Reckoner wrote:Shinji never INITIATED any sort of physical intimacy with anyone.

Simply reaching in there and getting some is a good initiation, though having Shinji go through two whole films warming up to Rei with food and conversation helps as well.

Reckoner wrote:If Anno is creating a story so detached from the original beyond superficial elements that it's hardly recognizable, I see no point in revistiing the story. Reimagining gains meaning when you present the same setting and characters, and reach a different conclusion. What we have here is pretty much the same setting, but DIFFERENT characters reaching a very different conclusion. I just don't see the point. He should just make something new.

You say that as if 1.11 wasn't shot-for-shot exactly the first 6 episodes of the TV series. The only character that's different is Shikinami, and the only character that's new is Mari. The rest of the cast just seem to be reacting differently is all.

A good research film into using the same characters to reach a different conclusion is Run Lola Run, where the movie re-tells the same events three different ways to reach three different conclusions.

Reckoner wrote:Your analogy is wrong because Tim Burton isn't directing the Dark Knight.

I don't know if it's fair to say that a director should never tell a different story with the same characters. Cecil B. DeMille, considered one of the greatest directors of all time, did tremendously well with his film The Ten Commandments, which was a remake of his own silent film. In fact, the remake is even considered the definitive version of the film. And there are a lot of changes between the two films, other than just the use of sound and different cast. I guess some can call foul that the original is mostly unheard of by those outside of the film community (or outside of those who are just fans of the TTC films). But hey! It's Cecil's movie. And he can do what he wants with it, and people will still judge him fairly based on the merit of the individual films, and not based on the integration of the two films.

I think we can give Anno that same luxury, don't you think?

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:A good research film into using the same characters to reach a different conclusion is Run Lola Run, where the movie re-tells the same events three different ways to reach three different conclusions.

I've watched this movie some years ago, it's really interesting.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Oh, I get it. So the same filmmaker should never tell a different story using the same cast? I'll add that to the list of things that was never mentioned in film school. *scribbles*

One never stops learning, right?

...

You're right, Seele00TextOnly. I edited my previous post accordingly so as not to use any sarcasm.

Seele00TextOnly wrote:The forum is supposed to be welcoming to newcomers instead of jumping down their throats.

Well, if the newcomer claims that Anno can do some things while he can't do some things with his own creation, at the very least we can say that we don't agree at all with him; sarcasm has always been fine in this forum, as far as I can remember.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:You say that as if 1.11 wasn't shot-for-shot exactly the first 6 episodes of the TV series. The only character that's different is Shikinami, and the only character that's new is Mari. The rest of the cast just seem to be reacting differently is all.

Which actually makes Rebuild all the more awkward. It feels almost impossible to detach the two from each other in my viewing experience.

I do think Rei is just acting differently though. I mean she went all the way to actually suggest something like a dinner party, cook for Shinji, and even say that Shinji makes her feel warm inside. How can you see this as the same Rei from the original?

The original Rei never felt human, even despite the cracks of emotion through the original. She always seemed to float above normal humans. Never really got that impression in 2.0. She just felt like another quiet girl archetype.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:I don't know if it's fair to say that a director should never tell a different story with the same characters. Cecil B. DeMille, considered one of the greatest directors of all time, did tremendously well with his film The Ten Commandments, which was a remake of his own silent film.

I bolded this part because this is the crux of our difference here. You accept the Rebuild characters as reasonable interpretations of their original personas equal in depth, complexity, and interest to NGE. I don't. I feel they are far different, and in a bad way too. I believe them to be overly generic and I find many of their actions in Rebuild to just seem very strange.

Furthermore I only ever said that the Tim Burton analogy was false because Tim Burton is not responsible for the Dark Knight. Also, he never made the comics. Frankly the Tim Burton film was crap, and Nolan did a far more wonderful job capturing the spirit of Batman in my eyes from the comic despite how different he imagined the setting and the conception of Batman. I think Rebuild runs contrary to the the spirit of Evangelion.

What I also see very strange is how Anno supposedly wants to inject the anime industry once more with imagination and reinvent it like the original NGE, but all I've seen from how archetypal he's made some of his characters is just the opposite.

