surprised + having a feeling of discovery. But I think there's a middle ground.

Guy Nacks wrote:I still think that revealing major plot spoilers in your trailer--like Kaworu being revealed as an angel--is fucking dumb.

But it was certainly a thing in anime -- Z Gundam would show deaths in the preview and then the narrator would utter the tag line "Who will survive?", while LotGH has a reputation of giving everything away in the previews.

There's no firm line between whetting the appetite ("Man I want to see that and how it plays out for real, now!"), and giving the whole game away ("Now I don't need to see the whole thing."), and it will depend on the track record of how many other important/interesting things that have been seen to happen that are not in the earlier previews as to which side of the line things fall.

Personally, I never really watch previews, but that's more a matter of "I don't like that ending that much and don't care enough about the preview to skip to there" or "nah, save time and watch the next ep right away"

That music is an absolute banger, and the running gag of Misato saying "They'll be more fanservice nextime" is something uniquely evangelion. That being said, the spoil quite a bit. However, as is the case with rebuild 2, they give insight into creative processes and storyboards. The preview after rebuild 2 prompts so many questions as to what the hell is canon and how all that functions. Tldr, the rebuilds are frekin complex

The thread creator was asking specifically about the original series, just FYI.