3.0 Film Reaction Thread

[Stillborn]

After all, it's just about how life can be cruel, and the only thing you can do is move forward.

I can only guess that the tsunami was pretty influental on scraping the original ideas shown in 2.22 preview and going all depressing crapsack world.

Also there are type of people who react to life's cruelty with cruelty of their own, creating even more shit in the world. Are we don't have enough of this?

The song at the end, Sakura Nagashi, and Kaworu's constant talk about hope. Yep, all foreshadowing.

Nothing of the foreshadowing in 2.22 was used in Q aside form Asuka's eyepatch, so yeah, I'm not to enthusiastic about that.

Before you say, "well, we expected a good ending in EoE, and look what happend"(if you were gonna say that) then EoE did have a somewhat good ending. Humanity can still be restored if it wants.

EoE ending was not a TERRIBLE ending. But it was vague ending at best. Still that indeed left some hope for the future and some possibilites. Cue the Post Impact fanfics.

The problem is, that 3.33 left us in a hole so deep that light cannot be seen from the bottom. And then dumped waste on us. Some people enjoy it. I personally can't phatom HOW this can be turned into something happy. I was always rooting for Shinji because we have a lot similiarities (and I mean a lot more than some other random watcher that supposed to get in Shinji's shoes), but I was rooting for other cast that wasn't blatantly trying to sacrifice and murder everyone for their goals. Hell I even understood Gendo on some level. And don't even make me start on Kaworu or Rei...

But now every character I could care about is "dead". WILLE is so jaded and drained from emapthy, that they no longer even remind me of human beings, rather a pack of animals that will cling to life by instinct alone tearing anyone unfortunate to be in their way.
Sure Misato hestitated a bit with the detonator. But I could easly point that she was worried for the last shred of humanity that distingish her from current one dimensional Gendo, rather than for her former charge. She was more scared about what killing Shinji symbolised for her than abut killing him per se. I will not say that it is the one truth. But you see it's pretty easy to read her character that way. I am not capable to connect with her anymore or with any from WILLE, Asuka included.

Gendo as mentioned before, is even more one dimensional than before. There is nothing in him left now that I could relate to as a human being.

Kaworu was awesome. The most ironic fact is, that he was awesome because he WASN'T human and acted in more humane way (according to our definition of humane) than anyone in this movie. But he was killed by the plot so the main character would be hurt more.

ReiQ is the only promising thing that's left because she may start to grow as intependent person like her predecessor. But with only one movie left, I don't even see a time for that.

I can't get the importance of either Mari or Sakura. They may turn something important or be completly left forever unexplained and unimportant.

And of course there is Shinji. But he's mind is literally destroyed.He is cathatonic. And after all this revelation I see no realistic way for him to reconect with ANY character.

Sure deus ex machina may be pulled out of ass. But if we want to compare Eva with the real world as we apparently supposed to do on emotional level, I can't see ANY teenager getting up from this state after mind lashing and guilt trip of THIS magnitude.

I generally don't like see innocent suffer. But there are almost no innecent anymore in that world and it was like the only characters that were left "somewhat" pure (the children that are actually children) got all the fury of the world concentrated on them. Rei, because she is Rei. Shinji because he is main character and Anno's tool for teaching us "some lesson" and Kaworu by association with Shinji.

That movie was not just dark. EoE was dark. Q was TOO dark and snuffed all the hope I could have for humanity in general. Was that the intention? Or am I just to human, or to little human? Whatever lesson It should give, I got it more like "it's NOT worth to connect with others. They may easily turn on you. Just brushing with them when it's absolutely necessery is enough to get by pretty comfortably."

The mesages Rebuild is apparently trying to give are contradicting each other and it's more like abstarct art, for sake of being abstract, confusing and depressing. If that's supposed to be "deep"...

And apparently people forget that there ARE people who never recover from certain things. And depending on seriousnes of the chaos the are tossed in, the sometimes die in it. This is realistic. It's not only "bad things happen, learn to deal with it". It's "bad things happen and kill you" pretty often. But do we need a constant reminder of that even from a movie with giant robots?

[kboyrulez12345]

@thefeelingofikarishinji: the reason why they extracted Shinji was to use Evangelion Unit 1 as a fuel source for the Wunder. And according to Wille, if Shinji were inside the core, the ship wouldn't move.

