WisperG

[BBvideo 525,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UfBqCw1Tl8[/BBvideo]

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And of course, we’ll see you on March 22nd, when the ass kicking begins!

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[align=center]WisperG’s Extremely Long Impressions on Evangelion 3.0![/align]

[tab=30]Evangelion 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo. Two long years after I was teased by 2.22’s post-credit preview I finally got to see it. Instead of attending a late showing at a local theater I decided to drive to the next town over, mostly as an excuse to check out a newly reopened art house theater. And I must say it was definitely worth the trip. This movie was quite the emotional rollercoaster for many, myself included, and so I’ve chosen to compose my thoughts on it below.

[tab=30]What started out as a few short paragraphs of impressions began to evolve into a full blown review before devolving back into something in-between. A few somewhat disjointed paragraphs lumped into three categories, which a little speculation thrown in for good measure. I realize the Dislikes section may seem a bit bloated but I assure you I did enjoy the movie immensely. Though there were several things I took issue with or thought were strange, most (but not all) of them were more personal preference than stuff I actually thought hurt the film (but there was a bit of that too).

I’ve got a lot to cover here, so let’s get started.

Likes

– Let’s start with the amazing animation and visuals. As expected from a theatrical film in one of the most popular anime franchises of all time it looks really dang good. Smooth animation, lots of details, and as expected from Anno, plenty of drool-worthy action scenes and grotesque, ominous imagery. Although the film was rather… grey, I thought it paralleled the darker tone of the movie well (and I can probably assume that was their intention). When color was present (like that of the Eva’s color schemes) it contrasted nicely with the rest of the non-so-colorful backgrounds. In short, Eva 3.0 was pure eye candy from start to finish.

– Animation aside, one of the best aspects of the film was by far the fantastic musical score. Often loud and epic but soft when it needed to be, and that ending theme is simply beautiful. The music really helped amplify the “theatrical experience.” I am going to import this soundtrack. I don’t care how much it costs.

– Even though the new direction the films have taken has rubbed some people the wrong way, taking the series in a new direction was kind of the whole point of the Rebuild movies and I applaud them for taking that to the extreme. It’s pretty cool seeing these characters that we’re so familiar with in new situations and taking on new challenges. Rebuild may not be as deep or thought provoking as the TV series, but if nothing else these movies are crazy entertaining.

– A personal favorite scene of mine (and of many others apparently) was Fuyutsuki’s chat with Shinji. Fuyu’s only significant scene in the movie as well as his only interaction with Shinji had a special sense of artistic beauty to its presentation. The game they were playing combined with the ominous background visuals and Shinji finally getting some of the answers he was so desperately seeking one of the best segments of the entire film.

Mixed Feelings

– I can definitely understand why the writers decided to keep Shinji in the dark on… everything. I think it was pretty brilliant that this movie really makes the audience feel like they’re in Shinji’s shoes and just as lost and confused as he is, but having said that it did feel very forced at times and there really wasn’t a good reason why. The common-sense of the Wunder’s crew was definitely sacrificed for the sake of the plot. Nearly all the events of this movie could have been averted by Shinji receiving a few kind words and a straightforward explanation of what’s going on and why they don’t need him to pilot anything by Misato. Apparently, everyone that knows Shinji completely forgot about his fragile personality and his need to be accepted and needed and decided to treat him the EXACT OPPOSITE. Makes total sense /sarcasm.

– Shinji just can’t get his happy ending can he? He almost got it in 2.0, but then he started to go all 3rd Impact on everyone. And then they try to make the viewers think that Rei2 is gone (though I get the feeling we may get some closure on that in 4.0). And then he gets manipulated into initiating 3rd Impact AGAIN. Holy heck, that kid has been through so much crap. He deserves to get a happy ending (Eva TV’s ending could be considered that, but given its theoretical ties to EoE, maybe not).

Dislikes

– Eva 3.0 had VERY FEW LIKEABLE CHARACTERS. Seriously, aside from Fuyutsuki, Sakura and kinda-sorta Kaworu everyone is kind of a bunghole now. Especially Misato, who was even “supportive” of Shinji’s god-mode rampage at the end of 2.0, seems to have little sympathy for him now. Although she does redeem herself a bit when she can’t bring herself to activate Shinji’s death-collar as he escapes with Unit-00, showing she does still care about Shinji.

– Aside from Shinji (and to a lesser extent, Kaworu), no one really got any significant amount of screen time. Which I guess makes sense as this was very clearly “Shinji’s movie”, but I was still a tad disappointed that nearly all the people that previously played major roles were demoted to barely-there side characters.

– There was practically ZERO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT for anybody not named Shinji. This ties in closely with the previous two points, as the lack of character development is mostly a side effect of the lack of screen time for the entire cast, which in turn made it hard to sympathize with everyone’s new “lets glare at Shinji and not tell him anything” attitudes. This was definitely a plot-driven movie rather than a character-driven one like the previous films (and Eva TV) were.

– The lack of character development wasn’t as big of a problem for returning characters, since the fans already know a lot about them and can fill in some of the gaps themselves with prior knowledge. But they introduced not one, but FOUR new characters in 3.0 that barely got a minute of screen time. I fear they’ll turn out like Mari has, i.e. they really have no good reason to exist plot-wise beyond selling figures and merchandise (at least not yet). But with only one film to go I’m not exactly optimistic that any of Rebuild’s 5 new people will get the development they need.

– Going to Kaworu specifically, we learned NOTHING about him and none of the questions raised by his cryptic appearances in the first two films were answered (like how he already seemed to know Shinji, or why he was asleep in a coffin on the moon). We were teased through two movies by his cameos and what did we learn in the end? Absolutely nothing.

