This post was last modified: Aug 15, 2021 at 5:30 PM by sealelement.

yup, that happened

adding spoiler tag to this thread since it's impossible to discuss without one tbf

i enjoyed it, obviously anno winged every single rebuild installment so there's almost no cohesion or consistency whatsoever but there were a surprising amount of good parts to this one. i admittedly do find it weird how the first portion of the movie was the best part but barely mattered in any meaningful way to the rest of the film

the ending is ???????????? though

This post was last modified: Aug 15, 2021 at 5:26 PM by sealelement.

wow. i guess i should clarify that i did NOT like this movie, but i'll do so without getting into any spoilers (or i'll try at least)

i enjoyed it,

i'm glad someone did

obviously anno winged every single rebuild installment so there's almost no cohesion or consistency whatsoever

i think sudo was saying the other day how, if you look at the total runtime of the rebuild films, they do come close to the runtime of the original series. the original series is still longer, but i was thinking about how there's something missing from rebuild. i think this is the problem: even though the original series had wild shifts in tone and direction, and the last two episodes go totally nuts, it's still reasonably cohesive. even 25+26 fit in with end of eva for the most part if you interpret them as happening during instrumentality. rebuild feels like it can't make up its mind in the kind of story it wants to tell and i think 3.0+1.01 (i hate that title so much) just kind of puts its hands up and goes "whatever" as a result.

but there were a surprising amount of good parts to this one.

without getting into spoilers, the stuff that i liked the most were the new ideas. not just the early part, but a lot of things sprinkled throughout that never really got developed properly. there's some glimpses of a wildly different evangelion in there

i admittedly do find it weird how the first portion of the movie was the best part but barely mattered in any meaningful way to the rest of the film

yes that part was great and i was really feeling that. as soon as that was over, my investment in the movie jumped off a cliff

the ending is ???????????? though

i didn't hate the ending in theory, but it was a more blunt and obvious version of end of eva imo. and it feels like anno was going 'how do i make them really GET it this time. oh i know, i'll have the characters do what i want them (the audience) to do.' it would've been nice to see some more contempt for the audience in the ending, but i've seen the version of this movie that has less brainless action and a better communicated and more subtle message, and it's end of evangelion

yeah i knew you didn't like it. it has a lot of issues and in the end it doesn't hold a candle to end of eva, but i mean shit, the original eva series is, well, eva. i think it's all right for rebuild to be a decent watch and not something that amazing, it doesn't necessarily make it terrible by default. at the end of the day i can say that eva is a phenomenally better show, but rebuild is a lot more entertaining. this one's big weakness is that, as you said, a decent amount of what this film did was already touched on by EoE. even aspects like gendo's characterization were already there, but it does get a fair amount more focus here and i thought he worked great as a final entity to "face". shinji finally working something out with his father was admittedly extremely cathartic since it's such a core to... almost everything in the original series. it's not EXECUTED the best, but i like the idea of it. i could say that about a lot of the stuff in the later parts of this film. execution is not on point but the core idea is good. one of the big points here being not enough being made out of how rei Q dying was meant to mirror gendo's loss of yui and how shinji reacted versus how gendo reacted, the IDEA of that is fantastic but the movie does not do much with this at all despite it being intended.

as someone who actually liked 3.0 because it felt like a genuinely different and fresh take on eva i think my favorite aspects of this one wound up being following up on 3.0 such as the first half. and seeing the wunder's crew have to come to terms with with own grudges against shinji and realize that the hatred they held against him was by and large coping was great.

the action sequences were all over the place in this one. some were really bad and had no weight to them some of them were excellent. the CG is really poor, probably the worst its been, but the 2D stuff was super on point and incredibly well produced. im kinda upset that the angel asuka thing wound up getting no sold because that was one of the raddest things in either version of eva. though it is totally on point for asuka to get shut down like that, once again end of eva has the better version with the MP evas. the tokusatsu bit was fucking hilarious and got me good, though i think the visual effect could have been done a lot better. i think it would've been smarter to genuinely have it BE tokusatsu, even if that doesn't make for a mid-scene reveal. the utter futility of shinji and gendo fighting instead of talking and how stupid it was for them to be trying to settle things via battle at all was a really strong sequence altogether nonetheless.

