Evangelion rebuild opinion from someone who has not watched the anime
1.0: nice
2.0: wow I see the appeal of this series now
3.0: not sure how I feel about this one. Could be good depending on the next film.4.0 (yes, I already did the math for you): what a disappointment.
I waited for I don't know how many years for the last film and what a pile of crap. I cannot believe this is what people fell in love when the anime aired back then. I guess it's time to watch the anime and see if it's something like the first two films. I know there are one or two films for the ending of the anime so hopefully it would be better than what I just watched.
Just watched the finale and it made me angry.
Posted Mar 29, 2023, 10:01 PM UTC
17
Well that's a bizarre conclusion to come to. You literally admit to not having watched it so how could you assume that the Rebuild is the same story? "This" is not what people fell in love with when they watched the OG series, which is exactly why the Rebuilds have been so divisive amongst OG fans.
If you want to judge the Rebuilds on their own merit then do that, there's nothing wrong with it, instead of passing judgement on a anime you haven't actually watched because you're incorrectly assumed the stories are the same.
The story of the Rebuilds diverges roughly halfway through 2.0. At that point you're no longer watching anything remotely related to the original narrative, you're watching a show related to it through similar themes, visuals, and character growth and that's it. The Human Instrumentality plot is very different in the Rebuilds. Everything in 3 and 4 never happened in the original series - like word-to-word none of it existed until the Rebuilds.
I don't think the Rebuilds are good Evangelion films on their own merit either, by the way. I think without context of the original series + EoE they really don't work, particularly since the theme of the Rebuild seems quite clearly one about healing as a direct contrast to the original series focus on depression. The character development is also extremely poor for anyone that isn't Shinji or Rei by comparison, and even Rei has been watered down significiantly as a result of the faster pace.
As u/TheDWGM alludes to, it was a bit of an odd choice for the studio to try and appeal to both groups and honestly, I think after 3.0's relatively mixed reception they stopped trying and focused instead on the people who had watched the original series.
rei, gendo have better development in rebuild & some other characters come close to their og versions too. rebuild has very similar theme to the og even if it is more optimistic & can work without it but not that well
I think Gendo has a better resolution but I dunno about character development in general. We learn mostly the same stuff but instead miss out on Yui and Fyuutski's part in it, too.
The pacing of it is better though. You learn about Gendo and Yui almost immediately by comparison.
And as said the ending is a lot better as opposed to his head getting munched on and that's it, as fucking satisfying as that was.