Does FINAL even have a chance?

Discussion of the new series of Evangelion movies ( "Evangelion Shin Gekijōban", meaning "Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition"). The final instalment made its debut in Japan on March 8, 2021.

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Postby Ray » Fri Jun 27, 2014 12:24 am

View Original PostChuckman wrote:You gotta find happiness. Ain't gonna be handed to you.


It's not my happiness I'm worried about, its Shinji's, and it's gonna be kinda hard (an understatement) for him to find happiness in a world where he all but caused the freaking EXTINCTION of humanity! Twice!

Back on topic, If it's sad and tragic, I don't mind. . .As long as it's a good and compelling sad movie. As long as Anno does something new with it and it's not just an EOE rehash.

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Postby ChaddyManPrime » Fri Jun 27, 2014 12:48 am

^
Meh, I imagine the dead can come back if they want to, if 3rd Impact went down Instrumentality surely followed... unless Shinji wasn't there to give them the option to come back in which case they are boned.
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Postby Gendo'sPapa » Fri Jun 27, 2014 1:13 am

If you're expecting FINAL to be the be-all-end-all movie that answers all of life's questions then yeah, FINAL does (not) stand a chance.

If you just want FINAL to be a great conclusion to a great story & give a sense of closure & finality to Shinji's journey including a few other characters as well then FINAL stands a great chance.

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Postby Ray » Fri Jun 27, 2014 1:47 am

And I'm sure Nerds and Otaku alike will debate for years to come about which ending is superior to the other.

Final will be a Good movie. . .a divisive movie more than likely, but a good one. I'm gonna have to go on a long sabbatical from all things Eva after it though.

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Postby Mr. Tines » Fri Jun 27, 2014 2:01 am

Between Ha being Eva for people who don't like Eva, and Q having sawn off the branch it was sitting on by dropping pretty much everything from Ha on the floor, I'd say somewhere between slim and none. And I just heard Slim left town.
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Postby SEELE » Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:02 am

View Original PostChuckman wrote:I'd be satisfied with something other than "attention nerds: go outside, talk to people" the motion picture. Again. You made that point, Anno. Say something else.

Ray, stop whining about the endings. EoE has an unambiguously happy ending. Asuka was merely warning Shinji that she was about to throw up and wanted the stupid baka to hold her hair.

Yes, I know stupid baka is redundant. Chuckman cares not.


True man! :mwahaha: but stupid baka? Ths is like saying stupid-stupid. :hahaha:

Back on topic, If it's sad and tragic, I don't mind. . .As long as it's a good and compelling sad movie. As long as Anno does something new with it and it's not just an EOE rehash.


NTE is a tragedy. It has most similiarities with other prosa-tragedy. And it will ever be this kind of story (except maybe E7-E15). Most ppl dont like tragedies because they are "depressing stuff". And most ppl don't like sad stories. Its amazing how much ppl want Shinji to be happy and so on. But ask yourself: Would this really satisfy you? You like Shinji for who he is and if you take the possiblity that he got a happy ending - this might satisfy you? No i don't think it would be either good or satisfying for you. You read Kendrix fanfic, right? Did you remember what was so amazing about this fic? Not the fact that Shinji approached to Rei or Asuka but rather (especially after the Yamagishi arc) Shinji's breakdown and Misato's "help". With a closure ending to Evangelion we might see "no point in writing fanfic about it". Most of the fanfic out there are have a purpose: to make Shinji happy (general ship-fic, peggy-sue's ...) or tell a story for his "career" in this new world. But everyone who writes fanfic for eva (except Adam Kadmon and various darkfic-writer) wants to see Shinji happy and have a fullfilled life. Most of the time there a kids, a feiry deutscher Rotschopf or some of the crack pairings. I even saw OC's try to f*ck Shinji's brain out for the sake of his happieness and make him as happy as possible. The point is ... fanwank and fanfic's are "everytime" a opportunity in Eva because of E26 and Anno's POV of: there are tons of Shinji's out there in the head's of my fans.

The only thing that will be differ is his current life. He is married and so on. He isn't depressed. And maybe he thinks that his life take a more optimistic way and he only provide Q for being such a depressing movie to make it up for FINAL. He might did that on purpose ... who knows? He might want to make a Nadia 2.0 with his own franchise ... that would explain a hell lot of similiarities between Nadian and Q. So in this POV we can trust Anno for doing something "new".

Does FINAL even have a chance?


