3.0 + 1.0 Reactions

[cremino]

I loved it. The village part was great as was the second part of the movie and it was great that everybody got a happy ending. Only complaint is that I fell like the characters weren't fully fleshed out with the exception of Shinji and Gendo.

[baldur]

Biggest winners by far are Shinji and Gendo. Like, yeah sure that stuff was implied in NGE/EoE, but let's be real Gendo's "redemption"/atonement in EoE is really kind of lacking. While Gendo and Shinji's relationship is pretty much THE reason anything even happens the way it does, it really kinda goes unresolved in NGE/EoE.

I'm going to be honest, I never actually thought Gendo needed or even really deserved "redemption" to begin with, so this is just another thing from 3.0+1.0 that I have conflicted feelings about. I also certainly do not think "redemption" is what they were going for with Gendo in EoE, more (as Gendo himself says) retribution.

Worst part of the movie was the big action sequence in the middle. After a point I just stopped caring, it was all visual noise to me. EoE had one big, brutal impactful fight leading up to the wackiness of Instrumentality, whereas here it's just big explosions galore. I wish they had instead focused on one fight and made it count (say, Mari vs. the nu-MP Evas, showing off the "overlap capability" of Unit-8 which is cool but criminally underused) instead of blowing their wad on nearly half an hour of flashy but ultimately unmemorable action nonsense.

I have to agree with this, the second act was hardest to appreciate by far. The action in 3.0 I was mostly fine with because it's a short film and no one scene went on for too long, but I was definitely starting to tune out a little in this part of the film. Also, that scene where both Midori and Sakura pull a gun on Shinji... yeah, the execution felt pretty wonky. That being said, I was willing to cut it some slack since it was following an hour of sustained (brilliant) character work and world building.

+1 to the fanservice being more out of place than ever. Me and my viewing partner ended up just saying "butt" out loud each time a butt was the focus of the camera. This was a lot.

Yeah, 2.0's fanservice was at least in fitting with the rest of that film (for better or worse). 3.0 didn't really have much fanservice to speak of. Here more than ever it really feels like there's no excuse for it, and a number of scenes are devalued/much harder to take seriously because of it (prime example being the EoE beach callback scene).

[Archer]

I have to agree with this, the second act was hardest to appreciate by far. The action in 3.0 I was mostly fine with because it's a short film and no one scene went on for too long, but I was definitely starting to tune out a little in this part of the film. Also, that scene where both Midori and Sakura pull a gun on Shinji... yeah, the execution felt pretty wonky. That being said, I was willing to cut it some slack since it was following an hour of sustained (brilliant) character work and world building.

Yeah, 2.0's fanservice was at least in fitting with the rest of that film (for better or worse). 3.0 didn't really have much fanservice to speak of. Here more than ever it really feels like there's no excuse for it, and a number of scenes are devalued/much harder to take seriously because of it (prime example being the EoE beach callback scene).

This in general is a big thing that bothered me about the Rebuilds. So much of what happens feels entirely without purpose.

In NGE, all the action and fanservice felt purposeful. The Angel fights aren’t just flashy action, they’re metaphors for character development. Like, the whole synchronized-dancing fight is completely nonsensical and ridiculous in-universe, but it’s my favorite episode of NGE because of what it represents. And given how big a focus there is on Shinji’s budding sexuality a lot of the fanservice works because it’s literally in-universe male gaze on Shinji’s part.

This is true with the lore as well. In NGE/EoE the technobabble about the Evas, AT fields and the Human Instrumentality Project are all meant to serve the central theme of “connecting with others”. If you don’t think about it too hard, it just works. In the Rebuilds however it gets over explained to the point that whatever metaphors might have been there start breaking down. Like, what exactly is the significance of Unit-13 lacking an AT field? How does this fit in metaphorically with our preconceived notions of an AT field? DOES it even fit? What to the spears represent in the metaphor of “connecting with others”? Why is there so much emphasis placed on them when they’re basically just another macguffin? It doesn’t any metaphorical sense on a surface level, so I just tune it out and assume it doesn’t actually matter, which it kinda didn’t.

Same also applies for the Evas. The MP Evas are instantly iconic, and on a surface level you can immediately gather that they might represent any number of things. The enemy Evas in this movie, however, felt like complete fodder.

