RLLRRR wrote:Exactly. If you want to replace Asuka with Mari, replace Asuka with Mari. Instead of having them coexist where they split the actions and emotional roles.

Agreed.

It wasn't just Asuka either though. Unless I read bad spoilers, the Instrumentality guide replaces Rei / Kaworu (at times) with Mari. Yui's own philosophy is much less present in NTE than in NGE / manga either and her views were what resonated with me the most (the hope for a brighter future, no matter how bleak the present is). Moreover, Misato is a main character in NGE, demoted to extra in NTE. Asuka also suffered from this and though Rei was overexposed in the first two episodes, she dwindled fast in the last two. Mari replaced several character roles, not just Asuka.

The amount of hours and roles were already diminished due to being four movies instead of a 26 episode + movie marathon. It needed condensing, not dispersion on a new character who spent 3/4 movies being irrelevant and became THE CHARACTER in the last one. That's not good storytelling. Like I said more than once, that's what fanfic writers do when they don't like canon.

Imagine a remake of Empire Strikes Back where Darth Vader is revealed to have killed Anakin Skywalker, but Luke's father is actually Todd Skywalker, and he's just fine.

No please, don't give them ideas. After Rise of Skywalker (the irony is staggering), I cannot take any more.

Gendo's Glasses wrote:All that said, I think there's a point that the meta aspects of Shin are both a blessing and a curse, and I think it's fair to say that Anno's happiness that comes from being rich, successful, etc. can make people roll their eyes when, y'know, most people won't get to helm a beloved franchise that enjoys Evangelion's immense popularity. Anno's well-meaning message can feel a bit shallow.

I just don't give Anno the same benefit of the doubt. If he really thought fans were taking Eva to seriously and obsessing's over it in unhealthy was he would stop merchandising it. Bill Watterson(the creator of Calvin and Hobbes) didn't want his comic strip to be warped by commercialism like he taught "The Peanuts" were. So he hasn't allowed any merchandising or adaptations of the work. Anno doesn't do that because he wants the money and this has given these movies a strange savior complex.

IDK about other people on this forum but I don't need the message NTE is pedaling. Since 3.0 release I completed college, got a job, and I'm currently finishing my PhD thesis. I haven't obsessed over Eva in a long time. Its just one of the few pieces of media that I continue to like. Its disappointing to come back to it all these years only for it to abandon its characters and re appropriate imagery from EoE all to tell me to "go outside". I would if it was legal.

Gendo's Glasses wrote:I typed up a long, in-depth post about this topic. Unfortunately, my Internet ate it. So, here you get the bullet points. When I say fandom, I don't mean Evageeks or anyone here specifically.

I agree on everything you’ve written

NamvM74 wrote:If you thought it was important to make a new character that fills most of Asuka's function in the story then why have any version Asuka in it at all? Especially when this new version of Asuka is going to get more screen time then your replacement of her. You have less time in 4 films than the series to tell your story. Expanding the cast shouldn't be a priority. Lord of The Rings in its transition from book to screen cut characters not added new ones.

I know it’s a bit late but I had other matters to attend to.

I agree entirely with not needing to add new characters when it’s unnecessary. I recall one interview in the CRC stating Anno felt like he was forcing Mari into the script; if you feel like your forcing something than you probably are. I’m relatively indifferent to Mari but I’ve always stood by what I’ve said before that you could remove her entirely from 2.0, move some characters around, alter the opening scene a bit and no one would be none the wiser. But while I stand by saying that about Mari, you most certainly can’t with Asuka. Yeah you could change Unit 03’s pilot back to Toji but everyone would be even more enraged at her lack of importance in the story if we went that route. Also I’d like to point out that LoTR was trying to make a mostly faithful adaptation of the books (at the time that is, before The Hobbit trilogy existed).

I still don’t see how this reduces Soryu’s significance though. She’s still just as strong in NGE as she’s always been these 25 years. Shikinami’s role doesn’t do anything to Soryu’s relevance to the plot in NGE.

Thanks for the unlock!

For the sake of posterity, for those future readers looking back over everything after the film drops and who want a snapshot of EGF pre-release but post-leaks (and perhaps to stimulate discussion now or in the future), I've compiled a couple of tangents that took over unrelated threads during the interim.

