Rebuild's Storytelling

[UrsusArctos]

Putting this topic up because I had the occasion to watch Episode 23 and look it up on our wiki (brought back memories of the old series). It then occured to me that Rebuild is severely lacking in something the old series had in spades: Deep introspection and analysis.

Just about every named character in the old series has something or the other revealed about their personality. Even Hyuga, Maya and Aoba come off as rather distinctive personalities, and that's not even speaking about the depth to which the main cast is explored. It was what set NGE apart from just about everything else. You actually feel for Shinji and Asuka, and even Rei. 2.0 gave us something in the way of character development, but it seemed rather forced and not natural like in the old series : it feels pretty weird to see Rei and Asuka (Sheeky-nammy) get into a "cook if you want to win" contest.

Now, judging from what little I know, 3.0 continues the trend. In roughly the same spot in the old series, post-Zeruel, we get a look into Shinji's psyche, the birth of Nerv, the Misato-Kaji relationship, and then glimpses into Asuka and Rei. While 3.0 has a Shinji-Kaworu relationship, the other characters seem to have gotten the short shrift - literally. Not only are a whole bunch stuck in 14-year-old bodies, we get to learn disturbingly little about them. The new characters get little more than superficial development - and Mari, who was actually very interesting even in her brief screentime in 2.0, looks to have sort of "frozen" as an LCL junkie. All of the Wunder crew are just...there.

In my humble opinion, Rebuild is sorely lacking the kind of storytelling that was present in the old series. I don't know whether this is for the better or the worse, but I really miss the way the old series explored its characters and exposed psyches to its audience - and thus held a mirror up to its viewers. All the action and new Eva designs and fanservice just doesn't make up for what made the old series so distinctive. What is your opinion?

[Darkwing]

Bieng movies changes things. Also while introspection is good, it's not always good. Uh what I mean is that several friends of mine like the series, but didn't like the sequences where we'd just be in the charecters heads with surreal imagery and a lot of talk. It's not to say they don't like like charecter introspection, it's just that they felt it was a clunky and distracting way to do it.

[Rei IV]

Your topic question actually reaffirms my belief that the Rebuild Evangelion franchise would've worked a lot better as a actual series than just a "quadrilogy" of movies. That's probably the only way I could've seen them be able to expand on the characterization or at least making the movies 2+ hours whilst excluding Mari, as well as the new cast of Quickening. While I don't share the sentiments of the later (and I'm speaking from MY EXPERIENCE), some have blamed her (amongst other things) for the lack of character development in Break and with the new cast of Quickening, a long with it looking a bit more Shinji-centric (more so than usual), Asuka and primary characters taking the "back seat" (so to speak) probably have some folks weary of where exactly Rebuild is going.

[TheFriskyIan]

Kind of touching on what the previous two said. The movies are more fast paced. NGE had 26 episodes, which gave it more than enough time to work out going in depth with each character. In here, if they wanted to do that, they would have to spend a whole movie (roughly two hours) of non stop inside look at the characters. You just can't get that with how much action is packed in with each movie, not to mention that although I like seeing in depth looks at characters, it would be awfully boring to have a whole movie on it.

[Gendo'sPapa]

This old conversation again.

No, Rebuild is not the "dive into the characters head and wallow in their individual depressions" lighting in a bottle masterpiece that NGE was. BUT it more than fills that void with panache, emotion, and originality.

Not to mention it at least sounds like they've done a lot more with the Kaworu-Shinji relationship. It was always forced in the TV show (that's what happens when you save the guy for a one episode appearance).

Rebuild has clearly placed it's focus on Shinji which is what you need to do when making a movie series. NGE was an EPISODIC TV SERIES. Because of the medium they could set aside a whole 20 minute EPISODE to let us learn the backstory of what exactly makes Ritsuko tic. Then they could treat her as a background character sprouting technobabble for the next 10 episodes without care and just throw in a little exchange here and there to remind you of what's going on beneath the surface. The movies don't have that liberty nor do they need to try and replicate that.

Stop expecting every character from the old Eva-verse to get their moment in the sun and their introspective hyper-analysis moment. NGE was a TV show about the entire group with multiple side stories. Rebuild is a story about Shinji. Asuka is a side-character, nothing more. Mari is a side-character. Nothing more. They both have their distinct personalities and I actually like that Anno doesn't WASTE time in 3.0 by side-stepping from the key story - Shinji's - to fill the audience in on why Whatever Fan Favorite character has been doing for the past few years.

It's not a TV show. It's a movie series. Both are vastly different mediums. The characters all have their part to play in the movie franchise. If you want episodic television like storytelling watch the TV series.

*Running times are a factor as well: If you were to play Rebuild & NGE side by side, 3.0 probably ends sometime during Episode 13.

