ChrisTamv wrote:That's not the case at all though. Those are relatively superficial parallels, sure, but you glossed over the most important ones by far. When Gendo lost Yui he had committed no crimes, nor did he have any bad intentions we know of. He was in a horrible mental state and perhaps hated people like many people who suffer from such mental issues do, but he wasn't a bad person, and was also much, much younger. It all happened when he lost Yui, when instead of grieving and eventually trying to stand up again to see what he can do better in the future, which is the mature behavior 3.0+1.0 actually preaches for, he raged out, rejected reality by trying to revive her through Rei and the Human Instrumentality Project (he wasn't even aware of its existence before this point!), and then closes himself up completely. And how does Shinji react to the (near) losses of Asuka, Rei II, and Kaworu? He does nothing but throw a destructive fit when Asuka is killed, he rejects the fate of the entire world and of his own self just and only to bring back Rei II, and then he completely gives up after Kaworu's death and closes himself up. Shinji and Gendo are similar down to the sequence in which they reacted to tragedies, at a point in their lives when they already were very similar and had both even made an effort to heal.

So yes, the parallels drawn between Shinji and Gendo are more than substantial and valid.

Gendo had ten fucking years to try to get over Yui. He refused and instead manipulated, brainwashed and tortured his children for his own goals that are to exterminate the entire planet, and also murdered everyone that stand in his way, and then 14 more years passed, and he doubled down on it, also adding another murder to his list just to spite his son while he was at it.

Shinji had half a day at most to "learn" grief between Asuka's injuries and Rei being eaten by Zeruel, and the story expects me to equal him to his father when he decides to give his everything to save her because he didn't know that his giant robot was rigged from the start to shit out an apocalypse if he pushed it too far, as planed by... you guessed it, Gendo.
Then he was tricked to be abducted and even more mentally tortured to insanity so he would lose his mind and cause Kaworu's death, as planned by... you guessed it, Gendo.

Every bad things that happened to Shinji was when Gendo was around, by Gendo's own plans. All of the times Shinji reacted similarly to Gendo were because of Gendo's actions and engineered by Gendo to manipulate his son. All of Shinji's genuinely happy moments were when Gendo wasn't around.

Gendo is a fucking monster, a scourge, an abusive psychopathic manchild that completely ruined the life of his children for his own selfish desires while knowing full well what he was doing the whole time without even blinking even when Fuyutsuki directly confronted him about it. Shinji's story should be to learn to give up on his father, that he's just rotten to the core and that unfortunately it happens and that he should instead live with the people who truly care for him, instead of being pushed to give him a fucking pat the back and having the movie pulling out a "he'S onlY MisUNdErstOOD ANd PEopLE DOn'T geT HIs Pain" and that all it take is for someone to finally do it so he could had a completely change of heart, while Shinji apologize for not doing exactly that sooner.

This all happens because Anno is unable to not have his self-insert being cajoled and the way Gendo's arc is resolved is a fucking insult to every abused children in the world.

ChrisTamv wrote:I'm sorry but I don't get your point. Are you arguing that every single one of Shinji's wrongdoings was just a little mishap that anyone would do and which don't say anything about him?

No, what I'm saying is that every moments of Shinji's "wrongdoing" were due to circumstances where everything is so absurdly staked against him (often by Gendo's design) that there are no realistic ways for anyone to react differently unless they are a living saint or we go into fourth-wall breaking lampshade handing where he comments about how he saw how it goes in movies while winking at the camera, and then expects me to consider his wrongdoings as entirely his fault and equivalent of the monster who planned for it to happen.

ChrisTamv wrote:One of the reasons why the 3.0+1.0 ending is in fact very thematically coherent with both Rebuild's and the original's messaging is because, by definition, it is not an escapist ending.