Whereas everything in NGE/EoE feels purposeful and has a clear surface-level meaning that can be more deeply analyzed if you so wish, the same elements in the NTE feel like visual noise. The robot fights don’t feel like anything more than just flashy action sequences, the fanservice doesn’t feel like anything more than cheap thrills, and the lore doesn’t feel like anything more than ultimately inconsequential fanwankery. I still like the characters, especially the expansion of those who really didn’t get their due in NGE, and I like the re-interpretation and evaluation of EoE’s “moral”, but so much of the execution of the NTE just rings completely hollow to me.'

--

As another side note, thinking back in it, I wish Misato had died taking that bullet for Shinji. I've already expressed my distaste with the importance of the spears, so I think that would have been a lot more impactful than her piloting the Wunder one last time to somehow create another spear. At that point, Misato’s character arc is already over; she’s metaphorically taken on his “sin” (I metaphorically cheered when it cut to a flashback of Misato cheering Shinji on at the end of 2.0 encouraging him to save Rei because he wants to, that moment pretty much redeemed 3.0 for me because it acknowledges that yeah, Misato really was being a massive hypocrite and projecting her own guilt onto Shinji) and I think it would lend some actual drama to the unintentionally hilarious Mexican standoff if she just died there.

[driftking18594]

I've only two gripes; the first is how clunky the 3D animation looked, like a video game chugging along in the 20fps range because the graphics were set too high. The second is...surely after 14 years of fighting alongside each other, Asuka would be somewhat friendly towards Mari? I guess I've underestimated how heavy NERV's psychological tuning was, or if Bardiel rendered her incapable of being close to others...but that still wouldn't explain how she tolerates Kensuke, unless I've underestimated another thing, that being the effect of him watching over her.

I guess it's best not to overthink about the puppet and its relation to human anatomy.

[AdamMalkovitch]

This movie would be less… odd and difficult to digest for some if it hadn’t been released during the fucking end times with two of the four horsemen already riding and the other two saddling up, lol. The apocalypse is not a good time to release a movie about the apocalypse as a metaphor for existential struggle, but hey, it got done when it got done.

Interesting takes in your whole post.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of people have the take of "EoE was timely and captured the pulse of when it came out, but Thrice has come out when it feels most impotent given the current state of things." I'll throw my hat in there too; I'd still have my problems with it, but there's the added feeling of dissonance that I won't blame on the movie or anything, but I can't help but feel it.

I'm really disconnected from all the supposedly horrible shit supposedly happening at all times, I don't watch the news and loathe social media, so I certainly don't feel the same way you guys do [which I will say says a lot about how "horrible" things are if they don't actually effect your life unless you're constantly being fear-mongered to by the news]. So I'm curious, do you think the movie would have been better received if it had come out a couple years ago [cough if Anno weren't a perfectionist to the point it drives his entire crew insane cough] and was exactly the same movie, simply released before your "end times"?

[Archer]

the purposely clunky 3D animation definitely falls into the category of "I get what they were going for but I fucking hate it" for me. I feel like this is one aspect of the movie that isn't going to age well, because "it's supposed to look weird" doesn't the change the fact that it still looks fucking bad. I wish the janky CGI had straight up just been replaced with spliced-in live action segments.

[baldur]

Not sure how to feel about the clunky 3D animation. I like the audacity of hyperrealistic Lilith, but the rest of it I wasn't the biggest fan of.

[penguintruth]

Having seen it, I have some mixed emotions. There was plenty that was good about it (Rei's and Asuka's lives in the village, Gendo's backstory and regret, the music and most of the production values), but there were also things that I disliked (jargon-heavy even for Eva, all the confusing talk about the spears, the dodgy CGI, Gendo getting off too easy, Misato the deadbeat mom, Mari... just, Mari). The biggest issue is its obsession with being a franchise capper rather than a film series capper. I'd say that overall it was a good movie, but not an amazing one.

[EvaPenguin]

After a rewatch and a few discussions, this films problems became a lot more apparent. I was blinded by my high expectations and excitement, and failed to critically examine this. I'm actually kind of embarrassed how much I overrated this film on a first watch-through. When you start to break it down it quickly becomes a mess. To name a few of my many gripes:
- Unnecessary fanservicey camera angles that add nothing and actively detract from important and emotional scenes.
- Fails to do anything meaningful with its entire female cast, save for Rei Q (who dies just to forward Shinji's emotional arc. Ouch!)
- Horrible expository dialogue that took me out of the experience once I realized that these characters should already know this shit.
- Leaves almost nothing unsaid and therefore robs itself of any subtext or deeper meaning that could be gleaned from further analysis. It's all such surface level, tell-don't-show tripe.
- Ending sequence that says nothing profound that we haven't already learned from the original show.

