The Netflix Bebop was a mess in multiple different ways and was all-around inferior to the original product.

Axx°N N. wrote:Anno's own remake nosedives at the end; we were all expecting Instrumentality, and it sure enough happened at the same narrative point.

As for pumping out Eva, I meant moreso that the entirety of NTE's production cycle could have been original material, but that the monetary possibilities of Eva as a property were self-persuasive. I'm sure the success of Thrice has enabled them to tackle whatever projects they want for a good while.

This is unrelated to any discussion about Netflix making an Evangelion movie. And it's something we've warned about before. Things like this are why we set up the rules for discussion in the Rebuild and Discussion subforums, and your behavior was a major prompt for us to take those standards seriously.

You've rehashed this particular line of argument again and again, whether accusing 3.0 + 1.0 of being of poor quality, or NTE of being a cash cow and nothing more - in discussions that have nothing to do with Rebuild/NTE and without any substance or backing, and with very little context.

While we don't strictly enforce discussion rules on the Chit-Chat forum, it doesn't mean we aren't fed up of hearing "Rebuild is a cash cow and 3.0 (EDIT:
typo, 3.0 + 1.0) sucks" coming from you again and again. I don't doubt that you sincerely believe this for whatever reasons you have (and we're not clear why), but repeatedly making such statements brings down the standard of discussion and drives posters away, and ruins the atmosphere in any thread that you post in. Please stop.

I was referring to Bebop's seemingly universal disparagement, to be clear.

"Rebuild is a cash cow and 3.0 sucks" is a mischaracterization and reduction of my opinion. If you look through my post history you'll see I'm fond of 3.0 and it's my favorite of the Rebuilds, and I don't see how what I said implied 3.0+1.0 was of poor quality. Was it my use of "nosedives"? Because it was referring to its trajectory from plot into surrealism; I used the same word to characterize NGE.

The nearest point of reference to what an adaptation might be like would be Anno's own remake, and I thought it was only natural to draw comparisons, especially when it was useful for some of my points. Perhaps I wasn't the person who should have drawn the comparison if I'm repeating myself, but I don't see why the comparison wouldn't be on-topic if the topic is Eva adaptations and their potential follies/promises. I'll jump ship from the thread, but I wouldn't mind a PM explaining what about my opinions lack context, substance or backing, because I don't want to ruin threads.

Axx°N N. wrote:"Rebuild is a cash cow and 3.0 sucks" is a mischaracterization and reduction of my opinion.

My mistake, please read that as "3.0 + 1.0 sucks". I was very tired when I was typing that and forgot the " + 1.0". As far as 3.0 is concerned, you're quite innocent, but that's not the case with 3.0 + 1.0, which is the movie you were talking about.

Combine the part that I quoted in my previous post with this...

Axx°N N. wrote: I'm of the camp that think greater things could have come from Khara if they weren't financially obligated to keep pumping out Eva, and I'm weary of endless franchises in general.

...and what I said isn't a mischaracterization or reduction of your opinion, it's an accurate summation. I've seen you repeat this and similar statements about the perceived quality of Shin Eva again and again even in threads that don't call for it, and each time you do so you degrade the quality of the discussion. Just because the rules we have for the discussion section don't apply here doesn't mean you can keep bringing it up here.

Axx°N N. wrote:As for pumping out Eva, I meant moreso that the entirety of NTE's production cycle could have been original material, but that the monetary possibilities of Eva as a property were self-persuasive. I'm sure the success of Thrice has enabled them to tackle whatever projects they want for a good while.

If the monetary possibilities of Eva as a property were self-persuasive, then Anno would have been able to persuade himself to finish the NTE series way back in 2009 or 2010 as originally projected, and we would have had 5 different film versions of the series from at least 3 different directors by this point.

Sure, the very inception of NTE’s production might have been purely motivated by monetary gains way back in 2006, but seeing how rapidly the series spiraled into making more original content as they created more installations certainly tells of a series of events far more nuanced and steeped in inspiration than all that.

Also, if we’re all to be doomed to being compared to our selves as we thought back in 2006, none of us would survive.

UrsusArctos wrote:...and what I said isn't a mischaracterization or reduction of your opinion, it's an accurate summation.

Only if you take that single paragraph as somehow condensing my entire opinion and crystallizing it permanently, but I feel that's not fair to me and that instead my opinion is something that changes and vacillates and benefits from discourse. For instance:

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Sure, the very inception of NTE’s production might have been purely motivated by monetary gains way back in 2006...

Isn't something I'd agree with. I don't think NTE was initiated or progressed purely for monetary purposes, or as was put, "a cash cow and nothing else." Clearly there were personal setbacks that harmed its theater presence and gross, although I'm willing to bet merchandising in the interim was still lucrative. The economic side of Eva is an aspect of its creation, I find it interesting and I find it unfortunate it seemingly can't be talked about even off-hand or tangentially, and it's a subject I find especially worth considering when the topic is a modern third-party adaptation. I hope I'm not stepping out of line continuing the discussion (without any NTE comparison) as it's genuinely interesting to me.

