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Rebuild of ANNCast: You Are Not Alone


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BodaciousSpacePirate
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 16, 2019 8:07 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
screaming, crying, blood-vomiting sex apocalypse


Good potential back-of-box quote.
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Rahxephon91



Joined: 08 Jun 2003
Posts: 1859
Location: Park Forest IL.
PostPosted: Fri Aug 16, 2019 10:06 pm Reply with quote
I really dislike the Rebuild movies. To me they are a shinning example of everything I dislike about modern anime. The story just seems to a whiplash of whatever nonsense they can shit out with this series. I hate the characters like Mari and just in general all the crap thats thrown at you. An Evangelion powered "white base" piloted by anime sterotypes feels so "yep anime" compared to the far more grounded tv show. In general the tv show feels realistic or well as realistic as a show about teenagers piloting giant robots can anyway. The world feels like it makes sense and in general dosen't feel like its up its own mysterious ass like 3.0 feels like. How the hell does Nerv even operate in 3.0? In the show things like simply paying for things has some detail.

It's been a long time since I've watched the movies since I hate them and I'll admit many things went over my head. I can somewhat agree with Zac's point that the movies feel like a creation of a more matured person in that the female characters maybe are written not by a young man with young man problems. But I never felt like the female characters in the tv show were that bad. If anything the show's characters feel more realistic and reltable in thier brookeness. Maybe it's good that Kaji is'nt in the movies? I don't think so. Kaji works in Misato's story as she's a woman really struggling with what type of woman she wants to be. Dirty, professional, in love, resentful of her father, yet in love with someone like her father and so on. Her character feels far more understandable as a military captain compared to captain of white base or whatever she is in the movies.

I don't know. I just really dislike the movies.
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Kistune_bride



Joined: 06 Jul 2018
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 17, 2019 6:07 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Rei doesn't pick up the tape player



*3.0+1.0 July trailer*

spoiler[SHOWS SHINJI HOLDING THE GODDAMN TAPE PLAYER!!!!]

And it's not a flashback so either the tape player has been a red herring on Shinji's connection to Gendo or...it's a sign that Shinji will never, ever get over his past trauma. Which would really suck for both him and the rest of humanity.
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Charred Knight



Joined: 29 Sep 2008
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 17, 2019 10:48 pm Reply with quote
My Primary problem for this movie is that its the best example of just a film saying "Well Not that"

Shinji tries to save Rei's life
Film: Well that was a mistake
So what should Shinji have done
Film: Well Not that

The Earth's basically destroyed, there doesn't seem to be any life left, and no hope for humanity
Shinji tries to figure out a way to revert Earth back to normal
Film: Dont do that
Well what should Shinji do?
Film: Well not that

While I found the second film to be about recovering from some horrible event, the third film is all about how the correct path is to do nothing at all.

Its also really stupid to have character after character blame Shinji, then at the end say "Well now Shinji's is free from his evil father's manipulation" like I was supposed to be blaming Gendo the entire time.

I understand that Hideaki Anno was having a massive mental breakdown while making this. I understand what he went through because during the darkest moments of my life I found it hard to leave the house. The thing is that you have to press on, and you have to find some way to get out of your funk, and not just say "Well not that" and then give me no concrete answers.

Instead the film expects me to be excited for a fourth film in which Anno might actually find some answers. The problem is that if Anno cant figure out that one of the things that makes him unhappy is making Evangelion, then I doubt I am going to get answers I like.

Anno might have had the greatest potential as an anime film director I have ever seen, and instead of creating great show after great show, since 1996 I have gotten one good Evangelion film, one great Evangelion film (that I apparently misunderstood to be about recovering from depression), one crap Evangelion film, and a 2 minute commercial for the store Animate.

Anno should have just kept making Anime Tenchou commercials.
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Kicksville



Joined: 20 Nov 2010
Posts: 1168
PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 5:02 am Reply with quote
Charred Knight wrote:
My Primary problem for this movie is that its the best example of just a film saying "Well Not that"

Shinji tries to save Rei's life
Film: Well that was a mistake
So what should Shinji have done
Film: Well Not that

Welllllll, you're kind of on the right track!