Seele00TextOnly wrote:Hey, you guys ought to stop sarcastically dismissing what he has to say and making jokes. The forum is supposed to be welcoming to newcomers instead of jumping down their throats. Folks have been banned from this subforum for allegedly doing these things.

...

.. Or maybe that only holds true when it's someone that doesn't like the movies doing it. Of course how silly of me.

Don't worry. If people want to persist making straw man arguments about what I'm saying, they're only making themselves look bad .

Thanks for the warm welcoming though.

Reckoner wrote:Which actually makes Rebuild all the more awkward. It feels almost impossible to detach the two from each other in my viewing experience.

I do think Rei is just acting differently though. I mean she went all the way to actually suggest something like a dinner party, cook for Shinji, and even say that Shinji makes her feel warm inside. How can you see this as the same Rei from the original?

I was referencing 1.11 specifically with the statement you quoted, in which case Rei acted no differently.

2.22 is where all the changes occur, and in Rei's case, the main change was we get to see her again, rather than in NGE, where we never really know Rei any better than we did in Episode 6 until Episode 23. This change just explores what might have naturally happened if Rei actually responded to Shinji's interactions with her that built up to battling the 5th Angel. (6th Angel, in NME.)

I think a lot of reactions to the characters being "bland", particularly with in terms of Shinji, come from them already seeing it before with NGE. Asuka's arc is quickly rushed, so any nuances we could have gotten from her were lost to most viewers. Ritsuko isn't being focused on that much either. But other than that, Rei, Misato, Kaji, Shinji, Gendo, and Fuyutski, all have the same elements working for them (or against them, as the case may be) as they did up until this point in NGE. The only difference being, so far, that they're reacting differently to the situations, and that some of the situations presenting themselves are different. We didn't need a whole episode where Misato goes to different weddings in order to show that she's upset over being single. All we needed was her to react to Kaji, and the visuals and the vocal performance tells us everything we need to know. We didn't need to reinforce through these wedding receptions that Misato drinks a lot, we saw her drinking heavily at the beginning of both movies.

In fact, I would argue that there is more detail to a few of these characters in NME. The elements in Shinji's life, like his SDAT Player, are given meaning that supports the character, and Kaworu gets more screen-time thus far than he ever did up until this point in the TV series. And we get to see Rei gradually shift to siding with Shinji, rather than an abrupt line spoken in The End of Evangelion.

Reckoner wrote:I do think Rei is just acting differently though. I mean she went all the way to actually suggest something like a dinner party, cook for Shinji, and even say that Shinji makes her feel warm inside. How can you see this as the same Rei from the original?

Maybe because we're talking about the same Rei that was smiling with Shinji in episode 6, and eventually died in episode 23 to protect him. Rei's development was basically halted after Asuka appeared I don't think that it's completely out of the realm of possibilities that slowly she could have become more human (actually I believe that it happened, to a certain extent); Rei doing something to actively helps Shinji is indeed a big improvement but I won't become angry just because Rei is more "human" than in NGE, actually this is Anno that like usual projects himself on the characters.

Reckoner wrote:Thanks for the warm welcoming though.

Anyway, you could have introduced yourself properly.

EDIT:@FreakyFilmFan4ever: we were basically writing the same thing about Rei's different development!
Also I completely agree with you regarding the better development of overlooked aspects.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:I was referencing 1.11 specifically with the statement you quoted, in which case Rei acted no differently.

I know. I was saying how her not acting any different from the original in 1.11 made how different in 2.11 she was very weird.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:2.22 is where all the changes occur, and in Rei's case, the main change was we get to see her again, rather than in NGE, where we never really know Rei any better than we did in Episode 6 until Episode 23. This change just explores what might have naturally happened if Rei actually responded to Shinji's interactions with her that built up to battling the 5th Angel. (6th Angel, in NME.)

And you personally think that the way she reacted with cooking competitions (cutting herself up a bunch), and seemingly romantic devotion to Shinji was a dignified manner to show this that was in line with her character? Again, your perception may vary, but for me I don't believe so.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:I think a lot of reactions to the characters being "bland", particularly with in terms of Shinji, come from them already seeing it before with NGE.

