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Der Junge und Das Messer
Jul. 29th, 2007 09:36 pmEnd of Evangelion (1997), Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki. July 29, 2-ish pm. View count: three or so.
We'd decided to rewatch the Evangelion series, which meant rewatching at least this movie, given the series' unsatisfying if not completely off-putting conclusion (this movie either replaces the final two episodes, or somehow happens concurrently). I'll probably end up jabbering about the whole series to some extent, because the End Of doesn't really stand on its own in any way.
So, okay. The series is about people and their individual complexes on top of complexes (which happen to all be fairly similar), giant 'robots', and some sort of half-explicated christian-flavored theological mishmash. None of these components really, really has any impact on another. They mostly keep their conflicts to within their own category. There's some overlap sometimes, but it's not the deep satisfying kind, it's the 'I wonder if they really meant this' kind. If they don't talk a concept to death, was it really intended to be visible? So much does get talked to death that it's hard to be sure that anything that's not specifically discussed is important or intentional.
So, screw the overall plot of the movie, I guess. I don't really care about the occurrences after the world ends. It's all Tang and giant vacant chicks, anyhow. The rest of it, though, had some merit and potential. Dude has troubles, dude tries to work them out by being an Eva pilot. Other people do the same. Everyone is broken, which was intentional, but not actually very interesting. What I need to know is this: why weren't the Evas used more cleverly? They were portrayed exclusively as tools. Tools that could freak out, perhaps, but still tools. Maybe like a beast of burden, that sort of thing. They were almost always mere extensions of their pilots, narratively. It looked for a time, though, as if they were being set up to be at least semisentient. This was completely abandoned, however. I wanted the Evas' wills to be apparent. I wanted their thoughts to seep into the thoughts of their pilots, making them suddenly realise they were doing something they hadn't been trained to do. That kind of thing. This would have paid off the whole 'Evas are alive' concept in a much more deep way (er, you know, deeper than not-at-all, unless you count staring).
Of course, I thought the Eva segments (and angels) were the best parts, not least because of how freaking gorgeous they were. I just love everything about them; their proportions, their weight, their sort of awkward gorgeousness. Beautifully animated, especially in contrast to all the stupid, stilted humans. I've watched this series a few times, and I seriously had trouble this time around listening to everyone's personal neurosis-time when I could have been looking at beautiful perfect robot-shaped things destroying a life-form of some sort in a particularly well-visualised way? This is why I haven't seen the Transformers movie, too (ha).
Anyway. I had little patience this time around for everyone's super angsty self-absorption. The repetition didn't do it for me so well, and the pseudoscience, although at least fairly well-formed in its own universe, got annoying right around the time 'instrumentality' (not the Krell kind) was mentioned. I don't know if this just isn't a series that works well over multiple viewings, but this is the first time I've wanted to just cut together all the Eva scenes and just throw out everything else.
The (human) character designs, although not overtly awful, have a lot of annoying proportional issues. They also do that thing wherein unless the head is in absolute profile, the upper and lower lip will remain connected at the front while talking, as if the mouth has been slid toward the camera. It's horrid. And, as expected, every female is visually identical except for hair and eye color.
I'd just like to add that I have never understood the well-maintained and focussed wank-field that surrounds all the female characters. They're like the ur-otaku-wank-input. I mean, given, they are sexualised pretty strongly, but, uh, come on, we see exactly how crazy each of these people is. I come out of the series mostly hating everyone, myself. I wish I knew how much of this was marketing.
(This is, at least, all marketing.)
We'd decided to rewatch the Evangelion series, which meant rewatching at least this movie, given the series' unsatisfying if not completely off-putting conclusion (this movie either replaces the final two episodes, or somehow happens concurrently). I'll probably end up jabbering about the whole series to some extent, because the End Of doesn't really stand on its own in any way.
So, okay. The series is about people and their individual complexes on top of complexes (which happen to all be fairly similar), giant 'robots', and some sort of half-explicated christian-flavored theological mishmash. None of these components really, really has any impact on another. They mostly keep their conflicts to within their own category. There's some overlap sometimes, but it's not the deep satisfying kind, it's the 'I wonder if they really meant this' kind. If they don't talk a concept to death, was it really intended to be visible? So much does get talked to death that it's hard to be sure that anything that's not specifically discussed is important or intentional.
So, screw the overall plot of the movie, I guess. I don't really care about the occurrences after the world ends. It's all Tang and giant vacant chicks, anyhow. The rest of it, though, had some merit and potential. Dude has troubles, dude tries to work them out by being an Eva pilot. Other people do the same. Everyone is broken, which was intentional, but not actually very interesting. What I need to know is this: why weren't the Evas used more cleverly? They were portrayed exclusively as tools. Tools that could freak out, perhaps, but still tools. Maybe like a beast of burden, that sort of thing. They were almost always mere extensions of their pilots, narratively. It looked for a time, though, as if they were being set up to be at least semisentient. This was completely abandoned, however. I wanted the Evas' wills to be apparent. I wanted their thoughts to seep into the thoughts of their pilots, making them suddenly realise they were doing something they hadn't been trained to do. That kind of thing. This would have paid off the whole 'Evas are alive' concept in a much more deep way (er, you know, deeper than not-at-all, unless you count staring).
Of course, I thought the Eva segments (and angels) were the best parts, not least because of how freaking gorgeous they were. I just love everything about them; their proportions, their weight, their sort of awkward gorgeousness. Beautifully animated, especially in contrast to all the stupid, stilted humans. I've watched this series a few times, and I seriously had trouble this time around listening to everyone's personal neurosis-time when I could have been looking at beautiful perfect robot-shaped things destroying a life-form of some sort in a particularly well-visualised way? This is why I haven't seen the Transformers movie, too (ha).
Anyway. I had little patience this time around for everyone's super angsty self-absorption. The repetition didn't do it for me so well, and the pseudoscience, although at least fairly well-formed in its own universe, got annoying right around the time 'instrumentality' (not the Krell kind) was mentioned. I don't know if this just isn't a series that works well over multiple viewings, but this is the first time I've wanted to just cut together all the Eva scenes and just throw out everything else.
The (human) character designs, although not overtly awful, have a lot of annoying proportional issues. They also do that thing wherein unless the head is in absolute profile, the upper and lower lip will remain connected at the front while talking, as if the mouth has been slid toward the camera. It's horrid. And, as expected, every female is visually identical except for hair and eye color.
I'd just like to add that I have never understood the well-maintained and focussed wank-field that surrounds all the female characters. They're like the ur-otaku-wank-input. I mean, given, they are sexualised pretty strongly, but, uh, come on, we see exactly how crazy each of these people is. I come out of the series mostly hating everyone, myself. I wish I knew how much of this was marketing.
(This is, at least, all marketing.)