Intentions are what matter here, and Shinji, after spending almost an hour of runtime doing exactly the opposite of what an escapist would do already, has set his mind on sacrificing his own life so that everyone else can live in a better place. This is crucial. Shinji isn't "burning all the bridges he has" in the slightest; he's just trying to get everyone out of Unit 01 and Unit 13 and say his final goodbye to them because he knows he's going to permanently go down with these Evas when he makes his wish. A wish that by the way won't just "erase all his mistakes", but just the Evas from that point onwards, a symbol of escapism, and not the deaths that did not directly happen due to the Ikpacts (or arguably any death at all depending on your specific interpretation of the ending).

So, the fact that Yui and Gendo stepped in at the last moment to take Shinji's place in the sacrifice was, as shown, a completely unexpected event. Shinji did not plan beyond this point, so calling this "escapism" when everything that happened after this point wasn't planned or in his control is utterly nonsensical. He didn't decide where to end up, or with whom (which alone invalidate the "escapism" argument), and again, depending on your specific interpretation of the ending, he may not have ended up in another universe and his relationship with Mari in the end is not romantic in nature.

I said that the story was escapist, not the character.
Shinji accepts to die for his sins, and is rewarded by fixing everything and being allowed to live in another world free of the consequences of his previous actions, that is an escapist ending.

ChrisTamv wrote:Good catch, but I'm pretty sure Kaji was referring to what Shinji wants to do in the future, mainly professionally. Him seemingly being interested to an extent in astronomy wouldn't be that relevant here imo.

No, Kaji explicitly asks him about his hobbies. And not knowing what you want to do in the future at 14 years old is frankly perfectly normal.

ElMariachi wrote:No, Kaji explicitly asks him about his hobbies. And not knowing what you want to do in the future at 14 years old is frankly perfectly normal.

Yeah. Kaji was speaking about hobbies.

An in-universe explanation why Shinji didn't mention this hobby to Kaji is because it's private. Also, seeing the stars is an act of relaxation for Shinji, not a more active hobby.

In 3.0, the hobby of seeing the stars represent Shinji dislike for changes.

Konja7 wrote:Yeah. Kaji was speaking about hobbies.

An in-universe explanation why Shinji didn't mention this hobby to Kaji is because it's private. Also, seeing the stars is an act of relaxation for Shinji, not a more active hobby.

In 3.0, the hobby of seeing the stars represent Shinji dislike for changes.

He had books on astronomy and posters of constellations in his room in 2.0, so I would say that it was more serious than a simple act of relaxation.

ElMariachi wrote:Then what was Kaworu expecting then?
No, seriously: what was Kaworu's plan? What they were supposed to do with the two spears? Is there a notice in the SDSS stating "press the green gem on the Cassius spear with the one-pointed end of the Longinus spear during twelve (12) seconds to reset the world to factory settings"?
We're supposed to believe that he had absolutely no idea of what's going on despite having been the Commander of NERV when Third Impact happened? That after living through thousands of years and timelines where SEELE and Gendo's plans in every single of them was to trigger an Impact to start Instrumentality, that he couldn't guess what would be their motivations for double-crossing him and thus couldn't try to tell to Shinji that yes, Asuka might be right, an Impact is likely to happen if they touch something?

Kaworu knows they couldn't use two Spear of Longinus to repair the World, which he comunicates to Shinji. He also knows the two Spears being the same is a pretty bad sign.

I think Kaworu suspect SEELE/Gendo want to start an Impact, but he is confused because he didn't know how that's possible. As you said, Kaworu knows a lot, that's why he should know that touching the Spears wouldn't cause an Impact. He may knows about the 12th Angel too, so he should know this wouldn't be enough to start the Fourth Impact either.

What Kaworu didn't know or expected was being turned into the 13th Angel, which was the trigger for the Fourth Impact. I think it's called trigger because it is what start the Fourth Impact. Other elements are necessary for the ritual, but the Impact wouldn't start without the trigger.


To be clear, Kaworu has previously mentioned to Shinji that NERV planned to use the Spears of Longinus and Cassius for the Fourth Impact, but this likely needed Eva-13 pilots consent (or, at least, the 1th Angel consent).

