Merry Christmas in July!
"[Cinema] is a labyrinth with a treacherous resemblance to reality." - Andrew Sarris
I have the suspicion that you are secretly stealing your thread titles from a certain anime franchise.
Following in the footsteps of your future president's wife, eh?
I have the suspicion that you are secretly stealing your thread titles from a certain anime franchise.
Following in the footsteps of your future president's wife, eh?
It took a while, but we finally got a new thread. Are you going to be able to archive the GC 7, Rax? Those archives have come in handy more than once.
Anyway, good timing because:
Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo - Anno - 8.5/10
My turn to pull a Rax: LOLANNO
Will probably post real review on FG
A Double Tour - Claude Chabrol - 7/10
Like all Chabrol's I've seen, this is a tightly plotted, stylish psychological thriller that recalls Hitchcock without being overly imitative. Chabrol definitely has his own style and isn't afraid of being a little rougher around the edges. Here he also has a phenomenal cast, including a magnetic Jean-Paul Belmondo in one of his very first roles playing the brutish fiance of a wealthy man's daughter who ends up investigating the murder of the wealthy man's mistress. The film is structured around several interlocking events occurring during the same time-frame, so you'll often see the same events from different perspectives and linked by common motifs (especially a piece of music by Mozart). For all its quality, though, it's a film that impresses more than it generally thrills or involves. Chabrol has Hitchcock's coolness without quite his level of perfection or perversity that makes Hitchcock one of cinema's most unfathomably provocative directors.
warriorspirit: if the penis is used as a pencil holder we'll incur a cost.
I've got a new PDF conversion program, so I'll try and use that to save GC7.
LOLANNO is how I like Anno best.
EDIT: By the way is everyone cool with dropping spoiler tags for 3.0 chat now? I think all of the regular posters have finally seen it, so it seems like it would be easier to just not use them.
"[Cinema] is a labyrinth with a treacherous resemblance to reality." - Andrew Sarris
The spoilers were never really necessary to begin with since I just avoided reading any and all discussion about it anyway. :)
So what are the major theories about what exactly is going on in 3.33?
warriorspirit: if the penis is used as a pencil holder we'll incur a cost.
The short answer is that everything went to hell after Third Impact in 2.22, and the survivors blame Shinji for it. Knowing this, Gendo manipulates Shinji into jumpstarting Fourth Impact- it sort of happens, is sort of averted, but where we go from here seems to be up in the air. Likely thing is that NERV will be fought one last time- apparently they're going to be trying to cause the ominously named Final Impact now.
For anything more than that, it's easier if you have specific questions. I think the movie is intentionally designed to be disorienting, so I don't think everything in the plot can be clearly explained (Though arguably that is how the original series works too). Most of what I have to say about it is thematic- my basic interpretation is that 3.33 and Rebuild as a whole is a response to the public's response to NGE. I think this is why we have references to stuff like RahXephon and FLCL in Rebuild, as well those silly fanfictions where people imagine Shinji as a tougher character that doesn't take crap from anyone (And shows pretty much only negative consequences emerging from that). We even see references to stuff Anno made before NGE such as GunBuster and Nadia, though you'd have to ask kuribo more about the Nadia stuff as he's seen more of that show than I have.
"[Cinema] is a labyrinth with a treacherous resemblance to reality." - Andrew Sarris
Yeah, I got the basic plot outline, I was referring mostly to what's going on with the two spears, Kaworu doing his "so this is what the Lilin want" routine from ep. 24, and exactly what's going on after that. Granted, the mechanics of 3rd Impact and the role Kaworu played was one of the most complex and opaque aspects from the series/film, and 3.33 seems to be, essentially, a completely new retelling of the events of ep. 24 when Kaworu sacrifices himself after realizing what's going on (but being utterly vague about it). Again it's hard to figure out exactly what Gendo's plan for Shinji was there (just like it was hard to figure out how Seele/Gendo were using Kaworu and Shinji in ep. 24).