A tangent with some back and forth on the coherence or otherwise of Gendo's character and the efficacy or lack theoreof of Shin's perspective on compassion from pages 15-16 starting here. Also contains slight overlap with "the Mari question."
thread/20715/Shin-Eva-General-Reborn/280/#p919032

A tangent with some back and forth on Mari's effectiveness or lack thereof as character and symbol from pages 18-20 starting here. Also contains slight overlap of the perceived "handwavium" of the ending.
thread/20715/Shin-Eva-General-Reborn/340/#p919313

Some negative reactions to the "handwavium" of the ending by some who recently joined the "Caved to Spoilers Club" on page 19 here.
thread/20429/Evangelion-30-10-Spoiler-Fanart-Merchandise-and-Cosplay/360/

A majority of this thread, regarding Mari & Shinji as pairing (or not).
thread/20799/How-do-you-feel-about-Shinji-ending-up-with-Mari/

A majority of this thread, devolving into multiple tangents, mostly on NTE's innovations or lack thereof compared to NGE, and on Rei Q's autonomy or lack thereof.
thread/20809/Has-3010-improved-or-worsened-Rebuild-for-you/

ETA:
A couple tangents with some back and forth on the believability or lack thereof of the time-skip in terms of character behavior and depth on page 4 starting here.
post/921488/Whos-Asuka-guarding-against/#p921433

A couple tangents on the believability or lack thereof of NTE's discrepency between technological salvaging and mass production on page 28 starting here.
thread/20429/Evangelion-30-10-Spoiler-Fanart-Merchandise-and-Cosplay/540/#p922137

If I missed any you think would be worth preserving, it would be great to reply with your own.

I feel like this place is appropriate enough for me to mention some substantial complaints about Shin I have, so in spite of me defending things I liked about Rebuild, here goes:

I do NOT like the CGI in Thrice Upon a Time at all.

Specifically, Evangelion Imaginary. I'm really not sure what they were trying to accomplish here. Citing EoE, Giant Naked Rei looks absolutely perfect. Color, design, body size, all handled extremely well. She looks creepy, but motherly at the same time. With Eva Imaginary, as soon as the mask falls off, we are greeted by a face that is not creepy or domineering, but downright silly looking. This GNR looks like she took too many bong hits and is staring off into space. It doesn't even look like Rei. Someone previously mentioned that she looks like Amanda Anaconda and yeh, I would say that is accurate. Also, at some point her head and hands disconnect from her body. I don't really understand that. I'm also not sure where she comes from, either - from inside the Golgoltha Object maybe? Is Gendo somehow able to manifest her using his newfound powers? It's really weird.

Unit-01 vs Unit-13 is another problem. When the fight scene utilizes standard animation, it looks okay. But all the issues from the clip in the trailer before the release of the movie are still apparent. Inappropriate lighting and clunky Eva movements make this one of the low points of Shin.

Fortunately... The rest of the animation is quite good! A lot of the sequences in the survivors village are very beautiful. There are some great handrawn scenes featuring Gendo's monologue. And once we get to Shinji taking the reigns of Instrumentality, I think the animation and art quality reaches its peak.

CGI was a bit of a fumble this time around, so they definitely need to address this before it gets released on blu ray.

The biggest flaws of NTE are "turn up everything to 11" syndrome, never finding a coherent tone**, and never truly committing to what it set up, most evident by retreading EoE instead of giving us something actually new. So many moments of missed opportunity. For example, it introduces the backstory of the pilots, the mass production of living things for a certain purpose, the commodification of life, and then simply doesn't comment on it. It shows us resentment between Misato and Asuka, even hammers home the point again in Shin, and then they never talk on screen. Rei finds her humanity - Rei dies. The pilots are revealed to be special beings - movie just makes them normal and calls it a day. It shows an alternative way of life with the Ghibli village, ends in present day, current way of life Japan, salaryman outfit and all.

**It tries too hard to be super serious and dark, while also trying too hard to be fun and entertaining, and ends up being neither particularly well.