Also there are type of people who react to life's cruelty with cruelty of their own, creating even more shit in the world. Are we don't have enough of this?

Their are some people out there who need constant reminder that the world isn't all rainbows and butterfly, specifically some teenagers who are about to graduate high school and think that once they get out, their life is complete. (Yes, their are still teenagers like that.)

Nothing of the foreshadowing in 2.22 was used in Q aside form Asuka's eyepatch, so yeah, I'm not to enthusiastic about that.

Even though the scenes from the preview didn't make the cut, I'm pretty certain their will be hope in 4.0. If the rumors hold true, 3.0 original story was scrap mid production in favor of what we have now. And another thing, the early release of 3.33. The most likely theory as to why it was released early was so Anno can quickly get to work on 4.0. If that holds true, and the team wants to start on 4.0 early, my guess is they have things more throughout planned out.

For the rest of your post as it is too long to quote, the only thing I can say is wait for 4.0 and see what happens. Like I said, I'm holding on to the likely theory, in my opinion, that some beacon of hope will arise in the last movie. The issues your having with the WILLE staff is most likely a problem they have to learn: that they shouldn't let their emotions cloud their judgement. It's something that they have to learn about. Don't also forget that WILLE is trying to prevent future impacts, just in their own way. Their only problem is that they are misguided.

As for Shinji, their is always hope, no matter what. Bad things will happen, a lot, you will suffer a lot, but in the end their is always hope. It's just that people have to work for that hope.

Yes, you don't like to see innocent suffer, that's understandable. But you understand that in the real world innocent people do suffer from time to time right? A person I know got things stolen from them from a good friend they trust, and that hurted the person. Did they do anything to deserve it? No, but it still happened, and they have to find some way to fix the problem.

And last thing, the message your getting that bad things happen and kill you. You can view it as that if you want, after all it's your opinion. But I don't see it. Like I said in my review, 3.33 felt like one big prologue for things to come. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

One other thing. Dues ex machina. Knowing the mechanics of Evangelion, that can be a likely case, I just hope not.

[Xard]

Having finally seen the film again and for first time in 1080p quality all I can say right now is that it absolutely blew me away and my mind is still hanging somewhere between 4th and 5th dimensions


This is absolutely fantastic feature with godly directing and art, state of art animation and writing that amasses reasons why I love Eva so much into into one goddamn tight black hole of ballsyness and despair. This is Anno's best feature at least since Shiki Jitsu and EASILY the only so far in the tetralogy that approaches EoE's level of rapture. As much as I like 1.0 and 2.0 there's enormous gulf between the two and Q - marathoning all three made this really obvious. It gets rid of all my pet peeves about 1.0 and 2.0 (both of which I really liked overall) and doesn't really have flaws specific to it as long as Final does its job*. I have one, maybe two nitpicks about it but they're hardly worth mentioning

*what I'm saying that if worst case scenario happens and Final doesn't touch/explain the common complaints about storyline/world it's failure of Rebuild on the whole, not of Q in particular which does superb job in conveying the chillingly bare bones story and apocalyptic vision it has to offer. The numerous narrative ellipses are very much intentional and not something relevant for what Q tries to achieve so holding failure to explain, say, what happened to Kaji or wtf did happen with Third Impact after Shinji got speared by Kaworu (heh) in end of 2.0 is about as meaningful as complaining about Rei being Yui clone not getting revealed in 2.0 or 1.0 already - these are concerns of narrative as whole, not of one film that does alarmingly good job on focusing only what it has to focus on in order to convey what it wants to convey


Anno really fucking did it. THIS is true essence of Evangelion as narrative fiction distilled in truly pristine manner. 10/10 would and WILL watch again and again.


ps. it's blatantly obvious Anno added Mahiro Maeda to direction team in Q and I'm more happy about the move than I could possibly imagine beforehand. Under Anno's watch his bad qualities are kept in check while his undeniable genius is in full service of story.


I'm writing a proper review later, hopefully, but as of now I have nothing but praise to offer. If the insane days of spoiler storm resulted mainly in cognitive malfunction and utter bewilderment and first viewing as impressive if taxing this time was the charm. It isn't a film you can assimilate and appreciate on first viewing fully.


