Rebuild of Evangelion

Oh God, I’m so glad that Kensuke x Asuka was debunked by Anno & her VA but they could’ve made that more clear in the movie.

I really need to make time to watch 3.0 + 1.0, but I'm not sure if the meta-context that is behind it will be enough to offset some of the more puzzling creative choices in this movie.

I'd rather Shinji x Mari was deconfirmed too, mostly for the creepy grooming angle.

Shinji x Mari is odd, not nescessarily because of that angle, but because it seems to contradict one of the common interpretations of Anno's intended themes: Namely, that Evangelion is supposed to reject or 'deconstruct' common Otaku fantasies.

I mean, the Magical Girlfriend is one of the staple tropes of Otaku wish fulfillment, and 3+1 seeming to embrace it as a necessary element of Shinji's ultimate character development is... odd.

Correction: Evangelion Original was meant to do that, and even then, it wasn't the original intention at first before the Sarin gas attacks during the series's production.

Rebuild of Evangelion was made during a time where Anno came to accept Otaku culture as his own, which is a major difference.

Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Oct 6th 2021 at 4:36:52 AM

So I'm watching the last movie, and I got to the part where the new Rei pops in front of Shinji, and it's just, I don't know, it's shocking, but not surprising, and it feels so almost laughably gratuitous.

UPDATE: And I've finished it. That ending certainly was...conventional.

Edited by Mullon on Oct 6th 2021 at 3:29:06 PM

What was the original intention prior to the sarin gas attacks?

To be a sequel to Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water

I'm amused that the entire Rebuild franchise not ending in disaster rests on Touji giving Shinji some fatherly advice. That's all it took, that's the deciding factor.

Of course. Because a lot of Shinji's personality was born out of him constantly chafing under Gendo's expectations, while Gendo did nothing to encourage or praise him. Someone just talking to him as a father would, an actual authority figure, not a college girl like Misato (even if she did sometimes take him to task as NERV's Operations Commander) or a stuck-up and overhyped bitch like Asuka. Shinji just needed someone that would understand him and give him the advice he needed to do so that he wasn't constantly being told where to go.

It's really telling that when Shinji makes appearances in Super Robot Wars games, often what causes him to become better is because he's not surrounded by people treating him more like a weapon than a person.

... How???

If I remember right, Anno was struggling to make the sequel when King Records approached him with making anything he wanted. That eventually lead to Evangelion.

Cross-posting from the Ultraman thread due to this being Rebuild of Evangelion being involved with this:

Might probably be just for merchandise, but...

The Twitter for Shin Ultraman announced something called "Shin Japan Heroes Universe"! A four-way crossover between Rebuild of Evangelion (or Shin Evangelion), Shin Godzilla, Shin Ultraman, and Shin Kamen Rider!

Evidently it's some kind of project, but it all seems rather fishy. For starters, Rebuild of Evangelion already finished last year, not sure where you can go with Shin Godzilla given how that ends, and we don't even know how Shin Ultraman and Shin Kamen Rider will turn out.

Website!

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Feb 14th 2022 at 7:29:58 AM

It's been almost a year hasn't. What's people's final opinions on the last Rebuild movie. I know that it received lots of praise early on, since it just came out at the time, but with all that new movie smell gone, do people's opinions remain the same?

It's Evangelion, Warts and All. People can shit on it all they like, but Shinji fucking deserved that ending after 25 years.

I haven't seen the last film yet, but someone I know mentioned that the ending can come across as off because Shinji's happy ending is basically him being sent to a version of our world...which is in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic and Japan is still not out of its economic recession, and that's without mentioning the various toxic cultural aspects of modern day Japan.

And yet, people still manage to find happiness anyway.

Mind, I've seen people argue that neither Shinji nor Gendo deserve their endings after the bodycount they racked up.

I can agree on the Gendo part personally.

And yeah while I do want Shinji to be happy, the fact that his happy world is a Salaryman in our touch-starved, virus ridden reality is….well it’s just amusing for when the movie was released and how Covid victims keep rising. Even in Japan.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 14th 2022 at 4:48:10 AM

I cannot help but read the Rebuild ending as a strange example of unintentional capitalist realism. Even when given the chance to create a new world, Shinji makes a world where he is by all appearances a cog in a system that is notorious for driving said cogs to depression and suicide or death from overwork. "There is no escape alternative", indeed.

Gendo got off way too easy.

Personally, while I know this is my shipper bias coming out, I was wondering why on Earth Shinji and Rei's relationship got only the barest minimum of closure, given how central it was to the entire Rebuild saga. And you know what, why wasn't she the one to run off with him at the end?

I mean, I get thematically why Mari was the one, but it still doesn't really make much coherent sense. Heck, Rei I would argue was far from being the best choice to represent escapism, if Anno intended that to be her role, given that her entire arc was learning to become someone who isn't merely a copy of Yui, but her own person, with Shinji being one of the ones to help her see that. Yet again, Anno prioritizes communicating his "deep and meaningful" themes above all else, rather than making sure that they actually flow together logically from one plot point to another.

And I know I tend to harp on this, but I still can't get over how much the final film borrowed from The Matrix Revolutions in terms of imagery, setpieces, themes, and story beats. I was mostly joking when I compared 3.0 to The Matrix Reloaded, as that was more to do with how both films subverted everything people liked about the previous entries in order to force feed themes and make viewers feel a certain way. Other than that, it was just surface level. But with 3.0 + 1.0, they just went all in on the similarities to those films.

Because Shinji is Anno and Mari is His wife with some Kaworu added in for spice. Not that she’d mind since she made a Kaworux Shinji doujin back in the day.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Apr 3rd 2022 at 6:48:14 AM

Like I said, I get what Anno was saying, but it comes at the expense of coherence and proper build-up.

Also, I guess I can't be too mad at him copy-pasting Matrix Revolutions, given that The Matrix Resurrections does a lot of similar stuff to 3.0 + 1.0, even sharing the exact same flaws (underwhelming action, lackluster execution of themes, too much focus on said themes and meta commentary over telling a coherent and satisfying narrative, etc).

Edited by LDragon2 on Apr 3rd 2022 at 7:01:23 AM

Yeah, about that line of thinking . . .

https://www.siliconera.com/evangelion-3-01-0-cast-comments-on-films-1st-anniversary/?_gl=1*1sjwl43*_ga*YW1wLWpJU3g5aDRobjRkdkFhX1dIVnlNWml2X3BsaDg1UEFBLWxUQ3RLbGZvR0pSZ3dxX2p3dUFORWJEdXpUSGY0UEQ.

In order to celebrate the one year anniversary of 3.0 + 1.0, khara ran a twitch watch stream of the film along with a section where Anno answered questions from fans. The link only gives some of the answers, but one of the questions was whether or not Mari is a stand in for his wife. Anno replied that people are allowed to interpret the movie however they like. This particular point of view has caused problems with the staff and their families, so he jossed this point.

Before anyone says he could be lying, this is apparantly not the first time this theory was jossed. The staff at khara, Anno, and his wife have said multiple times before that Mari is not a stand in for her. I remember reading how it got so bad that Anno's wife had to change her email newsletter to include how Mari was not based on her.

I know each ending is vague and how the staff encourages interpreting the endings is encouraged. But for them to deny an interpretation is kind of impressive.