Derantor wrote:The biggest flaws of NTE are "turn up everything to 11" syndrome, never finding a coherent tone**, and never truly committing to what it set up, most evident by retreading EoE instead of giving us something actually new. So many moments of missed opportunity. For example, it introduces the backstory of the pilots, the mass production of living things for a certain purpose, the commodification of life, and then simply doesn't comment on it. It shows us resentment between Misato and Asuka, even hammers home the point again in Shin, and then they never talk on screen. Rei finds her humanity - Rei dies. The pilots are revealed to be special beings - movie just makes them normal and calls it a day. It shows an alternative way of life with the Ghibli village, ends in present day, current way of life Japan, salaryman outfit and all.

**It tries too hard to be super serious and dark, while also trying too hard to be fun and entertaining, and ends up being neither particularly well.

This feels concise & accurate. Although my thinking has evolved (simplified?) into "the runtime" being the one major flaw and source of all others. Too little room to stretch the legs, especially when so much is taken up by long-form action choreography.

Jo & Ha are fine as bombastic, condensed versions of something that exists in longer form anyway. There's a lot of shorthand, there are scenes working as top-loaded stand-ins for several at once, some characters get folded into eachother, etc. yet it's easy not to get lost in the breathless condensation because one has interior reference to the original as one watches and parses. Q & Shin feel much the same, except whatever longer form material there is to fall back on doesn't actually exist.

Axx°N N. wrote:

Derantor#922126 wrote:The biggest flaws of NTE are "turn up everything to 11" syndrome, never finding a coherent tone**, and never truly committing to what it set up, most evident by retreading EoE instead of giving us something actually new. So many moments of missed opportunity. For example, it introduces the backstory of the pilots, the mass production of living things for a certain purpose, the commodification of life, and then simply doesn't comment on it. It shows us resentment between Misato and Asuka, even hammers home the point again in Shin, and then they never talk on screen. Rei finds her humanity - Rei dies. The pilots are revealed to be special beings - movie just makes them normal and calls it a day. It shows an alternative way of life with the Ghibli village, ends in present day, current way of life Japan, salaryman outfit and all.

**It tries too hard to be super serious and dark, while also trying too hard to be fun and entertaining, and ends up being neither particularly well.

This feels concise & accurate. Although my thinking has evolved (simplified?) into "the runtime" being the one major flaw and source of all others. Too little room to stretch the legs, especially when so much is taken up by long-form action choreography.

Jo & Ha are fine as bombastic, condensed versions of something that exists in longer form anyway. There's a lot of shorthand, there are scenes working as top-loaded stand-ins for several at once, some characters get folded into eachother, etc. yet it's easy not to get lost in the breathless condensation because one has interior reference to the original as one watches and parses. Q & Shin feel much the same, except whatever longer form material there is to fall back on doesn't actually exist.

That's why I said somewhere else that Shin would had really benefited to be a series, because the timeskip introduced way too many new things (new setting, new factions, new characters, new characters relationships...) to have it be satisfactorily covered in just one movie (because Q is 90% Shinji and Kaworu dicking around in neo-NERV), leading to a lot of things shelved or barely covered, in no particular order:

• the actual state of the world (like, how much of humanity survived, how are they organized, the forces at play, you know "learning how the world works" and all that
• showing more of the work of WILLE and Kredit: we keep being told how great they are and how much they are helping them with commerce, purification attempts... I would had liked to actually see it, all we got is a laboratory (only to see Kaji Jr) and the Wunder throwing a bunch of container in space (that didn't even served to anything in the end)
• Kaji. Fucking. Junior. Like holy shit talk about a missed opportunity: Kaji and Misato's son, the biggest shock since seeing Sakura Suzuhara adult! And the dude just has two lines and an offscreen moment with Shinji. It would had been so much better if instead of Misato going full Gendo retard, to have Kaji Jr recognize Shinji and telling him that his mother told him so much about him, how much he meant to him and how much she regrets having been a better parental figure and putting all the blame in him (yes, the same thing that Kenken say in Shin, but you know, said by someone that has actual emotion weight in the Shinji-Misato dynamic), then ask him question of what kind of person she was when she was young, how was the world before 3I... something that would justify them starting a friendship and making a photo
• The relationship between Misato and Asuka, it's hinted that there's quite the bad blood between them, and nothing comes out of it
• Knowing more about the Wunder crew and their everyday life, what kind of person they are, seeing them when they are relaxed or in their down time (even in submarines you have recreational time, or else your crew goes bonker), the pilots' everyday life (they still can go around the Wunder at will), again Mari is hinted to be pal with Nagara and Sakura with Midori, but we don't see anything about it... so we don't scratch our heads at seeing Sakura acting like a big sis/doctor toward Shinji in one scene and then like a yandere straight out of Mirai Nikki in her next one