The contention we have here is whether it's the same characters acting differently or different characters making different decisions. I personally see them as different ones, and not just different, but generic.

Look, Rebuild isn't the worst thing I ever saw. If I never saw NGE I would surely enjoy it. But, it pales in comparison to the original as far as I am concerned.

Hyper Shinchan wrote: Rei doing something to actively helps Shinji is indeed a big improvement but I won't become angry just because Rei is more "human" than in NGE, actually this is Anno that like usual projects himself on the characters.

That's not even it. Just a more generic, less dignified approach to her character and ultimately less interesting. Just another quiet girl archetype. As always, perceptions may differ. I can't make you see it my way by any means, but that's my impression of her in the film.

What I will argue over though is how drastically different the tone of the film feels overall compared to the original NGE and how it just isn't nearly as impressive as NGE was.

EDIT: Forgive me for not giving a generic one line sentence in a thread that is effectively a spam thread

Reckoner wrote:What I will argue over though is how drastically different the tone of the film feels overall compared to the original NGE and how it just isn't nearly as impressive as NGE was.

So, wait? A story born out of depression is more impressive than a story born out of happiness? All the more reason I should avoid making myself into an emo, depressed wreck when I become a film director.

But in all seriousness, OF COURSE the tone is different! EVA is a reflection of Anno. NGE reflected on Anno's deep depression, but NME is reflecting on a happier, healthier Anno, and I for one perfer that a director/writer/creator/etc. be happy when creating a story. And I personally would rather be happy and create something rather than a depressed wreck of a man.

Shogo-Kun wrote:So, wait? A story born out of depression is more impressive than a story born out of happiness? All the more reason I should avoid making myself into an emo, depressed wreck when I become a film director.

Please reread my post a few times. I have no idea what you are talking about.

Shogo-Kun wrote:But in all seriousness, OF COURSE the tone is different! EVA is a reflection of Anno. NGE reflected on Anno's deep depression, but NME is reflecting on a happier, healthier Anno, and I for one perfer that a director/writer/creator/etc. be happy when creating a story. And I personally would rather be happy and create something rather than a depressed wreck of a man.

Still have no idea what this has to do with anything.

All I ever said before really was this:

Overall, with the overemphasis on silly school life moments, to how the characters were warped from their original personas, Evangelion lost its identity as a gritty mecha in an apoplectic world. Originally a captivating and philosophically complex story was now no more than a generic hot blooded mecha tale. What many including myself saw as perhaps the greatest anime franchise ever was now no more than a simply above average viewing experience. If this was just any old anime there would be no problem, but for something with the reputation of Evangelion, such an average job earns nothing but my scorn.

And that because Rebuild is so detached from NGE, I'd prefer that Anno just make an entirely new anime since the characters don't even feel the same. I'm fine with happier animes. I'm fine if Anno wants to deliver an overall more happy tone to Rebuild. I'm not fine with generic renditions of one of my all time favorite animes. Especially when it comes at the expense of some really great characters. It's just disappointing.

Well, let's face it. Ever since NGE, everyone in their mother has been trying to copy that style. So maybe it's generic because the EVA-style has been played to death and Anno wanted to try a different approach since everyone has copied him. And, as the old saying goes, "Repetion is the scourge of genius. No great thinker ever copies himself".

Reckoner wrote:And that because Rebuild is so detached from NGE, I'd prefer that Anno just make an entirely new anime since the characters don't even feel the same. I'm fine with happier animes. I'm fine if Anno wants to deliver an overall more happy tone to Rebuild. I'm not fine with generic renditions of one of my all time favorite animes. Especially when it comes at the expense of some really great characters. It's just disappointing.

So it would have been fine if it weren't called Evangelion and the characters had a different name...

Reckoner wrote:EDIT: Forgive me for not giving a generic one line sentence in a thread that is effectively a spam thread

You're right, joining the Rebuild-hate has been more effective as presentation.