But my biggest problem is the complete lack of thematic coherency. The "meta" direction this film takes in its final act is so unsubstantiated by what has come before it! What message is this film actually trying to send? What message is the Rebuild tetralogy trying to send? Is it that we should leave Evangelion behind and go live our lives in the real world? How do any of the events from the first three movies, or any event outside the last act, set this up? Evangelion units are seen as a responsibility that can be used for either good or evil, so Shinji's decision to just delete them from existence seems like an escape from his responsibilities all over again. Is this film and the tetralogy about the importance of interpersonal relationships, as the first act of 3.0+1.0 would imply? What parts of these films actually support this theme, outside of the times when they literally say how important it is? If anything, doesn't the film end with Shinji cutting relationships with just about everyone he knows to pursue a manic pixie dream girl (who he has seen for all of... 10 to 15 minutes in this entire film series)? How the hell does that support the aforementioned themes? 3.0+1.0 isn't even consistent with itself.

It's not all bad; I enjoyed a few parts and thought the visual experimentation with CG was neat. But I can't see a single way to defend the vast majority of this film's bloated runtime. Honestly, is there anything that NTE did better than NGE + EoE? The themes are scattershot and poorly conveyed, the nuance and subtext is gone, character relationships are poorly established and inconsistent, the characters are mere shadows of what they once were, the pacing is worse, the dialogue is pathetic, the sound design is far less creative, shot composition and editing is often ugly and unmemorable, and the CG fight scenes lack much of the choreography and down-to-earth structure that made NGE's angel fights so appealing in the first place.

I guess the music was good...

[Gendo's Glasses]

I think the idea was to address some of the loose ends in the original series, like Toji/Kensuke dropping out of the narrative and Gendo becoming almost irrelevant in EoE. These are very minor flaws (if they're flaws at all) but it's nice to reassess them. Gendo becoming more involved is, I think, one of the best decisions. The issue between Shinji and his father is so essential that's it's odd to see it almost not matter in EoE. I'm not ragging on that film, it remains my favorite piece of Evangelion, but it's good that the father/son conflict reclaims center stage, now.

The final Rebuild film strikes me as being a bit more similar to some of the ideas in the Evangelion design documents than the series ended up being, too.

[Axx°N N.]

@ Archer, you captured a lot of what I feel.

I'm really disconnected from all the supposedly horrible shit supposedly happening at all times, I don't watch the news and loathe social media, so I certainly don't feel the same way you guys do [which I will say says a lot about how "horrible" things are if they don't actually effect your life unless you're constantly being fear-mongered to by the news]. So I'm curious, do you think the movie would have been better received if it had come out a couple years ago [cough if Anno weren't a perfectionist to the point it drives his entire crew insane cough] and was exactly the same movie, simply released before your "end times"?

I find it hard to believe someone can avoid COVID impacting their life even in minor ways merely by not wanting it to. Or, speaking from experience, worsening natural disasters caused by climate change and for-profit failures of local government, long power outages in freezing conditions due to avoidable grid failures, constant chemical plant explosions and leaks due to faltering regulation, cancer cluster neighborhoods, etc., which have impacted my material life both by threatening my homestead's very existence, forcing evacuations and stay-at-home orders, and gifting me with lingering uncertainty. And I know it wasn't meant as a personal jab, but I find it off-base to say anyone keyed into local (or world) events is just "being fear-mongered by the news," as if it's not possible to be informed and simultaneously aware of the problems and agendas of for-profit news media. No amount of positive reinforcement will prevent your roof from caving in should you land on the unfortunate end of geographic location against environmental collapse. Before this verges too vaguely into politics, let me say that as someone who desires narratives to tackle real things and capture the tone (real or imagined) of the times, I feel like in that way Shin was just entertainment media. At the same time, I'm not saying it was obligated to be anything else.

The thing is, the film is well-received, it has high ratings from general audiences. It being "timely" is another matter, and kind of a subjective one. I think the difference felt by some is that while EoE was something that has held up tremendously well and works as a time capsule for the zeitgeist at the time, Shin seems liable to be more like a flavor of the month that doesn't end up with the same legacy. And I'm not going to pretend I'm certain of that or anything. If it had come out a few years ago, it might have been less well-received by general audiences, actually. Perhaps a lot of positive reactions are based on a need for straightforward positivity in contrast to reality. I don't blame anyone who needs that from narrative media. But to me and some others, this makes it more like escapism than what Eva typically goes for, and that's how it's not being well-received, and to be clear, by what seems like is probably a minority of the audience overall, even though it seems like 50% of EGF.