Like Axx°N N. says, there's too little time to "stretch the legs", even 1.0 and 2.0, despite being condensed versions of the Action arc and partially relying on context information from the series (like Shinji, Toji and Kensuke becoming friends), had such scenes (Shinji and Misato going at the grocery store, Asuka dicking around in her room, Shinji cooking for everyone or hanging out with his friends, Misato and Ritsuko chatting during a long and uneventful day at work, Kaji getting under Misato's skin...) that let us breathe and show the characters as persons, and such scenes are present in Shin... for Rei Q, you know, the one who explodes when the plot comes knocking. Shin is stuck during its first half by Shinji needing to get out of his catatonia (to the point that it's Rei Q who become the partial audience surrogate), and once it's done, we get a speedrun of the rest of the plot with Shinji's recovery through several short scenes, Rei Q dies, the Wunder arrives and immediately goes for the final battle (with a small detour for the delivering of seeds-of-life-that-won't-do-anything), final battle, end.

@ElMariachi: I agree with the criticisms - I wrote up a longer post I never sent containing most of them. Some of the decisions the movie makes are really baffling.

@Axxon: The funny thing is that NTE's runtime of 480 minutes vs. than NGE's of 570 minutes (series plus EoE) isn't even that short. Cut out the Jet Alone plot, Magmadiver and Synchronized dancing, and the difference shrinks to a mere thirty minutes. So I tend to agree more with your second point, that it's time management that is the issue here. Granted, there's fun stuff hidden in the action sequences; they contain a lot of hints at the underlying lore and conflict. But some of it is just gratuitous, or feels that way.

I think the movies would have done well to focus. Pick out a few characters, a few themes, and give us a great story surrounding those. Instead, we are left with a Sequel Trilogy situation where the middle movie promises to change things up significantly, only for the last movie to backtrack and give us a pretty generic (and pretty unearned) happy ending.

ElMariachi wrote:[*] Knowing more about the Wunder crew and their everyday life, what kind of person they are, seeing them when they are relaxed or in their down time (even in submarines you have recreational time, or else your crew goes bonker), the pilots' everyday life (they still can go around the Wunder at will), again Mari is hinted to be pal with Nagara and Sakura with Midori, but we don't see anything about it... so we don't scratch our heads at seeing Sakura acting like a big sis/doctor toward Shinji in one scene and then like a yandere straight out of Mirai Nikki in her next one[/list]

Honestly, even with more time (or even episodes), I don't think there would be focus on the Wunder crew (except Misato).

These characters weren't created to be liked or cared by the audience un Q, while Shin doesn't try to change that. It's the people of Village-3 the ones to be liked or cared.


The story of Shin doesn't need people to care about these characters (sans Misato) to work either. In Shin, Shinji and his friends are the characters we need to care.

Konja7 wrote:Honestly, even with more time (or even episodes), I don't think there would be focus on the Wunder crew (except Misato).

These characters weren't created to be liked or cared by the audience un Q, while Shin doesn't try to change that. It's the people of Village-3 the ones to be liked or cared.


The story of Shin doesn't need people to care about these characters (sans Misato) to work either. In Shin, Shinji and his friends are the characters we need to care.

Maybe not the minor members of the crew, but surely the creation of Wille and all the character change that comes with it. What else would be covered if not how Neo-Nerv & Wille came to be?

I was under the impression that everyone was factoring character, even main characters, into criticisms of time management. Or at least I know I was. Switching the lens to just character doesn't escape that issue for me, but that's an analysis I feel is better delayed until I see the film proper.

Also I think Shin (& Q) do want you to care about those characters, otherwise framing them as heroic is pointless, and so is taking (brief) time out of the melodrama gunfire to paint Sakura as conflicted. They wouldn't give Sakura & Midori motives that include family tragedy and childhood trauma if they didn't want them to be sympathetic, otherwise they would have just had them be straight-out evil and shrieking like a Kamen Rider grunt.

