So, I just saw Evangelion 3.0 (BIG rant and spoilers)

[bartholen_v1legacy]

-No you don't have to watch the original series, or EoE, to understand Rebuild.

Why has Lilith turned into a corpse in terminal dogma?

Watch The End of Evangelion, it explains why, but just make Lilith get decapitated half way through, instead of after she has nom nomed everyone's soul back into goo.

Why is Eva Mark 06 inside Lilith's corpse?

Again, watch End of Evangelion, but replace Unit 1 with Unit 6.

What does Lilin even mean?

The children of Lilith, again, watch the original series, this is mentioned several times.

If that's not contradicting yourself, I don't know what is. I wish this to be my last post in this thread, this is turning into a flamewar.

 

[Zoe Castillo]

-No you don't have to watch the original series, or EoE, to understand Rebuild.

I watched every Evangelion episode / movie and still had no idea what the fuck was going on . granted I saw them back in 2006 but still ??

 

[Flamezdudes]

The thing many don't seem to get is that Evangelion on it's own was never meant to be fully understood so easily and to be fully explained because of the way Anno represented it to us. For years he'd suffered bad cases of depression and mental instability that eventually over time poured into his works like Evangelion and because of that the series and films look so fucked up to some people.

Except that the new movies pretty much dispensed with the mindfuckery, in return for something more straight forward and classicaly heroic. Seriously, name me one mindfuck moment from the first two films.

See, I can accept the original series and EoE not explaining everything to a tee, because that was more or less its M.O. from episode 2 onward. But for the third Rebuild to suddenly turn around and go "Fuck you... That's my explaination" after two movies of pretty clear cut storytelling is just mindbogglingly stupid.

Nothing particularly mindfucky happened early in the first half of the original series either, so I don't see what you're getting at. I thought it was expected that 3.33 would go off into mindfuck dark territory since that's what the original did in the second half too.

 

[Legion]

My main issues:

- Nobody tells Shinji anything, even the most basic stuff. They refuse to tell him anything then have the audacity to complain when he doesn't obediently obey like a trained puppy. Whereas before if he did obediently obey like a trained puppy he got criticised for not finding his own reasons for doing things.

- No explanation of why there is a new organisation called Wille, how they ended up with a God killing ship, or why they are pissed off with Shinji for something he did 14 years ago with the best of intentions. Unlike his behaviour in this film, he did the right thing in 2.22, so they should try and show a little more maturity.

It's even more irritating when half of the time he doesn't even seem to care. He gets told nothing, and seems to just accept it in favour of playing the piano.

- No explanations for why Asuka looks the same as she did before. A one line "Curse of the EVA" is not enough. It's not intriguing to dangle an interesting idea and never follow through on explaining it.

- Mari seemed to be foreshadowed as a very interesting character with her own motive. In this she is pretty much just a redshirt for all that she does. Her role could have been taken by a nameless character.

I don't mind that it went crazy, I just disliked the way it didn't explain even the most basic things, and didn't take advantage of all of the things they hinted at in the last film.

Although as others have said, the animation and music is fantastic. I do hope the next one decided to explain things though.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The thing many don't seem to get is that Evangelion on it's own was never meant to be fully understood so easily and to be fully explained because of the way Anno represented it to us. For years he'd suffered bad cases of depression and mental instability that eventually over time poured into his works like Evangelion and because of that the series and films look so fucked up to some people.

Except that the new movies pretty much dispensed with the mindfuckery, in return for something more straight forward and classicaly heroic. Seriously, name me one mindfuck moment from the first two films.

See, I can accept the original series and EoE not explaining everything to a tee, because that was more or less its M.O. from episode 2 onward. But for the third Rebuild to suddenly turn around and go "Fuck you... That's my explaination" after two movies of pretty clear cut storytelling is just mindbogglingly stupid.

Nothing particularly mindfucky happened early in the first half of the original series either, so I don't see what you're getting at. I thought it was expected that 3.33 would go off into mindfuck dark territory since that's what the original did in the second half too.

