i spent a midnight researching all the minute differences between the different versions of the original series and finally decided to watch the c. 2000 fansubs on my housemate’s media server. what’s this Death (True) biz though
It’s a clips show to screen before End of Evangelion, safely ignored.
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lol i was just about to come back and post “nvm i looked it up you can stop typing doolittle” <3
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I’ve never watched it but I’m thinking of doing it. Just, what a bizarre way to preview a film project.
Yeah, the original releases of the Eva movies were strange because the first one was Death and Rebirth, which included what is now called Death (True) i.e. the clip show version of the series, but then also Rebirth, which was the first like 20 or so minutes of End of Evangelion. Except those got changed by the time End of Evangelion rolled around, so the footage is a bit different in the final End of Evangelion version. So the Netflix version just ditches the EoE preview, and thus gets rid of the “Rebirth” title.
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Au revoir les enfants d’Evangelion
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i gave the new one 4 stars on letterbox’d as a joke but i think i’ve fixed it now
the issue with watching End of Eva in the age of climate anxiety is that reversing instrumentality seems morally indefensible in a way that it probably didn’t in the 90s
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It raises a question of what timespan is the “age of climate anxiety”, and for who. The age of accelerating fossil fuel emissions is a fact, but the anxiety that may or may not come along with it is a cultural question
Evangelion was released 3 years after the UN Framework on climate change, and 2 years before the Kyoto Protocol. The prominent role of Antarctica in the backstory may indicate inspiration from grim climate narratives. I didn’t catch onto it either at the time, but I’m thinking that for Gainax’s staff specifically, climate anxiety was in full swing by then
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my world’s on fire/ how about yours?
- unknown, c. 1999
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The younger generation is left alone and exposed on the surface, fighting to prevent the apocalypse with their bodies and fists, and they only have 5 minutes left to solve the problem. Meanwhile the adults who caused the problem in the first place hunker down in their expensive underground bunker and cheer the kids on
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You’ve got a perfect, prescient metaphor but instead you make the climax of your film one of the old guys explaining that he did it because he’s an INTJ, wears headphones, and didn’t want kids. Jecht is more interesting.
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This films beauty and message has only grown as I get away from it. Sorry it wasn’t what you wanted but it is so much more about The Art Itself and The Culture It Inspired and Also Please Go Outside than being Eva, Again.
You want Evangelion the movie flat out says you have 30 years of media products and whatever own fiction you’ve concocted for these characters. Time to let them go.
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Does anybody want more Evangelion? If anything 4.0 made me want LESS. Like, stopped at End of Eva less.
That…is exactly what I said. You can just watch End of Eva again if you want that.
My point is nobody here complaining about the movie wanted “Eva, again.” You’re arguing against a position nobody has, being seemingly indignant about an opinion that doesn’t exist.
Personally, I could give a flying fuck about “Eva the culture” or whatever. Seems like “marvel movie but for titty figures” stuff to me. I let these characters go the moment I finished the original series.
I don’t want Eva again. In that respect, this movie and I agree. But I have no special affection for Evangelion, and the ending of 4.0 is a violation of the message of previous entries, so the saccharine heartstring tugging stuff didn’t work on me. Instead all I was left with was “wow, this paean to the upskirt photo sure went nowhere until it arbitrarily ended”.
I’m glad you were able to get something positive from the experience of watching 4.0. Instead of being upset other people found it to be a poor conclusion, and arguing against a strawman, I recommend you take our criticism to be a different take and simply agree to disagree.
Oh and also Anno will never let this series go, so the “go outside” and “goodbye to eva” message you attribute to 4.0 was immediately undermined by, well, this interview.
This is a guy that has been trying to move past this work since the beginning. Of course he’s a hypocrite. He’s ended it 3 times.
Somehow I find that even more fitting.
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I agree with Rudie here to the extent that all of Rebuild 4’s catharsis seemed directed at someone like he is describing. Like, I LOVE EVA but Rebuild 4 felt like being called a Fake Fan because I wasn’t moved to tears or felt “released” from my obsessions by the movie. Maybe there are people who needed that, maybe Anno, but I didn’t want or need to be pandered to like it ended up doing. I think I still really dislike that movie and the Rebuilds in general.
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But the other thing about this is that it’s kind of a bad coping fantasy in its own right. Even if EVA obsessed you in some truly existential way for the past 30 years, like it got at something really serious about your psyche, then doesn’t it kind of blow to have a movie resolve all those complicated feelings with such an uncomplicated fantasy? It seems like a negative example of escapism to me, especially since it also comes along with wiping out most traces of any queerness in the show. Very traditional psychoanalysis stuff, everyone goes (or pretends to go) straight and all their neuroses are fixed and they can go off to their jobs in the morning and be efficient workers!
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That’s definitely my feeling on it too. I mean, the movie literalizes the pandering in dialogue, even; the cringe “pat on the head” stuff.
I have no particular obsession with Eva. I just like it as I would like any other show. So 4.0 just felt extremely dishonest to me.
In the end, Eva was ultimately about cynical exploitation. First of the characters (by Gendo), then of the setting (merch merch merch), and finally of the audience (the pandering pablum for NEETs that is 4.0).
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