– Rei’s character development and personality took a major step back as well. I realize this is in line with what happened in the TV series but after her significant personality development of the previous film, Rei2’s (possible?) loss felt more like a punch to the gut. Oh, and FYI from here on out, to make things simpler I’ll refer to the Rei from 1.0 and 2.0 as Rei2 (after her Eva TV counterpart), the Rei from EoE and the last few episodes of Eva TV as Rei3, and the Rei from 3.0 as ReiQ (To be fair, I stole that nickname from Evageeks. I was going to call her Rei3, but all those discarded Rei clones on display in Fuyu’s Shogi room seems to imply that she’s not the 3rd, despite having basically the same role as EoE/Eva TV’s Rei3)

– Another issue I had with 3.0, and this is totally subjective, was that in a weird way it didn’t really feel like “Evangelion” to me (EoE notwithstanding), or perhaps I feel this way because of the huge tonal shift from the previous movies. Eva always had this great balance between the Eva vs. Angel fighting and the light-hearted slice of life and school bits. 2.0 upped the amount of slice of life/light-hearted content by a good margin with scenes that wouldn’t feel out of place in The Shinji Ikari Raising Project manga (namely, the aquarium trip and Rei and Asuka wanting to cook for Shinji). And then they just… threw it out the window. The only scene in 3.0 that really compares is Shinji’s piano lessons and his bromance time with Kaworu. Everything else is quite bleak. I desperately hope 4.0 can recapture some of that like 2.0 did so well.

Minor Nitpicks and Questions

– No Unit-01. It’s there, but for something that’s so significant to the plot we don’t even get to see it besides a brief glimpse of its eye.

– Where’s Kaji? One of the new guys knows him and he was fine at the end of the last movie. I suppose he may have met the same fate as his TV counterpart during the 14 year gap, but I REALLY hope he makes an appearance in the final film. He was always one of my favorite characters.

– Why is Asuka mad at Shinji? The fact that it was kind of his fault she was in a coma for a while didn’t really come up. She was pissed at him and wouldn’t say exactly why. Or maybe I’m already forgetting important details…

– Rebuild almost feels like a glorified fanfic (not unlike how Tenchi OVA3 kinda felt to me). With all the inconsistencies, personality changes, crazy plot twists, new (yet underutilized) characters, and (sometimes) mindless action Eva 3.0 really felt to me like a big budget animated fan fiction. I’m… not really sure if that’s a bad thing or not, which is why I stuck it in this section.

Speculation

These next few paragraphs kind of reach across every category a bit, so for the sake of not splitting them up I’ll just give them their own section as they do deal with a lot of speculation on my part.

– I really liked the scene where Rei3 (complete with school girl uniform) appeared to ReiQ while she was floating in her orange tank. It’s a great reference to one of the first scenes of both 1.0 and Eva TV, as well as one of the last scenes of EoE, where Rei mysteriously appears to Shinji for a split second before disappearing. There are several theories about this, but one of them has always stuck out to me (the last 2 paragraphs at that link). Basically, after merging with Lilith and attaining god-like powers, Rei3 could exist everywhere at once, which we see in EoE as millions of Rei’s simultaneously collect the souls of everyone on Earth. Yes, she technically “dies” at the end, but do concepts like time and death really mean anything to a god? Based on this, which we see AFTER Shinji stops Instrumentality and Lilith falls to pieces, I’m going to say no. That seems to imply that Rei/Lilith went back in time, so to speak (or rather, she now exists throughout all of time, or something like that) to observe Shinji and the events of Eva TV as they happened.

– Rei2’s appearance in 3.0, despite disappearing inside Unit-01, opens up a whole lot of potential for speculation. Is it a hint of whats to come? Will one of the Rei’s end up taking on a role similar to her role in EoE? Or perhaps that’s already happened, and it’s hinting at the mysterious events surrounding 3rd Impact that the viewer doesn’t get to see because of the time skip? It’s hard to say, but that opens up another big can of worms regarding Lilith’s resemblance to Rei, despite not having absorbed her like in EoE. She couldn’t have absorbed Rei2, who was already merged into Unit-01. More likely than Rei2 somehow finding a way out of Unit-01, Nerv may have just made another clone, i.e. Rei3, who then goes on to serve her same role as in EoE, fusing with Lilith and bringing about the 3rd Impact. But with Gendo still holding on to that suitcase in 3.0 that seems to have the Adam embryo in it (rather than fusing it with his hand, and then with Rei3 who proceeds to fuse with Lilith), its not possible for things to have happened the exact same way as they did in EoE.

– Argh, my brain hurts after writing that last paragraph, but that flows right into my final paragraph. As someone who LOVED The End of Evangelion, I was rather disappointed that they completely skipped over Rebuild’s equivalent of it. I wanted to see that! Instead all we got was a tease of the crazy shiz that went down during 3rd Impact when Kaworu showed Shinji a glimpse of the Eldrich Abomination the Earth looks like it started to turn into (seriously, I spy TEETH, and part of an EYE 😯 ). It’s especially disheartening that we may never know exactly what transpired during 3rd Impact. Honestly, with all the stuff that was glossed over in the time skip (and I didn’t even touch on a few details in here, like how Gendo is buddies with Seele again despite Kaji suggesting they’d be pissed that he deviated from their plan in 2.0), Khara easily has enough material to make a fifth movie, or a spinoff manga, or a light novel or SOMETHING. ANYTHING. Pretty please, Anno?

[tab=30]In conclusion, Eva 3.0 is an extremely entertaining, albeit flawed, chapter in the Evangelion saga. I hesitate to call it a “great” movie, but it was good and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Perhaps my opinions on it will change a bit upon subsequent viewings, but for now it gets a solid 7/10 from me.