It reminds me, I still feel like this is the absolute best take on 3.33 I've ever read. On that subject in particular:

Quote:
spoiler[Kaworu realizes the difference and tries to stop Shinji, but Shinji is so intent on correcting everything that he fails to register Kaworu’s hesitation and he ends up falling for Gendou’s plot.] The scene again looks to be another case of Shinji failing, but given everything else shown up to this point, I find that it draws attention not so much to Shinji’s individual suffering, but to the world around Shinji. Whether Shinji follows his own will or whether he listens to others, he still creates disaster, but this Shinji is again a more active Shinji whose problem is not that he’s “unwilling” to help, but that his surrounding environment has forced him into unwinnable situations. Appropriately, this time around spoiler[Kaworu dies, but not directly because of Shinji.]

Shinji’s plight in Evangelion 3.33 mirrors the recent criticisms used against youth culture by media appealing to older generations. Whether inside or outside of Japan, the current generation is seen as a group of selfish good-for-nothings who want and expect everything handed to them, instead of knowing the value of sacrifice and hard work. Whether they’re referred to as “NEETs” or “Generation Me,” Shinji and Evangelion 3.33 bring to attention the idea that, while we can place blame on them, the previous generations are not absolved of blame; the world the children inherit is the world given to them.
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Cptn_Taylor



Joined: 08 Nov 2013
Posts: 925
PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 6:49 am Reply with quote
The Rebuild movies are shit because the original Evangelion theme has lost its relevance to today's audience. It's as simple as that. Even Anno knows it instinctively, and that's the reason you have 30+ year old characters in the bodies of 15 year olds. Evangelion fans are like Robotech fans : 40+ year olds who can't let go. Anno knows this and keeps shitting on his "audience". The tragedy of Evangelion is that it is a show that simply cannot be retuned for modern day fans. So the only thing that continues to exist to this day is the selling of Rei and Asuka figurines for sex obsessed otakus (those aforementioned 40-50 year olds). As for the main character of the show ? No one gives a shit about him.
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Zac
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 11:10 am Reply with quote
Cptn_Taylor wrote:
The Rebuild movies are shit because the original Evangelion theme has lost its relevance to today's audience. It's as simple as that. Even Anno knows it instinctively, and that's the reason you have 30+ year old characters in the bodies of 15 year olds. Evangelion fans are like Robotech fans : 40+ year olds who can't let go. Anno knows this and keeps shitting on his "audience". The tragedy of Evangelion is that it is a show that simply cannot be retuned for modern day fans. So the only thing that continues to exist to this day is the selling of Rei and Asuka figurines for sex obsessed otakus (those aforementioned 40-50 year olds). As for the main character of the show ? No one gives a shit about him.


Boy, someone's in a good mood this morning.
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Charred Knight



Joined: 29 Sep 2008
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 12:28 pm Reply with quote
Kicksville wrote:

Welllllll, you're kind of on the right track!

It reminds me, I still feel like this is the absolute best take on 3.33 I've ever read. On that subject in particular:

Quote:
spoiler[Kaworu realizes the difference and tries to stop Shinji, but Shinji is so intent on correcting everything that he fails to register Kaworu’s hesitation and he ends up falling for Gendou’s plot.] The scene again looks to be another case of Shinji failing, but given everything else shown up to this point, I find that it draws attention not so much to Shinji’s individual suffering, but to the world around Shinji. Whether Shinji follows his own will or whether he listens to others, he still creates disaster, but this Shinji is again a more active Shinji whose problem is not that he’s “unwilling” to help, but that his surrounding environment has forced him into unwinnable situations. Appropriately, this time around spoiler[Kaworu dies, but not directly because of Shinji.]

Shinji’s plight in Evangelion 3.33 mirrors the recent criticisms used against youth culture by media appealing to older generations. Whether inside or outside of Japan, the current generation is seen as a group of selfish good-for-nothings who want and expect everything handed to them, instead of knowing the value of sacrifice and hard work. Whether they’re referred to as “NEETs” or “Generation Me,” Shinji and Evangelion 3.33 bring to attention the idea that, while we can place blame on them, the previous generations are not absolved of blame; the world the children inherit is the world given to them.