** Why would Rebuild of Evangelion work better as a TV series? There ALREADY has been an Evangelion TV series. What's the point of repeating the same story in the same medium? So we can have flashier animation & a new opening song?

[UrsusArctos]

In response to "This is a set of movies" and "This conversation has been done before" - yes, but in different context, now that 3.0 is out. Look at End of Evangelion, a movie that had a tremendous amount going on in terms of character development even within its limited runtime. And it wasn't like all of the NGE episodes were totally efficient with their storytelling - there was a lot of filler, especially during the action arc.

Even with Asuka and other characters having a back seat, there still is time to take a look at their PoV - and judging from the old series, it doesn't need to take long for Anno to reveal a great deal about his characters. A shorter airing time may bring about less character development, but it's no excuse for not revealing something, at least, about these characters. 1.0 wasn't bad at all for its shorter runtime. 2.0 got a little...silly before things went to hell. 3.0, by this yardstick, is sorely lacking in terms of character development.

Now, you can complain again and say "It's all because it's in a new format", but it also raises the question, "How much of a story is in here?"

[Reichu]

Look at End of Evangelion, a movie that had a tremendous amount going on in terms of character development even within its limited runtime.

It was a continuation of the TV series and everything established therein. It's called episodes 25' and 26' because it IS two double-length, movie-quality episodes.

[Gendo'sPapa]

I love EOE (it's among my three favorite films of all time!) but the movie ONLY works in connection with the TV series. All the "tremendous amount of character development" only work because of the previous 8 + hours of television content & setup that has come before. Without the series EOE doesn't work. The character journeys wouldn't work because there is zero context. Now, the random vaginas popping up all over the place don't need context. Those are just amazing!

I mean I seriously laugh at the idea of someone watching EOE by itself and trying to figure out what any of it means. Shinji is just some masturbating fool who needs randomly chokes girls and talks to his Mother. Rei is... naked... a lot. Asuka seems to be some girl who wakes up from her coma to commit murder. Perhaps she went into a coma after that masturbating kid choked her. To be fair she did yell at him and push him into a pot of boiling coffee. So on & so forth.

It sounds to me like what you're missing is the very well done but hard to work around dream sequences. A lot of NGE got character information across by having very powerful but heavy handed mindscape sequences. Rei never really expresses herself emotionally except for a few subtle cases here & there but there are two BIG mindscape sequences - Episode 14 & 23- that tell us a great deal about her character. Asuka voices her personal inadequacies and fear of being unloved through the Mindrape in Ep 22. Shinji is repeatedly dropped into metaphysical situations where he directly states not through conversation but through monologue how he feels internally.

The whole second half of EOE is primarily a series of mindscape scenes and Shinji stating directly to the audience "this is how I feel deep down inside and what I wish for".

Anno doesn't seem to have a desire to do that this time around & I sorta applaud him for that. It's too easy. Sure, they've dabbled in that with the Dream Train sequences but those were rather short & to the point. Sure, he could surprise (not 'troll') us all and have 4.0 be nothing but metaphysical dream sequences but I don't see that happening. 3.0 practically begged for him to give us one with Shinji being locked in Unit 01 but Anno subverted that.

Instead Anno is allowing the internal dialogue of the characters to come out through interaction. Occasionally the dialogue is a bit too on the nose but NGE wasn't all that subtle in the dialogue department either. I love coming here & seeing the stuff people are reading into the character interactions in 3.0 because Anno is -wisely - leaving a great deal of emotions unsaid. People don't just walk up to each other & say "This is why after 14 years I hate you", No, they just hate you & want to have as little to do with you as possible. Asuka doesn't want to explain herself to Shinji in 3.0, she wants to be as far away & have as little to do with him as possible. Misato has a shit ton of stuff she probably wants to talk to Shinji about but having him back after 14 years leaves her in an awkward situation where she makes a lot of bad decisions - decisions that have a lot of fans superficially labeling her EVIL.

I'm loving what has been done in Rebuild so far. It's new, fresh, unique, and really can stand on it's own without NGE.

* I don't see how anyone can fault 3.0 for introducing a slew of new characters. They are purely tertiary characters who only exist to serve a necessary plot purpose. In this case, to pilot the Wunder. They don't waste anymore screentime in 3.0 than the Bridge Bunnies did in NGE. They serve a purpose, have loose identifiable character traits and that's it. They don't steal any precious screentime from anyone. The only new character that serves a dramatic purpose is Sakura Suzuhara - to highlight how much time he's missed and to be nice to him - and even then she's only in 5% of the film. The other 95% is dedicated to the core cast.

** Does 3.0 have any random EOE like vagina imagery? Anno loves putting those in his movies & frankly I love them too! :)

*** I haven't seen 3.0 but it doesn't sound like the movie lacks in character development. It just sounds like it's focus is removed from Asuka and -rightfully so - leaves a lot of stuff unsaid in regards to what is a secondary character.