Well, a lot of things in NGE became "generic" since NGE. One can see a noticeable rise in whiny lead males in mecha/sci-fi animes since NGE. (Odd how something once thought to be created in opposition to the concept of marketability, like Shinji's antics and Rei's bandages in NGE, suddenly become the marketable trademarks for those and other anime characters.) This just goes back to nothing ever really being "original", but simply things fading in and out of season. Anno gravitated to the nature of depression similar to other artistic works from the past and brought it to the contemporary Japanese culture of 1995, bringing what once was out of season back in season. It's like how people started seeing 70's styles return after 30 years.

But while depressing or pessimistic characters were on the rise since NGE, optimistic characters in mecha/sci-fi never really went out of season either. So when it comes to choosing characters that might go against the curve, Anno doesn't have much options open to him anymore. If it's optimistic in nature, it can be compared to his Gunbuster series, and the hundreds of other shows out there with the same emotional tone. If it's depressive in nature, he's only repeating what he did in 1995, and not necessarily re-envisioning anything.

But I really don't think Anno is doing that either. The tone of his NGE work in 1995 was in reaction to a lot of shit that happened to him in the late 80's-early 90's. Rather, the tone in his recent NME work, and his other works preceding NME, simply reflects a time in his life where he doesn't seem to be entertaining a passive interest in suicidal thoughts. The changes in plot devices seem to stem from wanting to see what would happen if Shinji met someone completely out of left-field who's sole mission seemed to be to screw around with NERV, and everything the fans once knew about Evangelion. (Mari!!!)

Yet, oddly enough, everything around Evangelion still happens to be just the same. Toy manufacturers are marketing the crap out of it, a strong, zealous following develops over the franchise, and a group of naysayers formulate because they didn't like whatever tone was attached to the series.

People tend to flock to the depressive works because they're looking for an outlet regarding their own issues. (I know there have been days where I'll just sit there and watch Episodes 16 or 20 of NGE simply because I'm depressed and friggin' in the mood. My music selection gets even more heavy-handed.) Others don't appreciate the tone of the series and dismiss it.

But when it comes to points in one's life where they're not being followed by a dark cloud, they tend to be more interested in life itself, with entertainment and media merely supplementing that. Works like NMW, especially since it closely resembles the NGE series, aren't turned to in that sense, but rather people would go watch movies like, say, a run-of-the-mill Ghibli movie, where people are more used to seeing those tones and emotions come from those movies. It's not that it doesn't make since within the NME films, it just doesn't make sense to those who've seen the original series to see those tones come out of... Rei Ayanami? What is this, I don't even... It makes sense according to NME's story, but to those who've seen NGE, they're used to different tones coming from the character. It's like seeing Robin Williams play a villainous or dramatic character. He does it well, but nobody expects that from him, so few pay attention or chooses to remember him when he's in a role like that.

So much of this reminds me of the bad fan buzz around Sam Raimi's Spider-Man back in the day. When you take characters that people have very specific ideas about and change things, people get PISSED. The amount of hand wringing over organic vs. mechanical web shooters was astonishing... "You can't take away Spidey's web cartridges and still call that 'Spider-Man' . You just CAN'T!" Fandom takes ownership of characters and finds even minor deviation personally offensive.

Hyper Shinchan wrote:So it would have been fine if it weren't called Evangelion and the characters had a different name...

More precisely, if this completely new super-robots vs kaiju series had been presented as that -- even if fans ended up calling Hideaki Anno's new movie series "Response to Evangelion".

Reckoner wrote:I don't see how this is a reasonable defense of what I said. Of course they did what they intended. Just because Anno intended it I have lost legitimacy to my claims? No, I still think [snip]

Um, your opinions are your opinions, which you're entitled to? Your words here have nothing to do with what I was wrote, which is characters are going to be different people in different continuities. It should be obvious anyway, but that needed to be mentioned considering the constant back-and-forth in this thread.

By the way, since you're a new member, it'd do you (and everybody else!) some good to review this thread viewtopic.php?t=9701 considering the Debate Rebuild thread has gotten unnecessarily ugly in the past (and that Reminder thread is a general overview of proper Rebuild Subforum behavior/conduct, anyway).