Axx°N N. wrote:Also I think Shin (& Q) do want you to care about those characters, otherwise framing them as heroic is pointless, and so is taking (brief) time out of the melodrama gunfire to paint Sakura as conflicted. They wouldn't give Sakura & Midori motives that include family tragedy and childhood trauma if they didn't want them to be sympathetic, otherwise they would have just had them be straight-out evil and shrieking like a Kamen Rider grunt.

In Q, WILLE members (except Sakura) are pretty hostile toward a confused Shinji, who is the character that the audience follows. That isn't the way you treat new characters you want to be liked. The story doesn't even try to show these characters in a better light after Shinji left.

In Shin, WILLE and Misato are presented as heroic, but the story doesn't really try to erase the "bad first impression" for WILLE crew from Q. Altough Midori has a tragic backstory to justify his hatred to Shinji, I don't think they treat her like a character to be liked.

That said, they want Sakura to be sympathetic. That's why she is a pretty nice character in Q, but she had this emotional outburst in Shin.

I don’t mean to say the Rebuild movies are perfect but I have to say that most of this criticism — not all, but most — is weak.

About 95% of it comes down to “I don’t like how they did my favorite character,” or “I don’t like these characters/their choices,” which is perfectly fine if that’s how you feel, but it’s not really criticism of the work.

It would do most of you good if you just stepped back and admitted that your reaction is an emotional one. Trying to act like amateur film critics by picking out things like “how does Wille have the budget for this?” just makes you look ridiculous.

I think part of the problem is that Eva expects its fans to infer what characters are thinking by looking at context. You’re also meant to see the larger picture, not just your one comfort character. (I also love and hate some of the characters as people, but there’s always a bigger picture). A lot of you are terribly deficient at this, and annoyingly aggressive about it — see the never ending debate over Shinji’s treatment at the beginning of Q for proof.*

Sorry if this is disrespectful but I am getting tired of seeing a handful of posters monopolize every Rebuild discussion with these ham-fisted “film critiques” that are obvious cope and salt.

*Sidenote: Wille easily could’ve euthanized Shinji before he awakened, or thrown him in solitary confinement with no explanation and it wouldn’t even be as cruel as half the shit that happens on an average day in the world. I am not saying that’s where I wanted the story to go, and I don’t mean to sound like a boomer schoolteacher ranting about “wait til you see the REAL world,” but much worse shit happens to kids every day and it’s ridiculous that some people think Shinji’s short stint in the Wunder brig is a grievous human rights violation. It may not be right, but geez, some of you have been angry about it for nine years. Get some perspective.

Shinji Ikari Expy wrote:It would do most of you good if you just stepped back and admitted that your reaction is an emotional one. Trying to act like amateur film critics by picking out things like “how does Wille have the budget for this?” just makes you look ridiculous.

I think the question was "how Nerv has the budget for this?".

I don't care about that issue, but other people seems to be really concerned. I don't think they have right to express the dissapointment that this aspect isn't more explored..

Shinji Ikari Expy wrote:Sorry if this is disrespectful but I am getting tired of seeing a handful of posters monopolize every Rebuild discussion with these ham-fisted “film critiques” that are obvious cope and salt.

I don't think the hostility is necessary in your commentary.

I understand it could be tiresome to see people criticize something you enjoy (and I enjoy Rebuild movies too), but this is a forum. So, they could comment what concepts they don't like.

Shinji Ikari Expy wrote:*Sidenote: Wille easily could’ve euthanized Shinji before he awakened, or thrown him in solitary confinement with no explanation and it wouldn’t even be as cruel as half the shit that happens on an average day in the world. I am not saying that’s where I wanted the story to go, and I don’t mean to sound like a boomer schoolteacher ranting about “wait til you see the REAL world,” but much worse shit happens to kids every day and it’s ridiculous that some people think Shinji’s short stint in the Wunder brig is a grievous human rights violation. It may not be right, but geez, some of you have been angry about it for nine years. Get some perspective.

In this topic, why does it matter that worse things happened on the World?

Many people don't like WILLE's treatment to Shinji in Q. You would need to accept that's an opinion people will have.