Kaworu: Shinj ikari. Your hope rests with the two spears left at ground zero inside the Central Dogma. They are the key to the activation of the Human Instrumentality Project. All we have to do is take those spears. That way, Nerv won't be able to bring about a Fourth Impact. And when used with Unit 13, the spears will allow us to repair the world

ElMariachi wrote:He had books on astronomy and posters of constellations in his room in 2.0, so I would say that it was more serious than a simple act of relaxation.

Thanks for the clarification. So, I guess Shinji doesn't tell Kaji about this, because it's private.

Konja7 wrote:PS: Shinji saying says he's doing it for everyone's sake isn't really true (he is lying to himself). In 3.0, Shinji's attitude is trying to escape the pain and the guilt. The movie is pretty clear about that.

Haha, that's not what I'm getting at. Yes, Shinji is being delusional. What I'm saying is that that line should've been in the timeframe between when Kaworu tells him the plan to get the spears and him disobeying Kaworu. What is it that convinces him to absolutely go for the spears? Why does he put all his stakes into them? He was calm even if he was hanging by a thread before being told to stop. Is it because Asuka's incompetence pulled him over the edge? I mean first he tells him to stop, then Asuka appears and proceeds to attack him. I still don't find that believable. That's why I wrote that the line should be before that moment to justify that he is convinced of pulling the spears under irrational thoughts.

ElMariachi wrote:Gendo is a fucking monster, a scourge, an abusive psychopathic manchild that completely ruined the life of his children for his own selfish desires while knowing full well what he was doing the whole time without even blinking even when Fuyutsuki directly confronted him about it. Shinji's story should be to learn to give up on his father, that he's just rotten to the core and that unfortunately it happens and that he should instead live with the people who truly care for him, instead of being pushed to give him a fucking pat the back and having the movie pulling out a "he'S onlY MisUNdErstOOD ANd PEopLE DOn'T geT HIs Pain" and that all it take is for someone to finally do it so he could had a completely change of heart, while Shinji apologize for not doing exactly that sooner.

This all happens because Anno is unable to not have his self-insert being cajoled and the way Gendo's arc is resolved is a fucking insult to every abused children in the world.

THIS. I found this to be completely tone deaf and a complete lack of respect for the audience that the filmmakers think that this version of Gendo(not the NGE one) is even a bit redeemable. If they wanted to redeem him then they put absolutely no effort into it. Like why not have Gendo reflect about his past more in depth recounting every single evil thing he did to everyone but especially Shinji then having a major breakdown as the bear minimum and even then that still wouldn't make up for all that he did. If anything he deserves to eternally live in a world without Yui nor anyone else so he can't even try to manipulate them. That's not even the best/worst part. It's the fact that he gets rewarded for it. He got to see and embrace Yui before he died. Don't try to tell me death is a consequence. He's a psychopath that's never cared about dying. All he cared about was finding her everything else is secondary or irrelevant. If this was supposed to be a parody of the original then whatever they should've made it more obvious but if not then that's done in really bad taste.

Konja7 wrote:What Kaworu didn't know or expected was being turned into the 13th Angel, which was the trigger for the Fourth Impact. I think it's called trigger because it is what start the Fourth Impact. Other elements are necessary for the ritual, but the Impact wouldn't start without the trigger.

I think what happened is that Gendo while using the key forced Kaworu to either change designations with him or with Unit 13.

After thinking about it for a while, I've come to the conclusion that while Q is the best NTE movie, JO might be the most rewatchable for me personally. I think "underrated" is a good word to describe this movie. I get it, it's not the most revolutionary movie out there, but none of these NTE movies are, to be honest.
I feel like it's a very condensed experience. Its four parts work really well together, and the three-angel structure is pretty much perfect for an Evangelion movie. Unlike other movies, JO spreads out its action scenes so you don't feel overwhelmed by them. Having time to breathe between these segments makes them more impactful. Not only that, but it gives the characters more time to meaningfully interact with one another. JO is honestly the only NTE movie in which I can relate to both Shinji and Misato in any meaningful way. I feel like their bond is portrayed in a very natural way, especially given the limitations of the movie format (when compared to that of a TV series, for example). Their relationship feels human and is developed throughout the entire movie, not just a third of it (something NTE is known for).
The visuals are also pretty good in my opinion. Unlike HA, for example, I don't think this movie looks "grey" in any capacity. It's a very colorful film. I especially like the use of neon colors. It gives off a "night in Shibuya" vibe. It's largely composed of recycled material from NGE, but recontextualized. It takes advantage of the NGE's great shot composition while also injecting its own DNA into the mix. The use of 3D elements, for example, is decently implemented and helps to reaffirm JO's unique identity (much like its great soundtrack that fits the late 2000s aesthetic of the movie).
On a final note, I just love how this movie introduces the new elements of NTE gradually. It's done in a way that ignites our imagination and hype us up for what's to come. The moon scene... Perfect.