As long as they don't fuck up Final Rebuild has turned into major success and huge contribution to Anno's corpus not all that much below original.

To illustrate

[The Killer of Heroes]

How come you have 2.0 placed above 1.0?

Can't wait for your full review though. 3.0 really is amazing.

[hwdge]

pretty much identical to eoe
1. DAFUQ IS THIS, IT MAKES NO SENSE, I HATE YOU ANNO
2. Oh wait maybe I have to watch it again
3. Ooooh there's some sense to be made in this nonsense
4. Hmmm what if this is that when this is this
5.MOAAARRRRR

[Stillborn]

The issues your having with the WILLE staff is most likely a problem they have to learn: that they shouldn't let their emotions cloud their judgement. It's something that they have to learn about. Don't also forget that WILLE is trying to prevent future impacts, just in their own way. Their only problem is that they are misguided.

Funny thing. A large part of fandom blames Shinji for the exact same thing. That he put his emotions in drivers seat instead of "hurr durr cold logic" like "they would do in his place" and selfishly caused Third Impact. Because he wanted to selfishly save a friend. But on the other hand, biased hate WILLE have toward Shinji, because they are bitter about the world, and the fact that they could not yell at him for it for over a decade is completly justified for them.

Ok, but that's not what I wanted to touch in this post.

Yes, you don't like to see innocent suffer, that's understandable. But you understand that in the real world innocent people do suffer from time to time right?

Yes I know that. And the feeling of powerlessness to make something about it, makes me furious. On other hand if I got god like powers, I could remove sickness from the world. If I would be able to actually get into the role, I could even look over the earth to make sure accidents are avoided. But I wouldn't be able. I know limitations of my character. Sooner or later I would get pissed and blow everything. Or end up like Kira.
If I only got Superman like powers... I don't know. I'm sure I would not take a vigillante mantle and selfless aproach. I would more likely go Kick-Ass style and beat the more prominent culprits in my neighbourhood. But I wouldn't be able to do anything about ilness and accidents. Yes life is inevitably suckish, frail and futile. You are ultimately born to die, and suffer while on the way. Only thing you can do is lessen the pain. But you learn that on your own. Without a costly movie to tell you this. I HATE this world. I contemplated suicide out of tiredness more times than it is healthy. But I'm pushing it away because I would feel bad about leaving people that use me as a chrutch. Why do I let them? I don't know. Maybe i care. or maybe I'm an egoist that just don't like to feel guilty of indifference or see unhappy faces around.
But what holds me in life most? Absolute selfishness. I want to see the ending of book series I'm reding. See the final of cartoon series I'm watching. I most prominently cling to life for such an idiotic reason as to satisfy my curiosity.

And last thing, the message your getting that bad things happen and kill you. You can view it as that if you want, after all it's your opinion. But I don't see it. Like I said in my review, 3.33 felt like one big prologue for things to come. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

I apparently phrased it wrong.

I didn't mean the message of Eva is "bad things happen and kill you". I meant that this thing happens in real life. Very often. So Eva's message of "bad things happen, but learn to live on" very often misses the target. There is no life to move with. It can be applied in only certain situations.

But do you honestly believe, that this is what a person who (for example) was raped an crippled for life - because the culprit used to mutch preassure on victims back and broke it - really want to hear "move on with you life"? That's how we should deal with such broken people?


It's allready very late in my country. I'm getting tired. Maybe I catch some sleep tonight.

EDIT: Sadly according to Asuka's treatment of the shattered, lifeless, walking remains that are Shinji at the end of the movie, apparently yes. We should make fun of their problem and blame them for being miserable.

[Hexon.Arq]

I'l likely read through this entire thread some time this week. All I can say right now is:
*waves hands randomly in the air, drooling with a thousand-yard stare*

[Xard]

Uhh, guys, I'm not sure if discussion/debates about Eva's "ultimate message" is exactly on topic, even if Q induced despair may cause it.

How come you have 2.0 placed above 1.0?

Can't wait for your full review though. 3.0 really is amazing.

