Warren Peace wrote:I know, only fools try to predict these movies now. But come on, that's GOT to happen, right??

How about 2 hours of existential/ontological monologue montage, heavily relying on white kanji over black background, screams and some cheap record of Bach?

I think that when Eva 1 wake up , will be the end of the world , again

Warren Peace wrote:I know, only fools try to predict these movies now. But come on, that's GOT to happen, right?

Why do I suspect people said the same thing about Eva 01 going into EoE? And look how that turned out...

Warren Peace wrote:I'm already wondering if the inevitable reactivation of Unit-01 will be as epic in Final as it is in my imagination -- ripping out of the Wunder in mid-flight, fiery wreckage raining down as the Eva hurtles to Earth...

I know, only fools try to predict these movies now. But come on, that's GOT to happen, right?

'cept he put in a flying battleship, so now he's probably gonna have it do stuff, too, instead of instantly dismantling it.

In a certain way, it's a very bold thing to do, to sacrifice all these subplots for one principal one. That he did not seem to have planned this only makes the "cutoff" feel more genuine, he didn't finish telling us all the stories there were to be told in the pre-timeskip world, and Shinji probvably wanted to be part of thosde ppl's journeys as much as we did...

Damnit, I leave the forum for a few days to finally play Skyrim, and this thread does some stuff I would have loved to discuss. Well better late than never.

First off I'm glad Kendrix shared her sisters reactions with us. Always interesting to see a viewpoint on Eva from someone who hasn't spent crazy amounts of time online trying to figure out things. On a related note, yeah I know the pain of being on team blue. Been there since my first episode, and even knowing all the problems with it I can't actually stop shipping Shinji/Rei. It's kinda irritating in a way.

Seeing the dark turn things took for Rebuild sure made me upset and sad. It took Borderlands 2 for christmas, writing a Katawa Shoujo fanfiction, and finaly watching Ben 10 for saturday morning cartoon fun to snap me out. But I know that no matter how Rebuild ends it can't piss me off as much as Mass Effect 3's ending. If it does, then that's why New York State blew up.

Darkwing wrote:But I know that no matter how Rebuild ends it can't piss me off as much as Mass Effect 3's ending.

Don't worry, whatever it does we're expecting Rebuild to end on an unsatisfying WTF note. No one expected that from ME3...

CJD wrote:Don't worry, whatever it does we're expecting Rebuild to end on an unsatisfying WTF note. No one expected that from ME3...

Also it can't have a lack of an Endboss since it's not a videogame... Oh and I imagine less false advertising.... And I think I'd better stop now.

Anyways when my friends finally see it I'll make sure to note their reactions.

Mt Olympus wrote:Evangelion 3.0 has changed the way I see the whole rebuild series by a ton. Even having only seen the camrip that is out a handful of times this movie has renewed my interests and reawakened my curiosity.

The name 'You can(not) redo' echoes what this movie truly means over and over. I wouldn't doubt the 4th film's title being 'You can(not) finish' or 'You can(not)end' given some of the underlying or perhaps overlying themes.

Where some may see the lack of information available in this film, I see an information overload, Anno did a brilliant job incorporating it all in a way that makes you think but still keep it at an enjoyable pace. The aspect of having no information while having a ton is something I think was a point he was making. It's something that has attributed Evangelion as a timeless artwork.

The scenes are beautifully rendered, where I thought this movie would have a blue and clean feel to it, it was indeed the exact opposite, the blood red was powerfully overwhelming but didn't feel over done, also matching the atmosphere to the T. The scenes from the 4th impact were ridiculous, I could almost feel the roughness and trauma, more specifically Shinji's expressions were beyond what I could imagine an animation portray. The art alone is enough to make this film a masterpiece.

The ending is perfect and didn't leave off on such a cliffhanger as 2.0 did, and I'm very thankful for that. I look forward to 4.0 but the urgency isn't nearly as much. Asuka having referred to humans as 'Lillin" has me all giddy and tingly inside :3

Overall this movie was more than what I could have imagined, which is everything I wanted.