AlphaZero wrote:Haha, that's not what I'm getting at. Yes, Shinji is being delusional. What I'm saying is that that line should've been in the timeframe between when Kaworu tells him the plan to get the spears and him disobeying Kaworu. What is it that convinces him to absolutely go for the spears? Why does he put all his stakes into them? He was calm even if he was hanging by a thread before being told to stop. Is it because Asuka's incompetence pulled him over the edge? I mean first he tells him to stop, then Asuka appears and proceeds to attack him. I still don't find that believable. That's why I wrote that the line should be before that moment to justify that he is convinced of pulling the spears under irrational thoughts.

I think Kaworu saying these weren't the Spears they needed to repair the World is what pulls Shinji over the edge.

Shinji had pinned all his hopes on the Spears to help him repair the world (his mistake), so Kaworu denying this is what makes Shinji desperate and irrational. At the end, Shinji is still holding on to the idea that everything can be fixed if he takes the spears.

The film wants to use this scene to show that Shinji still needs to grow and mature. It isn't coincidence that a mature Shinji could turn an Spear of Longinus into an Spear of Cassius in 3.0+1.0 (which would have ruined Gendo's plan in 3.0).

AlphaZero wrote:I think what happened is that Gendo while using the key forced Kaworu to either change designations with him or with Unit 13.

I originally though Kaworu turned into the 13th Angel when Eva-13 consumes the 12th Angel, but this doesn't seem to be case (Eva-13 just needs to eat an Angel to awaken).

Kaworu implies it's Gendo who caused his downgrade to the 13th Angel. I guess he used the Nebuchadnezzar's Key, but we don't have more details:

Kaworu: To think that I, the 1st Angel, would be reduced to being the 13th...
Shinji: What are you talking about, Kaworu?!
Kaworu: So, the beginning and the end are one and the same. Well played, King of the Lilin. Shinji's father...

ChrisTamv wrote:Those are relatively superficial parallels, sure, but you glossed over the most important ones by far. When Gendo lost Yui he had committed no crimes, nor did he have any bad intentions we know of. He was in a horrible mental state and perhaps hated people like many people who suffer from such mental issues do, but he wasn't a bad person, and was also much, much younger. It all happened when he lost Yui, when instead of grieving and eventually trying to stand up again to see what he can do better in the future, which is the mature behavior 3.0+1.0 actually preaches for, he raged out, rejected reality by trying to revive her through Rei and the Human Instrumentality Project (he wasn't even aware of its existence before this point!), and then closes himself up completely. And how does Shinji react to the (near) losses of Asuka, Rei II, and Kaworu? He does nothing but throw a destructive fit when Asuka is killed, he rejects the fate of the entire world and of his own self just and only to bring back Rei II, and then he completely gives up after Kaworu's death and closes himself up. Shinji and Gendo are similar down to the sequence in which they reacted to tragedies, at a point in their lives when they already were very similar and had both even made an effort to heal.

