Since I don’t have a blog I guess I’ll just write my thoughts over here. I won’t spoil much since there is no spoiler tag and I don’t remember much about the main series, so I wouldn’t be able to compare this to the original anyways.
Regardless, I prefer to think about these movies as a different take on the series. I think these movies are best watched a while after having watched the anime series and The End of Evangelion, since they overlap on the beginning, which even makes some people who just finished the original skip the first movie altogether and go straight to the second one.
My thoughts on the original series and EoE back when I watched them 8 years ago were that it was good, hell, it was great, even if it was a bit dense, just not the 12/10 series that would change your entire way of seeing life as some people would say on the Internet. I do get why you could learn a thing of two from it though, since it really is an anime that motivates you to think, considering the amount of introspection that their own characters go through.
However, I have also learned some small life lessons from mediocre anime (like “It’s more satisfying to hear a single “thank you” than a lot of “sorry”s”) so I don’t really know how to think about this. I won’t develop on my thoughts about the original series in this post since it has been a while and they could perfectly change if I were to rewatch them now.
As for the Rebuilds, I watched the first to the third movies right after finishing the series (4.0 hadn’t come out at that time, but it had been announced!) and rewatched The End of Evangelion with the great Thugginator and some flashii people in 2019. When the 4th Rebuild movie released in 2021, I couldn’t be bothered to rewatch the other 3, so I just didn’t watch it at the time.
Fast forward some years until last month and I see that some cinemas where I live are playing the Rebuilds, so I tell my friends who have not watched the original series to go since “it could be fun to watch anime in the cinema”. The only thing one of them knew was the infamous hospital scene in EoE, which was funny. I somehow manage to convince them all to go with me and we get some tickets for 1.0. I was a bit excited since I hadn’t gone to the movies in like half a year too.
The only thing I remembered about 1.0 is that it was basically a summary of the first few episodes, but since I had forgotten about most of the series, there were some scenes which I recognized, other scenes which had been deleted or summarized and some sentences which had been on a corner of my mind for a long time, but I hadn’t remember that they were from Evangelion (“Another unfamiliar ceiling…”). The quality of the animation greatly surprised me too, although I guess the fact that I was watching it on a movie theater helped too. I also remembered that the movies have a post-credits scene, so I forced my friends to watch through the credits with me, something that I would do as well for the other three movies >:)
The first movie pretty much feels like a setup for a story. Many of the scenes in which the characters reflect on their actions are removed or shortened, thus speeding up the rhythm of the plot relative to the original one. I don’t think this is inherently bad, since trying to do the same as 95’ Evangelion kinda removes the point of making the rebuilds altogether, and because I don’t feel like the general public would really miss those scenes. I liked the movie overall, my friends did too and they also thought that the fan service scenes were funny. and the next day I was already asking my friends and trying to arrange a date in which all of us could go and watch 2.0.
Next week it was time to go and watch 2.0. I also got some soda and popcorn since I usually don’t get them and got on my seat. I barely remembered anything again, other than it started to diverge a bit from the original series.
In the end, it was an enjoyable watching. Sure, it felt a bit rushed, as it is a 90 minute movie, but I liked how it tried to do new things and there were two more movies remaining, so there could be time to develop the areas that hadn’t been explored in the other two movies.
Again, a couple of days after I was already pestering my friends to watch the third one since I needed the motivation boost of having the tickets for the next viewing so I could get through the week. One of them wouldn’t be able to join, but he promised to watch the 3rd one on his own so he could join for the last movie.
I remembered that 3.0 was when everything starts to get confusing and surely it was. The animation and the overall art was really good though, better than the previous two. I can’t develop much on how confusing the plot starts to be since I would break my self-imposed no-spoiler rule, so let’s just say that when my friend who couldn’t watch the movie with us saw it some days later, he immediately called me because he didn’t understand anything. Overall, I had to explain to all of my friends some things since I had the additional context of the original series and that already was a bad sign, since, as I said at the beginning of this post, I consider the movies to be “a different take on the series”, not something that you have to watch the original series (which people probably did not remember when this movie came out) in order to truly understand.
