Split from this thread: http://forum.evageeks.org/viewtopic.php?t=6339

Sailor Star Dust wrote:I Accidentally Dracula: The Bardiel and Zeruel battles are nonsensical? Just because it took a different route from the series? Looking at 2.0 just as a continuation from 1.0, I see no problem whatsoever with how things are progressing, although it does seem Gainax*Khara expect viewers to be familiar with the series first.

It's really not such a bad thing the characters we know (save Mari) seem to be more open this time around in Rebuild, it is a separate canon from the series after all.

Not just because it was different. If it had been executed correctly, it may have worked.

However, the Vatican Treaty is not sensible, so the entire context of the Rebuild Bardiel battle is forcibly contrived at best. The particular route Rebuild takes for Zeruel battle is determined by Asuka not being there (for reasons already steering the event into WTF territory), Mari's so far completely unexplained abilities, and Shinji-Lagann.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:HOWEVER I don't think that means he doesn't know WTF he's doing with Rebuild (sounds more like Anno being Anno with his wacky statements.), so I'm with you on that.

The second half of 2.0 is basically composed of a series of nonsensical events and Gainax in-jokes that ruin 2.0 as an independent middle chapter, much less properly foreshadow anything for the final story arc. It's similar to if Two Towers had ended with Sam turning into an Orc that Frodo was forced to kill for no sensible reason, and Gollum suddenly whipping out a second One Ring that had all of the super powers of the first One Ring but no explanation or backstory whatsoever before that scene. All signs point to Anno having absolutely no idea what he wants at this point.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:I Accidentally Dracula: I get what you're saying now (though I don't necessarily agree with some of it), but it's possible that at least SOME of the weirdness in 2.0--the Zer battle especially--will be (partly) explained in 3.0. If not, then...

I'd say not letting any one country have ultimate power in the form of more evangelions is a sensible thing to do to be honest. It would be a bit of a problem if a country or organisation chose to release 9 mass produced S2 equipped evangelions on unsuspecting country whilst following a private agenda.....Oh wait a minute.

It's a very simple way of looking at it and I'm sure that is the reason most people are supposed to come to as to it's merits.

The particular route Rebuild takes for Zeruel battle is determined by Asuka not being there (already for nonsensical reasons), Mari's so far completely unexplained abilities, and Shinji-Lagann.

Shinji Laggan?, Your kidding right?


What is non sensical about Asuka not being there exactly? I also dont understand what is nonsensical about the Bardiel and Zeruel battles either. Mari's unexplained abities only exstend to her being able to remove the limiters on the evangelion she pilots ( At least thats the threory).The rest is up to the next lot of movies to explain and as such requires patience. I would have thought that being a fan of evangelion would have meant that patience was something that would have been drilled (gurren laggan pun intended), into you by now.

Of course as SSD said, if it isnt explained in the next lot of movies and we have all been trolled yet again, then I wont be such a happy bunny either.

The one thing I'm not going to sit here and do however is criticise a movie becasue it hasnt unvieled all of it's secrets in the second part of a 4 part story.

I'm absolutely positive Maris abilities/heritage will be explained, as much as I am that there will be light shed upon Asukas background. But the Vatican Treaty? I mean, why should it be? It's just a name for another scheme Seele put together to make sure things go according to their plan, which includes the storage of Nigoki so that it was up for grabs for Mari, whom Seele sent as well, I "assume".
The official meaning behind it is entirely irrelevant, since I can't see any non-UN nation without a Nerv-branch (mass) producing Evangelions out of the blue. And UN = Seele.

This is meant to be open for interpretation to make our heads spin and there are really plenty of possible explanations for it. I'm trying real hard but fail to find the problem here.

And that's not OT; I mentioned Asuka up there somewhere!

This is meant to be open for interpretation to make our heads spin and there are really plenty of possible explanations for it. I'm trying real hard but fail to find the problem here.

The only explaination I have come up with on this one is

A: Like nuclear disarmanent it pleases the people and quite possibly the higher up's not in SEELE to know that something as powerful as the Eva is being regulated.

B: SEELE would have problems as the Eva's are capable of standing in there way alla EoE so it would be prudent for them through what ever means to put a cap on the amount of eva's a country has. Isnt there something fishy going on between Ikari and what happened to Unit 5. I cant remember exactly but I thought there was a line translated that said something along the lines of ' the unit 5 problem has been dealth with'? Meh I'm tired and cant remember but that bit ( if it even exsists and isnt the product of an insominacs imagination), might be relavant.

