Rebuild of Evangelion

So, what are the ends on a big musical number finale?

Maybe it'll be a reprise of the ending to 2.0, only without the world ending.

Or it could be Komm Susser Tod again.

No, I predict the entire cast and a whole bunch of nameless background technicians and soldiers will all sing Bohemian Rhapsody and slowly turn into tang 1 by one as the song goes on, with huge fountains of tang erupting during the operatic section.

My god... I just watched the original tanging sequence with Bohemian Rhapsody playing over it... They sync up...

edited 12th Sep '13 1:29:05 PM by porschelemans

Coincidence? I think not.

Also, having looked up the game Metal Gear Solid 2 again, I feel that 3.0 was trying to do something similar to that game in terms of themes. I'll just post its entry from the Playing The Player trope for comparison.

The plot of the game is a deconstruction of how some people played its predecessor as a power fantasy. Oh, so you wish you were just like Solid Snake huh? Well, Be Careful What You Wish For barely describes what this game does to the player. First; for the majority of the game, the player doesn't get to play as the badass Solid Snake, but rather is forced to play as as a character deliberately made to be the series scrappy, Raiden. After hours of having the player proxy Raiden humiliated, beaten up, and annoyed by his girlfriend, the player eventually gets their Wish Fulfillment... during a segment of the game that takes place in wireframe with the specific purpose of reminding the player that they are playing a video game rather than actually kicking ass. And then, the game reveals that every event preceding this was actually part of a mind-control experiment designed to turn Raiden/the player (it's deliberately ambiguous) into Solid Snake; explaining why several areas and sequences within the game are copies of parts from the original game. Basically, the game shows you exactly what it would be like to be a deceived, manipulated, backstabbed and controlled Blood Knight Super Soldier. It would not be fun.

It gets better than that. The ultimate goal of the villains is to demonstrate that they can control human thought and behavior. Thus, they created a scenario very similar to that of the previous game in the series and placed Raiden in the middle of it, hoping to prove that by putting someone in the middle of an extreme situation and providing the appropriate context for his actions, they can make him do whatever they want. Thus, for most of the game Raiden (and by extension the player) believes that he is a member of a FOX-HOUND sent in to resolve a crisis very similar to that of the first game, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary - they have only the villains' word that this is the case. Even after it's revealed that Raiden has been acting under the orders of the villains for the entirety of the game, he still goes along with their instructions - and so does the player. The fact that neither Raiden nor the player has any choice but to follow their instructions is one of the major points of the game.

Sound vaguely familiar?

edited 15th Sep '13 7:56:08 PM by LDragon2

Geez you really like comparing EVA to other works..

Also for anyone curious, at the 2:20 mark in this interview with Spike Spencer he mentions that he's aware about 3.0 but hasn't heard anything about recording the dub yet, but he'll let us know.

Hey, Eva has been inspired by multiple works, and in turn, has inspired countless others.

And I still can't help but see similarities between Eva 3.0 and MGS 2 in terms of what the creators were trying to do.

So would Hideo Kojima be a fan of EVA then or have at least watched it?

I think that Eva was one of the inspirations for Zone Of The Enders so yes, probably.

x4 Everything is a ripoff of Eva. Especially the Bible.

Eva Geeks certainly thinks so.

Nah, just kidding. But seriously, Eva does draw from many different sources, so no surprise there.

Also, I was thinking back to the relationships (again) between the main three characters here, especially in light of 3.0. So basically, Shinji is now stuck with either someone who has lived for 14 extra years, and therefore has more maturity and experience than him, or someone who is now stuck in a giant creature / a clone of that person. Talk about choices. I guess that Anno's once again trying to make it all messed up like in the original series, but if it does go the way it did in the original series, won't that seem really boring? I mean, after all the promise and the like of a whole "light at the end of the tunnel", it just falls back to where it was before.

I get that Anno is a Trolling Creator and the like, but I must say, deliberately sabotaging a story just to prove a point and to spite the fan base comes across as really petty. Who knows, maybe the 3.0 CRC book will explain some more on this one, like the dudes at Eva Geeks are hoping. Maybe he'll finally say that he planned the Time Skip all along, give his reasons for the darker tone, and even give an outline on the 14 years. Heck, maybe he'll even reveal that Shinji x Rei was only a brother-sister thing, like Eva Geeks thinks. Though I have to say, if that is true, then that is quite a Relationship Writing Fumble, especially after he modeled the fricken ending of 2.0 after the scene from Revolutionary Girl Utena in which Utena rescues Anthy.

Besides, if you need supplementary material in order to explain what you were trying to communicate when the viewers walked away befuddled by the movie, and not because they were morons but because the film wasn't able to properly explain what it was supposed to be about, then you are failing as a storyteller.

edited 17th Sep '13 2:41:00 AM by LDragon2

If it's directly modelled after Utena rescuing Anthy, than it isn't really a Relationship Writing Fumble in terms of narrative parallels; one of the major character points in Revolutionary Girl Utena is that Utena's attempts to "rescue" Anthy are heavily motived by her selfish desire to see herself as a hero and protector.