Anyways, only one movie remained. Even with all of the confusion of the third movie, it seemed a bit like all of us were going to miss this weekly tradition. We went to watch 4.0, the only one that I hadn’t watched (although I had seen one of the frames of the last scene in Twitter back when it was still Twitter some years ago, and I knew that the general consensus was that it was the best one of the four), so it would be the only showing in which I would be going almost as blind as them.
4.0 is longer than the rest, and it took around 9 years after 3.0 for it to get released (the gaps between the first three movies are way shorter). I have a bunch of thoughts about it but again, no spoilers, so I will just say that the CGI is kind of bad, and even though it solves some questions that 3.0 created, it still has a rushed ending that you will (not) understand (haha, I put not in parenthesis like in the first three titles) unless you have watched The End of Evangelion.
However, regadless of it’s flaws, I remembered that right at the ending before the credits would play one of my friends said that he didn’t understand anything, and another one told him “it doesn’t matter, it was good” and started clapping. Then the credits started to play with the One Last Kiss and Beatiful World songs and I explained them my theories from what I vaguely remembered from the series and EoE while the credits were playing since we were waiting for an after credits scene.
Even though I have read a bit of wiki articles these past few days in order to solve some of my questions, I might just end up rewatching the original series since it has been a while after all, and I’m in kind in the appropriate mood to watch it sort to say. This being said, I have also learned that there are a bunch of games which don’t seem that bad and there is also the manga that I have never read...so maybe you will see another Eva post in the future.
In conclusion, you definitely have to watch these movies a bit of time after having watched the series, that way you won’t be bored at the areas in which they overlap with the original series. There are some things that are different from the original, but I find it natural, since the original Evangelion series had a bit of the feelings of the author on it, and in the 4th of October of this year it will be 30 years since the first episode was launched. And, as I said before, 4.0 came out in 2021.
This makes me think, maybe I should write a story now… I wonder what my future self would think of it.
wow this took like two hours to write, i didn't realised it until now, i was so focused...
Regardless, I prefer to think about these movies as a different take on the series. I think these movies are best watched a while after having watched the anime series and The End of Evangelion, since they overlap on the beginning, which even makes some people who just finished the original skip the first movie altogether and go straight to the second one.
My thoughts on the original series and EoE back when I watched them 8 years ago were that it was good, hell, it was great, even if it was a bit dense, just not the 12/10 series that would change your entire way of seeing life as some people would say on the Internet. I do get why you could learn a thing of two from it though, since it really is an anime that motivates you to think, considering the amount of introspection that their own characters go through.
However, I have also learned some small life lessons from mediocre anime (like “It’s more satisfying to hear a single “thank you” than a lot of “sorry”s”) so I don’t really know how to think about this. I won’t develop on my thoughts about the original series in this post since it has been a while and they could perfectly change if I were to rewatch them now.
As for the Rebuilds, I watched the first to the third movies right after finishing the series (4.0 hadn’t come out at that time, but it had been announced!) and rewatched The End of Evangelion with the great Thugginator and some flashii people in 2019. When the 4th Rebuild movie released in 2021, I couldn’t be bothered to rewatch the other 3, so I just didn’t watch it at the time.
Fast forward some years until last month and I see that some cinemas where I live are playing the Rebuilds, so I tell my friends who have not watched the original series to go since “it could be fun to watch anime in the cinema”. The only thing one of them knew was the infamous hospital scene in EoE, which was funny. I somehow manage to convince them all to go with me and we get some tickets for 1.0. I was a bit excited since I hadn’t gone to the movies in like half a year too.
