My thoughts on the End of Evangelion.

[Jin-Roh]

(These are my thoughts on the Neon-Genesis movie. I’m not only will I give my thoughts, but also present them in the same manner in which the movie was presented.)

I finally finished the Neon Genesis series. I haven’t watched the final two episodes yet, but I did watch the movie that replaced them.

I thought it was a very good negative climax to the whole series. There was a lot of violence, but it wasn’t just action movie stupidity. There was a reason why everything was happening the way it did. My friend Mike had told me the series was about Man trying to stop God from ending the world, but from what it looks like here it was Man trying to end the world from the beginning. It looks like SEELE finally completed their dark plan to destroy mankind and watch it be reborn.

I was really disappointed with Shinji. He had actually grown some rocks halfway through the series, but I guess when he squeezed the life out of the very last angel they must’ve fallen off and he resumed mega-wuss-self-pity mode. Freud would have a lot to say about that guy.

Asuka’s last stand was awesome. They finished up her character beautifully. I’m slightly confused on how the AT-field connects with her mother, although I now understand why one of the Angels attacked hey psychologically.

Rei turned out to be awesome as well. She was probably my favorite character in the series, and I would like to add that I was right about the connection with Yui Ikari. I actually thought that she was one who needed the most therapy, but it turns out (although she still has some bad wiring in her mind) that she’s probably the most stable and it’s everybody else who needs to see the doctor.

In the final conversation between Ritsako and Gendo was great too. His silence managed to keep one tiny bit of mystery in the last movie when everything else was being shown. It was great.

The final part in which all the other Eva/Angels recreated the tree-of-life, adam and lilith coming together, and brought the end to the world and when everybody else was being brought into “god” was great. It is about here that they should’ve ended the movie.

All is Rei and Rei is all. Strong Sad saves the universe. Create your own reality and turth is in your heart. But reality itself is far off. Flashback to the late nineties. Evas live forever, but lonely. Man makes his mark in the universe. Asuka and Shinji’s complicated relationship. Die, Asuka, Die! Shiva opens up her third eye. Super-evas get weird. Shinji’s regression complex. Would a pyhsco-anaylist say? AHHH! Me go crazy in my Eva!! Oh no wait, I’m homosexual. Old movie quality! N.E.R.V. is sand castle. Is Strong Sad God? Rei and Shinji are “one-with-the-gods” if you know what I mean. Mega-wuss rules over us all! Hi mom. Good-bye son. Time for God to die. Where’s everyone going? Why are we underwater? No, Pre-biotic primordial soup. Geo front?! How do you like the size of my ego Misato? Super sized neon crosses. Super Evas die or something. Shinji alone on beach. Ultimate deus ex machina. What the hell?!! ASUKA?!
:dufus:

[Dee Dee Warren]

This is a strange title if you knew the ulta obnoxious forum denizen named Evangelion.

[Jin-Roh]

[Chuck Lee]

Yeah, Jin-Roh, I think you covered it pretty well. Asuka was a much better character in the movie than Shinji.

I thought Misato was kind of a tragic character. Here she was trying to prevent the end of the world from the beginning, and right to the end she never quite figured out that she was really contributing to her bosses' plan to end the world their way.

[Megane]

Heheheh...congrats, you've just seen one of the most controversial releases in recent anime history. Boy did some people *hate* that movie when it came out. It was popular for a while to think that Anno made it just as a giant "F you" to the fans who had complained about the ending of the TV series. That wasn't true though. Thankfully.

>> but from what it looks like here it was Man trying to end the world from the beginning.<<

Correct. Gendo, Seele, and the "angels" were all trying to start the Third Impact.


>>All is Rei and Rei is all. Strong Sad saves the universe. Create your own reality and turth is in your heart. But reality itself is far off. Flashback to the late nineties. Evas live forever, but lonely. Man makes his mark in the universe. Asuka and Shinji’s complicated relationship. Die, Asuka, Die! Shiva opens up her third eye. Super-evas get weird. Shinji’s regression complex. Would a pyhsco-anaylist say? AHHH! Me go crazy in my Eva!! Oh no wait, I’m homosexual. Old movie quality! N.E.R.V. is sand castle. Is Strong Sad God? Rei and Shinji are “one-with-the-gods” if you know what I mean. Mega-wuss rules over us all! Hi mom. Good-bye son. Time for God to die. Where’s everyone going? Why are we underwater? No, Pre-biotic primordial soup. Geo front?! How do you like the size of my ego Misato? Super sized neon crosses. Super Evas die or something. Shinji alone on beach. Ultimate deus ex machina. What the hell?!! ASUKA?!<<

Yeah, that's a pretty darn good summary of the last half-hour of the film.