Pretty good question. I tried to make it clear I see the difference as really small, mainly because my appreciation for 1.0 has doubled over time from what it was (my opinion on 2.0 has always been pretty constant). While 2.0 is more haphazard and all over the place in terms of structure in comparison to 1.0 (eps 1-6 lend themselves surprisingly well to film narrative with rather minor modifications) I also think it also has larger number of great scenes and points of interest. Combine that with Q addressing its would-be "big faults" and I give it the edge between two.

Still, the move from first two Rebuilds to Q is essentially change from well-made blockbuster action features to slightly surreal arthouse SF that is bathing in some of the most expressive visuals I've seen, fantastic atmosphere that combines downright fairy talesque touches with paranoia and general execution determined not to give easy time for viewer. It's ridiculously stark contrast and no amount of gorgeously animated, large scale action scenes can change that.

This is definetly my favourite anime feature since equally-if-very-differently-fantastic MacrossF: Sayonara no Tsubasa (MF films per se put Rebuild in shame in game Rebuild plays for first two features which had considerable part in my growing apathy to the project before Q). That got great seven article series from the best mecha heavy anime blog and as space of review is rather limited in the end I might end up doing something similar for Q. But that's only if I'll have the time and motivation needed.

[Rei IV]

I wouldn't be surprised if Evangelion 3.33 is just as polarizing as was (and still is) EoE. NGE may excel over the theatrical movies as the superior "product" in the franchise, which, in some cases, I can concede with but with the release of 3.33 on home video and on the net, I can honestly I like "Rebuild" slightly more for this installment alone and hope that Final will not disappoint. I'm not too keen on EoE and like that movie, there was something unpleasant and bothersome watching 3.33 for the first time, especially when comparing how 180 went from the previous two films but I can say that after ACTUALLY watching it, as in its entirety, it completely won me over. Granted, there are still things that bother me (if just the slightest) but still, I enjoy it a lot more than I did before.

[Fireball]

Just watched it.

...

My face I have no face....gonna need some time to filter it all. Can't even say whether I liked it or not


...

classic Eva reaction, I guess?

[Rei IV]

Just watched it.

...

My face I have no face....gonna need some time to filter it all. Can't even say whether I liked it or not


...

classic Eva reaction, I guess?

Just slowly let it all sink in......

[The Killer of Heroes]

While 2.0 is more haphazard and all over the place in terms of structure in comparison to 1.0 (eps 1-6 lend themselves surprisingly well to film narrative with rather minor modifications) I also think it also has larger number of great scenes and points of interest. Combine that with Q addressing its would-be "big faults" and I give it the edge between two.

Yeah, I can see that point of view. I guess for me 2.0 has always seemed like the most atypical Eva production, so I've never been quite sure what to do with it.

Take the first ten minutes alone of the film. We have Mari, Asuka, and Kaji each introduced, IPEA's existence revealed, Gendo and Shinji reminiscing over Yui, a brand new Evangelion introduced and then destroyed, and two Angels killed.

Wow that's like a whole film's worth of material right there. After seeing Q I do appreciate 2.0 more (And I always did like the movie a lot anyways), but it does seem sort of...like the black sheep of Eva to me (Excluding D&R because why would you even acknowledge that film's existence anymore) with how much is explicitly packed into the narrative. It feels like two or three good or even great films condensed into one, and I guess 1.0 is just more comfortable to me because of it.

Though I do love pretty much everything from the Bardiel battle to the end of the film a lot since I feel that's the part of the movie that flows the best.

classic Eva reaction, I guess?

Haha, yeah. Try sitting on the movie for a few days and then watching it again.

I spoiled myself and learned all the twists, and watched the camrip, but didn't truly start to love it until I saw the Blu-Ray rip myself (Got the 1080 one to watch through now as well). There's a lot going on in 3.0, and it can be overwhelming at first.

[Fireball]

Yeah, I'm really glad I went into this with little knowledge for maximum impacto. God, I'm sitting here 5 in the morning with my head full of fuck. So many questions, so much inner turmoil...

[Removal]

I had to go to work immediately after I watched it.

......I daydreamed a lot.

For real though, I watched it with a lot of artifacts and miscoloring (mostly because of the way my blu-ray player handles .mkv files) and I still thought it was the most gorgeous movie I've ever seen. Like literally, I found myself not even able to digest the plot at times because there's just so much to take in at every frame.