See, the problem I have with NTE's portrayal of Gendo is captured in your paragraph; it glosses over just as NTE itself glosses. We don't get any firm idea of how Gendo's perilous mental state even interacts with, you know, the cabal he's a part of and the, you know, ancient wisdom. We just have to assume it started someplace, went where it did and bada bing, bada boom. Maybe this is acceptable to most viewers, but for me it makes the characterization totally incoherent. It feels as though these elements are completely isolated and mutually disinclusive, as if the narrative isn't really interested in showing how they interrelate. I don't get how the sad Gendo of the flashbacks can even be the same person as the floating eldritch meanie, because not enough legwork is done to connect these two dots. It's just music cues and exposition instructing us "he bad here," "he sad here." If the idea is he replaced shutting up his ears with delving into arcane sci-fi mysteries, it really, reaaaallly needs to actually show some of that and whatever strife it involved because it's a big pill to swallow as purely informal summary. It's not just burying the lede, it's suggesting an entire short story's worth of material and then going "but anyways..."

It's the same problem I have with Mari; on one hand she's a colleague of Fuyutsuki et al, on the other she's a genki wing-man, but there's absolutely zero sense of how one feeds into the other. These may as well be four characters we're talking about instead of two.

NTE is like a really rushed compilation movie but the series it's recapping doesn't exist.

I've been letting my thoughts simmer on the Rebuilds.

Good art gets better the more you think about it, bad art gets worse.

First two Rebuilds I've more or less kept them in the same head space, third one still has a neato opening, fourth is garbo but has a groovy intro.

Honestly, I'm almost to the point that I'm considering the first two as canon in my head while ignoring the fact that the other two exist.

I still believe that Anno wasn't trying to pander to a specific subset of the EVA fanbase, and that all of this is just an auteur being self-indulgent which I respect more.

Terrible results and I could type a dissertation on the even more dreadful writing, but more respectable because at least it came from him and not a focus group.

AsukaisLiterallyMe wrote:...and that all of this is just an auteur being self-indulgent which I respect more.

...but more respectable because at least it came from him and not a focus group.

My impression from interviews is kind of the opposite, as there are really frequent references to pleasing the audience and investors and to reigning back the tendency to only focus on elements that interest him personally. Not what one would see in, like, a David Lynch interview.

Axx°N N. wrote:My impression from interviews is kind of the opposite, as there are really frequent references to pleasing the audience and investors and to reigning back the tendency to only focus on elements that interest him personally. Not what one would see in, like, a David Lynch interview.

Pffft.

So a self indulgent auteur that still played to the money.

God damn it.

Konja7 wrote:Kaworu implies it's Gendo who caused his downgrade to the 13th Angel. I guess he used the Nebuchadnezzar's Key, but we don't have more details:

Kaworu: To think that I, the 1st Angel, would be reduced to being the 13th...
Shinji: What are you talking about, Kaworu?!
Kaworu: So, the beginning and the end are one and the same. Well played, King of the Lilin. Shinji's father...

I've seen a few YouTube videos where it's theorized that Gendo uses Eva-13's bullshit powers as an Adams, or "kotodama", to reshape Kaworu into a brand-new angel. This is the same power of the Adams that the Nerv ships use to fashion the new spears from the Black Moon, and Wunder uses to create the Gaius (Wille) spear.

Apparently Kaworu is reverted back to embryonic stage (this parallells what we see happens to the 12th angel on screen) and reborn as a new (13th) angel; it's just that we don't see his physical appearance change at all because he is eternal and immutable, or something along those lines.

Axx°N N. wrote:NTE is like a really rushed compilation movie but the series it's recapping doesn't exist.

Or is it? NTE is, in some way, a recap of NGE. JO is obviously a retelling of episodes 1-6, HA is reimagining the middle section of the series (episodes 8-19), Q is pretty much an expanded version of episode 24 with some elements from episode 20 and Shin is a retake on The End of Evangelion (and it's definitely not shy about that).
It introduces a few new themes to the series and some characters are slightly different, but the core elements and story beats are still the same. It's still Evangelion. It's the rebuild of Evangelion. They took what already existed and rebuilded it to create something new. And if you take the nature of these movies into consideration, yeah, they could be described as a "summary" of sorts, for lack of a better term.
These guys are really good at taking big chunks of content and condensing them into smaller narrative blocks. And they've done it before with episodes such as 15, 22' or even EOE. Their editing is great and the way they pace the story is generally smart. I think the best example of that would be Death, which is a great movie and a great recap movie. In my opinion it does more than NTE with less time. I feel the way they recycled NGE material was more interesting and it's impressive how, despite not placing their clips in chronological order, they managed to create a cohesive set of stories by focusing on each character individually. Regardless, most of NTE doesn't struggle with this. Shin has some pacing issues (especially in the middle) and HA is a mess of a movie, but the first and third films are pretty decent at that, in my opinion.

