Do you Dislike Q?

[TheFriskyIan]

He makes big decisions in the heat of the moment, allowing emotion to blind him. In that state, with tensions glowing red, he can't see beyond anything but the immediate. If Anno is condemning anything, it's behavior like that.

Well to be fair, he was desperate. Also, Kaworu was doing a piss poor job to sell his point to try and stop Shinji.
"Shinji, we gotta grab the spears."
"Shini, we can fix everything if we grab those spears."
"Shinji WE HAVE TO GRAB THESE SPEARS."

*Four minutes later*

"Nah man, don't touch them spears."

[Hyper Shinchan]

Ever think that maybe Anno broke Shinji cause he needed him that way for FINAL?

There was no need to break him TWICE, admitted but not granted that there's any merit in having Shinji like that for the last film.

This doesn't even make sense. Speaking as a writer myself, putting a character through hell doesn't mean the author hates him. If he really hated him he'd ignore him. Far from it, Shinji gets more focus in Q than he did in Ha.

But what is the point of what he's doing? Shinji tried to do something of apparently positive in Ha, but he got punished harshly for that, what is the morale of this story? Don't do anything? Do something but think n times before actually doing anything? Don't think with your head, do what wise people (Ritsuko in Ha, Kaworu and Asuka in Q) say? I can't make any sense out of this thing.

You're almost treating Shinji way too much like an actual person instead of a character in a story. :\

He's more than a character in a story for me, I used to identify with him, I don't want to see him treated like a pair of used cocks.

[Warren Peace]

Don't lash out in a frenzy, is Anno's point. This has been Shinji's problem going back to the first film. When he charged after Shamshel, the fact that he barely won doesn't change the fact that it was extraordinarily stupid. Misato was perfectly right to be angry with him, one second's difference would have meant the death of Shinji, his friends in the entry plug and possibly everyone else. He didn't learn that lesson and has been acting in a similarly mindless manner since.

[Seele00TextOnly]

...

[Hyper Shinchan]

Don't lash out in a frenzy, is Anno's point. This has been Shinji's problem going back to the first film.

Don't use child soldier if you're looking for professional behaviour, that's my problem with Anno instead. How can you expect rational and calm reactions from a teenager placed under huge pressure?

[Jomei]

I'm not sure Anno is moralizing at all about Shinji's actions. A lot of people are jumping to this conclusion, but I think it's less about saying, "Shinji was wrong because _____" than it is about Shinji needing to continue to face the world in spite of things going horribly wrong or his arguably screwing up. My $0.02, anyway.

[esselfortium]

Don't use child soldier if you're looking for professional behaviour, that's my problem with Anno instead. How can you expect rational and calm reactions from a teenager placed under huge pressure?

It's anime -- it seems pretty much a requirement of the medium for the leads to almost always be roughly 14 years old regardless of what their responsibilities and level of maturity are.

[kboyrulez12345]

It's anime -- it seems pretty much a requirement of the medium for the leads to almost always be roughly 14 years old regardless of what their responsibilities and level of maturity are. And yes, it's generally pretty silly for it to be that way.

Actually, from what I've heard, 14 year old's in Japan are considered mature enough as an 18 years old here. Don't take my word for that though, but I think this theory is right. I think kids in foreign countries outside the US are more regarded as mature in a young age.

EDIT: Bah, never mind. I did a quick glance on Wikipedia. It looks like the actual age of majority is 20. Boy was I off.

[Jomei]

Actually, from what I've heard, 14 year old's in Japan are considered mature enough as an 18 years old here. Don't take my word for that though, but I think this theory is right. I think kids in foreign countries outside the US are more regarded as mature in a young age.

Twenty is the traditional age of adulthood in Japan.

[Hyper Shinchan]

This shows a lack of examination of the rest of that film. Shinji chose to runaway knowing that Rei is along with a highly damaged Eva. He forsake her. He forsake the whole city, he made a decision that he didn't care enough to try anymore because things got too rough for him. That is the most crucial decision in the film, because that is the one that leads to Zeruel getting as far as he does, and Rei being consumed/killed.

The thing is that at least as far as Rei was concerned he reversed that decision, after being convinced by Mari and with the support of Misato, yet the film focuses only on his (overly exaggerated) responsibilities and it doesn't give any light of hope for him, personally I thought that Ha's ending, Shinji "saving" Ayanami, was an overture to some positive development, instead it was only the prelude to more pain, anguish and sufferance.

It's anime -- it seems pretty much a requirement of the medium for the leads to almost always be roughly 14 years old regardless of what their responsibilities and level of maturity are.

Q is taking this concept to paroxysmal levels.

[Seele00TextOnly]

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[Monk Ed]

Seele00TextOnly, I'd like to point out that it was your reaction to the film in the non-spoiler Q movie reactions thread that set me on the course to changing my at-the-time declining opinion of Q. When I read your reaction I was utterly surprised because I was expecting you to hate the film, and when later I looked through the original Q spoiler thread (created back in November) my suspicions as to why were confirmed, and I laughed at how different your reactions were to the (ultimately mostly fake) spoilers that were coming out back then compared to your spoiler-free review of the film. You of all people seemed set to hate the guts out of this film, but instead you went so far as to say Evangelion is back, and that began my process of seeing it in a new light.

So thanks to you (and Xard, and every other poster who posted something I saw after that which revealed all kinds of things I missed or hadn't thought about), I can answer this topic with: No, I do not dislike Q.

[Seele00TextOnly]

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[TheDrmcvey]

I'm tired of this "Do you dislike Q" thread.

Can we make a "Do you like Q" thread cuz I did.

[Hyper Shinchan]

Nope, he didn't reverse it. He thought he could, but he hadn't saved her.

He reversed his decision, intents ≠ results, for what it matters Rei could have ended up in that way even if he were around since the beginning. But reversing his intentions wasn't enough for this series, he has to keep suffering until the very end, independently from what he tries to do.

And saved her for what, to live in a red dead wasteland? To float with him in a false bliss for eternity?

The red wasteland came out of nowhere together with those red Eva-01 like beings, retconning at its best; the impossibility of recovering Rei will likely remain one of the many unanswered questions, they didn't even bother to cover the recovery of Shinji which was one of the many genial temporal ellipses of this film.

[Mr. Tines]

Oh, look! It's becoming a Shinji thread again.

[pwhodges]

Hey, look, Shinji gets mentioned when talking about a film stated to be primarily about Shinji! Whatever next...

[Mr. Tines]

That wasn't there during Jo? Were there any haters that far back?

Jo got hate for being just a superfluous Death and Rebirth style rehash with extra added CGI -- many of that group went on to love Ha exactly because it was different. But for a flavour of Ha-hate, just the first page of http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/6969/How-are-you-liking-Rebuild-so-far-ITT-We-tag-Spoilers/ should give a flavour; even though that thread doesn't contain the best reaction from back then to Poka!Rei

she's been turned from a well-read/intelligent but mysterious persona into a huggable ball of autism.

[penguintruth]

I spent most of the movie tilting my head, trying to figure out just what I was looking at. The visuals have become so stylized that it's often difficult to discern one object from the next. They waste time on stupid things like Shinji and Kaworu staring longingly into each others eyes for an half hour and then cram in as many plot points in the last fifteen, twenty minutes. There's almost zero character development. The dialogue is 80 percent jargon. The huge time skip seemed unnecessary, especially when most of the characters didn't seem to age all that much, even the ones who weren't EVA pilots.

It looks gorgeous, it sounds gorgeous, but I can't help feeling a little let down.

[pwhodges]

The key thing at this point is whether you are sufficiently motivated by other people's reactions to investigate further.