Now that Unit 00 has been destroyed by Zeruel ( an assumption on my part) it leaves a spot open for another new Eva, an eva that no doubt Asuka will be piloting next time round judging by the new plugsuit she seems to be wearing in the preview. They may even keep Mari on to pilot Unit 2 after repairs. If's not like she was going anywhere fast surrounded by NERV personel after all.

Just as the Rebuild universe itself seems to be a recurring cycle, my argument against the Rebuild universe (or just the 2.0 part) is one giant continuous loop. I feel like I'm just repeating the Vatican Treaty thread all over again here.

Soul Fire wrote:I'd say not letting any one country have ultimate power in the form of more evangelions is a sensible thing to do to be honest. It would be a bit of a problem if a country or organisation chose to release 9 mass produced S2 equipped evangelions on unsuspecting country whilst following a private agenda.....Oh wait a minute.

This logic falls apart the moment you introduce the fact that Japan neither chose to host EVA-03 or had control over its start-up location, so punishing Japan on grounds of a Vatican violation is stupid off the bat. Furthermore, if America wasn't still EVA-03's legal owner, then err... the entire underlying plot of Japan being forced to activate it on their turf because the Americans wimped out after the EVA-04 disaster falls apart. Japan has no reason to want to toy with the unit when they already have a perfectly sufficient defense force, and considering the whole reason the Eva is there in the first place.

And even if the Vatican Treaty worked, the issue of making a devoted standby pilot with no immediate replacement the first choice to stick in a very potential time bomb, regardless of them begging for the assignment, is still an unacceptable risk.

Soul Fire wrote:A: Like nuclear disarmanent it pleases the people and quite possibly the higher up's not in SEELE to know that something as powerful as the Eva is being regulated.

Nuclear limitation theory simply doesn't apply when you're fighting a malevolent alien race that can only be harmed by nuclear weapons and are trying to wipe out humanity as we know it on a daily basis.

And, honestly, the nuke analogy is a leap to begin with. Nukes have an obvious and historically-recorded function beyond existing just to fight aliens.

Soul Fire wrote:B: SEELE would have problems as the Eva's are capable of standing in there way alla EoE so it would be prudent for them through what ever means to put a cap on the amount of eva's a country has.

This very line of logic is blatant evidence that SEELE has plans of its own that it doesn't want NERV in on, and may even be hostile towards NERV's wishes.

This is where the NERV grunts are supposed to have their "whoa wait a minute" moment. Instead they turn their brains and EVA-02 off in the next scene, stick Asuka in EVA-03, and never consider the subject again.

Soul Fire wrote:What is non sensical about Asuka not being there exactly?

Because it's... directly and solely tied to the EVA-03 nonsense. <_<

Sailor Star Dust wrote:I Accidentally Dracula: I get what you're saying now (though I don't necessarily agree with some of it), but it's possible that at least SOME of the weirdness in 2.0--the Zer battle especially--will be (partly) explained in 3.0. If not, then...

Which is fine and dandy for 3.0, but it doesn't do much for 2.0 being a mindless special effects fest on its own footing. Movies are a completely different animal than how a single TV show works. With a two hour time frame, there's no reason why prequels, sequels, and interquels can't be strong, gripping stories on their own without still leaving generous room to lead into the next chapter.

And before someone says it, leaving EVERYTHING open in a way that makes you question if the writer himself knows where he's going and you're practically forced to come back for the next movie is not the genuine kind of "gripping" I'm talking about.

This is where the NERV grunts are supposed to have their "whoa wait a minute" moment. Instead they turn their brains and EVA-02 off in the next scene, stick Asuka in EVA-03, and never consider the subject again.

They need going forward with their own plans, the existence of an EVA-06 build by SEELE in moon dont stop them, but that could forced Nerv to do things more quikly, sacrificing some cautions.

it doesn't do much for 2.0 being a mindless special effects fest on its own footing

You are serious? The most of 2.0 is character development, and I like the film for that, the battles are good but short.