Compared to the predecessor? Nope. Never did and never will be. 2.0 made it clear ... its a overly painted whore who says "watch me i'm pretty". 1.0 not worth to mention except the Kaworu-scene. And Q jumped over the shark. Compared to EoE ... this is nuts!
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Final Fantasy 7 gets a remake. I hope it doesn't goes the same way NTE did.
Plus I kinda want to be done with this franchise for a while and concentrate on other things in life. - Guy Nacks

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Postby ChaddyManPrime » Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:42 am

^
Maybe Anno is making a comment on style over substance?
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Postby ElMariachi » Fri Jun 27, 2014 4:25 am

View Original PostChuckman wrote:I'd be satisfied with something other than "attention nerds: go outside, talk to people" the motion picture. Again. You made that point, Anno. Say something else.

He already abandoned that battle a long time ago, he said it explicitly in interviews, so it's clear that NTE doesn't want to give that kind of message.

Personally, I think that Anno wants to be more "classical" this time, with a classic story of the hero's journey to defeat a great threat and save the land.

In NGE the plot about protecting the world, defeating the Angels, the giant robots... were just a background, means for the true purpose of the series: a character studies centered around the need of self-acceptance and to take the risk to form emotional bonds with people, hedgehog dilemma be damned.
And this background took more and more a backsit as the series neared its end, with EoTV completely stopping to pretend that the story was about saving the world to go into full therapy mode, EoE giving us just more context and an epilogue. (and an absolutely kickass fight scene for Asuka! :D )

But in NTE I get the feeling that we're going the reverse way: 1.0 and 2.0 had many scenes were the characters were introspecting: Shinji and his doubts, Rei and her musings about how she thanked Shinji but never Gendo, Asuka's "talk" with her doll, then with Shinji and finally with Misato, even the scenes where the secondary characters where talking together (mainly Misato and Ritsuko) mainly talk about how are the pilots, their motivations and how they changed. The only scenes completely devoted to the plot (Angels, Lilith's covenant, the HIP, the "Cold War" between SEELE and NERV) are with Gendo and Fuyutsuki and when they have a reunion with SEELE.
So at first glance it looks like it'll be like NGE, a character study using giant robots, Angels and technobabble as the setting in the background. And then comes 3.0, and everything is turned on its head: the state of the world is thrown at Shinji's (and ours) face, and take the central attention. We don't have any scene of Shinji musing about if he tries to understand people and their motives, or the Hedgehog Dilemma, no Hell Train scenes, the main plot is "the world is wrecked, and we need to save it", the closest we have to introspection is Kaworu's observations about Shinji's personality when they were stargazing and during their piano session, and even that was revealed to be mainly a training in pilot synchronization for the more down to Earth objective to breach Lilith Chamber and accomplish his plan.

And all the others characters casted aside their personal motivations to concentrate on the world around: no more Misato fighting the Angels to avenge his father and "get to know him more", no more Asuka piloting for the praise, no more Mari piloting because it's fun (although from her POV it's obviously still the best thing on the world), now everyone is focused on defeating neo-NERV and SEELE and save the world.
Even for Shinji that was the case: his motivations was to repair the world not finding his purpose, even if part of his motivation was to be forgiven by everyone, but that's being human.

That's why I think that FINAL will be more centered on the fight against Gendo and saving the world than Shinji and his introspections. There will be some of course, notable to get him out of his funk and start to hope again, but the main story will be WILLE and its fight to prevent Instrumentality (with Shinji joining the fight, or not)
I mainly base this theory on an interview of Anno from the last year where he said that he realized that his formula from NGE, of a story centered around a character and his state of mind with the setting just used as a background and tool to explore said character's state of mind, was largely copied during the past years, to the point that stories of "Tales", where we have a large cast of character and the story is centered around them accomplishing something great together (think Legend of Galactic Heroes) became very rare, to his dismay, and that he wanted to make a "Tale" with the hope to make the genre popular again. So maybe the shift in 3.0 is an expression of this desire: we stop being focused on what's in Shinji's head, to focus on what's happening around him. Maybe that was what Asuka means by telling to him that he always only think of himself: "stop the navel gazing and look at the big picture, and that begins by listening to other people, even if what they have to say is contrary to what you believe!" (although she didn't made many efforts to communicate and be listened by him, unless guttural berserker screams became a common language in the past 14 years! :lol: )
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Postby Chuckman » Fri Jun 27, 2014 7:14 am

Guttural berserker screams are a language. The mean "I love you".
the prophecy is true

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Postby Stillborn » Fri Jun 27, 2014 8:48 am

So now she is dragging him into a cave by hand since his hair are to short to properly grab? :tongue:
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Postby movieartman » Fri Jun 27, 2014 11:16 am

i really really really really need Misato to forgive Shinji, fuck everyone else, i NEED Misato to forgive Shinji!

i need Shinji to punch Gendo in his fucking face!

if its a dark end, i need it to have a point, i H... A... T... E... pointlessness, i fucking despise deaths without cause or point, i HATE sacrifices and suffering that where in vain, i need there to be a point to it all.

if i get thoose, i expect i will be good with this movie.

