Question about Death and Rebirth

[thegendopose]

Hey guys new here(waves). I first watched the original Eva TV series in about 1997 or 1998 and absolutely loved it, I watched it several times since. I'm watching the TV show again at the moment and I'm really enjoying re-experiencing it again particularly since some of my memories of it had faded a little(It's been quite a few years). To that end I have a question regarding the content of the movies.
Since End of Eva repeats footage from Death and Rebirth and D&R is itself a retelling of the series how important is to watch Death and Rebirth before End of Eva? Does it contain any new footage or scenes linked to EOE?. It's not that I didn't enjoy Death and Rebirth, I did however it's particularly hard to come by on DVD these days(thankfully i already own the series and End of Eva on R1 DVD). I suppose I could hunt out a fansubbed version if they haven't all dissapeared due to it being licensed ages ago.
Any help on this matter would be gratefully appreciated.

[Sailor Star Dust]

Some links to our wiki pages to help get you started:

http://wiki.evageeks.org/Death

http://wiki.evageeks.org/Evangelion:_Rebirth

http://wiki.evageeks.org/Evangelion:_Death_and_Rebirth

Hope that helps!

Just know that Manga Entertainment's copy of Rebirth is essentially Air (Movie Episode 25', the first half of EoE) copy and pasted into the corresponding part of Rebirth.

[thegendopose]

I take it the extra footage mentioned in the death Evawiki that was later released for the TV episodes is reffering to the "director's cut" episodes on the platinum DVDs? (I own the original platinum thick box release). So if i watch the director's cut eps and then EOE I'm not missing anything?.

[Mr. Tines]

Death has a few re-animated cuts in amongst the recap material -- like Rei smiling after Shinji tells her she should doesn't look like a muppet. Apart from things like that, having the DC material giives the essentialchanges.

[thegendopose]

Thanks both of you that's really helpful. Glad I'm not missing much as some mo-fos on sites like amazon marketplace and ebay want a bit too much for the D&R movie.

[The Eva Monkey]

You can skip Death and Rebirth. It can make a good refresh if you're going to watch The End of Evangelion without having time to watch the whole series, but otherwise, at this point, it's something for obsessive collectors like me.

[Jayfive]

Funny thing that this thread makes pop into my head, theres a 2.22 panel on YT with Spike Spencer referring to 'THE scene...with THE body' to great lulz from the assembled masses, but he refers to 'that' scene being in D&R, not EoE when it is of course famous as the opening scene of EoE.

Im presuming the voice cast did D&R then came back some time later for the 26' section of EoE?

[gatotsu911]

Or that they are not necessarily Eva experts themselves (I know Spike Spencer doesn't even watch anime on his own time - voice acting is just a job).

On topic, I consider Death worthwhile as an exceptionally classy recap episode, with tons of neat editing tricks and a bit of new material. I usually suggest it for people to watch after finishing the series and immediately before starting EoE, if for nothing else than to set the mood (that end credits sequence is practically worth the price of admission all by itself). If you're watching the dub D&R also has (mostly) the same cast re-recording old scenes with a slightly different script, which can be kind of interesting if you care about that sort of thing.

[Jayfive]

Or that they are not necessarily Eva experts themselves (I know Spike Spencer doesn't even watch anime on his own time - voice acting is just a job).

True enough, the only one of the voice cast I know that is an outright anime fan/otaku is J. Michael Tatum (Rebuild!Kaji) who in the aforementioned panel goes into to some quite deep and extensive discussion about aspects of Eva (both NGE and Rebuild) and the end of which Spike goes "Yeah, what he said".

Yeah, on topic - if youre looking for D&R, theres plenty of cheap DVDs of it floating around. Worth getting if youre a completist. Even if youre not itll only set you back a small amount of cashola.

[thegendopose]

I will probably pick it up at some point due to my obsessive collectors nature.

[TomasJC]

PROS:
New v-a for each scene
An introduction to the next movie (EoE)
Explains most ideas from the show

CONS:
Simply a cut and paste of the entire series
The story line is muddled and might seem confusing for people who haven't seen the show
'Rebirth' is simply episode 25' (was intended to be a warm up for EOE)

-I only watched DnR because it was an EVA related feature film and because, being an avid fan, I felt it necessary to watch it, simply because it existed. It's not the sort of thing a fan ignores, but there ins't much point watching a watered down version of the series. But you might as well watch it, just to say you've seen it.

(FYI: I didn't watch rebirth, for OBVIOUS reasons.)

[Jayfive]

PROS:

'Rebirth' is simply episode 25' (was intended to be a warm up for EOE)

And only about two-thirds of 25' yes? It finishes with the harpies circling above Unit 2 IIRC.

[TomasJC]

And only about two-thirds of 25' yes? It finishes with the harpies circling above Unit 2 IIRC.

That's right- it was onlyNear completion when DnR was released.