Ingrod wrote:They need going forward with their own plans, the existence of an EVA-06 build by SEELE in moon dont stop them, but that could forced Nerv to do things more quikly, sacrificing some cautions

Limiting a third of your force for something that may very well just blow up and eliminate more of your foothold is beyond taking strategic risk. It's just shooting yourself in the foot, which the NERV characters are supposed to be smart enough not to do.

You basically have to assume EVA-02 is utterly useless to everybody's separate plans to justify the de-activation, but then the nature of having the unit designed with a Double Top Secret Beast Mode automatically defeats that theory.

Also, you're ignoring the fact that the NERV regulars don't pick up on the fact that Gendou is being oddly compliant with SEELE's ridiculousness for his own motives. In this case, you still have the same logical discontent problem, just in a different part of the scheming pyramid.

Ingrod wrote:You are serious?

Eyecandy fest was probably the term I was looking for, but whatever.

Now do you people actually understand Japanese fluently or are you mocking or praising a film that you saw in 1/20th it's original quality off a camrip and then guessing at what they might be talking about without getting the gist of the dialogue?

Sounds a bit awkward to me. Like if your an architect calling a building a work of art or a piece of crap based off looking at one brick.

I'm not really seeing how everything I've gone over is representative of a single brick to Rebuild 2.0's building.

I don't know if here is a good place to dump this...but here it goes.

I finished it watching 2.0. And I felt like I didn't get anything out of it. I couldn't tell you who the characters were. It was an empty movie. Sure, it's all flashy and pretty but in the end in adds up to nothing. I'm very disappointed in Rebuild 2.0. I can't believe that it sucks at this level. I'm thinking "they worked on this for 2 years and this is all they could come up with." I'd give it a star out of four (and that's a really crappy movie). I mean, I expect to see how the character got from one place to another, but all I got was a bunch of fanservice, and simplistic scenes that really didn't add up to much. Like, how did Shinji's reaction to Rei and piloting the eva at the end change? What brought this about? There's nothing to go on. And shikinami: I mean, I'm glad she wasn't given the light of day, but I'm just saying...she wasn't explored at all and she came off as crude, misunderstanding, mean...and how did Rei come to understand Shinji enough to know to throw him a party to get him with his father? When the frico did that happen? It didn't. It just happened. People cried over this movie and I can't figure out why. It's psychologically sterile, there's nothing to know, nothing to be affected by. 2.0...was... worthless.

Oedipusfoot wrote:It's psychologically sterile, there's nothing to know, nothing to be affected by. 2.0...was... worthless.

Wow, and I thought I was being harsh (and getting called a troll by Reichu for my pains).

Gendo'sPapa wrote:Sounds a bit awkward to me. Like if your an architect calling a building a work of art or a piece of crap based off looking at one brick.

I Accidentally Dracula wrote:I'm not really seeing how everything I've gone over is representative of a single brick to Rebuild 2.0's building.

It's more like your judging the building from very far away, and it looks fuzzy because of fog. Also you can't understand what the building is saying, because it's speaking Japanese (I think the building metaphor just fell down..).

I'm kidding...

The Vatican Treaty seems perfectly reasonable to me, but I did frequently have problems with 2.0's pacing and various other things. Not the general plot or anything to do with it being an adaptation, but things that would bother me in any movie. Most of them don't bother people in general, but incredibly contrived coincidences (i.e. Mari landing on Shinji when she could have landed anywhere in Tokyo-3), out-of-character moments for the sake of cheap jokes (that Misato thing I made the widely ridiculed thread about), unjustifiably nonsensical fanservice in bad places (Asuka's new plugsuit), and a generally corny soundtrack constantly pull me out of the film.

I didn't see a single problem with the last 26 minutes when I saw them out of context, though. Except for the inhibition rods in Unit 02's arms, perhaps, but I didn't notice that until Reichu talked to me about it.

I Accidentally Dracula: So, you do understand Japanese and know what the characters are talking about. If you don't then your criticism on 2.0 can't really hold water.

I think those of us that don't speak/understand Japanese fluently should reserve judgement on character development until either a fansub appears, or we all get down to some serious sessions with 'Learn Japanese in 10 Minutes'.
I thought the film was incredibly fast-paced, but as I have little to no idea what the various characters were SAYING to each other in the midst of these brief, but dramatic battles, I can't comment on whether these new 'versions' of the characters received adequate time or not..