I still believe that Anno wasn't trying to pander to a specific subset of the EVA fanbase, and that all of this is just an auteur being self-indulgent which I respect more.

Terrible results and I could type a dissertation on the even more dreadful writing, but more respectable because at least it came from him and not a focus group.

While I disagree completely with what you say about the writing quality, I certainly agree that NTE doesn't pander to its audience. Like, there are so many decisions it makes that go directly against what I believe most fans wanted that I just can't share that view. Anno had to double down to investor requests though, but that isn't really "playing to the money" because if you don't also satisfy your investors, you simply won't be able to finish your film. All non - indie media have to balance this conflict of interests somehow.

Now as for Anno being a "self - indulgent" auteur, I doubt it, mainly because of my personal understanding oh his personality. He doesn't seem to like himself that much still, and he is a notoriously low - profile, seemingly humble individual, so I don't think that's the case. But even if we don't get to who Anno really is as a person, Eva has been his brainchild to a large extent from day 1. It portrays his own journey too alongside that of the characters, and that gets pretty explicit in EoE for example with the footage of the hate emails he got, GAINAX's vandalized headquarters, etc. So, with that in mind, I can't see how the accusation of "self - indulgence" makes sense in the first place, because 3.0+1.0 isn't any different from EoE in that regard, except the fact that in its finale the so - called "metanarrative" is simply even more prevalent than in EoE.

BernardoCairo wrote:Or is it? NTE is, in some way, a recap of NGE.
Regardless, most of NTE doesn't struggle with this. Shin has some pacing issues (especially in the middle) and HA is a mess of a movie, but the first and third films are pretty decent at that, in my opinion.

I agree on these points. It's definitely 2 & 4 that sprang to mind when I made the comparison; 2 mostly because of pacing, but Shin is just full of gestures toward elements that could easily be their own plausible episode, and basically aren't even condensed because they're just not shown at all.

Like, I read about Anno talking about cut sequences where Mari actually interacts with the crew, and it was for a long time strange to me that she basically doesn't really exist as part of Wille, and it contributes to Wille feeling like an unexplored aspect, like we as an audience don't really get much of a sense of who they are, how they deliberate, etc. And while I understand and would probably agree if I were in his position with why these scenes were cut, that it broke flow, nonetheless this omission has created a bit of a wart that only contributes to potential ??? reaction. It's things like that which, for me, make it feel like there are gaps between too many scenes.

AlphaZero wrote:Haha, that's not what I'm getting at. Yes, Shinji is being delusional. What I'm saying is that that line should've been in the timeframe between when Kaworu tells him the plan to get the spears and him disobeying Kaworu. What is it that convinces him to absolutely go for the spears? Why does he put all his stakes into them? He was calm even if he was hanging by a thread before being told to stop. Is it because Asuka's incompetence pulled him over the edge? I mean first he tells him to stop, then Asuka appears and proceeds to attack him. I still don't find that believable. That's why I wrote that the line should be before that moment to justify that he is convinced of pulling the spears under irrational thoughts.

A random aside that's not directly relevant to AlphaZero's point: I rewatched this scene after this paragraph got me thinking about it. Mari fired on Shinji well before Asuka completed (started?) her leap down to attack, and Asuka didn't even know Shinji was Unit 13's pilot until after her attack landed. So, if we wanted to parse the scene really finely, we could explore Mari's secret knowledge, her motivation to rattle Shinji's cage, and whether Asuka was actually incompetent or just reacting to Mari's fait accompli. Which of Wille's pilots actually pulled Shinji over the edge?

