Evangelion 3.0 - You Can (Not) Rebottle Lightning?

[SatoshiKonFan]

Hi all,

Treating this post as a bit of an EA meeting - Evas Anonymous.

Just watched Evangelion 3.0 and am worried Anno is going to George Lucas the Rebuild. Personally I had no issue with either the series' ending (which I thought reflected Anno's interest in British cult sci-fi show The Prisoner) or The End of Evangelion, which I thought gave fans an action packed climax AND metaphysical meat to chew over.

But, 3.0 seems incoherent rather than thought-provoking and willfully obtuse. Anno also seems to have backed himself into a narrative corner with the decision to set the film in a world SO different from the previous two movies.

Here's my review, be interested what you guys think:
http://www.electric-shadows.com/evangelion-3-0-you-can-not-redo/

Of course I'll buy the blu-ray when it comes out. Of course I'll rewatch it over and over. Of course I'll clamber to be first in line for the final part.

But, this is dangerously close to confirming my original belief that Anno should be exploring stories new...

[Giji Shinka]

I don't agree with your review, (3/5 start part and some other stuff. For me, it's a masterpiece) but pretty good nonetheless. :)

[SatoshiKonFan]

Thanks for the reply Giji! Yeah, that's one of the great things about Eva - it so divides opinion. But, a masterpiece? I'd be interested to hear why you rate it so highly.

I've thought about 3.0 over and over since seeing it and reckon Anno has work to do in part 4 to bring it back on track.

I'm sure there'll be good stuff in the movie when I revisit it, but it seemed a reductive move to take the story in that direction.

Cheers again for the reply though!

[Giji Shinka]

But, a masterpiece? I'd be interested to hear why you rate it so highly.

Well, i would have to tell every little detail about characters, their motivations, emotions ect. and about the plot too, to explain why it's a masterpiece.

And unfortunately for me, it would take very long to make such a post....

[SatoshiKonFan]

Ah, no worries then. But, I'll be interested to see if my opinion changes on a second viewing.

[Giji Shinka]

Trust me, most of us disliked it in some way at first. (Me included)

But after thinking, and watching it multiple times, our opinions changed radically.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Well, it's not like ending of the original TV series was love and adored by fans upon its initial release. (There wouldn't be so much hate mail or pictures of GAINAX graffiti in The End of Evangelion if it was met with more positive opinions.) The original TV series was conventional "lightning in a bottle" in the sense that everyone loved it for about 12 or 13 episodes.

In the same way, these new movies have captured that same response, with "Ha" being a major hit and leaving fans with mainly positive feelings and a desperate need to know what happens next.

But both Q and Episodes 21 - 26 of the TV show is when things got rocky from the otaku reactions. Things were explained without really ever being clear enough for a lot of people. (If it was any clearer, we wouldn't have a site like this where we reexamine some of our theories about the show every few months.)

And with End of Eva thrown in the mix, well, that was never "lightning in a bottle." If someone has an opinion over the film, it was because they watched it once, were confused and felt drained, and then either rejected the film and the TV series forever or revisited the movie again and again until they understood it enough to enjoy it for the art that it truly is. End of Eva was and is an acquired taste, with less people immediately latching on to the series and more people slowly coming around to it over time. It was never "lightning in a bottle" for most people. The only reason why so many watched as they did was because of their love of the first half of the TV series and a wish that everything would immediately make more sense after watching the film. (In fact, End of Eva made me hate the whole series for about 2 days. Then it all clicked, and I slowly grew to liking it just as I had watching the first half the first time around, if not more.)

These newer films might take on that same path. The first half drew in a huge crowd due to a sense of instant gratification with its action set pieces and stunning animation, and the last half will be more of an acquired taste for people who feel that they can handle the truth about these new Eva films.

[Mr. Tines]

The whole of the new movie edition is most charitably viewed as an exercise in trying to bottle that lightning; though a lot of people see it as more an exercise in jumping sharks instead -- even before Q came out. This forum was apparently unusual amongst the wider audience by having a significant number of people who intensely disliked the second movie (hence the "two minute hate" announcement).