[evaunit13]

The final Rebuild film strikes me as being a bit more similar to some of the ideas in the Evangelion design documents than the series ended up being, too.

Coupled with the Eva redesigns being more similar to the proposed color schemes, and the use of the archaic ヲ(wo) instead of オ(o) in the title of the first three almost suggests that this should've been what the first round looked like.

[Archer]

Coupled with the Eva redesigns being more similar to the proposed color schemes, and the use of the archaic ヲ(wo) instead of オ(o) in the title of the first three almost suggests that this should've been what the first round looked like.

That’s interesting, I wonder why they ended up going with a different design for NGE. I think Unit 1’s Rebuild paint scheme is definitely superior, if only by a slim margin, just because it breaks up the colors a bit better.

[evaunit13]

That’s interesting, I wonder why they ended up going with a different design for NGE.

I don't know much about animation, but intuitively a simpler palette would be easier to animate.

It also visually horizontally divides the length of the body into two segments, kind of like wearing a horizontally striped shirt makes you look wider. Removing the different colored band in favor of one long single-color silhouette exaggerates the weird lankiness.

[Axx°N N.]

The final Rebuild film strikes me as being a bit more similar to some of the ideas in the Evangelion design documents than the series ended up being, too.

Coupled with the Eva redesigns being more similar to the proposed color schemes, and the use of the archaic ヲ(wo) instead of オ(o) in the title of the first three almost suggests that this should've been what the first round looked like.

Yeah, I recently re-read the proposal, and whatever the Ruins of Arka might have looked like, the context for it (characters go there and everything esoteric is brought out more into the open) is basically what happens inside the high L-density area on way to the Golgotha Object. There most definitely would have been some kind of primordial explanatory Final Object, especially with Nadia as anything to go off of.

[xtr00kvltcorex]

I'm still processing what I watched. I know I enjoyed it, and I also agree with the sentiment here that it's hard to discern the point of NTE, especially after Anno abandoned the intention to retell NGE/EOE with 3.33. But it's hard not to get swept away by the goings on, especially with all the Evangelion-ness on display in all the action throughout 3.33/TUAT. I loved 3.33 for its reckless abandon, but it's still a curveball, and TUAT definitely feels like a course correction of sorts, at least thematically, with the first two parts of NTE.

[Warren Peace]

I don't think Anno abandoned retelling NGE/EoE at all. He took a hell of a left turn, but by the end, the story is thematically, visually, and musically referencing EoE. That movie is basically running in the background while Shinji makes healthier choices.

To me, that's the "point" of Rebuild: to contrast the destructive impulses of the original Shinji (turning everyone into goo) with the superior attitude of the new Shinji (deciding the face his problems head-on). Both initially made the same mistakes, but the former allowed his anxiety to become misanthropy, resulting in the annihilation of humanity. His story ended in tears. The new Shinji confronted/understood his father and ultimately rejected nihilism. His story ends more hopefully.

[Archer]

I'm still processing what I watched. I know I enjoyed it, and I also agree with the sentiment here that it's hard to discern the point of NTE, especially after Anno abandoned the intention to retell NGE/EOE with 3.33. But it's hard not to get swept away by the goings on, especially with all the Evangelion-ness on display in all the action throughout 3.33/TUAT. I loved 3.33 for its reckless abandon, but it's still a curveball, and TUAT definitely feels like a course correction of sorts, at least thematically, with the first two parts of NTE.

While I found some of the execution questionable, personally I thought the “point” was clear: to revisit EoE from his current state of mind. End of Eva is incredibly bleak, and while I think it was a great ending for the franchise that doesn’t need a followup, I can totally see why Anno might have felt like he still had some unfinished business with these characters. At the very least, objectively speaking at the end of the movie Shinji and Asuka (and technically everybody else, but they’re fucking dead so it kinda doesn’t matter) HAVEN’T gotten over their issues yet, and it’s only implied that after everything they went through, they’re willing to start putting in the effort to try and change themselves for the better.

TUaT I think is very clearly about recovering from trauma. It’s about owning up to your mistakes, moving on from the ghosts of the past and leaving the spiral of regret and self-pity that can so often hold you back from moving towards a brighter future, long after the source of your trauma has already disappeared.