Last I heard, you hadn't finished watching Utena, but the climax of the series basically makes the point Utena's ultimate success isn't in rescuing Anthy, because treating her as a Damsel in Distress that needs rescuing is damaging. Utena succeeds because she motivates Anthy to save herself from an unhealthy situation - an unhealthy situation that consisted of her being shut away from the rest of the world, with only one man (her brother/lover for company. Anthy's success is walking away from that.

Anno and Ikuhara are friends; Anno would be perfectly aware of this. If it's an intentional parallel to Utena, the implications seem pretty critical to me.

Except plenty of fans have taken Anno's message and understood it just fine from watching the film. You keep insisting that he has failed at storytelling and never acknowledging the possibility that maybe you just missed the point.

Wow, having watched it subbed, I didn't realise Rebuild's dub was this good.

Touché.

However, in response to, well, your response, the fact that so many others misinterpreted what Anno was saying due to the way it was presented is still a problem. I admit that I may have been one of those people. But considering the way it was presented, such as the triumphant tone of the ending of 2.0, or the overwhelming bleakness of 3.0, is it any surprise that I took it a different way than what Anno apparently is trying to say?

Basically, my point is that there is a disconnect between the message that Anno wants to say, and the tone and circumstances that the movies are showing. Because of this disconnect, I find it very hard to really buy into or see what Anno is trying to communicate when I'm instead focusing on the movie feels, and basing my judgements in that. The few scenes that do attempt to show his intent get washed away by everything else.

So was I, like, the only one who immediately thought "you screwed up again Shinji" at the end of 2.0? I don't think so.

You also keep saying things like that in a way that implies they're unique to 3.0, when in fact they're pretty much an intrinsic part of the franchise. EVA has always been an extremely demanding series, with many things not making a lick of sense until you've had a chance to compares notes with other people, and even then there's plenty of room for interpretation. And I'm not just talking about things on a 'what just happened?' level, either; surely I don't need to tell you that plenty of people initially see Rei as a completely flat character with no real development or characterisation beyond her emotionlessness, for example.

You were definitely not. There were two major schools of thought on the end of 2.0, and 3.0 pretty clearly favours one of them.

I agree. But the thing is that here, it just felt less natural than it did in the original series. Like, rather than it feeling like it came as a result of the characters and their actions, it felt like it came more because the plot demanded it.

Again, I get what it was going for. But the execution and the like is what bothers me. It's also the reason as to why I felt a disconnect and didn't buy what Anno was going for.

3.0 favoring one side I felt could have been done in a more balanced manner as well, but that's just me.

edited 17th Sep '13 5:21:50 PM by LDragon2

2.0's ending was also pretty clearly not meant to be as triumphant as you seem to think, what with the fact that it ended on a note of "the world is ending to grant Shinji's wish." It was never meant to be a 100% positive development. Yes, it was a step forward for Shinji's character in that he's finally taken some initiative, made a decision, and fought for something. But the consequences were always there and always clear.

Again, I understand that. But the way it was delivered, and how it was followed up upon is what I have problems with. Not the themes or message, but the execution. Because by making it so that nothing good came out of it, it basically undermines whatever growth Shinji may have received. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be consequences, but that it could have been done in a more balanced manner.

Themes and messages mean nothing if the story, characters, and their execution isn't there. If that is lacking, then I can't buy whatever the writer is trying to communicate without getting frustrated. Since it wants me to sympathize with characters that haven't gotten the same amount of development that they had in the original series and the first two films, I can't side with their viewpoint regardless of whatever stuff they went through. I instead wanted to see how Shinji and Rei, the two who got the most focus in the series so far, would continue to grow and change as characters.

This is why I can't sympathize with WILLE or Neo-NERV at this point. Because they have been rather incidental to the growth of the main two characters up to this point, suddenly expecting me to sympathize with and root for the former and be disgusted by the latter is hard. Not to mention, this is why I feel 3.0 falls completely flat.

edited 17th Sep '13 6:17:52 PM by LDragon2

Also, now that I know what that Utena scene is really about, that actually does sort of apply to Rei's character growth both in 2.0 and 3.0. Who knows, maybe FINAL will have her continue to develop her character more, only unlike Anthy, who changed thanks to Utena, Rei changes on her own terms.

@L Dragon How'd you like Utena by the way?

Actually, I've been putting it on hold, because I am lazy. Also the fact that I can't seem to find a good streaming site to watch it subbed.

That said, I am seeing the parallels between Rei in Rebuild and Anthy a lot more now that I was know what that scene was all about. In that regards, I'm really excited to see how Anno develops Rei in FINAL.

edited 18th Sep '13 1:59:58 AM by LDragon2

If you haven't finished Utena, you really might want to avoid comparing it's characters to those in Eva. Utena has a lot of very complicated and multi-layered characters and relationships, and a pithy paragraph from me can't really sum things up. I feel like there is a lot you are missing here, especially about Anthy.

I see. Then again, considering that, to the best of my knowledge, Utena is a Jungian look at the roles that gender and sexuality play in romance novels and fairy tales, that should be obvious.

That, and it ends with Transformers.

That's just the movie, which is pretty awful.