And if that's what Anno was trying to go for, then he needs some character like Asuka, or Mari to express that viewpoint. Make it a big dramatic scene, but instead the film just has those characters show up to do nothing of actual interest. You look at Mari in the third film, and get the opinion that the only reason they included her in the first place, was because Anno thought that Anime fans would buy a ton of merch of some glasses girl in a plug suit.

The film just doesn't work as a completely separate film. Its instead written like some manga where if you wait a week, or a month then you get the next continuation where you might get more story addressing what happened in the previous chapter. Instead the continuation is going to happen about 8 years after the previous film came out. In comparison the entire run of Fullmetal Alchemist took about 9 years, and that manga came out monthly.
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fathomlessblue



Joined: 28 Mar 2012
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Location: Manchester, UK
PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 12:51 pm Reply with quote
I've warmed up to 3.33 considerably over the years, but in many ways it feels like a product of compromise, frustration and indecision in a way Eva never felt before, or at least in a fundamentally manner. The TV show has been claimed by many to be a haphazard mess but even if Anno actually was making it up on a weekly basis, his train of thought and goals mostly felt consistent to me, Even End Of, with it's angry, nihilistic leanings, felt extremely focused in putting down someone's dark thoughts to print.

Meanwhile, while I like the time-skip concept 3.33, the first 25 minutes of the film still feel like glorified fanfiction to me, with an explosion of random characters and unconvincing-to-straight up silly designs, the former of which lack any semblance of depth, while the latter lacks the mythic quality that the designs in the tv show instinctively possessed. It's wild to me after years of Anno complaining about how the industry and fandom reduced his characters into stock tropes, Misato's bridge ends up being manned by complete and utter one-note stereotypes. Not to mention the amount of time that could be spent establishing the new character dynamics, instead ogling red cgi machinery. This isn't Wings of Honnêamise; surely the limited time could have spent of more relevant themes and characterization than indulging the Gainax old guard's tech fetishes.


Of course once Shinji returns to nerv I feel show picks up considerably, even if much of the screen-time feels like punishing him for decisions he was completely ignorant of the wider implications for. I was also bothered by all the (or perhaps lack of) new third impact content. Sure, the lore was never the point of Eva, but there's so much material indicating a completely new story (why did the residents of Tokyo 3 turn into Eva-likes, and who look their skulls to central dogma while leaving their bodies in the city, etc?), that it honestly feels like either Anno was deliberately teasing or ironically enough, displaying his initial aborted attempt at the third film because he couldn't let go of the concepts, even if they didn't fit his new vision.

Still, it gets the Shinji/Kaworu relationship still right, which is honestly the core of the film, so I can't judge it ill for that, even if does the rest of the cast dirty as a result. I dunno though, Eva has been called a lot of things but it always felt like Anno was clearly holding the reigns, even when things didn't go his or the audiences way. With 3.33 it feels like he finally figured out his themes and ideas, but couldn't make the premise work so just broke it up into disparate pieces to try and force fit everything together. Eva could be called chaotic but i never felt as structurally compromised or shaky/unfocused in execution in the way the last film does.


PS. In regards to the discussion about Kaworu's death: I don't believe there was a separate angel in the collar Misato puts on Shinji. Rather, he activated his own waveform to be recognized as an Angel (ie blue) so it would self-destruct. The tv show also shows he can hide his true nature from Nerv's sensors.
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ANN_Lynzee
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 4:19 pm Reply with quote
I'm sure this isn't a mindblowing take but the point of the third movie is that you can't fix the past. Not through magical means or mundane means. You can only move forward. That's sort of frustrating when taken with the point of 2.22: Shinji can't move forward because he's being held back by his evil dad.
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Charred Knight



Joined: 29 Sep 2008
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 5:06 pm Reply with quote
octopodpie wrote:
I'm sure this isn't a mindblowing take but the point of the third movie is that you can't fix the past. Not through magical means or mundane means. You can only move forward. That's sort of frustrating when taken with the point of 2.22: Shinji can't move forward because he's being held back by his evil dad.