There's more to it than that.

If you remember, two very odd things happened in episode 2: There's the instance when they cut from Shinji being in an intense and hazardous situation to him suddenly waking up in a hospital. And the moment when the cranial section of EVA-01 falls off and reveals the creature beneath, which results in Shinji looking at himself as some Lovecraftian monster. This set the mood for the rest of the series. And even before that there's the first episode when Shinji spots a quick image of Rei in the middle of the street.

The show didn't shift on a dime from a standard hero's journey with mecha's to confusion psychotherapy preformed by the powers that be. The show is structured for the audience to realize from the very beginning that this is going to be one nutty ride.

Now in the first Rebuild there's also that quick Rei image, and there's the scene where Shinji is unconscious and has a vision of the train along with the memory of his mother and father choosing a name for him. But that is never followed up on and seems to be there only because it was in the show and without the proper context. The Rebuild movies, the first two anyway, feel very different from the outset, and do come across as kind of the stadard hero's journey. Shinji still has issues, but he actually seems intent on resolving them. And in the second movie there's even a genuinely light hearted harem subplot going on.

None of the dark spirit that was present in the show is noticeable in Rebuild. This is one of the reasons why I don't care so much for the new movies. But you know, fine, they're doing something a tinsy bit different with the franchise and taking it into a more straight forward direction. But to then suddenly flip in the third movie and literally not reveal a single thing, when the second movie ended on a big fat cliffhanger is just all kinds of ludicrous. I'm fine with the movie leaving things in the dark, but the only way to do that is if something is actually visible, and in 3.0 nothing was.

 

[Gatx]

My main issues:

- Nobody tells Shinji anything, even the most basic stuff. They refuse to tell him anything then have the audacity to complain when he doesn't obediently obey like a trained puppy. Whereas before if he did obediently obey like a trained puppy he got criticised for not finding his own reasons for doing things.

- No explanation of why there is a new organisation called Wille, how they ended up with a God killing ship, or why they are pissed off with Shinji for something he did 14 years ago with the best of intentions. Unlike his behaviour in this film, he did the right thing in 2.22, so they should try and show a little more maturity.

It's even more irritating when half of the time he doesn't even seem to care. He gets told nothing, and seems to just accept it in favour of playing the piano.

- No explanations for why Asuka looks the same as she did before. A one line "Curse of the EVA" is not enough. It's not intriguing to dangle an interesting idea and never follow through on explaining it.

- Mari seemed to be foreshadowed as a very interesting character with her own motive. In this she is pretty much just a redshirt for all that she does. Her role could have been taken by a nameless character.

I don't mind that it went crazy, I just disliked the way it didn't explain even the most basic things, and didn't take advantage of all of the things they hinted at in the last film.

Although as others have said, the animation and music is fantastic. I do hope the next one decided to explain things though.

-To me, it's sort of a redone version of the basic Evangelion start - Shinji is thrown into a new situation where no one really cares about him but still expect him to follows orders - ("Get in the EVA," "What?" "Get in the EVA and fight that giant monster," "No," "Well than you're a loser.") It's just that now the audience isn't distracted by the "super awesome giant robot" to have think that Shinji's stupid for not being happy at getting the chance to ride it.

-Can't say much for Wille, but the consequences of Shinji's actions are the point of the movie. Good intentions don't mean shit, you don't sacrifice the entire world to save one girl. That's that attitude adopted in a lot of super robot shows, but this plays out a bit more "realistically."

-He went with Rei hoping to get answers, but once he's in there, there's really no way to get any. Is dad's not going give him any, Rei doesn't know anything, and while it's weird he doesn't ask Kaworu for anything other than to fix his tape player, I can understand why he just doesn't bother to get answers. As for the piano, well, after everyone treats you like shit, why wouldn't you be drawn to the ONLY person to show you any kindness and respect.

-Hopefully it's something that'll be elaborated on later. Or it's just a meta commentary about how people are obsessed with these characters and this show after all this time so she's stuck in place and they won't bother with it later. It was brought to my attention that at the time of the movie release, it was the 14th anniversary of Evangelion, which is also the length of the time skip.

