How do you feel about NTE? + Rank the movies!

[C.T.1290]

She is in a large number of diverse scenes and plays a big role in the story. It's everything I've always wanted from Shikinami. I'm also happy that her relationship with Shinji received the closure it deserved.

Like having them split up and move on towards their separate ways?

This might be hard for everyone, but I think we all have to accept that and move on. And I think that’s what Anno had wanted in his work.

[cremino]

3.0 + 0.1 9/10
2.0 9/10
3.0 8/10
1.0 7/10

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Giving movies a numbered rating is against my religion, but I'll see how I feel about it at the end of this post.

Shin Evangelion was certainly one of the most life-affirming movie experiences I've had in a long time! Everything about it is outstanding. This is already becoming the most times I've watched the same Evangelion movie in one week. (I saw it twice in the first day, which was already record-breaking for me!) Usually I just watch a film once, then maybe rewatch to specific scenes when I'm writing down my thoughts about it. But this one is such an emotional release of dopamine for me! Everything about it I've found either deeply satisfying or exquisitely perfect. Nothing about it disappointed me whatsoever.

With the backdrop of NGE in the minds of everyone watching NTE, the first two NTE movies vey much feel like the prelude to the "real" NTE movies to me. It's like they had to spend two movies getting the gang back together before they could go on the real adventure that was the last two movies. But I only recognize that because I notice how similar the first two installments were to NGE, and how different the last two installments were from NGE. I don't think this is an issue tonally, however, as Eva has always known to have a fairly fun first half and an extremely bleak last half. Q+Shin didn't disappoint in that regard, but still managed to be a bit more emotionally stable that the original NGE series.

Of the first half of NTE, Eva Jo is the only one of the Eva movies I have to literally force myself to approach differently. Because so much of it is similar to the original series, it always comes off as Diet NGE. I feel as though this is unfair to the movie, and it doesn't happen even time I watch it, but I still can't help but feel that way every so often. Eva Ha starts off nice a fresh with an entirely new Eva Unit, an entirely new Eva Pilot, and and entirely new Nerv location, so it's always excites me more easily than the other Eva Jo, even if the remaining bits of Ha still retread a lot of NGE territory. Maybe if Eva Jo had some new scenes exploring Rei (or at least reframe an old scene exploring Rei, rather than doing a shot-by-shot recreation), I could approach the movie with more excitement more consistently. It's not that Rei was in need of more character development in Eva Jo than she got, it's more that changing up the narrative choices around an integral character and Eva pilot would go a long way to freshen up the repeated material. (They changed up a few scenes with Shinji, after all. The scene where Misato dresses Shinji down for disobeying orders has an entirely new color aesthetic that calls back to the blinding bright white of Shinji's memoirs of being left a the train station, and the blocking between him and Misato certainly give the scene more energy and establish Misato's more aggressive behavior in Q+Shin. It'd be nice if the Rei scenes had the same treatment.)

But, if I had to give the movies a ranking.....

Eva Jo is nice, 6/10 stars.

Eva Ha is fun and exciting. 8/10 radical Sagisu electric guitar riffs.

Eva Q gets real and changes the game entirely. 3/.333 (Not) Redos.

Shin Eva is my new identity for the next two months. I feel like a new man, and don't know what to do with myself now that I'm no longer anticipating films as intently as I was this one. This movie get the numeric rank closest to Zero: Infinity.

[jahurz]

My ranking
1st) 3.0+1.0
Overall it completes the cycle though not as deep as i would've preferred compared to EoE yet it had a proper conclusion.

2nd) 2.0
Great popcorn flick. It wowed me when i was 15years old in the cinema and sometimes still to this day on rewatch.

3rd) 3.0
I would've put this on bottom list but after watching the final film and rewatching 3.0, this film serves a lot of purpose when viewing the entire rebuild films as a whole. Also a lot of new things i never thought that would occur in the world of evangelion happens in this film.

4th) 1.0
While i appreciate the quality and pacing of this film it feels like shot for shot widescreen and fx upgrade.

Rebuild as a whole is a 7/10 experience for me.

[EvaChero]

For me, I must say, Shin absolutely redeemed NTE in it's entirety. Tied together with a little bow and sparkles. So much happier after watching it twice Saturday.

Rank

3 + 1
1.0
2.0
3.0 (gets bottom only because of the amount of irritation and confusion it introduced into my already overtaxed brain)

[SEELE-01]

Ok... This is a bit complicated...

