Debate the quality of Rebuild here. [2]

[Sicarius VI]

^Yeah a lot of it ended up being meta at the end. The plot at the end was nothing more than background noise.

[Baden]

Watch the Original series, preferably the Sub or the ADV dub, and then watch the End of Evangelion, and that's it, in my opinion the rebuilds aren't worth watching and can lessen the experience of the main series and EOE, it lacks most of what makes Evangelion great and were either made just to make more money for Anno through merchandising or to challenge some views that Anno disliked in the community. They also don't add anything to the story as by the End of Evangelion the story is complete. But that is just my reccommendation.

[Blockio]

were either made just to make more money for Anno through merchandising.

A strawman that is easily disproven by simply comparing the density of merch made for NGE compared to the merch made for NTE; the former had orders of mangitude more. Either both have artistic vision, or both are a cheap cashgrab; you can't have your cake and eat it. I also find the notion laughable that something that only exists to cash in on merchandise would take almost a decade between entries and then not provide new forms of the most marketable design to turn into easy merch money, no?

to challenge some views that Anno disliked in the community.

This is factually incorrect, on the grounds that the thing that people claim the movies are supposed to criticize being largely not present in the Japanese fanbase, and the english-speaking fanbase is barely a blip on the radar for the writers, not least of which because of the language barrier

They also don't add anything to the story as by the End of Evangelion the story is complete. But that is just my reccommendation.

Because they are a separate story, yes. Does the 2008 Iron Man movie add anything to the 1994 cartoon?

[Baden]

It is objectively a much worse story than the original, the first film is basically a retelling of the first 13 episodes of the show but being compressed into such a small amount of time it looses its charm, also the rest of the movies include boring and very shallow characters like mari and removes what made characters like Rei and Asuka original and interesting, it also removes the scene of Kaji watering his melons which was one of the best scenes in the show with some scene of mari telling Shinji some bs even tho they don't even know each other and have met once prior to that. The last movie has one interesting aspect which is that we see Gendo's reasoning and inner thoughts but we can also see his motives in the main series if we just look a bit deeper. The last movie's ending is also just much worse than the original, with Shinji going into the future with a person he barely knows (he met her 3 times before that) and abandoning all his friendships and people he met in the story. In my opinion the Rebuilds are not worth watching at all and they can lessen the experience of the original story if you watch them soon after completing it.

[Blockio]

Judging by your use of it, I do not believe you know, what the term "objectively" actually implies. What you mean to say is that you, subjectively, did not enjoy them; the question aside if there even is such a thing as objective quality of a piece of artwork, your hatred seems to stem entirely from the fact that you are both mad that it is like NGE, and then also mad that it isn't like NGE.
You are free to dislike the movies, but I will ask you to tune down the hyperbole, if this is to go anywhere; this is a space for productive debate, not for soapbox ranting and broad stroked negativity. You have the entirety of social media for that.

[It's Justy!]

As an Eva fan, Rebuild was most of the way there in terms of being narratively satisfying, with 3.0 being the low point for me and 3.0+1.0 ending the series pretty well. I had some real issues with Q, namely that I felt its story undercut the emotional climax of 2.0 with Rei's character. The sense that I got was that the story writers were trying to get to the Kaworu/Shinji dynamic, but couldn't quite figure out how to get there from the jumping off point of 2.0's ending. The world-building in Q was also a weak point for me, with all the time-skip stuff feeling overwhelming to absorb right off. When I saw 3.0+1.0 and all the great stuff in the village, I felt like that world-building should've been in 3.0!

3.0+1.0 was overall enjoyable but I had a few (minor) problems with it: I thought the CG Rei at the end looked distractingly bad, and that opening fight felt excessive and weightless. I think I would've preferred a fight against an enslaved Angel, like a culmination of the research of the Third Angel applied to the 11th.

Still though, I thought the Rebuild movies were alright and the ending was very nice, but to me, it's kind of sad that this is probably "it" for Evangelion beyond spin-offs, parodies, pachinko machines, and such. They could remake the original--an idea I imagine is written on a piece of paper in a glass box in Khara that says "Break in case of financial problems"--or do interquel OVAs I guess, but Anno has basically said he's done with Eva, so whatever comes out will be without his authorial voice.