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Postby Grimmjow » Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:33 pm

I think it would be interesting if FINAL focuses more on the action than Shinji's psychological issues.

I think in general although this Rebuild Shinji has many of the same problems, he is far more assertive and willing to take action than his previous incarnation.

Too much introspection on Shinji's part would drag the movie down and take it too far away from the overall tone of Rebuild so far.

That being said, how it handles instrumentality is going to be a big deal, as others have mentioned EoE is incredibly memorable for the way it depicted instrumentality.

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Postby SEELE » Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:36 pm

View Original PostGrimmjow wrote:I think it would be interesting if FINAL focuses more on the action than Shinji's psychological issues.

I think in general although this Rebuild Shinji has many of the same problems, he is far more assertive and willing to take action than his previous incarnation.

Too much introspection on Shinji's part would drag the movie down and take it too far away from the overall tone of Rebuild so far.

That being said, how it handles instrumentality is going to be a big deal, as others have mentioned EoE is incredibly memorable for the way it depicted instrumentality.


If Anno would made a 2-hour-walking through the red desert movie where in the end Asuka punches him, i would fly to Japan and kiss his god damn feets. This is something only Evangelion could do.
"Shinji repeatedly rises to the occasion, overcomes his own doubts and fears and puts others ahead of himself to the point of self harm. The situation overwhelms him. Victory does not define a hero. Intent does. He breaks at the end, but after inhuman, overwhelming, borderline comedic suffering." - Chuckman talking about Shinji as a hero
Final Fantasy 7 gets a remake. I hope it doesn't goes the same way NTE did.
Plus I kinda want to be done with this franchise for a while and concentrate on other things in life. - Guy Nacks

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Postby Grimmjow » Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:53 pm

View Original PostSEELE wrote:If Anno would made a 2-hour-walking through the red desert movie where in the end Asuka punches him, i would fly to Japan and kiss his god damn feets. This is something only Evangelion could do.


I'd personally love the movie if we get to see Rei II again in the movie, perhaps during Instrumentality. This movie series has been as much Rei's story as it is Shinjis and it would be a shame if we didn't get some degree of closure to that story.

I'd also like to see Rei III survive and get to grow into her own person. It hurt me in Eva 3.0 when Shinji bitches to Kaworu, "Why is she here? She isn't even the real Rei?"

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Postby SEELE » Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:57 pm

View Original PostGrimmjow wrote:This movie series has been as much Rei's story as it is Shinjis and it would be a shame if we didn't get some degree of closure to that story.


And that is why NTE will never be able to stood a chance against his pred. We all knew Rei would die. And most of all we knew it in NGE. Asuka is so much more useable to create a cooking/romantic subplot. But then again ... stupid Rei-shipper.
"Shinji repeatedly rises to the occasion, overcomes his own doubts and fears and puts others ahead of himself to the point of self harm. The situation overwhelms him. Victory does not define a hero. Intent does. He breaks at the end, but after inhuman, overwhelming, borderline comedic suffering." - Chuckman talking about Shinji as a hero
Final Fantasy 7 gets a remake. I hope it doesn't goes the same way NTE did.
Plus I kinda want to be done with this franchise for a while and concentrate on other things in life. - Guy Nacks

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Postby Ray » Fri Jun 27, 2014 4:27 pm

Kaworu is dead, Rei is dead (on top of being related to Shinji), Asuka and Misato are too old for Shinji. . .

Shippings out the window for the foreseeable future. . .maybe in a Rebuild spinoff comic/sequel Ova, but probably not.

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Postby Monk Ed » Fri Jun 27, 2014 4:51 pm

View Original PostSEELE wrote:And that is why NTE will never be able to stood a chance against his pred. We all knew Rei would die. And most of all we knew it in NGE.