I think thems who are going on a couple of vague translations and a ratio of battle:conversation to make these comments should just hold up....

NAveryW wrote:Except for the inhibition rods in Unit 02's arms and (HOLY SHIT!) torso

Fixed, I think?

Also, adding my nod-nod to the notion that complaining about plot and character development in a movie where you have basically no idea what's being said is just plain silly.

Though, I can relate to the whole "GGWWWAAAARRGGGHH WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO MY EVA ANNNNNOOOOOOOOO" geek-raeg thing. (But not Asuka fanboy butt-hurt. I'm not gonna touch that. ...whoops.)

Reichu: I've been meaning to ask: Did YOU have any problems with the plot/pacing in 2.0 (or 1.0 for that matter) or did you find it to be alright for Rebuild being Rebuild?

I heard somewhere that you complained about the film on THAT BOARD, but I don't know what the context was/is. I know you didn't like the treatment with some of the Eva themselves, eg the Zer--er, 10th Angel battle.

As I tried to say before, I feel the plot and pacing has been fine so far, though maybe it has to do with the fact I'm lucky enough to have a basic if not vague idea of what's actually being said in most of the scenes. I'm trying to take Rebuild for what it is, until things are wrapped up in 4.0.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:Did YOU have any problems with the plot/pacing in 2.0 (or 1.0 for that matter) or did you find it to be alright for Rebuild being Rebuild?

I'm not really sure. I honestly haven't watched 1.0 that much ("This movie gives me the biggest feeling of deja vu!"), and my experience with 2.0 is a bit tainted at the moment since I'm up against a shitty, optic nerve-destroying camrip* and I don't know what the hell people are saying most of the time. I reserve judgment. (Mostly.)

I heard somewhere that you complained about the film on THAT BOARD, but I don't know what the context was/is.

Me neither. I don't think they got any moaning and bitching that I didn't lavish upon this place in much greater detail after dealing with my initial bout of fan-angst.

* The 30-min one was a lot easier on the eyes than the full one. At least for me.

Mr. Tines wrote:Wow, and I thought I was being harsh (and getting called a troll by Reichu for my pains).

Has ojisan tortured himself with camrips yet?

I've seen most of the movie, and honestly I have to echo some of the complaints here. Firstly, the pacing and structure are under par to say the least. I hate to say "wasted", as it's subjective, but as a fan it sure seems like did waste a lot of time with comedy scenes that did not really add anything to the character development. There was a few exceptions, but with the amount of time used I think there could have been a lot more emotional depth to really care for these characters.

Current fans already have a connection to these characters, but if I was a first time viewer the illusion of Asuka getting mutilated in 03 wouldn't have meant much, nor had anywhere near the amount of emotional impact as the EOE MP scene. I actually think having Toji in there made it all the more powerful in the original, as he was an outsider that did not want to be a pilot to begin with, and he agreed only for the health of his sister, which further added to it. Asuka asks to pilot it so Rei can be at a party, just doesn't compare for me.

Based off of the translations here, I'll admit they seem to have made Asuka a lot more approachable to a first time viewer, she seems more level headed and genuine. But just understanding a character more does not equal emotional attachment, and that is what I think 2.0 lacked. It felt hollow.

My other issue is the pacing, sometimes it just downright killed the momentum the previous scenes had. It felt very copy/paste at times, and not a natural progression at all. I disliked the ending for that very reason, they started with the EOE-MP hopelessness vibe going on with Mari, then it just forgets all of that and pulls a Lagann.

If they could take those parts and naturally flow into each other, it would work, but it just feels rushed. So that brings me to the main point, which is that the second movie "wasted" a bunch of time on comedy scenes, and yet the focal scenes felt rushed. Two new main characters have been thrown into the mix, and probably a third with Kaworu, there is a lot that hasn’t been addressed yet in the plot, tons of needed character development, and of course the whole new ending. All in two 90-110 minute movies, and even worse the prospect that it will be like EOE and one feature film.

I’m a tough critic though, so it's not that I dislike these movies, or even worse hate them for not being canon, just a little disappointed with the execution so far. Perhaps I will think differently when I see a sub, who knows.

I've seen most of the movie, and honestly I have to echo some of the complaints here.

And I'll echo some other people's complaints in that the ones who don't understand Japanese probably aren't the best ones to trust on whether or not the the film succeeds.