Having mentioned how powerful Shinji's expressions were portrayed during the fourth impact, I would like to make an addition to the torturous yet glorious moments in this film.

The scene after Shinji arrives at Nerv HQ and gets put up into his new room and then decides to leave in search of Ayanami. He leaves and is now walking in the ruins of his father's life work, the worn and barren Nerv, a skeleton of it's former self. He begins yelling out for Ayanami in the most tearful way I could imagine, like a baby for his mother, his voice echoes with no one to be found. "Ayanami!? AYANAAAMMMIII!!??"

And that's it right there.

Wow... just WOW! This scene will live with me forever. I believe it is completely independent in it's timeline and place in the movie, the reason why is the Rei he is looking for isn't there. He is hopeless in this search. Instead of finding the Rei that was becoming such a major force for him is absent. It instead continues on to something new and unknown, however oblivious it is to him.

For me, this small 10-15 second scene conveyed such a massive amount of information ranging from emotions to atypical symbolism to esoteric meanings to just being sad as all hell brings me to the understanding that this movie when taken into the smallest moments, seemingly independent from each other but still aren't is what makes this movie over-the-top and absolute in it's genius. A film like this is reeled with such a fine comb that it would take another comb twice as much to sort it all out again and the beauty of that is it inherently makes it part of yourself, which is why I Eva :3

Not many movies exist where I'm able to actually FEEL the character, be in their place and really feel for them, but this movie does and does so in a spectacular fashion. NOW WHERES MY BLURAY COPY, DAMMIT!!!!!!!

^What hit me about that scene was seeing all those familiar sceneries in ruin. The escalator from episode 5. The turning platform from just before the Sahaquiel battle.
And the moment I realized that the place where they meet Gendo/ where Kaworu has his piano a little further down used to be EVA 01's now empty cage, you can even see some remains of that little pulpit Gendo used to stand in.

And for the Ayanami scene, there's that bit where he attempts to hand her the player, to give himself to her, in a sense, but - No reaction!

Generally, Ogata totally outdid herself, just her voice in... many, many scenes, actually, not just that one. Even in the few scenes where Shinji is supposed to be expressing something positive, it feels... overstated, like he shouldn't be this happy about such little things, so, she totally sells you that the kid is slowly losing it.

Also, the entire organic animation, the attention given to animating every bit of Shinji's body, for example...


The camera did seem to have a strange obsession with Asuka's crotch, though. Or female crotches in general. Mari was spared because she was always sitting. Couldn't really enjoy it, though, ReiQ has the mind of a toddler, and the other women are bitter revenge machines.
Cept for Sakura, who had her white minidress thing covering her crotch from the Camera's nasty habits.


I guess if this was my first encounter with Misato, If I had seen her as captain ahab first and learned that she used to be warm and motherly later, I'd probably find her hotter/more interesting than her classic incarnation, because I would have classified her like a dark, revenge obsesses character to begin with (I mean, I've totally got the hots for Gendo and she's magnitudes below Q!Misato, in terms of anti-ness, she is still out to protect humanity and something of an inspirational, badass leader) but I always judged her with the "Good guy bar", and using the "Good guy bar", her latest actions are "Off readings", for straight good guy classic hero standards...

I guess that when you already classified someone as shady, every sighn of redeeming features moves them upwards in your eyes and that's the impression you're left with, "They're not so bad at all."

