Table of Contents
Rebuild of Evangelion
The Rebuilds are not a 1-1 remake of Evangelion. Instead, they can be considered a sorta reimagining of the series.
Reviews
I must confess that when I started writing this article, it had not been long since I finished watching the last film. However…that was a very long time ago at this point. So I have (as per usual) actually forgotten a lot.
So…I’m going to probably re-watch the Rebuilds at some point. For now, I’ll just do a very basic review of the films as a whole. I happen to remember the last two films more than the first two, so I may be more specific with those.
While I can’t remember most details, I know that I wasn’t particularly pleased with the Rebuilds. I watched the Rebuilds before the series, so I was extra confused about what was going on. So this is perhaps my first criticism: the Rebuilds assume you’ve already seen Evangelion. At least…that’s what I think?
Let’s take a little time to go over the positives as I remember them. The animation is great (outside of most of the 3D) and it looks like a higher-quality Evangelion. If you place the two side-by-side, the Rebuilds only look out of place because they’re more modern…but, otherwise, the style is basically the same. That’s quite cool. The sound design is also good…at least I think so?
If we think of the first film as just an upgraded Evangelion, then it’s pretty good. I wouldn’t trade watching it for the series, though, but watching it as a supplement probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Now let’s go back to the bad. I found the worldbuilding confusing. Now, whether the worldbuilding is actually bad or not is a different thing entirely. However, I’m about 90% sure that the Rebuilds fail to properly communicate the worldbuilding…especially when compared to the original series, which does a pretty good job.A) This actually gets worse between the second and third films, where the viewers are just left with…well, it’s hard to communicate. There is no way that viewers were given the context that was needed to understand the third film onward.
It’s pretty damn obvious from casual observation that Evangelion experienced some production difficulty. There’s even a theory I read on the Eva Geeks Wiki that discusses what probably happens. But if I have to read a fan-written theory on what happened between the two films, then something has gone wrong.
There will be individual sections for each film now…where I’ll write what I can remember.
1.0
Of the four films, this one is the closest to the original anime. There are some differences, but I wouldn’t say there’s anything that seriously damages the original story.
My notes note that I found it a bit boring. I can’t remember why. They also note that the abridging of the story ‘fecks the story’ but they don’t write how or why.
2.0
According to my notes and memory, the first half of this one follows the anime again and it’s the second-half that diverges big-time. Exactly what…I don’t know.
This film also happens to show the production issues most visibly. The preview after the credits show something completely different from 3.0 and, while Shinji ‘saves’ Rei 2 in this film, she’s un-saved by 3.0. That’s an example of the creators changing their minds very suddenly for no particular reason.
3.0
A big issue in this film is that Shinji is treated poorly by a lot of people in the movie (those opposing Gendo specifically) for no good reason. Or, rather, we the audience have no clue why he’s being treated poorly: we never saw what he supposedly did!
Consequently, Shinji’s actions in the film are completely understandable and, as far as the audience is concerned, completely correct. Nobody bothered to explain any of it properly to him and he doesn’t even remember it…yet he’s being punished for whatever it is he did.
This film diverges quite heavily from the anime. While the first two were obvious remakes, this is it’s own thing completely.
My notes say ‘Kind of infuriating.’ but I don’t remember what that means.
:||
Also known as ｢Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time｣ and variations thereof.
Yeah that :|| is about how I feel too.
There’s a lot in this movie that I don’t understand. However, here’s where I will buck the trend of negativity: I actually liked it. Although I don’t think I hate any of the Rebuilds, despite their (lack of) quality.
This film specifically made my cry, meaning it succeeded in hitting me with those feels.
However, there are still some problems.
I think the whole Shinji and Rei in the village part of the story is pointless, or mostly pointless. I am likely to be wrong though, since it’s been so long since I’ve seen it.
Shinji ending up with Mari is so unexpected that I’m actually impressed they decided to do it despite how nonsensical it is.
Once I started thinking about the film critically, I stopped being as emotionally invested in it as I was before.
Speculah & Analysis
ANDROIDS
One day, while I was tired as hell, something was relayed to me in a dream: What if ShikinamiB) is actually an android?
Now…let me be clear…this is almost complete nonsense. But…it could be made to work, because the Rebuilds are really damn vague about worldbuilding.
So…my super-cool uber-awesome theory is that the facility depicted in 3.0+1.0 that she was in for some goddamn reason was actually meant to build androids and not to make clones, as is assumed. This is why she only needs water to survive: they figured out a way to make androids that only need to run off of fuel.
Further, this may explain the whole ‘curse of Eva’ that she was talking about. After she ‘died’, her soul was dumped into an android body.
This is also why Shikinami calls other people ‘Lilin’…because she knows she isn’t one of them!
Now, to be a bit more serious. It’s way more likely that Shikinami is either an Angel (like Kaworu) or, more likely, she’s a Rei-style clone who works a bit differently from the Rei-clones of the original series.
However, I should note that Androids aren’t necessarily mechanical and could be partially or fully biological. Actually, we could consider Kaworu to be an android. So, hilariously, I might be partially right anyway. It’s still not clear what’s up.
Trivilinks
- Official JP Site - It includes links to all the individual films.
- aniDB
- AniList
- Note that the way the Rebuilds are titled is a bit annoying. The English title for the first one is either ‘1.0’, ‘1.1’, ‘1.01’ or ‘1.11’…I think this has something to do with theatrical/video releases…or it’s completely random. I decided to standardize to ‘1.0’ and such because it’s simply easier.
- There’s a lot more to this article that is currently hidden, because it’s bad.