I think it’s really significant that in TUaT, Shinji - for the first time in literally all of Evangelion - has people who genuinely care for him, in sharp contrast with the WILLE crew, and thanks to being ground down by the hard work of living in the post-apocalypse for the last 14 years, aren’t afraid to show their appreciation for each other and for each passing day as a blessing. The different characters all have different reactions to his depressive funk. Some are negative and critical like Hikari’s dad and Asuka. Kensuke (and maybe Toji? I forget) think it’s best to just give him space for the time being. Rei shows him unconditional love and refuses to leave him even though he tries pushing her away. Ultimately, though, it’s not any one person that snaps him out of it, but the self-realization that the people here genuinely care about his well-being, and that even if they believe him responsible for the devastation of 3I, they’re willing to set aside the blame and focus on rebuilding, because sitting around sulking at each other all day helps no one.

When he says something along the lines of “I just don’t get why everyone’s so nice to me here!”, that really stuck out to me. Because from his perspective, he literally can’t conceive why anyone would like him and thinks that they must secretly hate him for what he did under whatever facade of niceness they put up. Ultimately, the realization that people here are nice to him not for some ulterior motive but because they care about him is what kicks him out of his depression, and I think that’s a really good portrayal of how it works in real life. Because ultimately while others can give you emotional support, you can only change if you choose to accept their help (e.g. you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink).

3.0 and 3.0+1.0 together I feel show the five stages of grief. When he first wakes up on the Wunder, he’s in denial about what happened (“I saved Rei, right?”) and angry at Misato and the crew for keeping him in the dark (“You guys lied to me, Rei’s still alive! Fuck you, I’m going with her!”); once Kaworu reveals the true state of the world and provides what seems like an easy out with the spears, he thinks he can fix everything if he can just pilot the Eva one last time, and holds the idiot ball bargaining even after Kaworu makes it clear that something is wrong (“What do you mean the spears are wrong? That’s what we came here for, right? Grab the spears, undo all the damage! What are we waiting for?”). The beginning of 3.0+1.0 he’s in a near-catatonic depression after realizing that everything he did only made the problem worse; it’s in the village that he finally finds acceptance and is finally able to start the road to recovery. This is best exemplified when he gets back on the Wunder a changed man, not there to atone for his sins or to try to undo the past, but to move forward to prevent a future disaster and keep his friends safe.

Sorry if this is rambling and poorly structured or if I got some details wrong; I’m operating off of one watch and I’m pretty bad at remembering specific details and am also writing it on my phone. But the more I think about this movie, the more I appreciate the new ground it manages to tread for Shinji. NGE/EoE was very much about a group of fucked-up people who were too caught up in the moment in their own issues to be there for each other. 3.0+1.0 flips the script on its head by putting Shinji amongst a group of people whose own massive traumas are already more than a decade behind them, and who have grown together through their hardship into healthy, well-adjusted adults who actually serve as genuinely positive role models for Shinji and Rei. And god knows positive adult role models were scarce to come by in NGE/EoE.

Also, yeah, before this movie I was shitting on the idea of the 14 year timeskip, but that was from the perspective of 3.0, where the NERV crew is very much still living the traumas of the past and hasn’t gotten over 3I. This movie more than justifies it, because that entire theme of others helping you heal and get over your trauma would be impossible if it were set, say, 5 years after 3I where they’re likely still in the process of actively fighting for their continued survival as opposed to the uneasy equilibrium they’ve managed to achieve 14 years later.

[tronnytron]

ive now seen the movie all the way through, and rewatched the last hour or so. i even created an account here to chat about it!
i think the movie is excellent. flawed, in many ways, but its had an emotional impact on me far greater than any "perfect" piece of cinema ever has.
i didnt come at this movie with the years of build up others had (i first saw the original show in 2020, i am very new here) but i feel like this is the perfect ending to the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise as a whole. Its the end of the rebuilds, and the True End of Evangelion. (not to take away from how brilliant EoE is!)

[Blockio]

Welcome aboard, hope you enjoy your stay here!
And yeah, I quite agree; Shin really feels like the capstone to Eva, after I've finished it I've had an overwhelming feeling of being at peace with the franchise as a whole; to the point where I debated with myself if I even wanted to post about it on here, because ultimately, the movie pretty much said everything there is to say about it to me, it really hammered home just how pointless and petty a lot of the arguments about Eva are, especially those to the tune of shipping, if NTE can stand on its own, etc. At the end of the day, we're all here because we like Eva, endless infighting about what is the "right" way to like Eva does nothing but add to the endless amount of toxicity online; if nothing else, this reminder is one of my biggest takeaways from Shin, and one that I will be quite grateful for for a long time.