Forum - View topicREVIEW: Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Well, Gankutsuou is pretty much set as my favorite, though Legend of the Galactic Heroes, whose first season I'm nearly finished with, has been racing up the ranks. Utena, though, is one of those series that just thinking about it makes me want to watch it. The difference between it and Evangelion is that every time I watch Eva, I start to notice its flaws more, especially the obnoxious adolescent humor that bogs it down when it's not being deep and brilliant. With Utena, on the other hand, I notice its strengths more and more; even in the silly Nanami-centric episodes that I dismissed as padding the first time through, I now find character insights and a necessary comic relief. Though I will say that in terms of movie spinoff/sequels, End of Evangelion is fantastic and Adolescence of Utena is, well, unnecessary and not that good. |
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pachy_boy
Posts: 1323 |
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I for one love, love, love, love both movies. The artsy Utena movie in particular felt so uplifting after watching the series, like it was intentionally made as a treat. That's what I feel anyway. |
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Quark
 Posts: 710 Location: British Columbia, Canada |
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Not to mention that it is absolutely stunning, visually. It is one of the best looking movies I've ever seen. |
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Baltimoron
 Posts: 43 Location: Charm City |
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I'm neither trying to be a dick nor stir up a shitstorm of political arguing, but the first sentence of this review really needs to be edited. The West Bank is not Israel. The Israeli government has not officially annexed the territory and international law holds the Israeli occupation of said territory illegal as it currently stands. Technically, the West Bank is considered part of the quasi-state Palestinian Authority. Disregard this if the setting of Eva 2.0 has Israel officially annexing the Occupied Territories. |
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Big Hed
 Posts: 1607 Location: Melbourne, Australia |
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See _V_'s earlier post:
Although, exactly where the base--spoiler[is? was? it's never confirmed either way what happened to it]--located is questionable. Without a doubt in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle, since Mari works for NERV Europe (and there was a bit of a storm raging outside  ), though what we saw of the installation was definitely a marine platform. Also, the base is actually jointly operated by Russia and the EU as a whole, rather than just the UK, I think; curiously, American accents.
Anyway, the battle certainly does not occur near the West Bank. 
Add Upon further consideration, I think the most likely location of Bethany Base is in the North Sea, which--due to its shallow average depth--provides a plausible explanation for the spoiler[cavernous tunnels that EVA-05 and the Third Angel first contact in. These would have been excavated beneath the sea floor,] which is easily imaginable given the scale of the Tokyo III Geofront. It also explains how/why the battle was monitored with thermographic imaging--at least that's what it looked like... Hm, or maybe the Barents Sea... |
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Chunx
 Posts: 75 Location: Lion City High Command |
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With respect for Justin's review on Eva 2.0, may I offer everyone an alternative review from another source with a different perspective?
Hopefully everyone reads with an open mind. http://measuredmusings.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/film-muse-evangelion-2-0-you-can-not-advance/ |
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kenji_salk
 Posts: 8 |
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Fans of anime (especially fair-weather fans of Eva who dump on the second half of the show and EoE) are probably some of the most insufferable people to encounter on the internet.
They're not content with just disliking the direction Anno went with the show, they treat it like a personal affront, worthy of snarky comments and half-cocked bitchery at every turn. The concept that Anno wasn't justified in "flipping fans the bird" with the EoE ending is laughable, and the level of butthurt over "god how could he treat his fans this way, and not give us exactly what we want bawwww" just goes to show that he was right to do so. Talking to people about anime over the last 15+ years has shown me one thing: it is very hard to find fans who appreciate anime as an artistic platform, and trying to have a complex conversation about the intellectual merits of Eva (good and bad) is nigh impossible. Thanks for being a voice of reason Justin, you're a diamond in the rough. |
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Joichiro Nishi
Posts: 163 |
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Thanks! The world needs more criticism to Evangelion 2.0 |
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Dorcas_Aurelia
 Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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Exactly what I thought when I read the review. I couldn't have cared less before about these movies, but this actually makes me excited about these new films. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Oh, it is gorgeous to look at, and the music gets a major upgrade. But... the characters! And the plot! And... what the hell? It does not stand alone nor is it really a sequel. It's more like, what would happen if everyone in Utena took drugs or had a freaky collective nightmare? End of Evangelion actually added something to the series, whereas Adolescence of Utena was just an add-one. At Chunx: First of all, thanks for plugging your own blog. Not tacky at all. Second: my, were we channeling George Will that day? Or did we just have to demonstrate the breadth of our vocabulary to show that we're better and smarter than all the slovenly masses who just didn't get how totally deep the first series was? I mean, its profound and subtle message at its conclusion in no way resembled something one would get from a self-help video! And it was, after all, that tremendous, intense intellectualism of it that has made Evangelion a perennial success, not the near-fetish status of Asuka and Rei. Seriously, get over yourself and go watch some Ingmar Bergman. |
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Chunx
Posts: 75 Location: Lion City High Command |
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To vashfanatic
Thanks for the reply. It is not my blog, for the record. I found it interesting, as an Eva fan, so I posted the link. And since it is not my blog, please direct your comments to the blog that you have just so kindly read. Thank you again. |
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Chunx
Posts: 75 Location: Lion City High Command |
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To vashfanatic
I find it hard to believe that the massive sustaining franchise of the series based on selling of figurines, model kits and erotic doujinshi would find its success simply on intellectualism. I think its the controversy of the violence broadcast on TV (14 years ago), the overall design of the series (in particular the female characters) and the story that it tries to tell about a boy running away is what garnered the attention it has today. Before the Rebuild series began it was still popular, With it now the franchise can grow that much further, especially when they introduce a new kick-ass female character. On a side note, I thoroughly enjoyed both Eva 1.0 and 2.0, having now a locally released DVD of the former and just watched twice of the latter. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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 Oops! Very very very very sorry! This is what I get for being an evil bitch and snarking.