-She's a wildcard for sure, being a completely new character, and an EVA pilot at that. She does say a couple foreshadow-y things though I guess, and her role might be bigger later.

-The way I approach EVA is to basically ignore the terminology. All the pseudo-science, the theological references, they're not important (though I'm sure you could analyze it and get something out of it if you were so inclined). At the basic level Evangelion is trying to deconstruct the giant robot genre, and this movie is a brilliant "gotcha" for those people who were expecting the franchise to play out like Gurren Lagann.

 

[Legion]

-Can't say much for Wille, but the consequences of Shinji's actions are the point of the movie. Good intentions don't mean shit, you don't sacrifice the entire world to save one girl. That's that attitude adopted in a lot of super robot shows, but this plays out a bit more "realistically."

He didn't though, not really. He didn't realise saving her would do any such thing. He just saw her in danger during a fight and tried to help. He didn't make the sacrifice intentionally, Gendo just knew that he'd want to save her, and doing so would advance his plans.

The fact people are so angry with him for unintentionally causing the Third Impact when there is absolutely no way he could have known it'd happen seems unnecessarily harsh. I can understand them taking precautions with the collar to make sure he doesn't do it again, but to treat him poorly for it doesn't seem fair.

At the basic level Evangelion is trying to deconstruct the giant robot genre.

It's interesting that I have seen that said a lot recently, as the first interpretation I read about it wasn't any such thing. It was about the meaning of loneliness and the inability to truly connect to other people. The fact that all of the main cast have problems developing true relationships and feeling trust, as well as the ultimate goal of Seele being to unite all beings into one being the main focus.

 

[Gatx]

How is it irrelevant, when all the character and world changes, the conflict between NERV and Wille, Wille's founding... fuck, EVERYTHING happens during that time period? How would it be irrelevant to explain why Misato has become the way she is? How would it be irrelevant to explain how NERV and Wille became two separate entities? How would it be irrelevant to explain why the world became the way it is? How would it be irrelevant to explain even the tiniest amount of information about how Wille was set up, founded, funded, run etc.

And what the hell are "failures of infinity"?

It's definitely annoying at first, but that's how literary analysis gets sometimes. Things like "plot" and "world building" aren't at the top of the list. It's definitely a freeing approach to Evangelion because you don't need to bother yourself with all the scientific terminology and Judeo-Christian references, it's all window dressing (but that's not to say that if you did want to go deeper with that stuff you couldn't come up with a good analysis).

So yeah the details of the 14 years are irrelevant as far as this movie goes, what's important is that Shinji fucked up bad in the last movie, and that during those 14 years things went to hell. Hopefully the big things like Misato's involvement with Wille and Wille itself will be things explained to Shinji later. I think they were deliberately left unexplained so the audience is as lost as Shinji. Because you're never told, you don't know who to trust - Wille threatened to kill him, and Shinji's dad is... Shinji's dad, everything has gone to shit, so it's more empathetic that when Shinji is given an easy out and takes it despite everyone telling him he's an idiot.

Lilin by the way means humans, not sure if you got that from the answers you previously got.

 

[Gatx]

-Can't say much for Wille, but the consequences of Shinji's actions are the point of the movie. Good intentions don't mean shit, you don't sacrifice the entire world to save one girl. That's that attitude adopted in a lot of super robot shows, but this plays out a bit more "realistically."

He didn't though, not really. He didn't realise saving her would do any such thing. He just saw her in danger during a fight and tried to help. He didn't make the sacrifice intentionally, Gendo just knew that he'd want to save her, and doing so would advance his plans.

The fact people are so angry with him for unintentionally causing the Third Impact when there is absolutely no way he could have known it'd happen seems unnecessarily harsh. I can understand them taking precautions with the collar to make sure he doesn't do it again, but to treat him poorly for it doesn't seem fair.

At the basic level Evangelion is trying to deconstruct the giant robot genre.

