Your Experience Seeing Rebuild in Theaters

[Knuckles]

Hey guys, long time lurker, first time posting. Thought I'd share my first public Eva experience as a way of introducing myself, as well as starting a new discussion. :]

I check the site regularly, and when I saw the post saying Rebuild 2.0 was coming to my area PLUS a 1.0 double showing.. I knew I had to go see it.

It ended up being pretty pricey, what with gas, admission, parking fees, highway tolls x_X... but I have to say, it was worth every penny.

I've seen Rebuild 2.0 twice before, first with the shitty camrip/fansub, then the 2.22 blu-ray, so I pretty much thought going into this that I was going to be slightly entertained at best. Boy, was I wrong. First of all, there were SO many more people than I thought there was going to be. When 1.0 came on, there were people packing every row; and by the time the main event (2.0) started, the entire theater was packed to the brim.

Now, I've never watched Eva with anyone else before. I always treated it like a deep show that you need to just sit down and fully engross yourself with, alone, to fully appreciate. But I have to say... watching it with a room full of people was one of the most enjoyable experiences I've ever had. Hearing the room erupt into laughter whenever Asuka inflicted pain onto Shinji, or whenever Rei gave a humorous deadpan response, was great. This girl sitting beside me gave me quite an insight into how girls react to the shippy parts of Eva as well: everytime something cute happened between Shinji/Rei she would go 'aww' or give off a little squeak. And it wasn't just her, muffled squees could be heard throughout the theater, it was cute and very humanizing. Not to mention I ship Shinji/Rei, so hearing an audience full of people root them on... I dunno, it was a very unique feeling :P

It was also hilarious how the room would go from roaring laughter to COMPLETE SILENCE whenever Rei's boobies came on screen.

My ONE gripe with the entire thing was that some people would laugh at moments you should just NOT LAUGH AT. For example when Rei runs in with the nuke to sacrifice herself... a handful of people laughed like ZOMG Rei WITH GIANT NUKE LOZLLL. Knowing what really happened during this scene in the TV series, seeing them laugh at this really pissed me off. Like really, I was angry.

The best part of the entire experience though was definitely at the end. Soon as Misato gave her 'The world is ending.' finishing line and the screen went to black, the entire audience stood up and gave a standing ovation. Coming from a long time Eva fan who's never even known anyone irl that was into Evangelion half as much as I am, you can imagine how great of a feeling this was. I felt like yelling YES. YOU CHEER FOR MY SHOW, DAMN RIGHT IT'S AMAZING. , etc etc. :p

Anyways, it was such a great time, and I would advise anyone with a car to drive to the nearest showing, especially if it's a double showing. It'll be worth it.

[Shogo-Kun]

Glad to hear you enjoyed it! Will you be getting the dub from Funimation? Because I'll be getting that.

[Knuckles]

I've yet to watch the English dub at all. I plan on torrenting the series in English and giving it a viewing before I decide on watching 2.0 in English.


Oh I also forgot to mention in the OP that seeing the movies in theaters is SO MUCH BETTER than watching them at home. The action is more loud and intense with the huge screen and theater surround sound, it really made the already flawless soundtrack shine. It also made the more touching and emotional scenes, well... more emotional. I teared up more than once, I'm not ashamed to admit.

[EvangelionFan]

Glad that you had a good time seeing it in theatres. I did, when both films were shown in a couple of cities in Australia last September.

Also, EGF doesn't permit people to use formatted text as their default; so take out the green colour tags and you'll be alright.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

My experience was AWESOME! Though, mainly because of the people I went with, and the fact that I hadn't seen the film via internet or Japanese imports. I always wanted to see Eva in the big screen, and I did! It was a shame that there was no surround sound, and that the stereo that was provided was reversed, and I wished they had turned up the audio just a bit. It wasn't hard to hear anything, but I didn't get blasted by surround sound, either. But I met some new folks there and talked with some old friends as well. And they all thought like I did! (Which was almost scary, in retrospect.)

[Knuckles]

Glad that you had a good time seeing it in theatres.

EGF doesn't permit people to use formatted text as their default; so take out the green colour tags and you'll be alright.

Thanks, will do.


@Freaky: Sounds fun. I only went with my cousin, I dragged him along even though he knew nothing of Eva, and he enjoyed it. Good job holding out until it came in theaters though, I couldn't wait I had to watch the camrip haha.

[Ornette]

I saw both 1.0 and 2.0 in Japan when they came out. There were no English subtitles but the movies were simple enough to follow without them. I wrote up the experience(s) here:

1.0

2.0

It was a pretty good experience. People clapped at the end, but they didn't go crazy. Everywhere was Evangelion hog wild.

[Eva 04]

Guys are lucky. I've never seen either Rebuild movie in a theater. No where around here is lucky enough.

[Knuckles]

I saw both 1.0 and 2.0 in Japan when they came out. There were no English subtitles but the movies were simple enough to follow without them. I wrote up the experience(s) here:

Wow, that was a pretty amazingly detailed synopsis of the plot (2.0) for just going by memory. You must have done great on tests.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

@Freaky: Sounds fun. I only went with my cousin, I dragged him along even though he knew nothing of Eva, and he enjoyed it. Good job holding out until it came in theaters though, I couldn't wait I had to watch the camrip haha.