Yup, we're gonna go copy-paste that maybe... ...but he really was being a pretentious twit.
Which is pretty much my thought. Eva was big because it was truly ground-breaking. It really was, and I was fortunately introduced to it early enough in my anime-viewing career to be able to realize that. While it may not be astoundingly deep compared to many great works of film or literature, that's not what you should be comparing it to. You need to compare it to other shounen/teen series, like Naruto or High School Musical. Eva had the balls to try to engage kids that age in intelligent, existential thought, and the luck to come away from it proving you could still be commercially successful. Fetish-ready female leads had something to do with that, but so did great characterization and dramatic fight scenes (mecha battles usually make me bored, never in Eva). My only problem with a lot of die-hard Eva fans is that they don't ever move on from it. Eva becomes an almost religious document where they read in a whole lot meaning (especially in the Judeo-Christian symbolism) that wasn't there in the first place. At some point you need to stop watching Eva and read Sartre, you know? |
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Chunx
Posts: 75 Location: Lion City High Command |
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No harm done, vashfanatic.
I found that review interesting not just because it does not rave about how great Evangelion is (sorry Justin), but rather it reviewed the film based on how it told a story as a film. I personally feel that to compare the Rebuild series to a Naruto film is simply putting a seinen title against a shounen one, which is a mismatch. But I understand your point about Eva's position on anime as a whole. As for the die-hard eva fans, I only hope that they did all their research on all the symbolism involved and come away with a better understanding on the religions that Mr. Anno referenced on a whim rather than take it as gospel. |
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spiegel2071
Posts: 3 |
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Hello, this is the pretentious twit joining in. I noticed a lot of traffic coming into my post from here (thanks presumably to chunx), and so have been coming over to keeping a lookout for comments. Finally someone has said something.
I'm not sure I agree with the premise of your argument that Evangelion was targeted at teenagers or kids. I suspect that the original airing was done not at a prime time slot, and probably for good reasons. If anyone knows what the original broadcast time slot was, would be delighted to hear it. In any case, my review was not even trying to delve into anything particularly deep. Certainly not a discussion of its "meaning", its quality as a discussion of human psychology and ontology. In fact, I made it a point not to review in this manner. Not to compare it on those terms with the original. I went to see Eva 2.0 with very little expectations. I knew Anno said he would change things, so I was prepared to see those changes. None of the plot changes bothered me in themselves - even if it did, one can only make sense of it all and pass judgement when the entire affair is completed. And like Justin's review suggested, this Rebuild may still become a superior work overall. Who knows for now though? It can all go to shit in the two remaining films. My critique of Eva 2.0 is purely on the quality of it as a narrative. In this regard, I'm still end up comparing it to the TV series. But not because I see the original series as the Holy Grail, upon which all its offspring must be judged. Nonetheless, I think any judgement of the Rebuild films as films (as opposed to as being an Evangelion remake) must still surely refer back to the original. I would even venture to say Justin's review can be positive exactly because he positioned it against the original. Anno didn't make this thing in isolation from the original - he probably felt unsatisfied with it and wanted to re-do aspects of it. If it works better as a film than an episodic TV series, great. If it doesn't, I'm not going to pretend it is. What I'm saying is that Eva 2.0 isn't very good at telling its story - regardless of the intellectual strength of the story itself. Why? It's too fast-paced and visually distracting for viewers who've never seen Eva before. I watch it as someone who has knowledge of the original plot, and even then I find it way too fast. More time is spent oggling at the fancy CGI and that new girl. What are the chances that a newcomer to Eva can catch up? The dialogue is just bad at times. It's not even about what they mean - that's irrelevant. It's about the fact that the writers have to resort to unnatural dialogue to explain plot points and provide background - the cop-out moment when the film finds that it's unable to convey significant information other than making the characters forcefully spell it out in detail. It is an indicator of bad writing, an you don't need to know anything about Evangelion to begin with to spot badly-written dialogue. And the plot device...you know there comes a point when you've seen it too many times, and any more explicit reference to that plot device would become more of an indicator of the insecurity of the writers (afraid that the audience hasn't already gotten it...) than being a useful prop to advance the plot. I guess my point is, this is a film. And as a film, even granting it room and conceding that it is supposed to work as part 2 of a 4-part tetralogy, it doesn't quite work by itself. Nonetheless, in the end, I think the film will still work for those who care more about the visuals, the action, the girls and the yaoi possibilities. As for the religious symbolism (and whatever else the Eva series delves into), I don't attempt to seek definitive meaning. Simply because it is impossible. Staff members have said before - much of it is just cosmetic dressing which they expect people to insert meaning into for themselves. Besides, its postmodern influence and rendition should already hint at this - it's all representation, and all meanings are valid in the eye of the beholder. Which is what I think this whole Rebuild is about - it's a retelling, a remake, a reimagination, a re-whatever. It is another representation, equally valid as any other. |
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