Erenle

[Spoilers obviously] I saw Rebuild 3.0 about a month ago, and during that time I didn't think much of it. It was just another movie in the series, and I didn't analyze it to any significant extent. The action was intense, the plot seemed interesting at the time, the animation quality was superb. Recently however (coinciding with the UTW BD subs release), there has been an influx of discussion posts about 3.0, and I figured that there had to be a reason for such a community reaction to the movie; there must be more to think about. So I went to re-watch the movie again with abit more acuity and that's when I came to a conclusion: The movie was a huge cop-out. Evangelion 3.0 answered no questions. I am in no way exaggerating when I say that the movie was better at taking away things that we previously knew rather than clarifying anything for us in the Rebuild series. This is itself is not a bad aspect of the movie, as it can be attributed to two things a) Studio Khara wants us to ask a lot of questions and get curious so that we'll buy 4.0 b) Anno is trying to be clever and allow the viewers to emulate Shinji's confusion after 14 years in sleep by giving the viewers that same confusion. The second option seems much more likely, and in such a case I could say that it was executed well. Shinji probably had no idea what in the world was going on during the entire movie, and I can reciprocate that feeling. If I had to make a list of everything that was left unanswered or simply pulled out of Khara's ass, it would have to be: 1. Why did there have to be a 14 year time skip? The teaser at the end of 2.0 did not imply a time skip in any way and I don't think there was even a need for such a long one. I expected the story to pick up immediately after Kaworu speared Shinji and it could have easily done so with much less clumsy exposition ("Hey Shinji, let's play play Shogi. Oh yeah by the way your mom is the soul of Unit 01 and all Reis are clones of your mom. Oh, and you suck at Shogi.") 2. Why was everyone a dick to Shinji when at the end of 2.0 it seemed like everyone was fine with him going all out and even egged him on? It was also clear at the end of 2.0 that Shinji did not cause enough damage to obliterate the Geofront as shown in 3.0, as Kaworu stopped him beforehand and everyone had evacuated to a shelter of some sort. The desolate wastelands and weird spinning moons and chalices were never explained and were most certainly not Shinji's fault (as the teaser in the end of 2.0 shows a clear afternoon sky and a calm Geofront shortly after Shinji gets speared). 3. Why did WILLE need to break from NERV? It was not NERV's fault that Shinji's supposed Third Impact happened, and it's not like anyone knew of Gendo's Human Instrumentality plan (which I assume was already on the way, because Kaworu seemed prepared enough). There's doesn't seem to have been a need for Misato to have broken from NERV, as NERV wasn't doing anything wrong. It feels like the existence of WILLE in 3.0 is just there to give a conflict without any real depth. 4.What's the significance of having the two spears be Longinus types? How does that even happen and why in the world did that make a difference? 5. Was there any reason to have Unit 06 to contain the Twelfth Angel? I thought Kaworu was pretty comfortable using Unit 06 and I'm not sure why the Twelfth Angel would even be needed to start Instrumentality. Also, how did Kaworu "fall" from the first Angel (which is supposed to be Adam) to the Twelfth Angel and why did that make a difference? Heck, I'll go as far as to say that the entire scene at the bottom of the Geofront was just pulled out of Khara's ass, there was literally no context for anything (Lilith is dead for some reason. Just go with it, we're not going to explain.) Those are just five big ones that I named off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are plenty of other plot holes and unexplained things that I'm missing. 3.0 definitely had the well-choreographed fight scenes and beautiful animation to surpass it's predecessors in spectacle, but it was just that: spectacle. Every significant plot device (WILLE and Wunder, two Lances of Longinus, Adam's Vessel, etc.) just appeared out of thin air and was force-fed into our minds at a lightning-fast rate. Of course I don't go into anything in the Evangelion franchise expecting answers. In fact, answers are the opposite of what I usually expect from anything Evangelion. However, there is a difference between using unanswered questions in context with previously known facts to generate suspense and curiosity and just taking a bunch of haphazard ideas, animating them, and throwing them in no particular order or significance into a movie that was three years in the making. In fact, I walked into 3.0 fully anticipating a high level of suspense and ambiguity. I would have left satisfied, but instead all I got was Studio Khara telling me, "Hey, everything that we told you before doesn't mean shit. Now here, take all of these incidental plot lines and characters that we just came up with and expect you to care about with no context and go enjoy yourself a movie." In fact, none of these things would even have effected me if it weren't for my biggest peeve with the movie: the way Rei was treated. Okay, sure I can buy that original Rei wasn't salvaged from Unit 01. But don't try to play off this new Rei clone as being developed in some way and expect us to care about her or feel anything when she makes the supposedly miraculous decision and decides to eject from Unit 09. No Hideaki Anno, we've spent two movies geting to know the first Rei and seeing her develop from the stoic white-haired nonchalant to a character that can actually warm up and make Shinji happy. It's perfectly fine if she gets killed off for shock factor and for another burden on Shinji's conscience, but that in no way works if you simply introduce another stoic white-haired nonchalant and try to develop her in the same way. Let me guess, this Rei dies/disintegrates/becomes an Instrumentality Trigger too? Big deal. Maybe I had too many expectations of the movie. Maybe I shouldn't have gone into 3.0 with security in my thoughts. Maybe I'm simply not watching it properly or maybe I even missed everything important in the movie (What more can there be? We already know that the all the imagery and symbolism is just there to look flashy). But even if I had a complete and 100% understanding of everything that could have led up to and been in the movie (which is not really the intention of the Evangelion series, and is probably not possible), 3.0 still had a lazy and bullshit execution of a plot. Sure, anyone can go ahead and tell me that I am meant to be confused all I want, but a line must be drawn between confusing your viewers intentionally and failing to make a cohesive and coherent storyline. TL;DR: Hideaki Anno pulled 3.0 out of Khara's ambiguous (albeit well-animated) ass.