If the reason the attraction to another installment of Eva is because it's successful, one has to question if that's where the purpose and motivation begins and ends. Disney decided there needed to be a new Star Wars trilogy, and that was the seed of the creative journey, the decision that there needs to be one. When that's the starting point, and the task for the creatives is to sort of backwards engineer a project and make it retroactively a meaningful decision, it can either succeed or fail.

Theoretically, something that begins by algorithm or board-room attraction to a known property and a guaranteed audience doesn't mean a creative couldn't, totally separately, do something novel and worthwhile after the green light. To me this creates an interesting question of the worth of the endeavor; Eva feels like it accomplished something in a narrative and cultural sense. But is there an essential narrative need still left somewhere in the material or spirit of the franchise that would result in a spinoff or adaptation that accomplishes something other than piggy-backing on the IP's widespread recognition? I've read in interviews about many kinds of media, small and large, the most recent example being Toy Story 4, where the same refrain is voiced: "We're not against a sequel, but we'd need to have a compelling story reason to come back."

Eva began as something way different and its genesis was unplanned and genuine. I'm not sure you can capture what's integral about it because that very desire to do so and the expectation it can be done seems inauthentic and premature.

On the subject of a hypothetical Netflix adaptation, I actually wouldn’t place any expectations of quality on it unless it was animated. For whatever reason, their Lost In Space series still is the best looking big-budget sci-fi TV series they’ve done. Any other live-action show they’ve done that has attempted that kind of production value just looks cheap and green screened like an old Nostalgia Critic anniversary video. To this day, I don’t know why LIS is head and shoulders above the rest of Netflix’ big budget sci-fi offerings.

UrsusArctos wrote:Even if Rebuild 3.0 dropped the idea of a narrative without Shinji, from what I heard the possibility of an "Evangelion 2.5" or something similar exploring the period between 2.0 and 3.0 hasn't been ruled out, and it's the sort of thing I would personally look forward to, with Anno's involvement.

Random aside: someone has probably already said this, but if they make Evangelion 2.5 I hope they title it "Evangelion 5/2" or "Evangelion 5÷2".

UrsusArctos wrote:So, to answer the thread topic, what of an Evangelion Live-Action Series (ELAS, pronounced "Alas")? Netflix seems to have blown it if Khara's willing to stick to Amazon as a partner, which means we're not likely to see them produce another abominable flop. What might Amazon produce? That's a good question, and I'm not nearly as familiar about Amazon's track record with anime to live action adaptations.

I have some confidence in Amazon based on their decent stewardship of the Expanse series.

nerv bae wrote:Random aside: someone has probably already said this, but if they make Evangelion 2.5 I hope they title it "Evangelion 5/2" or "Evangelion 5÷2".

"Evangelion 5÷2" sounds perfect!

I have some confidence in Amazon based on their decent stewardship of the Expanse series.

Amazon got the Expanse showrunners - Naren Shankar (Star Trek: The Next Generation) and authors Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham straight from the canceled SyFy show. They didn't steward it themselves, they merely acquired it after the "Save the Expanse" fan campaign and because Jeff Bezos himself was a big fan. The Expanse is an outlier; I think the current running of the Wheel of Time and the upcoming Lord of the Rings series both serve as better benchmarks for what ELAS may turn out to be.

As someone who jumped at the idea of ​​2.5 as soon as the title got around, I really liked 5/2 as well. It's genius!

UrsusArctos wrote:Amazon got the Expanse showrunners - Naren Shankar (Star Trek: The Next Generation) and authors Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham straight from the canceled SyFy show. They didn't steward it themselves, they merely acquired it after the "Save the Expanse" fan campaign and because Jeff Bezos himself was a big fan. The Expanse is an outlier; I think the current running of the Wheel of Time and the upcoming Lord of the Rings series both serve as better benchmarks for what ELAS may turn out to be.

Interesting; I didn't know that about the Expanse people. And yikes regarding the other two benchmark shows because those haven't been getting good press (at least not in my filter bubble). Maybe Amazon is no better than Netflix for ELAS!

We already have Evangelion, don't we? It works fine as an anime, doesn't it?

If it isn't broken, don't "fix" it.

nerv bae wrote:And yikes regarding the other two benchmark shows because those haven't been getting good press (at least not in my filter bubble). Maybe Amazon is no better than Netflix for ELAS!

While I can't comment about Wheel of Time, I found the Lord of the Rings trailer to be very scattershot. There were some scenes that looked perfect (the harbor in what appears to be Numenor, for instance) but a number of the other scenes and the overall tone of the trailer were very unimpressive. It felt like I was looking at a generic fantasy series, not an untold tale from The Lord of the Rings set at the height of the Second Age of Middle Earth.

I suspect that an Evangelion series might land up the same way, with beautiful visuals for Tokyo-3 and the Evangelions themselves but a horrendously botched tone.