[Konja7]

The world-building in Q was also a weak point for me, with all the time-skip stuff feeling overwhelming to absorb right off. When I saw 3.0+1.0 and all the great stuff in the village, I felt like that world-building should've been in 3.0!

The point in 3.0 is that the audience shouldn't be fascinated with its world-building. People are supposed to feel as lost and confused as Shinji does.

That said, early plans for 3.0 have a version of Village-3 (where Shinji will find his friends and heal after Kaworu's death) at the end of the movie. However, they probably put this story off until 3.0+1.0 because they didn't have enough time for an proper development.

[It's Justy!]

The world-building in Q was also a weak point for me, with all the time-skip stuff feeling overwhelming to absorb right off. When I saw 3.0+1.0 and all the great stuff in the village, I felt like that world-building should've been in 3.0!

The point in 3.0 is that the audience shouldn't be fascinated with its world-building. People are supposed to feel as lost and confused as Shinji does.

That said, early plans for 3.0 have a version of Village-3 (where Shinji will find his friends and heal after Kaworu's death) at the end of the movie. However, they probably put this story off until 3.0+1.0 because they didn't have enough time for an proper development.

Yeah, it worked somewhat from a character perspective, because I was sympathizing with Shinji! I get the use of a fish-out-of-water character, but as an audience member the story pacing of Q and the way it was told was starting to cross the line from confusion to frustration for me. Felt like it could've been done better, but not sure how.

[Axx°N N.]

The point in 3.0 is that the audience shouldn't be fascinated with its world-building. People are supposed to feel as lost and confused as Shinji does.

Well, they are though, as is evident by a lot of the flack it received.

One can understand the intent but still find the execution lacking.

The way you phrase it, it makes it seem like NTE is a narrative that instructs and dictates ... to me, the goal of a narrative should be, instead, to persuade. And I'm not sure it's convincingly or organically persuasive to implement a massive retroactive canon and then do all you can to peel curious eyes away. I think this creates an unavoidable tension between intent and execution that fails to resolve.

[Konja7]

One can understand the intent but still find the execution lacking.

I agree on this point. I don't think the execution in 3.0 was lacking, but I understood it might not work for other people.

I mentioned the intent because it seems relevant to explain why they don't generate more world-building in 3.0.

[Nova]

It tangentially reminds me of the debate surrounding MGSV and whether it itself, in a meta way, represents a 'Phantom Pain' to fans of the series and further, whether that was intentional or not. If it is intentional, does the fact that it was a deliberate choice absolve it of the need to provide closure to those fans? Surely that will differ from person to person and how much stock they place in artistic intent over their own personal experience. I feel it's the same with 3.0's lack of worldbuilding and I personally value the effort to bring the viewer into Shinji's shoes more, but clearly that doesn't have to be a universal response.

[Axx°N N.]

I actually have no problem with the decision when Q is viewed in a vacuum. Back when that's all there was I was a defender of the alienation, which I took and still take as intentional.

I think what I have more trouble rationalizing is the relationship between Q's creative choices and Shin's, which are hard to reconcile in no small part thanks to the feeling that the plan of action merely changed, and retroactively makes the alienation feel less meaningful.

The dynamic at play is now "make 'em feel bad," in Q, "make 'em feel good" in Thrice. In terms of a narrative being an immersive construct, the push and pull and play of it feels like bad sleight of hand, a readable poker face, etc. Each pole renders the other feeling arbitrary when the connective tissue in between seems to rely on the crux of Anno having simply changed his mind and his perspective off-screen.

The overwhelming response to both kind of bums me out. Q was alienating so people didn't like it. Quell shock. Thrice offers an ingratiating "sorry" and a kind of emotional servicing so its sins are forgiven and it gets approval. Quell surprise.

What I feel suffers is that there's no sense (as there once was, for me at least) that Eva is a narrative driven quite stubbornly by its characters.

[Konja7]

I think what I have more trouble rationalizing is the relationship between Q's creative choices and Shin's, which are hard to reconcile in no small part thanks to the feeling that the plan of action merely changed, and retroactively makes the alienation feel less meaningful.

