My reaction to the rebuilds to date

1.0 -- forgettable remake

---------- Horizon of interest ----------

2.0 -- bad fanfic
3.0 -- idiot plot
4.0 -- ???

Brainman wrote:It's not the message, it's the delivery. (...) It's still a little too far up it's own ass

Ehh, so far, I haven't had any real problems with it. I certainly don't get "up its own ass" from anything. The film works like a carefully structured experience / journey, far as I'm concerned. If I have any complaints, it's that the action sequences are staged too confusingly. This was especially evident to me with the sneak peek, which was immediately available in high quality, but was still visually incoherent at first. (Hard to make a judgment of later sequences, since I was pre-loaded on spoilers, and the camrip quality makes it difficult to see things without "study" anyway.)

I might revise my opinions on various facets of the film once I get the BD and am able to really sit down and immerse myself. I think the pacing flaws will probably pop out more (unless they're fixed for 3.33), but I suspect that, in general, my feelings about the film will remain overwhelmingly positive.

Mr. Tines wrote:My reaction to the rebuilds to date

If I remember correctly, you haven't even watched any of them yet.

Brainman wrote:In old NGE, the was always different perspectives between different characters. No matter who you were, there would be at least one character you could relate to. But in 3.0 there's really not much to work with.

I couldn't agree more with this. I think that one of the main benefits of having a large cast of characters is seeing the a complex web of interactions between them. For example, Kaji in NGE; he's a character that interacts with Misato, Ritsuko, Asuka, Shinji, and Gendo in different ways. And when you consider that each of those characters listed above interacts with a number of other characters in significant or interesting ways, the web of relationships builds up depth and the story becomes more interesting because of it.



That's not to say that there aren't some very nice pieces of character interaction within in film. There are some great character development scenes towards the middle of the movie. But without a doubt, the web of interaction between characters in rebuild is far less complex than NGE's, despite having more characters.



Honestly, I wouldn't mind it if the focus of NME was a narrow-yet-detailed development of a small group of main characters, but it's becoming clear that that isn't the plan... That's my take on it, at least.

I might revise my opinions on various facets of the film once I get the BD and am able to really sit down and immerse myself.

I hope that my opinion changes. There are just a few aspects of the film that I find hard to justify.

Reichu wrote:If I remember correctly, you haven't even watched any of them yet.

I watched 1.01; Ramiel had a decent enough upgrade, but really that's all that it had going for it in isolation. And while the 2.0 reaction might be my idiosyncrasy, the characterisation of 3.0 is a common theme across many reviews.

Mr. Tines: I think you ought to be old and mature enough to know how annoying Complaining About Shit You Haven't Seen* is. If you're going to watch the films and form your own opinion, please do so. If not, leave it to the people that have.

* The reverse, Praising Shit You Haven't Seen, is of course just as bad.

katanaswordfish wrote:JUST QUOTE THE PART YOU'RE RESPONDING TO; SEE THE GUIDELINES

In all fairness, though, you are comparing a television show to a series of films. The television medium offers the artist and viewer the opportunity to properly explore tangents, whereas a film must be a more focused experience. Also, seeing as how Rebuild is intended to be a different take on the Eva mythos, I don't think it's fair to say that the film is inferior because it isn't doing something the series did.

To me, the movies takes its place in the pantheon of great Sci-Fi films like 2001 and THX-1138, films that throw you out of the plane with no shoot. Works set in strange, alien worlds, immersing you with little to no pre-requisite. Some are decrying the confusing nature of it all. I understand that, but to me, it's all part of the fun.

My advice: if you're someone who took up torch and pitchfork over Asuka's rather modest character tweaks in 2.0, decrying it as an OUTRAGE ... well, either get over that, or perhaps disengage from the new series entirely. You may not be ready for this. Change, evolution, destruction, innovation -- all names of the game.

@Reichu
I was excited by 1.0; but something about 2.0, even when we just had the trailers to go on, just killed my interest. If that's not a reaction, I don't know what is.

Mr. Tines wrote:If that's not a reaction, I don't know what is.

So you're reacting to 2.0's trailers, and second-/third-/etc. hand info and opinions. We should be past that by now.

C'mon Tines, how about you watch it? It's just 2 hours, and even you don't like it, it's Eva. From the perspective of how different it is alone it should be enough to invest yourself.

Anyway,

I'm quite fascinated by the diverse reactions even if I half-expected them to be like that.

Reichu wrote:And now, again, my reaction is different from the norm.

To be fair, I'm not quite sure there is a "norm" here. The film seems to be about as divisive as can be. Seems we have 3 reactions occuring in pretty equal numbers:

1. People praising it as a return to form.
2. People disliking it due to the eccentricities.
3. People mixed.

Personally I fall into the third one. In the Q forum Darkwing, I believe, brought it up, but with something like Eva you can have two types of reactions: an intellectual reaction, and an emotional reaction. I think that was a really good point when he brought it up because it helps explain my, and I think others, reaction to the film. From an "intellectual" standpoint (and I hate using that word) I can greatly appreciate the film. There are a lot of things Anno's done for, what I think, are very specific reasons, and as soon as you guys watch it and get to the Q forum you're going to see us discussing them. I honestly think those are brilliant. But while I can appreciate the film from a pure critical perspective, Eva is also something close to my heart, probably too close, and so my reaction to the film was always going to be very emotional, regardless of how it turned out. And... well people have seen my emotional reaction to the film.

I have (not surprisingly) serious difficulties in putting my feelings into words but here's what I came up with.