I always thought of Misato as NGEs one classic hero - Shinji is mostly well-meaning and nice, but generally just trying to get through his own life, he hardly even knows of much of the big-picture stuff. Q might have been the first time he really became an active player in the mix and set out to save the world with that as an explicit main goal. (And it went horribly wrong, poor kid.)
It is not to be overlooked that he saved the planet dozens of times, but from his motivations and goals, he's mostly a fairly nice lawful neutral person. His goals are closer to "getting along with everyone around me right now" and "protect the people around me and earn the right to stay with them" (which is the sort of "goals" most of your average 14 year olds would have, to be concerned mainly with their family and peer group. You normally start influencing the big picture when you get a job, the right to vote and to decide what you buy) than they are to "uncover conspiracy and secure the future of humanity."
Misato, despite her flaws, fits the bill of a hero a lot more since she works to uncover the conpiracies, tries to protect/ adopt kids, and does have the fate of humanity somewhere high on her priority list, even if "Getting daddys respect" is a little bit higher on it.
But its not like she fundamentally changed that much, she still very much has her reckless battle style, she alwys had Ahab-like tendencies, and it's realistic that a postapocalyptic wasteland would bring them out - The way she acts is not that different from her EoE incarnation, really, cept she has an organization to back her. The only thing that's changed is that she hates Shinji. (She was harsh to him before, but it was always ostensibly for his own good... ) It looks like a 180 from his pov, but it isn't that much if you were, say, looking from where Ritsuko is standing, especially since she does show signs of being conflicted.
So maybe I'm dissapointed with Misato because my expectations of her were too high to begin with/ less because of what she did but because she did it, I dunno. I wouldn't say that she ever was one of my total uber instant-drool-inducing favorites, but I've never disliked her in any way/ generally like her...

It's complicated, in a way, I'm puzzled at my own reaction
Technically, she was always sacrificing this boy, his integrity and his hapiness to her cause, but we liked her cause ...but her cause hadn't changed. While he was the pilot of the EVa with the best battle record, keeping him functional was for the best of humanity, and now that she knows he's the impact trigger, blowing him to chunky salsa is for the best of humanity.
Gemdo also thinks he's working for the best of humanity. Misato thought of doing what she can to mitigate the damage, but Gendo though he couldn't do that. Maybe he decided to leave it to more capable hands.
That line of Fuyutsuki's sorta implies that he would try to mitigate the damage if he could.

But on the other hand, Gendo turned the planet into a wasteland, Misato was just really mean to one single kid. Difference in magnitude here. But... would Misato theoretically turn one half of the planet into wasteland it it would save the other one or something like this? "Priorite the objective, forget human life, that's the captain's motto!"
...but she used to be the ONE person who would always express concern about human life when nobody else would...

Maybe one day, when we've had enough time to dissect the emotional and philosophic matters of Q, we will get to answer the question of: Is it cheating if you compliment the looks of your girlfriend's clone? In a skintight suit, no less!
But he didn't know it was a clone!
*cue TI discussion all over again, except a whole lot less frustrating and a lot more entertaining because we're talking about complimentimg girls in skintight suits*

Kendrix wrote:^What hit me about that scene was seeing all those familiar sceneries in ruin. The escalator from episode 5. The turning platform from just before the Sahaquiel battle.
And the moment I realized that the place where they meet Gendo/ where Kaworu has his piano a little further down used to be EVA 01's now empty cage, you can even see some remains of that little pulpit Gendo used to stand in.

And for the Ayanami scene, there's that bit where he attempts to hand her the player, to give himself to her, in a sense, but - No reaction!

Generally, Ogata totally outdid herself, just her voice in... many, many scenes, actually, not just that one. Even in the few scenes where Shinji is supposed to be expressing something positive, it feels... overstated, like he shouldn't be this happy about such little things, so, she totally sells you that the kid is slowly losing it.

One of the best aspects of the rebuild movies is how well developed Rei was in the first 2 movies. I think this is what caused such a shock for people when watching the new Rei's reactions and dialog, it really is cringe inducing. They make you want to yearn for the old Rei to come back so much, and for some people so much so that it causes them to literally get angry or stressed. Also considering how much character development other animes or movies or tv shows need to get people attached to a character, Eva shows how little you need.

I think the voice acting played a huge role in the emotion involved in this movie as well. It's so well done that even with that shitty camrip you can still feel the power her voice has.

