I enjoyed the series Neon Genesis Evangelion. I enjoyed it despite the “hero” Shinji being something of a milksop. I enjoyed it despite the weird ending. The ending was weird, I’m told, because they ran out of budget. Solution – lots of surreal stuff happens. Over. You’re left asking “What?”
As sometimes happens with series that get cut due to a lack of success, Neon Genesis Evangelion went on to become really popular, and we’ve now had three films with Evangelion 4.0 in the works. In fact, in Evangelion 3.0 you’re left with a “To be continued” and you’ll probably be asking “What?”
I’m going to give Evangelion 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo a score draw in terms of enjoyment. It’s a great action flick. Evas are still cool. Some of the characters are still fun. On the other hand, Shinji is just as useless as usual and it’s chaotic. It’s not that I don’t understand what’s going on… it’s that I’m not clear on why it’s going on. In some ways that’s worse. It harms enjoyment when you’re left puzzling as to why characters are acting in certain ways.
I think perhaps Evangelion 3.0 has a strange effect on the brain. I went in to see the film knowing that I’ve seen Evangelion 1.0 and Evangelion 2.0. The DVDs are here in my apartment. I left Evangelion 3.0 wondering whether I had actually seen Evangelion 2.0 after all. The third movie picks up where the second left off. Except, well, it’s 14 years later and some people haven’t aged for some ‘curse’ reason which could be explained in the plot and others don’t look as if they’ve aged when I suspect they really have.
Nerv is still around – except there’s a well funded organisation called Wille that’s hunting them and their Evas. It’s Wille who ‘rescue’ Shinji for some reason. Maybe Eva 4.0 will explain why.
What’s more is that some of our characters, including Asuka, are working for Wille. In fact, Misato Katsuragi and Ritsuko Akagi seem to be leading Wille. They’re clear on one thing – don’t get in an Eva.
Nerv has other plans for Shinji though. They’d like him to pilot an Eva again.
Most of all, Shinji would like to undo as much of the damage that’s been done. He fancies the Spears of Cassius and Longinus are just the ticket to making this happen. Drama unfolds. This is where the third movie of the remake gets its somewhat ironic title from – You Can (Not) Redo.
I’ll give You Can (Not) Redo a score draw again on the heritage of Neon Genesis Evangelion. There’s some fan service in here. Heck, they’ve even added some strong bromance between Shinji and Kaworu Nagisa. Yaoi fanfic writers have plenty here. On the other hand I’m not sure it felt part of the series or, more importantly, the family of movies before it.
Mixed thoughts on this one. Will I watch Evangelion 4.0? Most likely.
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