After watching 3.0 I still somehow think that the main dish is ahead of me because what I got didn't feed me nearly enough. So there must be something big ahead... right?
What we got isn't bad but it seems just so... insignificant in terms of substance (although grand in form) that it's hard for me to truly accept that 4.0 will only be a conclusion.
Anno needed only one episode of TV series to present us the Kaworu arc and although a lot of people complained that everything happened too fast, for me it was perhaps more emotional experience than the entire 3.0.
Did we really need a whole movie (and 4 years of waiting) just to see how the relationship between Shinji and Kaworu plays out this time and get another 10866 things to speculate over?

There's a chance that 4.0 will tie things up together nicely, sure, but didn't we already expect 3.0 to do just that? After 3.0 I'm exactly where I was after 2.0 - hoping that the next one will save everything, put everything into context, flesh out the characters etc.
And it's not the best place to be in after 3 of 4 movies.

CJD wrote:To be fair, I'm not quite sure there is a "norm" here.

I guess that was the wrong term to use, and I should have been more specific. I've been pleased with 3.0 both intellectually and emotionally. When I spoke of a "norm", it wasn't just at EGF. It seems that a majority of the audience is more than a little unsure about the film, and feel an uncertainty / dubiousness / outright loathing that I can't really claim was part of my reaction. (At most, there were the moments of "Buh? Really??" as images and often-dubious spoilers leaked through, but these quickly cleared up. It took me far longer to reach any kind of reconciliation with 2.0.)

Mr. Tines wrote:I was excited by 1.0; but something about 2.0, even when we just had the trailers to go on, just killed my interest. If that's not a reaction, I don't know what is.

That's interesting because it is a known fact that when we reach a certain age (and I don't mean any offense with this) we tend to get stuck with our tastes. I remember reading an article in a magazine one day about a scientific research saying that people's musical tastes tend to stay the same after the age of thirty, from then on it's hard for them to appreciate anything different from what they're used to. It probably applies to other forms of entertainment as well. Knowing this it comes as no surpirse that you had no problem with 1.0 since it's pretty much unchanged from the original, it's also unsurprising that you didn't enjoy the changes made from then on. You seem to be a peculiar case however, since you are probably one of the few in the fandom who could get into Eva even after maturing your tastes, if we may put it like that.

I can honestly say that I'm still on the fence about 3.0 but leaning more towards a positive reaction, I don't share people's emotional outrages against it and I'm quite satisfied with how empathizing the movie was for me.

Positive reaction or negative, I feel like few (if anybody) here has actually seen the film. To get the full experience, it seems like you have to be both fluent in Japanese AND view it in crystal clear quality. For the most part, we cam-rippers have done neither. Even by Eva standards it's an extremely visual film. Those who are down on it now may reassess things in High-Def. Right now we're judging a polaroid of a zerox of a painting.

The first time I watched 3.0 it was completely in Japanese (which I know a little of, but no where near enough to understand the complexities of this film) so I was quite confused to say the least. However this was a small price to pay for being able to see it at a cinema, after I had watched the camrip with subs it made a lot more sense, but it was still quite confusing in a lot of ways. Overall I enjoyed the film and felt it gave a bit of an insight into what post third impact life would be like, however it did raise a truck load of questions that will hopefully be answered (at least some of the continuity ones) in the final film.

A.T. Fish wrote:people's musical tastes tend to stay the same after the age of thirty, from then on it's hard for them to appreciate anything different from what they're used to. It probably applies to other forms of entertainment as well.

The effect of age varies; and people's ability to cope with it varies. I first came across anime at all in my late 50s (through Golden Boy), then came to Evangelion in my early 60s. Since then I have investigated a fairly varied range of shows. (See here, and the links in it.)

3.0 was good. It wasn't stellar, but it was really great in a lot of different respects, and was an enjoyable watch. In my opinion, it was the best NME film to date for many reasons - one of the most important ones being the fact that it wasn't as bogged down as the other films in a sense of reverent adherence to the problems of the original series. The issues present in 3.0 seem to be a whole NEW set a of problems compared to the other two films, but everything was relatively refreshing. I'm really sick of hearing people complain about the film jumped the shark or was too different to anything we've seen before - it's brought life to franchise that was stagnating in many different respects, and has changed a lot of things for the better.

I might make a detailed post later, but 3.0's greatest quality by far is that it has a real sense consistency that the previous films lacked - the emotional tone, visuals, soundtrack, characters, and overall plot are without the occasional jarring moments that made them occasionally difficult to watch and take seriously. Disregarding the fact that the finer details of the plot are still pretty nonsensical to an audience that has never seen NGE before, 3.0 will be an anime film that I can sit down with non-anime viewers and watch, without ever having to go "ignore this bit, it's weird".

"You've gifted us nothing but heartache, Magic Man. What's the life lesson in that!?"

A.T. Fish wrote:That's interesting because it is a known fact that when we reach a certain age (and I don't mean any offense with this) we tend to get stuck with our tastes. .... You seem to be a peculiar case however, since you are probably one of the few in the fandom who could get into Eva even after maturing your tastes, if we may put it like that.

So I got into anime in my late 40s, functional programming at around 50, and still keep my own sense of humour, so I don't seem to be doing too badly.

The original series came over as a solid work of SF in the mid-90s zeitgeist; had a character in Asuka who I connected with emotionally, and was enough of a puzzle piece that it was natural to be this decade's place I did fanac. I guess you could characterise my feelings to Rebuild post-Yashima as it having fallen into some Uncanny Valley around the original, neither the elaboration of the original that was originally proposed, nor the entirely new apocalyptic super-robot story it so clearly wants to be.