I don't really have an opinion on the other stuff you wrote. Thanks for the reply though :3

The loss of Poka Rei was a shocking blow. I suppose it would be akin to

Perhaps of interest, some thoughts from some youtube comments that struck me as perhaps relevant:

a) There was one poster who... hm, he worded it about like this: "He can't trust his parents, he can't trust Misato, he can't trust Asuka, the only thing he can trust is technically a monster that was created to destroy humanity." the way that Shinji is, despite his initial willingness to help WILLE, driven to the bad guys because those at least talk to him, that the one person he can come to is the least human, and the person went on about how psychologically horrifying that is/ what this says about human nature that such a situation can come about just from people not telling each other things /failing to communicate.


b) There was one German poster. Our exchange went about like this:

Him: What a movie!
Me: But the Paiiiiin....!
Him: Yeah. But somehow, the way you're forced into the perspective/ forced to feel Shinji's pain makes it a very personal experience.


c) unrelated to any youtube comments I've also been thinking about some quote i once read somewhere in school, I think it was someone originally talking about the epinomious protagonist of "Effi Briest", I think it was a comment from some other contemporary writer, and he went (I'm roughly paraphrasing as well as i remember) "There, we have this sympathetic, likeable character, that despite not being a bad person that through the circumstances of her society and the people around her, could not help but to become a sinner/ load herself with guilt, and none of her reasons/aspects in which she was a victim change that she's now in a situation where it all came crashing down around her because of something she and only she did."
Rebuild Shinji, nuff said...

Most ppl today will focus on the whole "arranged marriages are evil" aspect of that book (I mean, they are, it's no different from being forced to become someone's personal whore for shelter and food. - but there is SO MUCH MORE in that book, in a way, it's like EVA, you always notice new things, a whole universe.) but it's also a story about someone failing to become an adult.
she ends up back in the house where she was born, in the outfit the wore as a girl, and then, she just withers and pretty much dies of despair. No suicide, she just... stops and the more I look at Q, especially with the whole "stunted aging" thing, I fear that the Rebuild will have a similar ending, with Shinji either dead or at least mentally gone, just completely failing to become a man, and yes, with his limitation playing their part in this, but limitations that would have been much less of a problem/ solveable by growing out of then in a few months or years time and certainly wouldn't have led to the end of human civilization if outside forces hadn't botched his whole damn life.

(*sigh* Effi Briest. Yet another story that could be solved by one or two sentences. And yet another character that gets too much hate - no, not Effi herself, Instetten. Believe it or not, there are statements from Fontane that he was never intended as a villain.)

Your 2 cents to any of this?

I like pretty much all the characters, but my top three are Rei, Shinji, and Kaworu... so yeah, watching this movie felt like my heart got ripped out and stomped on repeatedly. I felt sad for days. Heck, I still can't hear "Kaworu" and "collar" in the same sentence without feeling that sadness all over again.

It was a very good movie, though. The way the story had changed so drastically from the original series kept me interested, and there were some absolutely gorgeous visuals, plus the music was awesome. I've played the soundtrack so many times that it's a miracle my computer hasn't started spitting out the CDs in protest! Also, Megumi Ogata's performance was incredible. I thought she was amazing in End of Evangelion, and with this movie she proved that she's still got it. Wow.

Right now I'm burned out on Eva. After the last few months and the emotional roller coaster, I'm just tired. Been posting a lot less too. Also I've kinda lost hope for the things I was hoping for happening in Rebuild. I've pretty much resigned myself to the idea that things are going to wrap up in ways that I'll feel philosopically opposed to, and I'm sure that poka Rei is going to end up getting screwed over, at least in my opinion.

Literary Eagle wrote:I like pretty much all the characters, but my top three are Rei, Shinji, and Kaworu... so yeah, watching this movie felt like my heart got ripped out and stomped on repeatedly. I felt sad for days. Heck, I still can't hear "Kaworu" and "collar" in the same sentence without feeling that sadness all over again..

Welcome to the club.
If you remotily liked Rei or Shinji, especially Shinji, your heart WILL end up in the meatgrinder. This is like, a checklist of his worst nightmares, like someone sat down, looked at this character who we already saw a complete iteration of, with his worst and best moments, and thought of constructing the worst possibly scenario for him in particular.
It would be horrible enough for anyone, but this plays so straight into his worst fears, and we get to see him unravel in such a complete, thorough, ugly manner....
I also agree on Ogata's absolutely stellar performance.