The only thing I remembered about 1.0 is that it was basically a summary of the first few episodes, but since I had forgotten about most of the series, there were some scenes which I recognized, other scenes which had been deleted or summarized and some sentences which had been on a corner of my mind for a long time, but I hadn’t remember that they were from Evangelion (“Another unfamiliar ceiling…”). The quality of the animation greatly surprised me too, although I guess the fact that I was watching it on a movie theater helped too. I also remembered that the movies have a post-credits scene, so I forced my friends to watch through the credits with me, something that I would do as well for the other three movies >:)
The first movie pretty much feels like a setup for a story. Many of the scenes in which the characters reflect on their actions are removed or shortened, thus speeding up the rhythm of the plot relative to the original one. I don’t think this is inherently bad, since trying to do the same as 95’ Evangelion kinda removes the point of making the rebuilds altogether, and because I don’t feel like the general public would really miss those scenes. I liked the movie overall, my friends did too and they also thought that the fan service scenes were funny. and the next day I was already asking my friends and trying to arrange a date in which all of us could go and watch 2.0.
Next week it was time to go and watch 2.0. I also got some soda and popcorn since I usually don’t get them and got on my seat. I barely remembered anything again, other than it started to diverge a bit from the original series.
In the end, it was an enjoyable watching. Sure, it felt a bit rushed, as it is a 90 minute movie, but I liked how it tried to do new things and there were two more movies remaining, so there could be time to develop the areas that hadn’t been explored in the other two movies.
Again, a couple of days after I was already pestering my friends to watch the third one since I needed the motivation boost of having the tickets for the next viewing so I could get through the week. One of them wouldn’t be able to join, but he promised to watch the 3rd one on his own so he could join for the last movie.
I remembered that 3.0 was when everything starts to get confusing and surely it was. The animation and the overall art was really good though, better than the previous two. I can’t develop much on how confusing the plot starts to be since I would break my self-imposed no-spoiler rule, so let’s just say that when my friend who couldn’t watch the movie with us saw it some days later, he immediately called me because he didn’t understand anything. Overall, I had to explain to all of my friends some things since I had the additional context of the original series and that already was a bad sign, since, as I said at the beginning of this post, I consider the movies to be “a different take on the series”, not something that you have to watch the original series (which people probably did not remember when this movie came out) in order to truly understand.
Anyways, only one movie remained. Even with all of the confusion of the third movie, it seemed a bit like all of us were going to miss this weekly tradition. We went to watch 4.0, the only one that I hadn’t watched (although I had seen one of the frames of the last scene in Twitter back when it was still Twitter some years ago, and I knew that the general consensus was that it was the best one of the four), so it would be the only showing in which I would be going almost as blind as them.
4.0 is longer than the rest, and it took around 9 years after 3.0 for it to get released (the gaps between the first three movies are way shorter). I have a bunch of thoughts about it but again, no spoilers, so I will just say that the CGI is kind of bad, and even though it solves some questions that 3.0 created, it still has a rushed ending that you will (not) understand (haha, I put not in parenthesis like in the first three titles) unless you have watched The End of Evangelion.
However, regadless of it’s flaws, I remembered that right at the ending before the credits would play one of my friends said that he didn’t understand anything, and another one told him “it doesn’t matter, it was good” and started clapping. Then the credits started to play with the One Last Kiss and Beatiful World songs and I explained them my theories from what I vaguely remembered from the series and EoE while the credits were playing since we were waiting for an after credits scene.
Even though I have read a bit of wiki articles these past few days in order to solve some of my questions, I might just end up rewatching the original series since it has been a while after all, and I’m in kind in the appropriate mood to watch it sort to say. This being said, I have also learned that there are a bunch of games which don’t seem that bad and there is also the manga that I have never read...so maybe you will see another Eva post in the future.
In conclusion, you definitely have to watch these movies a bit of time after having watched the series, that way you won’t be bored at the areas in which they overlap with the original series. There are some things that are different from the original, but I find it natural, since the original Evangelion series had a bit of the feelings of the author on it, and in the 4th of October of this year it will be 30 years since the first episode was launched. And, as I said before, 4.0 came out in 2021.
This makes me think, maybe I should write a story now… I wonder what my future self would think of it.