that Thanatos song in the middle of End of Eva absolutely fucks
also i can’t get over how clever it was, and how well it worked structurally and for the ending, to put the credits in the middle of the film, after episode 25’
(@cylindrome i considered but did not follow your suggested watching order but it seems buckwild, did you ever try it?)
I think this is the crux of why I don’t like Eva 4.0, actually. While I deeply relate to being a depressed dissociated teen, Shinji’s arc just kind of arbitrarily resolves. He has the courage now because his big tit girlfriend believes in him? Okay.
The message I got from the series was that you have to make those bad choices and live with them. You cannot be paralyzed by indecision. You have to take baby step by baby step to becoming a functional human. You cannot let other people do it for you. So the fact that another person essentially does it for him in 4.0 feels a betrayal of what I connected with in this character and story.
The point of End of Evangelion isn’t about overcoming depression to me. It’s about how you still have to lace your shoes and leave your house. It’s a grim lesson, to be sure, but an accurate one. Survival dictates.
I want to reiterate that I certainly don’t think anyone here shouldn’t speak up with their opinion. I just don’t want to be misrepresented by a strawman, that’s all. All of us, even (or especially!) the people who hated 4.0, love the series and connected with it in some way.
Misato’s last speech about fucking up constantly but getting a little better every time really got to me as someone who has tried to be an informal peer support yeah
The first 50 posts in this thread are so hateful and angry at the film. In fact a banned user says anyone that likes this film is a pedophile. There’s a reason anyone that liked this film won’t post in this thread (because of dogpiling) and who does comes in aggressive. Because they know they have to pick a fight to even say something positive or against the hate train. I’m going to say some deeply personal stuff here, now, in the dream of listening.
I really really like this film. It is absolutely one of my favorites of this year. It gave me daily life advice about raising my child that I use. it’s a beautiful thoughtful conclusion to the Rebuild and Eva as whole. It is about the creator’s journey with their own mental health and their relationship with their work.
Here’s a few things I got to thinking about it.
How after time skip Asuka keeps asking Shinji why she punched the wall. I’d ask why they didn’t kill Shinji (because they kill Shinji the story is over.)
Not-Rei grows as a person and then evaporates because in the rules of Evangelion she must be Rei. The world keeps forcing on this role of what Rei is, and the real heart break is once she becomes Rei she can’t exist.
That Anno existed and worked on Eva long enough to become Gendo. Then a multi-layered argument fight between Anno/Gendo and Anno/Shinji/Evangelion itself. I was confused at the time, but if they are both Anno they can both be piloting Unit 01.
Watching and rewatching other Eva is built into the work. Kaworu will always play the doomed romance. Asuka will be sacrificed. Rei will become some bullshit. Mari/Anno’s Wife is the new element to break a cycle. She changed Anno’s outlook and life and she can save these characters from their constant doomed fate.
And then a world without Evangelion (after the world is flooded with Evangelion which is a beautiful overhanded eyerolly commentary on the commercialism the Art has had since it’s start.) A flash of the other characters because they’re no longer part of this story. They can do something else. Mari takes a slightly older Shinji out of frame and into a real world.
The film does some real wonderful work with showing ever so subtly the gradual change in Shinji as he finally grows.
We all process grief differently. The line “I just wanted to say goodbye” hit me like a freight train.
When you posted in this thread three weeks ago you neither picked a fight nor were dogpiled. The current reaction is because, as @Tegiminis went through, you wrote a post directed to a “you” rather than write about your own impressions.
It’s a deliberately polarizing movie so there’s room for hate and love in equal measure.
I like this post a lot more because your experience of the movie was completely different. I got none of that!
heh, no, most recently i tried EoE before 25-26, which turned out awkward for a number of reasons: partly because it’s going from super loud and Cinematic to super quiet; partly because the second half of EoE is all “forget about this series and wake up”; and also since 25 comes right off the Kaworu stuff from 24, which feels like a distant memory after EoE
i was a teen when i first watched it and mostly i remember getting lost in my head for days after, having strange dreams, forgetting what my previous interests had been and then making the awful mistake of going online to see if anyone else had made more sense out of it (ha ha ha ha
and that was a couple years before the peak of my depression i think
Did you also fall into a Metroid Prime 2 depression hole?
i was not a gamecube owner and probably too young so nope; i only got to those games once i had developed an excavator mindset toward old media
It’s for the best for sure.
As evidenced by scrolling up and reading, Veronica did not say anybody who likes this film is a pedophile. She used some hyperbolic language, but it was directed at Anno and the film’s quality. Personally, I think it’s kind of rude to put words in people’s mouths, especially people who cannot defend themselves like you’re doing to Veronica here. I realize she’s persona non grata among a certain subset of users here, but I wouldn’t do this to you, so I don’t think you should do it to her.
As @doolittle rightfully pointed out, it was when you came at the rest of us instead of just posting about your thoughts that people pushed back. If you don’t want an argument, don’t construct a strawman of somebody’s position and expect us to just accept being mischaracterized.
I’m glad the rest of this post is about what you thought of the movie. More of that rather than reflexive defensiveness over media properties please.
Yes I love to hear what makes people appreciate things. More of that, please just post it, all the time!! No need to justify or defend. Post it post it post it!
I still feel insulted.
I can’t argue with the way you feel, and I also can see how the mood of the thread feels antagonistic (because it has become that way), but what could we do differently to speak about this film in an honest way and from contradicting perspective while managing to avoid insulting each other? For myself, I fear that I might have done something to insult you in particular, and I can’t see it. I am willing to reflect on that though and try to see it your way.
I felt insulted by this:
Do you doubt that the posts anyone made are their opinions? I don’t see any indication of insincerity or trolling, or personally-directed invective. The user you specifically complained about is indefinitely suspended and I don’t think anything in the past week is beyond the pale.
I wholeheartedly agree that it’s impolite to go knives out into a largely positive thread, but the opposite is also true. When we have a polarized reaction to a piece of media, we can either post about it in the same space with respect and distance, or create spaces where there’s a set tone to respect. If you’re alienated by this thread and want to discuss elsewhere, there’s no reason you can’t create your own thread with your thesis and the expectation that people take your cues on tone. Red version/blue version, if you like. If people get aggressive in that thread there’s no question it’s inappropriate. But I don’t see how the criticism and feelings of alienation expressed above are objectionable.
On reflection, there is a category of critical language where the audience is specifically implied to be inferior, e.g. “pablum.” When we call something a piece of shit, we should take care to make sure we are not also calling someone a piece of shit. There’s no situation where “pablum” is strictly necessary unless you are talking about the audience.
(not to pick on @Tegiminis who is clearly not directing it at present company)
Yeah. It’s definitely not directed at anyone present. I also mean it in more of what I consider to be “directorial intent” rather than audience taste. It’s a textural thing for me, feel-good plot that just makes me feel hollow instead.
am i the only one who found all the male-gazey stuff in the original series perfectly aligned with the tone and story being conveyed? like the protagonist is a deeply repressed 14 year old boy of course that stuff’s in the back of their mind at all times
idk i’m a baby weeb so maybe i haven’t seen enough anime to know when it’s hornt for horn’s sake. i’m still scandalised by this one pussy shot from Stand Alone Complex
It’s more the constant leering camera angles that made the tv series feel male gazey, and I feel like End of Eva existed in part to criticize this reflexive horniness of the tv series.
no, that’s how I take a lot of it as well. which is why I think it feels so egregious in Rebuild 4. that movie feels less concerned with sexuality than the show so the tiddie shots of a 4,000 year old witch in a 14 year old’s body hits differently for me.