For interprative questions about the series, I'd have to just recommend reading this site, Gendo's Eva FAQ:


http://www.bfx-net.com/evafaqs/evafaqsmain.html


Covers almost everything you could think of. You should also check out Shinji's FAQ which is linked on Gendo's FAQ page. It's....interesting.

[Ryokan]

To be honest Dee Dee, Evangelion amused me. He was a jerk, but he stirred things up. Speaking of annoying denizens, what happened to freak?

[Jin-Roh]

(Don't take it the wrong way Ryokan. I just wanted to use the grumpy face)

[Jin-Roh]

The Chuck Lee says...
Yeah, Jin-Roh, I think you covered it pretty well. Asuka was a much better character in the movie than Shinji.

I thought Misato was kind of a tragic character. Here she was trying to prevent the end of the world from the beginning, and right to the end she never quite figured out that she was really contributing to her bosses' plan to end the world their way.

Asuka kind of bugged me actually, but that's only because she share many of my sister's negative qualities. Alden can contest to that. Good thoughts on Misato though. She really didn't know N.E.R.V.

the Megane says
For interprative questions about the series, I'd have to just recommend reading this site, Gendo's Eva FAQ:

But of course this brings up the question: Why should I have to go to an interprative site in order to enjoy the movie?
Honestly, I hadn't seen something that bad in a movie since I watch 2001 : Space Odessey.

It's not that I can't appreicate movies with philosophical/religious undertones (Fight Club, the Matrix etc etc) but I get a triffle bothered when the plot just stops (as it pretty much did with Eva) and then cryptic, new age, wannabe apocolyptic imagery takes over.

[Megane]

Today @ 10:08 PM post located here
Jin-Roh:




But of course this brings up the question: Why should I have to go to an interprative site in order to enjoy the movie?

lol. Why!? Because it's complicated of course!

But it sounds like you'd go along with Carlos Ross' review:

The second half of the movie ... is so incoherent and obtuse that it completely loses the mainstream audience (and in fact, virtually any audience) this series has attracted before. It goes beyond art film...and beyond anime. And in doing so, it goes beyond the audience's capability to understand and be entertained, which defeats the purpose of something labeled as entertainment. With a melange of still images that put MTV commercials to shame and pans of movie theaters (I guess this was the audience participation moment of Eva?) and street-scenes ... (live-action, mind you!) Anno's directing went from masterful action and suspense, to long moments of budget-less, animation-less anime. What is anime without animation? And then, the bizarre, anticlimactic ending, which was as utterly insane as the end of the television series, just left me with a bad feeling in my gut that required several episodes of Slayers TRY to exorcise. Part Two of The End of Evangelion was simply the longest half-hour I'd ever spent watching anime. Period. I figure that Anno was attempting to reach out to the audience with his philosophy through Rei, as she engulfed the Earth (something reminiscent of Akira but not exactly the same) and left Shinji to decide its fate. (And Shinji's decision ... well, what would happen if you gave the fate of the world to some withdrawn, spineless little twit that wants nothing to do with the rest of humankind? Gee, I wonder ...) It genuinely hurt to watch. But then, so has this entire series.

http://www.themanime.org/viewreview.php?id=141

You're in good company. Carlos is a reviewer I trust about 99% of the time. We just had a major difference of opinion on this one.

[Ryokan]

even further off topic, here are some smilies that aren't used enough. :ball: :smitten: :fim:

[Jin-Roh]

Well I just watched the last two TV episodes. I fully understand why he recieved death threats. It was completely anti-climatic.

However, it did a good Job of resolving things that the tripped out movie ending didn't do at all. A lot of it was boring, and I thought that "shinji's reality" in which Rei had a normal personality was amusing.

The way I see is that a person should watch the movie, and the final two episodes just to get some idea of the ending.

[DLAbaoaqu]

End of EVA is probably one of my favorite comedies of all time:

We've got a Magi computer turning on Ritsuko, because her mother's soul still loved Gendo the Ehrman experience!
We've got random people turning into Tang (special mention goes to Hyuga, who got his first kiss from a Rei-Misato Instrumentality ghost) because the World's Biggest Baby had zero self-esteem!

It's funny in a weird sense.