Rebuild of Wevangeliwon #1 = September 1

[NAveryW]

Look up the First Ancestral Race. It was never mentioned directly in the series, but it had always been planned from the beginning and was revealed in a preliminary "Bible" and unlockable "secret information" that supposedly came from Anno himself for a PS2 game. Basically, the First Ancestral Race (FAR) sent Seeds of Life throughout the universe, and the reason humans and Angels are fighting is because two incompatible seeds (Adam and Lilith) accidentally landed on the same planet. So humans and Angels are the same in that they are both descended from Seeds of Life, which are both from outside space.

Maybe they're going to expand upon this in Rebuild. Who knows.

That would be nice, but of course everyone watching the movie has to get over the initial shock and denial like those who read the NGE2 text did. People will complain that it ruined the whole mystery, they didn't like the explanation, etc. It'd be kind of like midichlorions in Star Wars, which likewise had been planned from the beginning but never mentioned until the prequels. Yes, yes, another comparison of Webuild to Star Wars.

[Opteron-O3]

Look up the First Ancestral Race. It was never mentioned directly in the series, but it had always been planned from the beginning and was revealed in a preliminary "Bible" and unlockable "secret information" that supposedly came from Anno himself for a PS2 game. Basically, the First Ancestral Race (FAR) sent Seeds of Life throughout the universe, and the reason humans and Angels are fighting is because two incompatible seeds (Adam and Lilith) accidentally landed on the same planet. So humans and Angels are the same in that they are both descended from Seeds of Life, which are both from outside space.

Maybe they're going to expand upon this in Rebuild. Who knows.

I really hope they do, it'll be very interesting...

[Victorthebattousai]

You must be joking.....THAT'S THEIR EXPLANATION?! Dear lord, that's lame. I thought it was bad before. I was figuring it was something like God made Adam and Lilith, which were the ugly looking angels, and those two gave birth to humanity. No, it was ALIENS. Ok, if they came from outer space, why is it that they are referred to as "Angels", and all the religious symbolism? What the heck. So, Angels adam and Lilith start off humanity, THEN all the stuff in history occurs?(Adam and Eve, so on and so forth) Or does Eva even have a single thing to do with the bible, and they all like going on about this stuff because it's "cool". I always knew the angels weren't actually angels, but what the heck?

[Mr. Tines]

I thought it was pretty obvious from the material in just the TV series that these were aliens (Fungi from Outer Space or some such)

why is it that they are referred to as "Angels"

SEELE are Qabalistic Illuminati

and all the religious symbolism?

It looks kewl

What the heck. So, Angels adam and Lilith start off humanity, THEN all the stuff in history occurs?(Adam and Eve, so on and so forth)

No, 4.5 Gyr of evolution from the slime dripping from Lilith's nethers.

Or does Eva even have a single thing to do with the bible, and they all like going on about this stuff because it's "cool".

http://www.evacommentary.org/op/op_1.html#cut002b

I really dislike this misconception. When asked at Otakon 2001 to explain the symbolism of the cross in NGE, Tsurumaki (assistant director of NGE and director of the Air part of EoE) replied:

There are a lot of giant robot shows in Japan, and we did want our story to have a religious theme to help distinguish us. Because Christianity is an uncommon religion in Japan we thought it would be mysterious. None of the staff who worked on Eva are Christians. There is no actual Christian meaning to the show; we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool. If we had known the show would get distributed in the US and Europe we might have rethought that choice.

[Ornette]

You must be joking.....THAT'S THEIR EXPLANATION?! Dear lord, that's lame. I thought it was bad before. I was figuring it was something like God made Adam and Lilith, which were the ugly looking angels, and those two gave birth to humanity. No, it was ALIENS. Ok, if they came from outer space, why is it that they are referred to as "Angels", and all the religious symbolism? What the heck. So, Angels adam and Lilith start off humanity, THEN all the stuff in history occurs?(Adam and Eve, so on and so forth) Or does Eva even have a single thing to do with the bible, and they all like going on about this stuff because it's "cool". I always knew the angels weren't actually angels, but what the heck?

There are a lot of giant robot shows in Japan, and we did want our story to have a religious theme to help distinguish us. Because Christianity is an uncommon religion in Japan we thought it would be mysterious. None of the staff who worked on Eva are Christians. There is no actual Christian meaning to the show, we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool. If we had known the show would get distributed in the US and Europe we might have rethought that choice.

The symbolism is just there to "look cool" and make the creators sound smart. "Angels" was an Anno approved translation of the word "Shito" which can also be translated as "messenger". Lilith started humanity and Adam started the rest of the Angels (specifically 3-17). The "First Ancestral Race" that created the 2 "seeds of life", Adam and Lilith, was part of the original TV series proposal, so they had this in mind before ink ever made it onto production cells. In the world of Evangelion, there was no Adam and Eve, the religious references, the names of the Angels, and the apocrypha was all from Seele.

[BrikHaus]

I have to admit that I also think the NGE2 game has ruined all the mystery of Eva. That was half the fun, not knowing everything. OK, well we still don't know everything, but I'm sure you get my point.

[NAveryW]

You must be joking.....THAT'S THEIR EXPLANATION?! Dear lord, that's lame.

Perhaps that's why it was never mentioned in the show?

Actually, I've kind of grown to like the explanation. There is a period of denial, however, that every serious Eva viewer must go through when ve realizes that the Religious symbolism has no meaning and is just there because it looks cool and (in Japan) foreign. But once you get past that, you can get into what really does have possible meaningful implications. Like this, for example.

(Come to think of it, does that mean that vaginas are all over the place in EoE just to "look cool"?)