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

The whole of the new movie edition is most charitably viewed as an exercise in trying to bottle that lightning; though a lot of people see it as more an exercise in jumping sharks instead -- even before Q came out.

Well, jumping sharks was just a part of the territory way back in Episodes 8, 9, and so on of the original TV series. Chopping entire fighter jets in half and a synchronized Duel Lightning Kick? Catching falling Angels with your bare hands? Chopping entire Angels in half with a single blow without them really dying? Dude, if you bought that, you can buy the rest of the shark jumping in the new movies, especially since they really don't go over that amount of craziness outside of just putting better effects onto them. (Beast Mode and Unit 01 eating stuff from Episode 20 look so similar, that I really say one jumps more sharks than the other. But become very animal-like in appearance and in range of motion.)

[Black Swordsman]

Ah, no worries then. But, I'll be interested to see if my opinion changes on a second viewing.

I'd say that a second and even third viewing is necessary with 3.0. The first time I watched it I was very excited and had just come home from my Art exam (which went very well) so I was pretty tired. I watched it, I didn't take in a lot of it. 2 days later I watched it again and enjoyed it more, then a few months later I watched it again and found it even better. I look forward to the dub so I can watch it again and put it with 1.11 and 2.22 on my Blu Ray shelf ^^

[Azathoth]

The whole of the new movie edition is most charitably viewed as an exercise in trying to bottle that lightning

What a goofy opinion. Regardless of OP's opinions on the movie, the title he chose for this thread is pretty much synonymous with the actual title of Q. This in itself should be sufficient indication that Anno knows he can't make NGE again and moreover that he is not trying to. It's difficult to say that I feel that he has "succeeded" in this goal, because this goal is purely negative (that is, Anno is NOT trying to make NGE - but what instead is he trying to make? well, i don't know at all and i doubt anyone else does either) and the plot of Rebuild is cleverly laid out such that Anno's goal is pretty much unknowable until he tells us (and thus, himself, finds out what it was). In the first movie, Anno repeats himself; in the second, he parodies himself and deliberately defaces his creations; in the third, he takes them on a wild tangent to the plot of NGE without any real explanation and thus forces people to ignore the (more or less nonsensical) plot and concentrate on what the movie actually DOES show them, as opposed to what it doesn't (that is, the plot). Is this the true form of an Eva jumping the shark? mos def, but who gives a fuck? it has robuts.

I don't think Rebuild is a cash-in (though Jo kind of is, as is financially warrantable: one should test the waters before committing to doing anything actually interesting with the project, after all). I think it's a mediocre movie followed by a comically bad movie followed by a reassuringly clever but still pretty bad movie, followed by god knows what, with shit CG slathered over top of half of it and excellent CG slathered over the other half. I don't think it is "dumbed down" from NGE particularly, NGE could be pretty dumb and Q is pretty smart at times, and in a way that makes one reconsider the apparent boneheadedness of the first two movies. It's pretty fascinating as a pure study of Shinji and how Anno's attitudes on him have deformed over time, and I'd be lying pretty badly if I said I wasn't hyped for Final. But Rebuild is very much aware that it isn't NGE and can't be NGE: indeed, this is rapidly becoming THE main point of Rebuild, is the difficulty of constructing a derivative work, the difficulty of trying to get back something you feel you used to have. That is to say it's p. cool, sausages Anno-sama.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

I think it's a mediocre movie followed by a comically bad movie followed by a reassuringly clever but still pretty bad movie, followed by god knows what, with shit CG slathered over top of half of it and excellent CG slathered over the other half. I don't think it is "dumbed down" from NGE particularly, NGE could be pretty dumb and Q is pretty smart at times, and in a way that makes one reconsider the apparent boneheadedness of the first two movies.