...Still haven't decided wether I like the movie as a movie, I sure don't like the developements in it/what happened to those poor people, but those are two very different thiings, and I don't feel I've processed/understood it enough to say "It is good" or "It is bad"...

I didn't hate this film. I'm kind of annoyed with it, but i didn't hate it. Frankly, there were many things about it that I liked. I liked the more serious, militaristic tone, which honestly the series needed by this point as we descend into the darkness before the dawn arc (whether there will be a dawn is debatable). I liked the character designs and the general look of everything. I loved the fact that Shinji finally had some sort of interaction with Fuyutsuki in a thematically meaningful scene.

The things that I was mainly annoyed with were things in the dialogue or actions that the characters made that just didn't make sense or disasters that just seemed absurdly avoidable. By this point I understand what Anno & Co. were trying to do, but I will always question the internal logic of the characters in this film and the filmmakers responsible for writing it. It REALLY didn't help that character development was lacking for a good portion of the cast, who by this point in the series, could REALLY USE IT. I'm perfectly fine with characters like Ritsuko and the bridge bunnies not having much development in this series primarily because Rebuild hasn't really painted them as main characters and whole scenes have not revolved primarily around them. However, Misato, Asuka and ESPECIALLY Mari could have used extra screentime to flesh out their characters in the vast changes since 2.0. A two minute scene would have been enough to accomplish this. We still don't have a clue who Mari really is or why we should care about her as a character. There's only one film left in this series, and you can't just slack-off and dump a bunch of exposition regarding character motivations at the last minute without coming off as kind of inept.

Like Kendrix, I don't feel comfortable enough to pass final judgement on this film as of yet, having not seen it in a manner that it was meant to be presented.

After I screen the Blu-Ray a couple times, I think I'll be more inclined to finalize my opinions on the film.....although those opinions may change after 4.0 is released.

Darkwing wrote:I'm sure that poka Rei is going to end up getting screwed over, at least in my opinion.

I'm worried about that, too. But so far I've been pretty lousy at predicting what's going to happen in Rebuild, so hopefully I'm wrong about that as well. This is one of those cases where I'd be very, very happy to be wrong!

Kendrix wrote:...Still haven't decided wether I like the movie as a movie, I sure don't like the developements in it/what happened to those poor people, but those are two very different thiings, and I don't feel I've processed/understood it enough to say "It is good" or "It is bad"...

It's difficult when something causes that much pain, isn't it? But I decided that if a piece of art is making me feel such strong emotions, and is making me care about what happens to the characters, then I figure they must have done something right. And what I could see of the visuals was really lovely, although that'll probably be easier to judge once the official DVD/BD release is available so it can be viewed properly.

There is another positive thing this movie did for me: I was inspired to write my first Evangelion fan fiction. It's actually a story idea I've had for a long time, so the fic is set in the original continuity and not Rebuild (also, I have friends who are trying to avoid Rebuild spoilers), but still there was just something about this film that made me finally start writing it. It's difficult to explain how that happened, because the fic is very different in tone, but... again, I guess my point is that the movie must have done something right for me, despite the pain.

Overall, I thought it was a good movie, even though it broke my heart. But I sure hope Shinji and the others will somehow pull through okay in the next one.

This review of another movie would be my way of describing Eva3.0 and the harsh back lash it has gotten from several fans

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6ic1butxj4c

^ I agree with the above comment. That's pretty much how I felt. To be honest, I didn't have any huge expectations of 3.0. I knew it was going to be slightly vague and dark. It's admittedly more vague than I thought, but it's fine. I would've liked to see a synopsis of what happened during the time skip, but I'll live. I just hope everything comes full circle in 4.0. And if you ask me, I see a very small number of people surviving in Final.

I don't get why people are unhappy with the depressing tone of 3.0. Eva without depression just isn't Eva.

I was worried about the end of 2.0 since it seemed that Shinji's life was actually going to turn out ok, and that really would have ruined everything.

I also prescribe to the same school of thought as Andy Kaufman. 3.0 was basically a practical joke on the Eva fanbase and I find that beautiful.