[Mr. Tines]

The real difference between NGE and NME is that the former was a concentrated six months or so where even if stuff was being done in a seat of the pants fashion, it came out in a continuous, if not totally coherent/consistent flow. NME, by contrast, is spread over span an order of magnitude longer for less eventual run time, and that feeling of continuous flow is gone. The injection of new ideas over the years long process makes the progression more jarring, when each episode favours the novel over the continuation -- really this is a different spin on this thread : [url]http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/13469/SPOILERS-What-was-the-point-of-20-again/0/[/url].

[chee]

Anno doesn't seem to have a desire to do that this time around & I sorta applaud him for that. It's too easy. Sure, they've dabbled in that with the Dream Train sequences but those were rather short & to the point. Sure, he could surprise (not 'troll') us all and have 4.0 be nothing but metaphysical dream sequences but I don't see that happening. 3.0 practically begged for him to give us one with Shinji being locked in Unit 01 but Anno subverted that.

Instead Anno is allowing the internal dialogue of the characters to come out through interaction. Occasionally the dialogue is a bit too on the nose but NGE wasn't all that subtle in the dialogue department either. I love coming here & seeing the stuff people are reading into the character interactions in 3.0 because Anno is -wisely - leaving a great deal of emotions unsaid. People don't just walk up to each other & say "This is why after 14 years I hate you", No, they just hate you & want to have as little to do with you as possible. Asuka doesn't want to explain herself to Shinji in 3.0, she wants to be as far away & have as little to do with him as possible. Misato has a shit ton of stuff she probably wants to talk to Shinji about but having him back after 14 years leaves her in an awkward situation where she makes a lot of bad decisions - decisions that have a lot of fans superficially labeling her EVIL.

Totally on the head.



It's actually a bit depressing how many people here can't seem to wrap their head around such a simple, common-sense notion as the above, instead just flailing at their keyboards like epileptic monkeys, wasting their time bitching about how something can't have character depth unless it's shoved in their faces with Megumi Ogata screaming over rejected Stan Brakhage montages, or bawwing 24/7 about how some evil fictional woman was mean to their husbando.



Also, let's be frank: when all is said and done, it still needs way less fanwank than the original, and that has to count for something.

[Darkwing]

When all is said and done, it still needs way less fanwank than the original.

Oh god lets hope so. Won't stop crazy fan theories, but it'd help.

[Reichu]

when all is said and done, it still needs way less fanwank than the original

But all isn't said and done yet, so how are you arriving at this conclusion?

[JoeD80]

We already have the old series. If you're looking for the same thing, watch the series. Why have the new movies cover the same ground? They aren't meant to serve the same purpose. Secondary character development should take a backseat to keeping Shinji as the focal point of the story in this case. Pacing in movies is a lot different and has to move quicker than the leisure time you can spend on background stuff in television. Four 25-minute episodes don't have to be as cohesive a unit as one 90-minute movie.

[Lucretius]

The real problem with NME isnt the lack of ball-trippy inner monologues-it's Shinji himself. Original flavor Shinji was a character who generally remained sympathetic despite being capable of atrocities, whereas ReShinji appears to have the emotional range of a Vice character in a medieval morality play and a sea cucumber's capacity for reflection.

I dunno if this is deliberate on Anno's part; maybe Rebuild is meant to be a sort of anti-NGE, the message being roughly "You were wrong to ever sympathize with this solipsistic dickcheese." Or maybe Anno is just so disconnected with who he was in 1995 that he's inadvertently taken these movies in the direction of epic theater. In any case my attitude towards 3.0 is somewhere between "meh" and delicious Schadenfreude.

[driftking18594]

Rebuild's problem regarding anyone except Shinji is that you can't really do deep characterisation of multiple characters in a movie or a series of movies. I have to conclude that Rebuild would have worked better as a TV series spread across 26 episodes (and possibly a final movie a la EoE). Hell, there have been some animes with 26 episodes that managed to pull off timeskips, Rebuild could have managed the same.

Of course, a TV series wouldn't rake in as much money as a movie quadrilogy.

[Gendo'sPapa]

Nor does a 26 epsiode TV series with a movie climax make sense since there already is a goddamn 26 episode TV series with a movie climax.

[esselfortium]

Nor does a 26 epsiode TV series with a movie climax make sense since there already is a goddamn 26 episode TV series with a movie climax.

Using a more narratively expansive format than a couple of films doesn't mean telling the same story again, so the existence of a TV series is completely irrelevant.

[Darkwing]

I watched the first two today with a friend of mine who hadn't seen them yet. He also feels that charecterization is thinner. Also he really isn't an Asuka fanboy, but he feels they missed a chance not introducing and establishing her sooner. On the other hand they really wouldn't be able to do the visuals they do on the small screen

A 52 episode series work? Should be plenty of room for all the charecter there.