eva imaginary is fucking stupid but admittedly, it does look so bizarre and out of place that it achieves what anno was originally trying to go for with GNR in EoE which did make people go "what the fuck" but didn't achieve the unsettling effect he seemed to intend. that sequence unfortunately does overall feel like a shittier end of eva throwback though, especially after years and years of media trying to copy end of eva. i sighed out loud at "neon genesis"

yeah i get what the point of the ending is but it's so bluntly done and his deal with mari has no buildup so it feels absolutely bizarre. HOWEVER, anno is extremely based for throwing that curveball at pairing-focused fuckers, because the asuka/rei wars got so completely and utterly demolished by the fallout of it.

if that's zelma in here about to post i'm super excited but i also just want to mention that gendo and shinji fighting each other in evangelions still feels like something evangelion shouldn't stoop to. like it's a dumb action movie cliche and yet here it is

This post was last modified: Aug 18, 2021 at 1:28 AM by fixtheforgotpasswordbutton.

I've watched it twice and will probably watch it more but in general I am very satisfied.

Pros
- The entire first half(?) of the movie with Rei becoming a productive member of society, Shinji sulking[rightfully so for once imo], and Asuka being Asuka was great. Loved getting to see Touji become a family man and Kensuke being a cool dude. Though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't expecting it to be some weird dream sequence haha like wtf.
-I really love how we actually got an explanation for some shit that happened at the end of 2.22, specifically with Kaji. He was basically not mentioned or seen at all in 3.33 so I appreciate that he both had a major impact in this story and got proper closure.
-I really loved all the small moments in this movie. Asuka covering her neck with a scarf so Shinji doesn't vomit, Rei's interactions with Shinji, the library that had the totoro poster. The callbacks to the original series/previous rebuild movies.
-Speaking of callbacks, I really loved how we got like the reverse for certain shit that happened in EoE. Misato and Shinji finally having proper, healthy closure and hugging( cried ngl bros), Ritsuko merking the fuck out of Gendo multiple times, Yui pushing Shinji away [cried again] and of course, the Asuka/Shinji beach scene where you literally see that she's outgrown the EoE suit.
-The entire Shinji/Gendo sequence. Brilliantly done. Specifically the train scene and him discussing how he ran away from shit looking for Yui but Yui was in Shinji the entire time. Like Draku said, It's something that was also in EoE but I really appreciated the visuals in this version. You really get to see how he was really just a far gone Shinji, he just had a career to hide behind.
-I've seen a lot of people say they weren't impressed with the OST on this one and while I think it's not better than 3.33's[which was an entire vibe in itself] I still think it's really good.
-The entire ending sequence with the various send-offs. There's one issue I had with it that i'll go into a little in my cons but to me this was the best part of the movie. I cried again. Especially at Kaworu and Asuka's. Rei's was super cute as well. I also enjoyed how it took place in a literal film set though idk what the fuck the ps2 controllers were doing there

Alright, enough dick sucking. Time for Cons
-Alright so even if I meme as being a horny waifu bro I actually hate all the shipping shit and I'm so happy that shit is done once and for all but jesus christ I wish Mari[spelled this as mario originally lmfao] had more chemistry. I heard some things but I know better than to trust japanese/4chan spoilers but this was one aspect that they were absolutely correct in saying. Mari kind of....just like decides she's going to take Shinji's virginity and Shinji ig just randomly really likes Mari all the sudden despite only interacting once prior. I'm just saying they could've sold me on it a little more. Still love Mari. Still think they're cute together. Still wish Anno was just a little more subtle with his "hey. i made Mari so all you waifufriends can fuck off forever now"
-Agreeing with both of your sentiments that the lore dumping stuff was....needlessly excessive. If there's one thing I will always give EoE praise for is it's "Show, don't tell" method of story-telling. Obviously you have to explain some things but like it just seemed like they were rushing to try to make everything make sense when I think if they actually did less it would've made it more intriguing to watch and more fun because you'd have a lot of shit to dissect and analyze. I didn't really care; I knew he was just trying to make it so he could end everything like he said and maybe that's why that whole section kind of bored me until Misato did her thing and went boom
-So I guess Asuka is a clone now...? Was she always a clone? What the fuck was that? I loved that scene especially when you see little Asuka looking at little Shinji but I was...uhhh..very confused by that section haha.
-With this movie I think I can officially say that the Rebuilds don't really....work without having watched the original series which sucks because that's what there were originally advertised as and honestly as an adult it'd be dope to tell someone "hey there's this really cool anime and it's only 4 movies long. check it out." versus "hey there's this really dope anime and it's only 26 episodes +5 movies long!". I do thing the Rebuilds are awesome and definite compliments to the series but at the end of the day I think I can only recommend them as compliments to the OG series which isnt a big deal. OG Eva is still dope.
-I liked the Gendo/Shinji fight but there's two things I wish happened. 1.) Like Seal[or draku] said I wish it was actually just straight Toku and not this weird jet set radio styled CG movement shit. 2.) I wish they both hoped out of the Evas and had a fist fight for a good solid 5 min like in that Gurren Lagann movie.