Well, even NGE redefined it's relatively medicore-yet-bleak first 6 Episodes and the silly action-oriented Episodes 7 - 12 with an exceptionally well-done and very grim second half. Sans the CGI and the supporting cast taking on more obvious supporting roles, any argument one can make against NTE can, so far, be made against NGE as well, despite them being strikingly different from one another. (It's odd how that all turned out, isn't it?)

BTW, I actually think the CGI becomes a great aesthetic all on its own in the last battle in Jo, as well as most of Ha and all of Q, with Q really using it more and more to help set the tone of the picture as well as strategically pace out what kind of visual information being presented to the viewer. I think it's great that Anno used it for cinematic tones and slow expositional pacing in Q, a concept that most modern action film directors haven't even gotten their heads around yet for some reason. (You have to admit it's better than the use of CGI in, say... Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.)

[Mr. Tines]

The original TV series was conventional "lightning in a bottle" in the sense that everyone loved it for about 12 or 13 episodes.

That's not how I'm used to that metaphor being applied.

The completely unexpected outcome of Evangelion as a whole becoming a phenomenon, something we still pore over all these years later -- that's the lightning. If you're trying to reproduce that effect (rather than just ride the original's coat-tails), that's trying to bottle the lightning.

Well, jumping sharks was just a part of the territory way back in Episodes 8, 9, and so on of the original TV series.

Again, not a normal application of the metaphor (even if episode 8 has some semi-literal shark jumping) -- it means that the series is all out of ideas and is flailing about for any sort of filler to get to the end of the season with. Meanwhile, the action arc is standard super-robot on kaiju action with added character development. It's more valid to call episodes 25-6 shark jumping, by being so out of original genre -- but we get led towards it more naturally than we do the Fonz's stunt.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

The term "Jumping the Shark" comes from JAWS 2, where a water skier literally jumps over an attacking shark. It's commonly used to pin-point scenes that outlandishly go over-the-top with its action scenes. At least, that's how it's been used throughout all of my education in film school. Maybe the term's usage evolved beyond that, but I doubt it if the fridge scene in Indy 4 was thought to replace the term "jumping the shark" with "nuking the fridge."

[Ornette]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark

More topic please.

[Deva Victrix]

I read OP's review.

Most of 3.33 seems to have flown over his head. He did not understand what was going on in 3.33 and attempts to blame Anno.

I find his accusations of Misato acting out of character laughable, as well as his doubts about NERV functioning with just Fuyu and Gendou. Gendou's pretty smart, in spite of his babyish attitude. He would be okay.

[Azathoth]

Well, even NGE redefined it's relatively medicore-yet-bleak first 6 Episodes and the silly action-oriented Episodes 7 - 12 with an exceptionally well-done and very grim second half. Sans the CGI and the supporting cast taking on more obvious supporting roles, any argument one can make against NTE can, so far, be made against NGE as well, despite them being strikingly different from one another. (It's odd how that all turned out, isn't it?)

This isn't terribly on topic but I don't think this is a great comparison to make. I mean yeah, both NGE and NME visibly change stylistically and thematically as they progress, but what series doesn't? I strongly disagree with the characterization of ep01-06 as mediocre since ep02 and ep04 are among the most remarkable and effective episodes in the whole show; I don't entirely buy the notion that ep07-12 are genuinely action-oriented either as each of these episodes is, as Tines pointed out, a light character-interplay story against a backdrop of weekly trash Angels with the action often being pretty minimal ("Jet Alone" is not my idea of action-packed). In general I don't think that NGE is actually made in super-discrete sections with distinct intentions for each section, much less with each section having its own metafictional theme - as much as fans have felt the urge to break the series down into such arcs. In NGE the really meta shit is all ass-loaded in EoTV and EoE - while the show definitely gets all experimental and weird before that (as early as ep02 in fact), it doesn't get into hardcore reflections on nature of art, images, symbolic sense of the Eva itself until the late going. NME is partly fascinating to me because its first two movies often recycled NGE scenes in a way that one could easily assume was motivated by laziness more than anything, and then its third movie got so nutty and so Eva-obsessed that it forced me to totally rethink the reasons I had assumed were behind their reuse. That is to say, it's really meta shit from beginning to presumable end, cunningly disguised as complete crap while also being unintentionally kind of crap in a different way.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