[moonwolf2024]

So, just finished watching 3.33. As an overall experience, I liked it. Didn't exactly give me what i wanted but it did the trick. Not gonna go over every detail as this has pretty much been done already.

I will say this. I am VERY glad that i spoiled myself. It prepared me for the fuckery i felt was coming. Made everything easier to digest.

Currently, my Rebuild rank goes as such:

2.0
1.0
3.0

We'll see how this changes when 4.0 come out

[Blue Monday]

It isn't a film you can assimilate and appreciate on first viewing fully.

So true...

As much as I love this film, I don't think I could even verbalise a reaction after my initial viewing back in November. I was just completely floored. This was an amazing film, a work of art - Debatably Evangelion in it's purest form to the core, stirring emotions I hold for the franchise I haven't even felt since EOE. But I also had major gripes. Big gripes. Every day after on trip I thought endlessly about Q, just going over it all in my mind. Even at the end of the day we'd get back to the hotel room, I'd just pull out the theatrical programme and sift through the art, taking it all in, weighing it over.

And then, exactly a week later, at the same session time/cinema, we watched it again on the last day before returning home...

Still, the move from first two Rebuilds to Q is essentially change from well-made blockbuster action features to slightly surreal arthouse SF that is bathing in some of the most expressive visuals I've seen, fantastic atmosphere that combines downright fairy talesque touches with paranoia and general execution determined not to give easy time for viewer. It's ridiculously stark contrast and no amount of gorgeously animated, large scale action scenes can change that.

QFT and personally, Q vindicated NTE for me - As much as I liked 1.0 and 2.0, the third entry finally substantiated them.

Anyway, it's good to see reactions from some regular/longer-standing EGFers (FFF4E, Xard, Eva Monkey, Fireball, et al), keep them coming... I'm looking forward to seeing the UTW 1080p rip this weekend with my brother on their home theatre setup, so I may even have further thoughts to post again then, but who knows.

I'm writing a proper review later, hopefully...

Do it. Do it to the max.

[newnar]

I'm kinda lost as to how to react to 3.33. The post 14-year premise screams ridiculous and preposterous at me but I know that it's because there's too much stuff they skipped that makes me feel this way. A lot of stuff also changed, like I've never heard of a second spear, let alone an AT-field-manifestation that does not include angels or a piloted EVA. But I have to say that if you remove the tinted glass of external consistence, Q's story, if confined to itself is really quite a piece of work, given the right premises. It's just that it revokes so much of 1.11 and 2.22 logic and established facts that my first reaction was to check if the show playing really is 3.33 or a total troll.

[Abicion]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kjzKQPU0xM

Trainwreck movie that tries too hard to be an abstract po-mo art film when it's the third movie in the middle of a conventional narrative. The writing is laughably contrived, nothing any of the characters say or do makes any sort of sense even in the story's fantasy universe, and the entire thing retroactively turns the last movie's ending into one of the worst anime moral messages I have ever seen ("If you're an unmotivated wimp in life, never ever try to help yourself or anyone else or it will instantly explode in your face in the most horrifying way imaginable and the entire world will hate you for it.")

I don't think I even can come up with a fixfic for this mess like I did for 2.0

Q's story, if confined to itself is really quite a piece of work, given the right premises.

Aaaand that's exactly where the entire thing falls apart and becomes a moot point. Maybe 3.0 could have worked if it was its own separate story, or if this setting/writing style had been established back in 1.0 in place of the straight NGE remake. But it can't be analyzed like that because it's NOT its own separate thing. The Rebuild movies aren't set up to be written like Godzilla movies or something where each one is completely self-contained and you can watch them in any order. 3.0 is supposed to be a portion of a larger ongoing series. By definition, it's not complete on its own. When you watch the movies in order, they're supposed to tell a single continuous story.

[Stillborn]

I don't think I even can come up with a fixfic for this mess like I did for 2.0

Taking advance of this quote.

If even the infinite imagination of fanfic writers, can't fix the messup made in the middle of the story (yes we still have one movie to beat us with), I think it went to far...

[A.T. Fish]

Can't even say whether I liked it or not

My feelings when I first watched it, later found out I liked it.