Despite all it's flaws I think it's a solid 9/10 movie. I really enjoyed it. I felt very happy sadness after finishing it. I'm very happy for Anno[check out the documentary if you haven't, it's really cool to get insight on the process and his mindset during production]. I'm glad everyone else can enjoy it now and I'm glad GKIDS if finally[seemingly] releasing the blu-ray for the original series.

Similar to Digimon, I have no interest in any new material they decide to release for the series. This is stop for the franchise and I am perfectly ok with that.

This post was last modified: Aug 18, 2021 at 2:40 AM by Draku.

the rebuild asuka specifically is a clone, not the OG. shikinami instead of soryu so that she now fits in with rei's naming sense. i like it as a tweest but it could have been foreshadowed better in the earlier movies considering it actually does seem like anno intended to do something with the name change the whole time.

i like it better as a followup on the series and i feel like that's always been an obvious intent, even the near 1:1 remake first film has tons of end of eva imagery in it. a no-filler full on eva remake would have ruled but i dont think the original is unwatchable at all so it's not like there's a genuine conundrum like say, nanoha s1 vs movie 1st where if i recommend one over the other for a first time watcher it will have SOME form of weakness. you can still have people watch eva on its own with no rebuilds and be satisfied, plus if you hook them in with that they probably will watch the rebuilds willingly anyways.

yeah i think the anti shipping thing is hilarious but mari and shinji together is REALLY out of nowhere and part of the headscratchiness of ending things like that. it definitely works as a meta ending but not so much as an in-universe one, considering episode 26 explicitly denied trying to escape the hardships that evas existing presented as that was simply how reality was. however, all of the character sendoffs showed so much respect for the series that i am willing to view it in its meta sense regardless, albeit a little begrudgingly

the OST has a few really great tracks but i think the earlier films overall had better scores. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fakPYtFzQPY this is, regardless, The Good Shit

i'd really like to see a bit more on what the timeskip went over, i fucking loved it as an element of confusion in 3.0 but this movie muddied the waters a bit by adding more elements in play, specifically kaji's role. from what people have been able to piece together 2.22's ending has the impact be stopped and then kaji and kaworu are leading nerv for a little while before gendo manages to restart third impact and kaji has to stop it but that's the event that REALLY fucks shit up, but this holds together kinda loosely.

i forgot to say, i really haven't liked asuka much at all for the most part, either version of her, but this movie? she was good. really good in fact. like zelma states, she had a lot of little touches on her interactions that showed that she cared while still being aggressive, but it was in a far better executed way than any of her past appearances/incarnations.

i thought about it some and i've softened a little on the movie. i still prefer the original series and end of eva. however, i do appreciate the attempt to bring the entire franchise full circle with a proper good ending and closure for shinji's conflict with gendo, misato's relationship with kaji, and all of the characters demonstrating the ability to grow up and change and be happy (instead of it just being implied at the very end). i will always love the original series and end of eva, and i honestly prefer how subtle and bittersweet end of eva is with its message, but i accept that 4.0 isn't just a total rehash, and i think its positive message about living your life works really well.

overall i do think 4.0 is successful in bringing the franchise to a definitive close. without that wider sequel/full circle context, though, and just on its own as a movie or even with just the rebuilds on their own, they're not as good when i compare them to the original series, but like zelma said, it's a fine companion.

christ i almost made this post with discord spoiler tags instead of the ispoiler tags lmao