2.0 - Perfect mix of old, new, action and development. Simply from an entertainment perspective, this movie is the best to me.
3.0+1.0 - fourth time is a charm. We get the closure, we get development and some meta-action. CGI is wonky at times, but nevertheless a satisfactory film.
1.0 - nothing new here, but the new animation brings everything to a new level.
3.0 - this film will always be one that I hate to hate. It is great, and some of my favorite moments are here, but it falls in this limbo where it is not a movie of it's own, but a setup for 3.0+1.0.

[WunderBah]

Like this:

#1 - 3.0+1.0 10/10

#2 - 3.33 (9.1/10)

#3 - 2.22 (8.9-9/10)

#4 - 1.11 (8/10)

Even if NTE doesn't doesn't replace NGE/EOE for me, the overall journey was worth the experience of Evangelion in modern times. Happy for Anno + Khara making it possible even throughout various setbacks in scheduling/production, with all said and done I feel has offered enough value to sit next to NGE/EOE in being a part of my life moving forward.

[RussianRiz]

3.0+1.01 > 1.11 > 2.22 > 3.33

I think 3.33 is a mediocre film, but great in its goals within the scope of Evangelion. I like it, really do, but as a movie itself, I think it's a little problematic.

[VenomAlon]

1) 3.0 + 1.0 9/10

2) 2.0 8/10

3) 3.0 6,5/10

4) 1.0 6/10

[penguintruth]

The best one is 2.22, by far. It has everything Eva is about and should be about in a well-measured quantity. The second best would probably be 3.0+1.0, though I do have a few mixed feelings about it. 1.11 is good, but it's basically just a remake of the first few episodes of the TV series, so there's not a lot to say about it. The worst was 3.33, which was abominable garbage, just a mish-mash of nonsense and missed opportunities. Truly a crime against Eva.

[xtr00kvltcorex]

Despite it's chaos, and it being two disjointed halves, I love NTE for what they are, and they are certainly still peak Eva.

1. 3.33
2. 3.0+1.0
3. 2.22
4. 1.11

[Kendrix]

1. 3.33
2. 3.0+1.0
3. 2.22
4. 1.11

It would concur with this ranking more or less. I LOVED 2.22, the last one is just super pretty & punchy & bold in some ways, but what really made it all work emotionally is the pit of despair that Q so efficiently threw us into.

Poor 1.11 can't compete, it's basically just setup XDD

[baldur]

Despite it's chaos, and it being two disjointed halves, I love NTE for what they are, and they are certainly still peak Eva.

1. 3.33
2. 3.0+1.0
3. 2.22
4. 1.11

For now, I think this is also my ranking. 3.0+1.0 might have higher highs but it has much lower lows for me as well.

[girlifyoudidnt]

After having rewatched the first 3 movies before ending with 3.0+1.0 (wanted to revisit just the Rebuild series and not be nitpicking all the time about how stuff in NGE/EoE was better yada yada), my thoughts are:

1. 3.0+1.0 = Honestly the best Rebuild and it isn't that close at this current time. I had been left mixed on every single movie until this point, and thought it would be the same here. While there was still stuff I didn't care for (still didn't care as much for the characters as the og series, some wack CG sequences and OTT parts, and mixed thoughts on parts of the final scene, as well as other things), it was very thematically solid and the meta parts especially at the end were incredible. And in terms of visuals, Eva overall still can't really be beat for me. The backgrounds and the animation, overall direction in every department was insanely good. And despite EoE still being preferred (as I still prefer the characters there than here), this was a worthy conclusion for the Evangelion series.

2. 2.22 / 3.33 = Can't really make up my mind on these movies despite having more appreciation for parts of them. They both had new content that I enjoyed, and overall great direction especially 3.33. But they have some lows that dragged them down a ton.
I quite dislike the general aesthetic of 2.22 and 1.11, they're just so sterile in comparison to the vibrant look of the others. 2.22 also inherits 1.11's trait at times of recreating scenes of the original series, but with worse execution. I liked parts of it like the aquarium and the ending among other scenes, but it was mostly not great besides that, having one of the worst scenes in Rebuild (Mari's parachute scene) and certain characters I like a lot from the original (Asuka especially) just not being the same.
3.33 has an incredible aesthetic with its animation and art direction (that should have been done for 1.11 and 2.22), and the whole cinematic feel of it raises it higher up than the rest except TUAT. However, I thought the first part of the movie up until Shinji has a talk with the WILLE crew on what is going on was too dragged out, being mostly boring technobabble and CG animation that wasn't very enthralling. I generally enjoyed the middle of the movie the most, being focused on Shinji and Kaworu, and up until Shinji pulls the spears out of Lilith, it was pretty good. Unfortunately from there, it's just a mess for me, with the really fast pacing and stuff in general just flying by. I liked the ending quite a bit still, like my first watch.
Honestly, 3.33 would probably be still ahead for me, but man, that second watch made me like scenes of it much less than before.