NME is partly fascinating to me because its first two movies often recycled NGE scenes in a way that one could easily assume was motivated by laziness more than anything, and then its third movie got so nutty and so Eva-obsessed that it forced me to totally rethink the reasons I had assumed were behind their reuse. That is to say, it's really meta shit from beginning to presumable end, cunningly disguised as complete crap while also being unintentionally kind of crap in a different way.

I wonder if that's why a lot of people on this forum particularly were more frustrated than anything at the new movies. They simply saw NTE as Anno putting NGE in a high-def format without focus on the story or character progression of NGE, whereas 3.0 made a lot of folks realize that maybe this is a different story that was being told. I never understood that point of view on this forum particularly. We've had interviews from the director and scenes in even Jo that suggested things were actively taking a new direction in NTE. Even other people I know who saw NGE and are yet less well versed in Eva were able to see that it was actively going in a different direction since the last half of Jo and the first scene in Ha. I'm not sure why it took some on this forum waited until Q before coming around to this realization.

[Kendrix]

I wouldn't say that sentiment is universal.

There's quite a few ppl who are quite impressed with Q and it's ability to throw at least some ppl into despair; While there will always be haters, from what I've seen the European response to Q has been quite favorable.

To me, it seems like a very good spiritual continuation of the original, all things considered.
The key question of Q is, "So okay, I got the gist of the last 26 episodes and 4 movies,and decided to take the risk of doing things wrong, and act independently, in a way that I can't blame my screwups on others. I got out of the basement. So what if stuff actually DOES blow up in my face? How do I deal with failures?" Failures who a person who is just starting to gain a bit of confidence (that doesn't happen from today to tomorrow) and is still insecure might percieve as all their fears comming true and the world shattering around them because of something they did, regardless of wether it's accurate - So Anno might as well literally depict it that way.
It's also a lot of roads not taken. A deprtessed, cornered person may have the perception that everyone turned against them and that everything is over... Shinji sure had that sort of perception in EoE. This time, Anno went for the road of literally putting that mindset on the screen, as the local reality of a methaphorical piece of work - which EVA always was. (Anno was not literally thrown out by his father - Gendo just represents another part of the "self", some kind of negative super-ego. )
Or, another example, Evas going out of control are scary, but they could never show so much *why* (they're copies of things that do impacts) because they still needed the setting intact until the end... but with that possibility already explored, why not go for the other one...?

It's not that new after all, given that we already got an "alternate road" of how the last two episodes could have went, both plot-wise, and as far as the artistic realization/depiction is concerned.

It's not perfect, but neither was the original; Look at the plans for the later proposal episodes, or the well documented editing process of episode 24.
The original series was created by the same method as these movies.
And calling it a cash-in or lacking artistic vision is just not true, if anything, the radical overhaul the movie got indicates a quick sudden surge of inspiration having taking it over (perhaps caused by the earthquake and nuclear meltdown ravaging their home country?) - They did the research for correct space physics, Anno redrew stuff personally countless times before he was satisfied with it, and there's all the 2.0 related interview material , the VAs reports of Anno messing with them in distinct manners - While you may disagree with the creative decisions or dislike the movie, you can't deny that it's the result of someone trying to do art for its own sake.

If you ask me, the movies may even have archieved a few things the original series didn't - and vince versa, really, they're the halves of a medal, in a meta/spiritual sense, even without needing any of that sequel nonsense.
see also the "female rejection" voices from EoE ending up in Q.
It's a whole, the entire thing.

[TheFriskyIan]

Just watched Evangelion 3.0 and am worried Anno is going to George Lucas the Rebuild.

Worried? That boat sailed long ago.