3.0 as Anno's criticism of classic NGE fans

[Bagheera]

They are in the middle of the Angel War, the only thing that gives prestige and recognition is to beat Angels, she can test all the Evas she wants, it won't erase Shinji's Angel killcount in everyone's mind.

Chuck covered this. Feed her ego and she'll be all over it.

But Gendo didn't know that, that's why he made EVA-02 get into the fridge so Asuka will surely volunteer.

Gendo has nothing to do with it. Unit 00 should be put into storage because it's fucked, that holds no matter who tests Unit 03.

[ElMariachi]

It does matter, but it seems like we can't reach an agreement and are running in circles, and derailing the topic, let's agree to disagree then.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

3.0 is clearly Anno criticizing the fans for getting too caught up over 2.0.

[Chuckman]

There is a viable criticism read for the simple fact that 3.0 does a complete 180 on the (superficial) optimism and Save the Girl nature of 2.0's ending.

[5221]

NGE: A thematic addressing of, amongst other things, the schizoid lifestyle of obsessive anime fans, with Shinji as the principal avatar.

NTE (especially Q): A thematic addressing of, amongst other things, the dependent lifestyle born from EVA obsession, those "so inflated" fanatics who let the series' fictional characters and mythos become unhealthily important (becoming an unintended replacement for real interpersonal currency).

This has always seemed to me to be a readily apparent reading, if not necessarily of the preeminent theme but a secondary one. Shinji's place as a self-insert for both Anno and the Anno-like audience has always been established; that his prevailing totem (in Q assuredly) is a viewer base echoing his own disorientation, indignant claim to immediate clarification and desparate solicitations for emotional complimentation in lieu of an obvious channeling of Anno's own state of mind is inconsequential (or at least completely plausible, as there needn't be an adherence to the thematic dynamic of NGE/EoE Shinji).

'Death of the author' is bandied about often in EVA analysis. Its applicability is only as an supplement, reminding one to view a work both as an internally consistent narrative with its own thematic and tonal personality whose philosophical underpinnings can be derived from the text itself, and from the 'authorial intent' perspective wherein Anno's purposeful self-reflection, directed viewer dialogue, and sociological/psychological sentiments bear significant weight in their shaping of the narrative structure, character dynamics, and overall atmosphere. Neither is more important than the other, but both are immensely interesting and together create an appreciation greater than either taken alone.

In my estimation , EVA shines brightest when it calls out to the audience to force self-awareness, appreciated or not. That the entire franchise always plays with a notion of self-destruction (i.e. a brilliant anime imploring the viewer to advance beyond anime, beyond itself) gives it a cutting honesty and not-so-lightly employed hypocrisy to keep one thinking about its disparate themes for years on end.

[Sgt. Griff]

I feel like the fact that 2.0 was suuuper carefree and cool, everybody having their own hi jinks, guitar music, soft choir, generally fast paced music.

Then the fact that Q was an indelibly fucking depressing 90 minutes, with music that was so heavy, and so gat damn massive, and almost nothing happening throughout the entire movie. It almost makes me think that Anno was criticizing Eva fans, not because they are fans, but because they could sustain the folly of thinking a happy ending was ever possible.

Love it. All hail based master Hideaki.

[Warren Peace]

I don't think Asuka would remember her 2.0 experience as being all that carefree. Or Shinji. Or Rei. Misato? Uh...

Gendo. Gendo is carefree at the end of 2.0, that's true.

[Sgt. Griff]

I dunno man, even if the end was a fiery fuckball which ended the world, %80 of that movie was pretty happy go lucky shit.

[ElMariachi]

I dunno man, even if the end was a fiery fuckball which ended the world, %80 of that movie was pretty happy go lucky shit.

55% only, from 1:08, when Bardiel attacks Asuka's entry plug, there isn't any happy go lucky anymore, and the movie is almost two hours long.

[LightDragonman]

Yeah, I dunno. It seems to me that the main reason you guys seem to love 3.33 is because of how dark and strict it is towards both Shinji and the audience, no offense.

For me, that is actually the reason I can't get into it as much as you guys. For as much as you may think that 2.22 was all "happy-go-lucky", it was still pretty dang dark from the halfway mark. Heck, that Bardiel fight was one heck of a disturbing sight. What made the film work though imo is that it kept a balanced viewpoint. The finale, while it obviously caused Near-TI, wasn't shown in a completely negative light. It left it up to the viewer to decide what was right or not.

With 3.33, the film takes an incredibly one-sided POV towards all this stuff. Not to mention that it doesn't give any sort of hope or relief for the main character, instead just pounding him over and over again with how much he is a worthless human being, and all his attempts to save everything just make it worse. There's not enough rays of light, and as a result, I can't really find Shinji worth saving, despite how much Anno apparently wants me to believe that he'll be redeemed.

The underlying thing for me is that 3.33 is one of the most mean-spirited films I've ever seen. If this really was Anno trying to communicate what you were saying, then that makes me feel as though he feels nothing but contempt for his fans, which would explain all this. In that case, then count me out.