PunishedHametsu

It’s been over three long years since Studio Khara’s brilliant Evangelion 2.0 graced our unprepared eyeballs and earholes with its fresh and exciting take on the classic anime series. Fans grew antsy and expectations ran higher than ever for this third film in the Rebuild of Evangelion tetralogy to deliver the goods, and Neon Genesis mastermind Hideaki Anno knew he really had to shake things up with the newest installment to keep everyone flocking to theatres and DVD racks in enthusiastic anticipation. And he shook things up alright. Picking up where part 2 left off, You Can (Not) Redo — or Q Quickening, if you’d rather– begins with a mesmerizing six minute sequence in which Studio Khara blows 75% of their budget on Asuka retrieving Shinji’s unconscious body from outer space by shooting the shit out of some artificial angels. It’s lavishly animated and beautiful on multiple levels, keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat as pretty colors light up the cosmos. The action is insane, even jaw-dropping, perfectly setting the film up to be an action-packed thrill ride. And then Shinji wakes up. Do you remember the preview at the end of Evangelion 2.0? Yeah, none of that happens in this movie. Instead, the remainder of the film is a joyless husk; a cheap imitation of NGE that plays out more like self-indulgent fanfiction than something written and directed by the original creator. Following a fourteen year (yes, fourteen) time skip, in which no one has aged a day — a minor inconvenience that is apathetically hand waved near the outset — protagonist Shinji Ikari enters a world in which everyone hates him but refuses to say why. Poor Shinji is just as confused as the audience by this, but all of his requests for clarification seem to result in a reply of “don’t touch anything”, “be quiet”, or “fuck off ya twat”. Misato now commands a fleet of flying battleships, her goal being the destruction of remaining NERV personnel. While this could have been an interesting storyline had something — anything — built up to it, this motivation comes completely out of left field and feels extremely unsatisfying. It is then that Rei, who Shinji was told died in the last film, suddenly shows up to whisk him away to the now-desolate NERV headquarters. The audience is subsequently left wondering why the hell Misato’s fleet hasn’t completely wiped them off the map yet, as their staff consists entirely of Gendo, Rei, Kaworu, and Fuyutsuki. That’s not a joke either; their staff is literally half the size of the average internet forum's before Shinji shows up. By the time the fairly predictable climax rolls around, viewers will have been left utterly bored by almost an hour of nothing interesting happening. The film is mostly set in drab, empty environments — and if that was meant to be symbolic in some way, Khara failed miserably. Plot twists from the original Neon Genesis Evangelion occur in ways that are presented in a much less compelling manner this time around, and the bulk of these scenes simply feature Shinji being kind-of-but-not-really depressed and the expected yaoi ship-bait between the leading man and Kaworu. However, their interactions feel more manufactured than before; an attempt at shallow fanservice rather than a pivotal moment in the protagonist’s character arc… a character arc that hardly even exists in this film. That's not to say that their relationship was particularly well-written in episode 24 of NGE - far from it - there just wasn't enough meat for it to be expanded upon at this level without some major rewriting. Their storyline works more for the concept than it does the execution in both instances, and the way it was presented in the original series, while certainly out of left field, made it seem like it had more depth than it really did. In 3.0, it just happens, because. It didn't really seem to affect Shinji much outside of moving him to the next plot point. But it's unfair to make such a blanket statement at this point in time; the final movie could definitely do some interesting things with Shinji/Kaworu. Fans of human interaction and actual dialogue will no doubt be distressed by the fact that Kaworu is the only likable character and how the interesting dynamics and relationships of past Evangelion works have been completely discarded in 3.0. Rei has maybe twenty lines total, the majority of them being “I don’t know” and “that is not my order”. Gendo says all of one sentence to Shinji and only has a couple more lines after that. Ritsuko exists solely to deliver exposition and disappears after the first act. Misato is basically a new character. Mari speaks almost entirely in one-liners. Kaji doesn’t even appear. The story as a whole is mostly inconsequential and serves only to undermine what was accomplished in the previous two movies. Nearly everything established or built up in 1.0 and 2.0 is either ignored or demolished in part 3, leaving the fourth and final movie to probably function better as a standalone piece than part of a film series. I hold NGE (and the other Rebuild movies) dear to my heart and consider The End of Evangelion to be among the finest films ever made — animated or otherwise — but even my love for this franchise cannot make You Can (Not) Redo look like a good movie. Sure, it excels in the A/V department (as expected), but it has no soul, meaning, or purpose. Anno’s heart is nowhere to be found in this glorified fanfic; it’s a stylish Eva knock-off at best.