It's interesting that I have seen that said a lot recently, as the first interpretation I read about it wasn't any such thing. It was about the meaning of loneliness and the inability to truly connect to other people. The fact that all of the main cast have problems developing true relationships and feeling trust, as well as the ultimate goal of Seele being to unite all beings into one being the main focus.

It was unintentional, maybe, but if someone killed your entire family you're not going to give a damn whether or not it was an accident, you're still going to be pissed, what Shinji did was on an even greater scale. Plus it's an irresponsible use of power - he obtains the power of God, and uses it to get some. Okay not exactly, but still. The point is that that's the kind of attitude prevalent in a lot of super robot shows - kick reason to the curb and make the impossible possible. They don't think about the long term consequences, (I don't know if you watched Gurren Lagann, but the main character basically dooms the universe, also for a girl, and just says that he'll cross that bridge when he gets to it), and Evangelion actually wants to.

As for that interpretation going around a lot - interpretations change with time of course. Literary academics are always looking at things in ways and looking for different ways of looking at things, so it's not weird that it's an interpretation that wasn't prevalent. It's also a direct counter for the "Shinji's such a whiner, why is he complaining when he lives with 2 hot chicks and pilots a giant robot."

 

[SajuukKhar]

If that's not contradicting yourself, I don't know what is. I wish this to be my last post in this thread, this is turning into a flamewar.

Considering you don't have to know any of those things for the movie to make sense.... I dont see how its a contradiction.

You dont have to know that Adam and Lilith were made by aliens billions of years ago either, a fact that was only revealed in some ps1 game, you can just leave their origins as "unexplained" and the original show makes sense.

As I said before

How is it irrelevant, when all the character and world changes, the conflict between NERV and Wille, Wille's founding... fuck, EVERYTHING happens during that time period? How would it be irrelevant to explain why Misato has become the way she is? How would it be irrelevant to explain how NERV and Wille became two separate entities? How would it be irrelevant to explain why the world became the way it is? How would it be irrelevant to explain even the tiniest amount of information about how Wille was set up, founded, funded, run etc.

Because Evangelion is Shinji's story, Shinji was not present for the time-skip, and thus, while the world he lives in has changed, and he is affected by the changes, he himself does not know what happened, and the world continues to spin without him knowing it, because, while it affects him, him knowing what happened or not changes nothing about how the world is now, and how he will be treated, and thus, us knowing is also rather pointless.

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On a more general subject relating to the movie, I love how much Gendo was made a badass.

In the original series, Gendo was a semi-mysterious character with a vague and unexplained plot to get his wife back that blew up in his face in every way possible, and showed a general level of incompetence. Yet in Eva 3.33, Gendo has been successfully pulling off a THREE DECADE long plan that involved
-Fucking Selee over so hard their spirits probably felt it
-Killing Kaworu
-Awakening Eva 13
-Predicting how Misato and Willie will act in any given situation

And is so evil/powerful that even Kaworu names him king of all mankind for his epic levels of mastery, something TV show Gendo could only dream about.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

snip

Judging by your stance, the whole movie's point was apparently to make us feel confused, which it pulled off with flying colours. Still doesn't change the fact that by the movie's ending the only thing that's changed from the initial setup is that Kaworu is dead. There is a limit to how much a movie can leave unexplained before the audience gets lost completely.

I'm not going to waste any more time on this argument. You go believe whatever you want to believe.

On an unrelated note, I've seen some people justifying the 14-year time leap by saying that Anno is "just playing with our expectations". You know, that's not really an excuse. Making Shinji turn into a woman would also have been unexpected. Misato performing a spontaneous song and dance routine during the final battle would also have been unexpected. Reasons like that or "it will be explained later" in the case of this movie just seem like poor attempts at trying to cover up plot holes.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Judging by your stance, the whole movie's point was apparently to make us feel confused, which it pulled off with flying colours. Still doesn't change the fact that by the movie's ending the only thing that's changed from the initial setup is that Kaworu is dead. There is a limit to how much a movie can leave unexplained before the audience gets lost completely.