Well, the images boards of an early version of Q shows that ideas like Shinji meeting Kensuke and Touji (who are friendly), healing from the trauma of Kaworu's death and deciding to return to the Wunder existed since the creation of Q (Rei Q finding a place in Village 3 too). So, it's sure to say the concepts of Village-3 part in 3.0+1.0 weren't really changed (at most they were more developed).

The original plan always seems to have been that Shinji (and the audience) would feel lost and isolated when he awakes, but he would find healing and determination in Village 3 after Kaworu's death. There just wasn't enough time to adequately develop all that in 3.0.

[Axx°N N.]

The original plan always seems to have been that Shinji (and the audience) would feel lost and isolated when he awakes, but he would find healing and determination in Village 3 after Kaworu's death. There just wasn't enough time to adequately develop all that in 3.0.

I don't assert these creative choices never existed in any form prior the hiatus--but by all accounts, the hiatus did have a profound impact on the final product.

It's almost pointless to say, but the Shin that could have been had it been pushed out immediately couldn't possibly have the same emotional tone as our post-hiatus Shin. I imagine I'd still have problems regarding the lack of organic sense of character if Toji, Kensuke and the village existed in Q.

The disjointed nature of Shin is emphasized by the feeling that it cordons off certain parts of the narrative, almost all of which are positive, whereas Q houses all the bleak stuff. But it still would feel odd and disjointed if within the same film the Wille crew was so cruel and Shinji's adult friends so benevolent. That particular element of the narrative--that the characters are grouped into these opposing emotional extremes--has always made me feel the presence of the writer's hand too much. As if they're sticking pins in characters and playing puppetmaster. Misato drew the jerk lot, Toji the kind lot, etc. Or as if the narrative tone was decided ahead of time to be something that vacillates, then rationalized after the fact on a character by character basis.

The fact that the militant Wille is so harsh and the communal village outpost so nice is itself a premise--forget the mech battles--and requires more exploration, otherwise you end up with the (seemingly) unintentional takeaway that trauma turns you into an asshole (see: Midori), and/or a rogue militia is inherently a corrosive environment. The problem with these bits of narrative architecture is the fact that everyone in the village has also faced trauma, and being some kind of affiliation of Wille, has no real reason not to suffer the effects of a militant cultural mode. Militant attitudes are not solved by community--they're often aided--and so the way Shin proffers community as some kind of inherent cure for all kinds of ailments doesn't ring true to me. Wille is, after all, also a community, or could be if it weren't decided it's just a cold harsh place because reasons. It's only in Thrice that there's levity and some meaningful positive bonds are displayed. The subjectivity of perspective can be extreme, but "it's Shinji's POV" can't hand-wave anything and everything ... it feels too much like certain realities are elided for the sake of effect and often in forceful ways.

I don't think that the village would logically resemble its cultural expressions given the premise at hand. There's no reason for people not to be hostile, suspicious, for there to be some faction that expresses the barbs of Wille.

The result of this lack of exploration and connective tissue is that there's an odd feel to the narrative spaces, as if at the core of the Wunder is a jerk orb sending out jerk waves (cue Spongebob orb of confusion gif) whereas the village, which is literally a Nice Place protected by the pervasive Not-Nice outside it by an actual force-field, also is shielded by a figurative force-field causing everyone to be sedated into only pleasantry.

We get two exceptions:

Certain Wille staff wait an entire film before making brief overtures of absolution for Shinji, but they're token comments that don't lead to anything more than passive remarks.
Hikari's dad is a jerk for 20 seconds, and then never says anything again.

Neither of these instances operate beyond the briefest of acknowledgments that not every single person in either setting is in some kind of attitude hive-mind, and neither are meaningful character details. It's almost like they're there just because it would be odd if they weren't, but their mere existence being sufficient would be like getting a full stomach by looking at the pictures on a restaurant menu. Hikari's dad's sourness and the fact some of the bridge bunnies disagree on the Shinji Question isn't some integral aspect that gives insight into their personhood, nor does it have consequence on the story; those two things seem to me to be mutually inclusive.