Axx°N N. wrote:mutually disinclusive

Does this mean mutually exclusive? I'm going to attack you with The Elements of Style

It dawned on me the other day, what with all the recent talk of whether NTE's ending is escapist or not, that it might be not only metatextual to Eva itself but also the state of anime in general. Because I think one could easily read it as a response to the recent Isekai boom. And a rejection of the Eva world, and apparently the fictive world, and instead embracing reality as the ultimate destination to land in through the contrivance-portal, makes it kinda the polar opposite of an Isekai. Or put another way, because Eva's setting was so dreadful and nightmarish, the perspective of the characters is that our world is the attractive, utopian wish-fulfilment even with all its faults to which we're familiar. I guess that would still make it an Isekai, though, albeit one with a perspective twist.

Axx°N N. wrote:Does this mean mutually exclusive? I'm going to attack you with The Elements of Style

Just my long time penchant for mistakenly coming up with words not even google has ever witnessed.

My two cents, now that I've finally watched all of the Rebuild films. My central question with the film series has always been why was it launched in the first place, artistically speaking that is. After all, Anno also wrote and directed the audio drama After the End, a piece of media that pre-emptively labeled as hackery many of the things the Rebuilds then set out to realize. So, a decade later, what made the hackery palatable to him? I now have a headcanon answer that satisfies me.

1.0 is such an empty nothingburger of a film, but it does get good when Ramiel arrives, because Anno clearly loves the whole Operation Yashima setpiece. He probably loves it as much as he loves his wife, considering he's done the damn thing thrice now, twice in Evangelion and once in Godzilla. Back in 2006-2007 classic mecha remakes (Kotetsushin Jeeg, Dancouga Nova) and rehashes (Zeta Gundam: A New Translation) were a legitimate minor trend, so I posit that Anno jumped at the opportunity simply to have a chance to redo his favorite piece of utilities porn, and everything else was just an afterthought.

Of course, since the original Evangelion goes all weird and therapy-sessiony at the end, a "straight remake" isn't really doable, and that in turn (if you think like an otaku) necessitates some form of in-universe justification for why this material is being revisited; hence the small Kaworu tease in the film. And those who know about Kaworu's extracanonical video game appearances immediately guessed what was going on: Anno was importing in his pre-made "Kaworu is a multiversal traveler just like Gilliam" conceit from the Super Robot Wars franchise. The Akashic Records are part of the games' deep lore, and the Book of Life seems to be referring to a similar concept, ie. fate and karma that can be altered with a bit of registry hacking. To be clear, I don't mind these story details being recycled, as it's just a cute easter egg for the mech heads. OG Evangelion wasn't built to be sequelized, so it doesn't matter what the in-universe justification for it is - any continuation was bound to feel jury-rigged regardless. A bigger issue is that these days time loop stories have been done to death, and even more importantly, Anno promising he's totally done with Eva, for realz this time, carries no weight whatsoever, diminishing the joy that the breaking of the chain moment is supposed to evoke. The man is incapable of going cold turkey. I'm happy that he's happy, I think 3.0 + 1.0 finished strong, heavily carried by the Gendo introspection (accepting that this is a different version of the character), but at the same time I'm also preparing myself for the inevitable next installment.

In terms of overall vibes, Rebuild as a whole reminds me of Final Yamato: it's big, cinematic, bombastic, brimming with self-importance despite being an iterative rehash, and occasionally hair-raisingly misguided. Giving Shinji and Mari barely any character moments together is its equivalent of bringing back Captain Okita. And you can probably guess how final Final Yamato stayed. Focusing on the director alone, Anno working on the Rebuilds reminds me of Michael Bay working on the Transformers films: it's all very technically proficient, but it also feels like a talented auteur's grossly overlong in-between phase when their time and creative energies would be better spent elsewhere. Evangelion won't stop now, but I hope it continues under new management and starts doing wild AU titles from here on out.

Very insightful comment!

Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5)
Shin Evangelion is a triumphant and introspective masterpiece that encapsulates the essence of the Evangelion saga while charting its own mesmerizing course. An absolute must-watch for fans of the series and enthusiasts of thought-provoking cinema alike.