[Sailor Star Dust]

Dear God...Mine eyes...The Shinjis...Everywhere...Giggling...All Ogata Megumi-like instead of Hayashibara Meguimi-like....

*cue Ogata's EoE Screams of the Damned*

Seriously, I don't think that particular cut DOES have any meaning, asides the fact that Shinji doesn't act like the stereotypial man which is already POUNDED into the viewer's face by THAT point in the series. You make a good point.


Vagina-palms= Chamber of Gauf. FINALLY realized that somewhat recently. ^^;

[NAveryW]

I always thought of the Shinjiquarium (heh, my spell checker didn't catch that and I actually tried to figure out how I misspelled it for a second) scene as symbolizing how everyone is becoming "one", showing Shinji and Rei together literally as one person.

I first found that... erm... "scene" by accident by arbitrarily pausing there. I thought I had somehow been the first person to discover it, as I hadn't seen it mentioned anywhere else, but I soon learned that wasn't the case. Which I had guessed was probably the case, because it would be odd not to find something like that after ten years. I do wonder, though, how many people saw it during its original theatrical run when pausing was impossible?

[Executor]

*cue Ogata's EoE Screams of the Damned*

You know, my ears actually bled when I heard that scream. Damn, Shinji has some lungs.

[Victorthebattousai]

Oh my god.......My eyes......I never wanted to see that. Ever. DANG YOU!

Ahem. Anyway, I never rejected the thought that the religous stuff didn't have any significant meaning. I'm a Christian, and all of the symbolisms were kind of....Random. Now that I know where they were going with the alien stuff, I don't hate the story as blasphemous as much. Now I just hate the story.

[Opteron-O3]

Well I actually fell for the religious symbols and actually made NGE quite interesting... it gave it that extra "punch" per se; even though it's been turned down.

[The Goose]

The symbolism, to me, is just dumb luck for Gainax, so that poeple don't think that the story isn't confusing.

[NAveryW]

Oh my god.......My eyes......I never wanted to see that. Ever. DANG YOU!

Ahem. Anyway, I never rejected the thought that the religous stuff didn't have any significant meaning. I'm a Christian, and all of the symbolisms were kind of....Random. Now that I know where they were going with the alien stuff, I don't hate the story as blasphemous as much. Now I just hate the story.

So why are you on an Evangelion forum?

[Opteron-O3]

The symbolism, to me, is just dumb luck for Gainax, so that poeple don't think that the story isn't confusing.

But it was still confusing lol

[Shawn Dudley]

I still get the feeling that the Christain symbolism within NGE is still pertinent to the story, even if it's just to provide an aesthetic motif like Tsurumaki had said. Simply put, despite the CI, there's just too many story points within NGE, regarding the apocalypse, the fall and redemption of man, the issue of sacrificing one's life for others. I mean, yeah, it's Aliens and all (which is sort of a goofy explanation, really), but clearly GAINAX was trying to build a bridge between the Christian "mythology" and a more 'conventional' sci-fi setting that their audience would accept.

It's not unlike the X-Files episode, where they found that flying saucer with the bible engraved on it.

Put it another way: there's parts in the bible where they talk about Angels having disturbingly unique powers, or other parts where redeemed men can become "as gods", and there 's chunks of stuff in the OT prophecies discussing "glowing things" that they saw in the sky that to this day no one's ever been able figure out what the heck it is they were talking about. The Fundamentalists always like to try to take this literalist view of the bible, but some of what you read doesn't fit into such an interpretation, and those are the parts that the Literalists really try to avoid talking about too much.

I don't find NGE blasphemous, really, but it does require an open mind to reach that conclusion. I couldn't blame others for not seeing it that way.

[The Goose]

But it was still confusing lol

Different people would say otherwise.

I still get the feeling that the Christain symbolism within NGE is still pertinent to the story, even if it's just to provide an aesthetic motif like Tsurumaki had said. Simply put, despite the CI, there's just too many story points within NGE, regarding the apocalypse, the fall and redemption of man, the issue of sacrificing one's life for others. I mean, yeah, it's Aliens and all (which is sort of a goofy explanation, really), but clearly GAINAX was trying to build a bridge between the Christian "mythology" and a more 'conventional' sci-fi setting that their audience would accept.

It's not unlike the X-Files episode, where they found that flying saucer with the bible engraved on it.

Put it another way: there's parts in the bible where they talk about Angels having disturbingly unique powers, or other parts where redeemed men can become "as gods", and there 's chunks of stuff in the OT prophecies discussing "glowing things" that they saw in the sky that to this day no one's ever been able figure out what the heck it is they were talking about. The Fundamentalists always like to try to take this literalist view of the bible, but some of what you read doesn't fit into such an interpretation, and those are the parts that the Literalists really try to avoid talking about too much.

I don't find NGE blasphemous, really, but it does require an open mind to reach that conclusion. I couldn't blame others for not seeing it that way.

Couldn't that be reached with any reilgon? Many reilgons cover humans becoming gods, the end of the world, and laying down one's life for another. Gainax just used Christan symbols because they wanted to be different and mysterious to viewsers (Japanses viewers).

[Opteron-O3]

But it was still confusing lol

Different people would say otherwise.

Yeah, if you were smart enough to do a full investigation before watching the movie... But whatever...

[Mr. Tines]

Yeah, if you were smart enough to do a full investigation before watching the movie... But whatever...

Depends where you had acquired your pre-exiting memetic environment. EoE was obviously, on first viewing, some flavour of hard-takeoff, and not entirely Friendly, Singularity and system crash.

The quasi-Biblical mumbo-jumbo looked to me as obfuscation over that.

[The Goose]

Yeah, if you were smart enough to do a full investigation before watching the movie... But whatever...

Sorry about that. I'm not joking in my apology, I really am sorry.