Yeah but you can and should make up for your mistakes

The problem with the "You can't fix the past" theme is that as far as I can tell humanity is already doomed. Not only is human civilization gone, but so is seemingly all life except for the few remaining humans.

It kind of silly to have a scene in 2.22 where characters talk about trying to repair the ocean, then at the end of the movie make that entire scene which was incredibly powerful completely moot.
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Cptn_Taylor



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PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 7:57 pm Reply with quote
octopodpie wrote:
I'm sure this isn't a mindblowing take but the point of the third movie is that you can't fix the past. Not through magical means or mundane means. You can only move forward. That's sort of frustrating when taken with the point of 2.22: Shinji can't move forward because he's being held back by his evil dad.


You do understand that the first 2 rebuild movies are all about moving forward ? And those 2 movies (especially the second one) are NEGATED by the absolute disaster that is the 3rd one ? Consistency and narrative coherence is not what comes to mind when we have to talk about the Rebuild films. It's as if Anno had delegated the writing of the scripts to random monkeys. The result is to put it mildly a senseless trilogy with a 4th chapter coming out at least 8 years after the previous film. Now lets be honest and say it like it needs to be said : Anno has never given a shit about the Rebuilds, at least not as far as the story goes. Yes he was interested in merchandise and selling those sexy figurines. And that is all that the Rebuilds are good for. Trying to look for a meaning in this film trilogy is a doomed enterprise from the start.
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ANN_Lynzee
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 8:25 pm Reply with quote
I DO understand what the movies are about, in fact I talk about it. On the podcast. What I think they're about and what you think they're about might be different because art is often open to interpretation. I think the titles of the films puts it out there pretty bluntly but that doesn't mean they're necessarily successful.

1.11 is about Shinji's perception of his isolation and walling himself off from others. Shinji believes he is alone, but he's not really. He has peers and an authority figure (Misato) who he could rely on.

I already said what I think the core messages behind 2.22 and 3.33 are above. I think what Charred Knight is saying (and I understand this feeling myself) is that pairing the messages of 2.22 with 3.33 can leave the audience with overall feeling of futility. Shinji's genuine desire to save Rei being initiated by the machinations of his father SUUUUCKS. It's not fair. Shinji finding inspiration and hope in his new relationship with Kaworu and a desire to make the world better only to find out he was misled again SUUUCKS. Everyone being mean to Shinji for screwing up humanity when he had no knowledge of what was at stake SUUUCKS. It's hard not to just get angry at the whole thing and yell THE GAME IS RIGGED.

Maybe that's how Anno feels too, we don't have the ending yet so I'm not sure if hope will ever prevail at all...it didn't really in End of Eva. Shinji hasn't found acceptance since the TV series.
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Zac
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 8:53 pm Reply with quote
Cptn_Taylor wrote:
Trying to look for a meaning in this film trilogy is a doomed enterprise from the start.


Why would you bother listening to this show when "meaning" is virtually all we talk about - and have talked about for the last decade - when it comes to media and it's a thing you already obviously, viscerally hate?

Why put yourself through that? You can head on back to angry youtube videos about how everything sucks, with Impact Font video thumbnails.
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BodaciousSpacePirate
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 9:38 pm Reply with quote
Cptn_Taylor wrote:
Now lets be honest and say it like it needs to be said


Sure. It needs to be said that the piano scene in 3.33 is my favorite "queer subtext piano scene" in anime after the one from the first season of Maria-sama ga Miteru. It needs to be said that scenes like the one at the end of 3.33 where Asuka is pulling on Shinji's arm while Rei trails behind them have become so engrained in my memories of "watching Evangelion" that I sometimes forget they weren't part of the original series. It needs to be said that I think the Unit-13 is basically the RX-178 Mark II Gundam of the Evangelion franchise, and that how one feels about the phrase "the Unit-13 is basically the RX-178 Mark II Gundam of the Evangelion franchise" could potentially serve as a decent barometer for one's personal relationship to both franchises. Wink
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