[Bagheera]

Yeah, I dunno. It seems to me that the main reason you guys seem to love 3.33 is because of how dark and strict it is towards both Shinji and the audience, no offense.

That's not why (protip: any time you say "no offense" you're telling your audience you're aware of the fact that you're being offensive and are trying to distance yourself from it. If you really mean no offense find another way to make your point). I like 3.33 because it subverts expectations, same as Eva always does. I actually don't like the way it handles Shinji (too heavy handed IMO), but I forgive it that because of the way it handled the timeskip and the other characters.

The underlying thing for me is that 3.33 is one of the most mean-spirited films I've ever seen. If this really was Anno trying to communicate what you were saying, then that makes me feel as though he feels nothing but contempt for his fans, which would explain all this. In that case, then count me out.

I don't get that feeling at all. I don't think he's saying anything negative to fans -- I think he shat on them to his heart's content with Ha, and they didn't even recognize it. But in Q he's telling a story, full stop. The fans aren't part of the process in Q (apart from the fact that Anno's subverting expectations, as I noted previously).

[Warren Peace]

I feel like EoE's millisecond flash of hate mail has given Eva fandom a big head. Since then, we assume EVERYTHING Anno does is with an eye towards needling the fans. It's solipsism, constantly thinking, "Oh God, oh God, is that about US? Is he saying fuck off to US?" The man certainly has an interest in the ravages of anime culture, but he's not making the films as some kind of elaborate, expensive, time-consuming diss. Thinking he is says more about us than him.

[Bagheera]

I feel like EoE's millisecond flash of hate mail has given Eva fandom a big head. Since then, we assume EVERYTHING Anno does is with an eye towards needling the fans. It's solipsism, constantly thinking, "Oh God, oh God, is that about US? Is he saying fuck off to US?" The man certainly has an interest in the ravages of anime culture, but he's not making the films as some kind of elaborate, expensive, time-consuming diss. Thinking he is says more about us than him.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure he's abandoned the idea of commenting on his audience, not least because he said as much.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

If Q criticizes anyone other than possible Shinji, it's standardized storytelling. We've already commented before on how Q eagerly eschews the "save the girl" trope and robs Shinji of any pride or sense of worth within that act. If the audience in particular liked such endings to their stories, therm I can see how they might feel personally attacked by having their typical "happy ending" robbed of them. But even then Q doesn't really suggest that the trope is wrong, or that even liking the trope is bad. It just states that the trope didn't really happen like we thought it might have.

Even then, as much as the Q preview at the end of Ha changed, it did already warn as that very little saving would have resulted from Shinji's actions. ("Unit 01 is placed in suspension with Shinji and Rei still inside.") I don't know why we thought this particular development to be a surprise in Q itself. Everything was shocking, yes. But the lack of a rescue was more or less predictable in the movie.

[ElMariachi]

@LightDragonman: It's true that Q's level of bleakness and beating on Shinji can make the movie "repulsive" for the audience, personally I think that making it seemingly hopeless and confined in a small space (Shinji's incomplete perspective, narration mostly confined in neo-NERV with its grand total of 4 inhabitants and 9 monoliths) was precisely Anno's intent to make it contrast with whatever hope and happiness will come in FINAL.
Did you had that feeling when you were sad that there isn't anything positive in the world, that everything is bleak and hopeless? Well Q is that thought made into a movie, Shinji was kept in the dark and in a place isolated from everything, where he was lead to believe that everything is as shitty as the place where he was (which is the freaking epicenter of the Impact!) and that the only remaining hope was the spears, and that subsequently of the failure of that plan that all hope was lost, only for him to see in FINAL a bigass Lilin city-fortress, green hills and life, as a way to show him that he shouldn't generalize from just what he sees around him and jump to conclusions, a flaw of him that Misato noticed as back as in their first meeting in 1.0.
The same way we say to sad and depressed people that there's more to the world than what they perceive at that moment.

[Merkaba]

Perhaps as the original series was Anno's plea for viewers to let go of fantasy retreats, 3.0 may be his plea for fans to let go of Neon Genesis Evangelion (at least as a fantasy retreat in itself).

Agreed 100%.
In fact, ever since the very first time I viewed 3.0, I felt this way, specifically because of this line:

"That which was changed by Eva can be restored by Eva in turn."

I felt like Anno was using Kaworu to state the ultimate purpose of this project while disguising it as Kaworu simply talking about the spears.

[ElMariachi]

Wouldn't that be a little too much of meta navel-gazing, and not the good one? I know Anno likes to makes his character indulge in that from time to time, but not to that point.

[Merkaba]

How is it "too much" or "not the good one"?

[ElMariachi]

Using an Eva movie to talk about the Eva franchise. That's a little too meta for my tastes.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

Could be done, but Eva hasn't done that yet and I don't expect it to. It's about the characters, not itself.