I'm not going to waste any more time on this argument. You go believe whatever you want to believe.

On an unrelated note, I've seen some people justifying the 14-year time leap by saying that Anno is "just playing with our expectations". You know, that's not really an excuse. Making Shinji turn into a woman would also have been unexpected. Misato performing a spontaneous song and dance routine during the final battle would also have been unexpected. Reasons like that or "it will be explained later" in the case of this movie just seem like poor attempts at trying to cover up plot holes.

-There really wasn't any assumptions, that is just what the movie is about, and yes,m its supposed to make you confused.

-A lot more changed beyond Kaworu being dead,
--Selee is dead, removing any real threat to Gendo, and his plans.
--Unit 13 was awakened
--Willie has an apocalyptic god-monster, with a infinite source of power, powering a ship that can supposedly kill gods. Which is fitting considering how Gendo plans to fulfill to plan that Selee abandoned, the plan to kill god.
--The Black moon has been excavated from underground, and is leaking million of Failures, that, as the Eva 4.0 previews has shown, will activate and form a massive ass AT field for some unknown purpose.
--Gendo's been doing something with the Key of Nebuchadnezzar.
-AND ALL IS WITHIN PREDICTION!

-Considering Evangelion is a series that has always been about fucking up the norm, deconstructing the typical Mech anime story telling BS, even back in the original show, it shouldn't come as a surprise.

-by that logic not having every single thing that was hinted at in LOTR:Two Towers being explained in LOTR:Two Towers is a poor excuse to cover up plot holes as well.... except it isn't, because Two Towers is the middle part of the story, its supposed to be the middle, and shit doesn't get explained in them middle, the middle just moves the story along.

 

[xdiesp]

bartholen: no one is interested in your whining. Do not approach things because others have done so, or expecting something to have been engineered for someone like you. A spectator can never receive love, if only it will grow attached to something which they feel it's part of them. Be a man and judge, order things around according to your will.

Now go, and pilot the EVA.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

bartholen: no one is interested in your whining. Do not approach things because others have done so, or expecting something to have been engineered for someone like you

Yes, I admit I might have gone over to whining territory in this thread, but I don't get what you mean by that. I approached Eva 3.0 because I really liked 2.0 and wanted to see the film, not because "others had approached it", whatever that means. And I've approached Evangelion in general because whatever else i might have said about it, it's still one of the most interesting pieces of fiction I've seen (and because it was one of the first anime series I ever saw), both as a story and a phenomenon in general. I'm still in the process of trying to determine if I've missed some incredible truth or revelation about the series.

 

[Nouw]

The fact people are so angry with him for unintentionally causing the Third Impact when there is absolutely no way he could have known it'd happen seems unnecessarily harsh. I can understand them taking precautions with the collar to make sure he doesn't do it again, but to treat him poorly for it doesn't seem fair.

While it isn't fair I think it makes more sense at least from Misato's perspective considering she cheered him on when Shinji was saving Rei. Perhaps Misato partly blames herself for the Third Impact and therefore giving Shinji the cold-shoulder seems a bit more believable to me.

 

[Legion]

The fact people are so angry with him for unintentionally causing the Third Impact when there is absolutely no way he could have known it'd happen seems unnecessarily harsh. I can understand them taking precautions with the collar to make sure he doesn't do it again, but to treat him poorly for it doesn't seem fair.

While it isn't fair I think it makes more sense at least from Misato's perspective considering she cheered him on when Shinji was saving Rei. Perhaps Misato partly blames herself for the Third Impact and therefore giving Shinji the cold-shoulder seems a bit more believable to me.

True, there are realistic reasons for why they wouldn't be too happy with him. I guess I just kind of feel sorry for him, as despite all of his shortcomings, the adults around him really don't help, and are in many ways even more screwed up than he is. If they'd just explained why they are fighting Nerve, then I sincerely doubt Shinji would have left in the first place.

Although in Gendo's case it seems to be for a "good" reason. As his behaviour is deliberate in order to manipulate Shinji into doing the things that he does, such as trying to save Ayanami knowing it'd cause Eva-01 to awaken.