Something is lost in translation here. You are entitled to whatever opinions you want. My complaint is that some people derail EVERY REBUILD DISCUSSION, including the fan art thread, with some rant about how they hate everyone at Wille. And they repeat this over and over again, in places where it is not pertinent to discussion.

There is also a difference between disliking a character as a person and disliking the way the story was written. A character can be a terrible person and still their actions make sense to the story; there is nothing wrong with the story or the writing because you dislike a character. But many people get these two things confused in their own minds.

Let me use a simple example: say a fan hates the Wunder crew for being mean to Shinji. Ok, this is understandable. It’s fine to be angry at them for being unfair. Does it mean the story is bad? Is the Anno wrong for writing characters who are unfair to Shinji? Is it wrong if the Wunder crew are depicted as being unfair to Shinji but heroic in their other actions?

That just seems like standard fiction writing.

Shinji Ikari Expy wrote:Something is lost in translation here. You are entitled to whatever opinions you want. My complaint is that some people derail EVERY REBUILD DISCUSSION, including the fan art thread, with some rant about how they hate everyone at Wille. And they repeat this over and over again, in places where it is not pertinent to discussion.

I hadn't seen so many threads derailed by hate toward WILLE. The complaints are more about the direction the movies or an specific character have in Shin.

In fact, the current discussion in this thread wasn't by people who hated WILLE. They were just dissapointed, because they expected WILLE will have more development in Shin.

I wasn't dissapointed, because I don't care about WILLE (although I don't hate them either).

Shinji Ikari Expy wrote:Let me use a simple example: say a fan hates the Wunder crew for being mean to Shinji. Ok, this is understandable. It’s fine to be angry at them for being unfair. Does it mean the story is bad? Is the Anno wrong for writing characters who are unfair to Shinji? Is it wrong if the Wunder crew are depicted as being unfair to Shinji but heroic in their other actions?

I've read the criticism WILLE's behavior to Shinji being "bad writing". I don't agree with that concept.

However, I haven't seen that criticism recently.


PS: Do you think my commentary about WILLE was an accusation of bad writing? It wasn't.

Konja, your attitude toward Wille is the correct one — they aren’t important, so who cares about their development? I haven’t noticed anything unusual about your posts, so this isn’t directed at you.

I have noticed that certain fans cannot separate their anger at the characters from their criticism of the movie. These two things are different — a character can be bad or even irrational, but that doesn’t mean the story is bad.

This goes beyond Wille by the way. I’ve seen a similar thing happen with people who are mad Asuka didn’t hook up with Shinji, or that Misato abandoned her son. There are good explanations for these things, but fans act as if the whole movie sucks because they didn’t get exactly the ending they wanted for their favorite character.

I get it, but don’t confuse that disappointment with film criticism.

I’m gonna back away from this topic for awhile as I think I’ve explained my position as best I can.

Shinji Ikari Expy wrote:About 95% of it comes down to “I don’t like how they did my favorite character,” or “I don’t like these characters/their choices,” which is perfectly fine if that’s how you feel, but it’s not really criticism of the work.

It would do most of you good if you just stepped back and admitted that your reaction is an emotional one. Trying to act like amateur film critics by picking out things like “how does Wille have the budget for this?” just makes you look ridiculous.

My reactions are as emotional as any reaction to film, a medium where emotion is a large part of the experience. Many of my posts use the word 'feel' an ample amount. Are positive reactions not emotional? Are posters with positive takeaways free from the obligation of admitting to their emotions, or does it happen not to delegitimize their opinions somehow, merely because it's rather conveniently the stance you yourself are more sympathetic to?

You're painting the thread as being full of overzealous fanboys/haters of certain characters sword waving, whereas a majority of the discussion to me seems to be technical and focused on narrative structure, believability, pacing, etc. Do you have specific examples of shallow fanboyism you'd like to share? It feels like you're attacking posts that don't even exist. "A character can be a bad person but the narrative good" is something I don't disagree with; are you saying it's impossible to find Shin to both have bad characters and bad narrative? Why is that off the table?

I find the insult of 'amateur film critics' cynical by the way. Would you prefer no one engage above a certain word limit, or should we reserve good faith and the notion of a genuine opinion only for people who like NTE?