3. 1.11 = This movie is just the original series, but worse (maybe with the exception of Operation Yashima). Honestly, it's to be expected given that the majority of storyboards here were just reused from the original episodes, but it still sucks. This fits in much less with the rest of the films, with the uninspired direction they took for it. The cutting of some parts and the pacing overall make this a lesser version of the original series' version, and nothing more in my opinion. Don't think I'll revisit this for a while if ever.

I could go on with other comparisons (like how I wish the music was still from post-NGE era Sagisu instead of post-Bleach era, despite still being good compositions), but overall, I think the ride was worth it for this last film. I don't think I prefer this story to the original series, but TUAT was the first fully fledged Eva anime entry since EoE that I thought was fully great. And I think that's pretty swell, especially with it being as conclusive as it was.

[EvaPenguin]

I'm not a fan of the NTE tetralogy, especially in the wake of the last film, but some of them are definitely better than others. Here's how I'd rank them.

1. 3.33 (7/10) - It feels like something new and different, it actually has subtext, technical aspects like the blocking and coloring are vastly improved from the earlier films, and the visuals are distinctive and memorable (save for some parts of the opening act). While I'm not a fan of the new characters, pacing, or some design choices, it's the only NTE film that doesn't feel like it overstays its welcome, and I enjoy revisiting it every now and then.

2. 3.0+1.01 (5/10) - Visuals are great (most of the time), tries to do some interesting things. The narrative, thematics and characters are a mess, and it completely fails to build off of what 3.0 established. Even though it banks entirely on a hollow metatextual narrative to carry itself, EoE had a much better metatextual element that actually fit with the events leading up to it. While I don't really care that Shinji ended up with Mari, I thought it was concerning that they had no chemistry at all, with roughly spent ten minutes or less together over a 7 hour runtime. The ending is a disaster and is ironically pro-escapism. Ouch! But the music is good, and outside of the finale & fanservice shots I can't really bring myself to hate it.

3. 2.22 (4/10) - A mildly entertaining trash fire of a film that looks worse than the scenes it tries to copy. Not a fan of the de-saturated color palette, editing, script, jarring CGI, Mari, poorly choreographed fights, Eva's going beast mode, or anything really.

4. 1.11 (3/10) - A total downgrade compared to the original six episodes. Servers as a great example of why adapting a film directly from a TV show is a bad idea. The first six episodes had far better editing, sound design, pacing, dialogue, character development, and overall direction. Any interesting shot or scene is lifted wholesale from the original, and the new scenes are very forgettable. Feels incredibly inconsequential in the context of the NTE tetralogy as a whole and a film that truly doesn't have a need to exist save for some visual changes.

[Concerns]

1) 3.0
2) 3.0+1.0
3) 2.0
4) 1.0

I actually quite like NTE however I don't like how Asuka's backstory from NGE was completely thrown out of the window and replaced with her simply being a clone.
I'm also not a big fan of NTE's cgi scenes.

[Stan]

Now that I've watched them all, my final ranking is:

Best - 2.0
Second Best - 1.0
Third Best - Shin
Worst - 3.0

I still believe the 14-year time skip was a franchise-killing mistake for these Rebuilds.

[Blockio]

Looking at the amount of bank that Eva still makes, calling anything in NTE "franchise-killing" is a misnomer if I've ever one

[hui43210]

Looking at the amount of bank that Eva still makes, calling anything in NTE "franchise-killing" is a misnomer if I've ever one

Ya, I don’t see how making a film that brought in 10 million Yen and broke Amazon viewing records in Japan could be considered franchise killing. Not everyone will enjoy NTE but that doesn’t mean it was a failure as a whole.

For what it’s worth, the 14 time skip was by far my favourite aspect of NTE personally.

[Archer]

I mean really the real-world timeskip was the Rebuilds’ biggest obstacle. While it obviously would never have happened, I’m pretty sure 3.0 would’ve been way less controversial if 3.0+1.0 in something more or less resembling its actual release state had come out back in 2015-2016. Regardless your opinion on the movie itself, it’s objectively a pretty terrible place to suddenly have an 8 year hiatus.