I wonder how many more Rebuilds they intend to have. I am enjoying them, but the fairly long gaps is kind of frustrating.

 

[Nouw]

The fact people are so angry with him for unintentionally causing the Third Impact when there is absolutely no way he could have known it'd happen seems unnecessarily harsh. I can understand them taking precautions with the collar to make sure he doesn't do it again, but to treat him poorly for it doesn't seem fair.

While it isn't fair I think it makes more sense at least from Misato's perspective considering she cheered him on when Shinji was saving Rei. Perhaps Misato partly blames herself for the Third Impact and therefore giving Shinji the cold-shoulder seems a bit more believable to me.

True, there are realistic reasons for why they wouldn't be too happy with him. I guess I just kind of feel sorry for him, as despite all of his shortcomings, the adults around him really don't help, and are in many ways even more screwed up than he is. If they'd just explained why they are fighting Nerve, then I sincerely doubt Shinji would have left in the first place.

Although in Gendo's case it seems to be for a "good" reason. As his behaviour is deliberate in order to manipulate Shinji into doing the things that he does, such as trying to save Ayanami knowing it'd cause Eva-01 to awaken.

I wonder how many more Rebuilds they intend to have. I am enjoying them, but the fairly long gaps is kind of frustrating.

Oh so do I. I really feel sorry for him, even when he doesn't know his actions at the end of 2.0 were damaging and pointless. He has the burden of causing the near-apocalypse on his shoulders but he can't even justify it. Absolutely horrifying. Yeah everyone was pretty much mean to him, however, keep in mind he was only in Wunder's confinement for about an hour and in screen-time even shorter. Their attitude is somewhat justifiable. Still, I wish they got a one-on-one conversation going between Shinji and a character from the previous films to make their attitude towards him less jarring but I suppose this was the 'best' way to handle things considering the time-restraints. I hope I'm not coming off as overly apologetic of the film >.>.

Yeah Gendo at this point has him checking all the boxes. Clever bastard .

The next one coming in 2015 is the last one called 'Final.' Long wait and quite frankly it better be freaking amazing. Oh god, hype, no D:

 

[Legion]

Still, I wish they got a one-on-one conversation going between Shinji and a character from the previous films to make their attitude towards him less jarring but I suppose this was the 'best' way to handle things considering the time-restraints. I hope I'm not coming off as overly apologetic of the film >.>.

Yeah Gendo at this point has him checking all the boxes. Clever bastard .

The next one coming in 2015 is the last one called 'Final.' Long wait and quite frankly it better be freaking amazing. Oh god, hype, no D:

If only Kaji were around, he seemed to be the one reliable adult amongst the crazies. I can't remember anything happening to him in 2.0, nor do I recall people mentioning if he'd died in 3.0 so perhaps he will be in the finale.

Meh, I wouldn't worry about coming across as apologetic, different perspectives make for good discussion, and we are all more forgiving of the things we are really into.

2015 eh, and I suppose that's the Japanese release date as well. They do like keeping us waiting with these things, as the UK doesn't even have a release date for this one on DVD yet. Good thing we all flew out to Japan to watch it nice and legally.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Perhaps Misato partly blames herself for the Third Impact and therefore giving Shinji the cold-shoulder seems a bit more believable to me.

That is what most people I know assume, the fact that she clearly hesitated in blowing off Shinji's head, when Rei-Q came and got him, shows she still WUVs him.

If only Kaji were around, he seemed to be the one reliable adult amongst the crazies. I can't remember anything happening to him in 2.0, nor do I recall people mentioning if he'd died in 3.0 so perhaps he will be in the finale.

One of Wunder's crew makes a comment that Misato is a more interesting captain then Kaji said she was, and since Willies accusation of Wunder seems recent, they hadn't even got the thing fully turned on by Eva 3.0, there is some indication Kaji was alive at least somewhat recently.

Especially considering that Misato wasn't a captain until she got command of the Wunder.