Haha! I'm getting a friend of mine to watch Eva for the first time, and all he's seeing is the Rebuild series. I'm kinda using him as my guinea pig on one's first time Eva experience with Rebuild, and he knows it. (Geez, that sounds almost evil and diabolical. I guess I am a freaky film fan.)

Wow, that was a pretty amazingly detailed synopsis of the plot (2.0) for just going by memory. You must have done great on tests.

That's nothing. I'm writing a 16-page comparative analysis between the film and the original episodes covered in the show, and I only saw the movie that one time in theaters. It should be finished shortly after the DVD release. *dick measuring begins...*

[Oz]

I saw 2.0 with Xard at Bio Rex in Helsinki last September when we were there for the film festival. We were blown away even if the theater wasn't as great as it could have been.

[Xard]

yeah, there were some sound problems with few scenes (I suspect that was due to the film reel itself though) but apart from that it was awesome experience

and of course it was jap dub, yay

[Oz]

I was referring to the theater itself. It was a bit too large and the sound wasn't convincing enough due to that. Also, the seats could have been better. Kinopalatsi's Number 7 (where we saw Summer Wars and Love Exposure) remains my favorite with Orion as a close second favorite.

[Hatsumi92]

I saw 2.0 in Glasgow over a year ago. Some dude and a girl before the movie started talked about the BBFC rating system and said some shit about 1.0 potentially only being a PG (iirc it got a 12 rating in the end) movie because the blood isn't blood it's GOOP which is supposed to look like blood!

And that guy went on about something.. I think it was about how in Japan they have Eva everything and he met someone from Gainax and he had a NERV laptop.

The experience with the movies was a whole lot of fun though. It was a 1.0 and 2.0 back to back thing. They used Manga Entertainments UK subtitles which went off the screen 2 or 3 times. I also question the accuracy of those subtitles. I don't think Gendo actually says "Those damn bastards are breaking through" when Sachiel first attacks, but that's what the subs said.

The 2.0 subtitles were like.. Japanese formatted subtitles. Example, if two people are talking:

- Hey, Evangelion is pretty cool--
- No it's not.

And the subtitles would abbreviate ranks such as Sargent and Lieutenant as Sgt. and stuff.

Everyone applauded 2.0 like crazy people when it finished and laughed at the Kaworu bit at the end.

Fun.

[Fazmotron]

I went to the Australian premier of 2.0 in Sydney last year.
Yuko Miyamura was there, along with Tiffany Grant and Matt Greenfield, even though it was the Japanese version being screened, and Grant had yet to be offered the part. It was also her first time seeing the movie.

I went back to Sydney a few months later to see 1.01 and 2.0 (both in Japanese) along with all the other anime films being screened by Madman for their ReelAnime film festival.

[gatotsu911]

I saw 1.0 in theaters back in '09, and even did a writeup on it. 2.0 I saw at a convention last month, and haven't written about just yet. Both experiences were tons of fun, though, and I know for certain I'll be doing it again come 3.0.

[BrikHaus]

Saw 1.0 dubbed in the theater, it was fun. Saw 2.0 subbed a few months ago in the theater. Good, too, but I was curious to hear the dub. My wife said to me, "We are probably the only two non-virgins in the whole room." Can't argue with that.

[Knuckles]

Saw 1.0 dubbed in the theater, it was fun. Saw 2.0 subbed a few months ago in the theater. Good, too, but I was curious to hear the dub. My wife said to me, "We are probably the only two non-virgins in the whole room." Can't argue with that.

Yeahhhh. About that, haha. There were a looooot of freaky lookin people there: but considering the majority of anime fans are either goth, scene, or geeks/nerds, that is to be expected. To be completely honest it was kind of embarrassing seeing really nerdy kids openly talk about Eva in the lobby. <_<;; And when I say 'kind of', I mean extremely.

But LOL I forgot one part. After the credits rolled, more than half of the audience stood for the trailer at the end. When Misato gave her catchphrase "More fanservice!", the whole audience cheered and clapped hahaha. But the funniest part was this REALLY old guy in front of me, he had to have been at least 50 and he was there by himself. When she said that he lifted up his hands and pumped them into the air in victory and yelled "YEAHHHHH!".

I died laughing. Couldn't even hold it in.

[BC Baron]

I had an opportunity to see 2.0 last weekend with a group of people who, at first, led me to believe it would contain the new English audio track, but when I found out (at the last minute) that it would be in Japanese with subtitles, I changed my mind. What can I say? I've already listened to the Japanese version several times and had my heart set on checking out the dub. I was feeling a little disappointed and bummed out, when...

the funniest part was this REALLY old guy in front of me, he had to have been at least 50 and he was there by himself. When she said that he lifted up his hands and pumped them into the air in victory and yelled "YEAHHHHH!".

Just reading about this has put a smile back on my face.

[Mr. Tines]

REALLY old guy in front of me, he had to have been at least 50