May thous forgive me for this act of Necromancy of this debate.

Came from this thread, and figured I was getting a bit off-topic.

Kendrix wrote:Mari's glasses exist mainly for the sake of making her stand out and shatterig dramatically, tough XD - Mari seems to be the "moving forward" sort of person (see her song), not one to dwell on memories.

And for the moment, that's what I'd call a flaw in her character. There's little there to endear her to the audience. When she first shows up, she's put into do-or-die fight, filled with pain and grit, yet, when it's all said and done, she brushes it off like it was nothing. While the fight was in many ways significant to the plot, character wise, it gave us nothing beyond "Okay, she exists and likes fighting... and has a large bosom".

Then over the course of the film, we don't get anything beyond that. She has no evident issues, has expressed nothing she holds dear or a cause she is willing to fight for, and has no semblance of a character arch. She's static, and thus, compared to the other characters, uninteresting.

Kendrix wrote:With Mari being Mari, it would probably be fine for them to give her no backstory at all, she is, despite being as far as we know, human, a bit of a mysterious sort of character like Kaworu and Rei"

I disagree, what made Kawrou successful as a character was his interactions with the other characters (namely Shinji), and the effect he had on them.

Mari meanwhile, virtually every time she shows up, feels like a character phoned in from another show.

When Shinji firsts meets her, he treats it as, if you'll excuse the expression "a big lipped alligator moment", and it's never brought up again. It's possible the SDAT being broken then will have future repercussions, as discussed, but for Mari's character, we got no meaningful interaction.

In fact, there are only two instances I feel where she really had something.

One of course, is where she lifted Shinji out of the bunker and convinced him to fight, but there's a problem with that. She was just standing in for Kaji. It wasn't unique or organic to her character, and considering how effective Zuriel was at tearing the Evas apart, it probably shouldn't of happened at all after that 2nd strike. It felt like something the writers forced to happen so her character could have a little more relevance.

The other moment was a bit easier to miss, where she assisted Rei in the fight. Right after tearing through Zuriel's final A.T. barrier, Rei thanked her, and told her to get out of there. The view then cut to Mari, who instead of having the arrogant, devil-may-care grin as we might expect, looked shocked, and possibly touched by Rei's sacrifice.

This of course happened before her moment with Shinji, and there, she was still her confident, "Meh, it happens" self. So, what I'd like to see from Evangelion Q or Final, is something from that moment with Rei, something that makes her grow/change, reflect or otherwise gives backstory that would help explain why she is the way she is, what she derives her confidence from.

Interviews and other extra-canonical material cannot stand in, it has to be presented in the story, or, for myself at least, she'll never be anything more than an empty derivative of shonen characters, somehow shoe-horned into Eva, leaving Rebuild all the worse for having her.

Alaska Slim wrote:The other moment was a bit easier to miss, where she assisted Rei in the fight. Right after tearing through Zuriel's final A.T. barrier, Rei thanked her, and told her to get out of there. The view then cut to Mari, who instead of having the arrogant, devil-may-care grin as we might expect, looked shocked, and possibly touched by Rei's sacrifice.

To me that seemed like a back to reality moment. Sort of like how some kids can get too much into, say, playing Counter-Strike, to the point of foaming at the mouth and screaming incoherently. Then someone touches them on the shoulder, and they suddenly snap back to their senses. "Huh? What?". Well, that's my impression of the sequence in question.

Alaska Slim wrote:There's little there to endear her to the audience. When she first shows up, she's put into do-or-die fight, filled with pain and grit, yet, when it's all said and done, she brushes it off like it was nothing. While the fight was in many ways significant to the plot, character wise, it gave us nothing beyond "Okay, she exists and likes fighting... and has a large bosom".

Here's an idea: what if the audience isn't supposed to be endeared towards her? Everyone is operating on the assumption that once we know her more, we'll think she's super great and shit. But... what if... she's...

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL?

It's not too hard to think that something might be wrong with this chick. She has, at the very least, some ulterior motive. That motive may be noble. Or it might make her a jerk.