Not sure what you mean by that last part. I personally never felt like Rei really died in any meaningful sense when she became Rei 3; rather I think the "death" she experienced is best viewed as plot device for her character arc, serving the same purpose as might temporary amnesia (witness Rei having her epiphany that she wants to be one with Shinji, forgetting it after her death and reverting to her same old Gendo-following mode of behavior, then re-realizing it at a critical moment in EoE).

Rebuild is different. Rei-Q and Rei-2 are much more drastically differentiated, and the narrative makes a point of hammering it over and over again that Rei-Q is her own person very distinct from her predecessor. Rei-Q is not a continuation of Rei-2's character arc; hers is her own, and that significantly changes the purpose of the death of Rei-2 in Rebuild as compared to NGE. The two events bear surface similarity at best.

So in fact, I would say it is not appropriate to say that "we all knew Rei would die". We all knew Rei would experience an event that we would call death, or at least we felt it likely, but many of us (including me) probably expected it to be more like her "death" in NGE, which was not much of one. In Rebuild, it seems like the whole point of Q was to underscore that no, it was for real this time, Rei really is gone just as much as any character death that has ever broken your heart in other shows, and so is the old world you knew and were familiar with.

I have a sinking feeling that Rei 2 is just going to stay dead in Final, for thematic reasons. Probably the same with the world and its current state. Rei is to Shinji in Rebuild as Yui is to Gendo, and blah blah letting go of the past, we have themes to think about here, etc. I'm sure we can see it all now. Which is precisely why I'm hoping to be surprised, because how boring would it be to get exactly what I'm expecting out of an Eva movie. I hope that Final will instead pull yet another hard left turn and wind up telling a completely different thematic story from the one seemingly set forth by its predecessor exactly the way Q changed the entire meaning and interpretation of Ha, but I'm not banking on it.
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Postby Stillborn » Fri Jun 27, 2014 5:10 pm

FINAL may be told from a perspective of a completly new character, we have not even seen before, appearing only for the purpose of making FINAL unexpected and leaving even more questions unanswered. :shrug:
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Postby LightDragonman » Sat Jun 28, 2014 12:14 am

And that is why NTE will never be able to stood a chance against his pred. We all knew Rei would die. And most of all we knew it in NGE. Asuka is so much more useable to create a cooking/romantic subplot. But then again ... stupid Rei-shipper.


Geez, that's not fair (and rather insulting to a Rei shipper like me). Just because Rei was fated to die in the original doesn't mean she has to in the new series, considering how much the story has deviated at this point.

Back to the topic at hand, I guess I'm just really concerned that FINAL will end up being this series' equivalent to The Matrix Revolutions. 3.33 was already pretty much The Matrix Reloaded what with it allowing the themes to overtake the story, twists that made the whole previous film feel pointless, and so on. Last thing I want is for FINAL to give us a completely ambiguous and non-climatic end that raises more questions than it does answers, and is totally driven by the themes and metaphors, and not the story and characters.

Come to think about it, one of my main problems with 3.33 is that, while it did indeed have a different story than the original series, it decided to bring back the extremely depressing and cynical tone, along with several of those exact same plot points and messages. This wouldn't be so bothersome to me, except that like the Matrix sequels, it played up all of this like it was just as groundbreaking and thought-provoking as it was in 1995. Having already watched that series, along with multiple anime that have taken those themes and either expanded upon them or refuted them (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann comes to mind for the latter), it doesn't come across as being nearly as interesting or thoughtful as it may have once been.

You may disagree, but that's how I saw it, and why the film as a whole just didn't work. The previous film seemed to understand that one can't simply repeat the messages and plot points of the original over again and expect them to be as revolutionary, so it tried to find a balance. 3.33 completely goes back to the tone and plot points of the original, and seems content to just play it up again with prettier visuals and different actions.

This is one of the reasons as to why I so hope that FINAL will be radically different from the original series' ending and the like (which also ties in to why I really hope that Rei II will be given another chance at life and such). If all that is going to happen is Anno repeating what he said back in 1997 in EOE, just with different aesthetics and story sequences, then I'd rather not watch it. However, if he manages to communicate something new and different than before, and changes the story and character arcs to demonstrate it, while making sure that they, not the themes, have center stage, then sign me up.
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Postby Chuckman » Sat Jun 28, 2014 12:24 am

It won't be radically different on a thematic level. It certainly won't end in shipping. Anno absolutely sees love as something you do after you get your shit together, not something you do to get your shit together.
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