Rebuild of Evangelion

[Kagemane_no_Jutsu]

SPOILERS RAHHH

A sub for the cam is available here. Warning: the cam is absolutely horrendous and watching it will only convey the feeling of watching Eva 3.0 while blacking out on painkillers. A review follows this link and I will be openly discussing the film's content. Please don't read if you are concerned with spoilers although I like to think I can review something without sounding like a wikipedia plot summary. This paragraph intentionally too long to get you to stop reading if you don't like spoilers.

This is a tough film. I'm still not sure what I think of it, and the awful cam did not help. Eva 3.0 is pretty, as pretty as the last two movies anyway. I once again found the 3D CGI to be distracting and amateurish in its execution, although by this point I'm starting to see a kind of point in the juxtaposition of the unearthly, bizarre 3D construction of the Angels against the rest of the 2D animated world. The score is absolute lightning; I've been blasting it for days prior to watching the film. The surprisingly few action sequences were great, especially the opening orbital assault on Unit 01's containment unit, although it certainly helps that that's the only segment I saw in HD.

This movie, perhaps reflecting the tonal shift of the latter half of the television show, has by this point gone almost completely off the rails. The first two films were bog-standard adaptations of the material, largely with only the fight scenes sexed up. In this film, leading out from the ending of You Can (Not) Advance, Shinji is thrust into an unfamiliar and unwelcoming environment after being rescued from Unit 01, and it's reflected in the script as we follow Shinji, adrift and purposeless, throughout the first two acts of the movie. Now I'm personally a huge sucker for the introspective, psychological scenes from the TV show, but I think 3.0 suffers from including so much meandering, feeling an awful lot like the tail end of one of the TV episodes but without nearly as much room to breathe. The attempt to convey Shinji's alienation and confusion is successful, if a bit literal, but it chokes out time for developing Shinji's relationship with his father or even fleshing out much of the central relationship between him and Kaworu - I think they spend about as much time onscreen together as they did in the TV show for god's sake, where he was only there for a single episode. The first two films did so much good connecting us to these characters and making their lives seem more real and warm, and all that work is (deliberately?) tossed away or not continued in 3.0.

The film's title is now a direct indictment of itself - You Can (Not) Redo - and it's reflected in the very meta and self-referential script, with characters constantly having coded and symbolic conversations not giving a fuck about what's going on with the plot. Add that to the heavy homoerotic subtext (it's practically freakin' text at this point) and you'd figure this movie was a love letter to me. I just couldn't shake the feeling that the movie felt like the second to last episode of a series that hadn't done nearly enough legwork to get itself to this point and was deliberately obfuscating a lot of things to disguise that fact.

Yeah.... pretty much, yeah.

When the camrip first surfaced we didn't have a sub linked to the video yet. Even tho I downloaded the sub separately and set it up it would still freeze at points and so basically I was watching it with no subs then going back and reading it. If you look at the sub transcript you'd be surprised at just how little dialogue there is in this film. The bulk of it is obviously between Kowaru and Shinji.... but other than those two and the one short scene with Fuyutski and Shinji there is little to no actual cohesive conversation happening. In the Kaworu - Shinji scenes the dialogue is mostly vague, even when he's supposed to be explaining to us what we're all dying to find out, about the events after the ending of 2.0.

But unlike a lot of others I still thought this was a very fitting follow up. The world of Eva has never been one of clear coated black and white plot-lines, and if you came here expecting such then you deserve to be disappointed. I was of course hoping to see more Misato and Asuka's roles expanded as their characters were really reaching new heights in 2.0. In fact that could have been the reason Anno sought to reaffirm this as Shinji's story, and keeping us in the dark along with him was not a bad idea by any stretch.

I found that the overall theme of the movie came thru beautifully. Its right there in the title "You Can (Not) Redo". Shinji comes out of his 14 year hibernation and finds his decision to risk everything for one person has now completely changed his world. The people he abandoned in order to chase after Rei are no longer the people he left behind. Misato had yelled words of encouragement to him as he fought for what he wanted at the end of 2.0, but here he finds no such support. Shinji spends the entirety of the film either struggling with understanding his past, or trying to rectify his actions. Kaworu wanted to give Shinji his world back by turning back the damage done by the Eva's (somehow), but was unable to. In the next film I'd imagine we'll see Shinji use some of the knowledge instilled on him by Kowaru and try to move forward instead of changing his past.

I see what Y is saying about homosexual undertones.... To me its more about being a human and not allowing male of female distinctions to come between you and another person having a connection. And if you really care for someone you should not be afraid to embrace them.

What I'm seeing overall here is largely exposition. Anno needed a transition into his final act and he has to fit in as much as he could..... although I feel like there was a lot of scenes that could have been shortened or even cut to allow more time for character development. Mari is still just sorta there and I'm dying to see a real interaction between Asuka and her while not in their Eva's. But again this was Shinji's story, and now that he's with Asuke I'm expecting a lot of this in 4.0. Sortof sucks tho that it took an entire film to get to that ending. Almost reminded me of The Hobbit's ending. How long you think we'll have to wait? 2 years at least, yeah? Hopefully not more this time around.