[Konja7]

I don't think that the village would logically resemble its cultural expressions given the premise at hand. There's no reason for people not to be hostile, suspicious, for there to be some faction that expresses the barbs of Wille.

To be fair, Kensuke and Touji seem to be hiding Shinji's identity from Village-3 people. So, I don't think the way people in Village 3 would act so different from WILLE crew if they knew Shinji's identity (Asuka seems to have issues with Village 3 people).

That said, Shinji doesn't really interact with Village 3 inhabitants (that's more on Rei Q). The main connections for Shinji in Village 3 are Kensuke and Touji.


About Kensuke and Touji being so nice, while WILLE crew are hostile, the explanation seems to be that Touji and Kensuke are Shinji's friends. Now, Kensuke and Touji also hold Shinji responsible for the N3I, but they don't seem to have a grudge.

Even Misato and Asuka aren't really angry about Shinji starting the N3I (although -46h shows Asuka holds him responsible for this). Asuka is angry with Shinji for another reason, while Misato is using the "Commander mask" and dealing with her own guilt.

[Axx°N N.]

To be fair, Kensuke and Touji seem to be hiding Shinji's identity from Village-3 people. So, I don't think the way people in Village 3 would act so different from WILLE crew if they knew Shinji's identity (Asuka seems to have issues with Village 3 people).

That said, Shinji doesn't really interact with Village 3 inhabitants (that's more on Rei Q).

That's the thing, though. I don't see the villager's reactions to Rei Q as logical either. The premise at hand is a severest of population reductions, and a village so small-scale everyone would have the easiest time imaginable keeping tabs on every single person. A new person in this situation, out of the blue, should at least raise some kind of curiosity. Barring someone having gotten pregnant, where in the world could these new teens have come from?

That's just one element that the village people seem implausibly incurious about. Isn't it sort of strange that we never see Gendou brought up in the context of the village? We don't really have any insight into the way the village people perceive themselves in relation to the rest of the plot, including their angle on the figure who caused their situation.

They're kept in the dark, and exist in a vacuum that is more a contrived creative decision than anyone would choose to implement on themselves. People are naturally curious and varied, but not in the village. I don't think that's a logical result of an apocalyptic scenario, it's more like they're living in some kind of presumed utopia. They seem to exist as metaphor for the idea of a nice community, situated into a situation that would not naturally give rise to their mode of peace. I understand the idea of our capacity to sublimate and repress and triumph in the face of setbacks, but it's such a uniform expression of it that it doesn't transcend being a nice thought.

I don't think you end up with a culture that narcoleptic without it having been a reaction, somehow, to the whys and wherefores, but what did that look like and how did it go about? I think it's too much to ask we take it for granted.

Similarly, I don't see how you end up with a crewmember having Midori's intensity of resentment without having been conditioned into it via some kind of militant propoganda, something owing to the culture onboard Wunder. But by the end of Thrice it seems like the Wunder is mostly just a band of friends, in a way that almost contradicts the way everyone carries themselves around in Q. I'm not saying there's no situation in which a Midori with a gun aimed at Shinji doesn't happen, but I can't help but feel the dialogue should be different. It doesn't seem realistic that no one would have had some kind of more varied and nuanced talk about Shinji during a slow day's mess hall or something. Even given Misato's guilt leading to some kind of reticence on that subject, 14 years is too long a time for the perspectives to be so discordant from other crewmates. It just gives the feeling of Wunder as a ship where no one talks outside of the times we see them talk, and one doesn't get a strong idea of how Misato as authority has had an effect on interpersonal politics aboard the ship. I have a hard time picturing what a meeting even looks like or how Maya would get along with Mari, for instance. The situations here don't feel like an arrangement of elements that would organically lead to the events which follow, but more like "there needs to be conflict, so we've put a gun into one of their hands." Midori needs to be crazy, so we make her crazy, then we attach a traumatic backstory so it doesn't seem random. But can you really say that the idea of someone suffering from trauma to the point of brandishing a weapon is being explored here with any kind of probing curiosity? Does it feel like a concept that is receiving a treatment that is interested beyond formality, introducing the feeling of in-the-moment drama, and moving the plot along?