Yeah, it's definitely a disorienting experience. At one point it reminded of how ep. 2 was structured around Shinji's own disorientation after his first experience in the Eva, except here instead of just an Eva going berserk Anno has elided the entire apocalypse! It's quite ingenious, and the film is structured much like a sonata (fast-slow-fast, almost in perfect temporal symmetry: 30min./30min./30min.), which is appropriate given the music motif. I'd be curious to hear you discuss some of the references you see to Rah and FLCL, fanfics, and Anno's previous stuff... or just give me a link if there's a thread that goes into it.
warriorspirit: if the penis is used as a pencil holder we'll incur a cost.
To hell with links, I'm just gonna write all this stuff up again. Gives me an excuse to reorganize my thoughts too.
"[Cinema] is a labyrinth with a treacherous resemblance to reality." - Andrew Sarris
From what I can tell the two spears were keeping the Angel in place, and weren't these spears that could turn back time or whatever. Gendo lied to Kaworu about they did at some point, and Kaworu didn't figure it out until it was too late. I can't remember the exact line, but apparently something about souls are required to move them, and that Kaworu couldn't have Rei help presumably because she's a clone.
As for what Kaworu is going on about at the end, it's hard to say. It seems vaguer than a lot of the things he says in the TV series even- his comment about being "cast down to the 13th" or whatever seems to suggest that Angels can change their "ranking" somehow, but what that means isn't clear. Same with his assurance to Shinji that they'll somehow meet again after his death- frankly, I'd be surprised if Kaworu is in the last movie at all. I'm not sure his stuff on the moon in 1.11 will ever make a whole lot of sense either. I'm completely cool with all of this, by the way.
I think you're right about Episode 24 of NGE being largely retold here too, but I think one of the major differences is that it's almost like a post-EoE context now. Like it wouldn't be that hard to imagine 3.0 as a sequel to EoE where not quite everyone died, and then Shinji is forced to answer for how his actions contributed to the downfall of the planet.
The similarity I see with GunBuster is in its ending. The OVA ends with Noriko and Kazumi returning to Earth after being lost in space and streaming through time for many years. 3.33 begins with...Shinji returning to Earth from space after being lost in time for many years, though it seems to be a negative version of GunBuster's ending. Whereas Noriko finds the future greeting her with a "Welcome Home" message, Shinji is rejected by all of the old friends he finds. He even pilots a mecha with a partner of the same gender, which seems very reminicisent of the actual GunBuster mech using two pilots (And the fact that it's called something like "dual entry plug system" gives it weird sexual overtones). Even EVA-13 itself seems to be a twist on the GunBuster, becoming not a savior but a monster.
The FLCL thing is basically just a cameo of the Vespa in 2.22, though I think it's worth noting as one of the first major works I'm aware of that directly references NGE.
The RahXephon bit is more complicated. As I'm sure you know, that anime is infamous for being a "ripoff" of NGE. I don't think that's quite fair, but I'd more generously say its in conversation with it, where you get a similar broad plot, but without the nuance of NGE's characters. RahXephon features an episode where Ayato, fighting in a rage to protect some girl, goes kind of berserk and we get shots like these of him.
http://i811.photobucket.com/albums/zz34/Raxivace/vlcsnap-2013-02-03-13h18m07s4.png
http://i811.photobucket.com/albums/zz34/Raxivace/vlcsnap-2013-02-03-13h18m13s73.png?1469036700866&1469036701503&1469037526073
Notice the glowing red eyes.
Throughout the course of episode 19, Ayato fights some random Dolem, not realizing it is a manifestation of the girl he wants to protect. He kills it, and in doing so kills the girl he was trying to save.
2.22 features Shinji trying to save Rei from Zeruel. Rei gets absorbed, and we get Shinji's now famous "GIVE ME AYANAMI BACK" spiel. We get this shot of him int he movie's climax.
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120504215900/bleachfanfiction/images/c/c7/Eva-2-22-13852-shinji-red-eyes.jpg
Notice the similarity? Shinji's eyes glow red, EVA-01 gets God Mode, blah blah blah.
Before 3.33 came out, most took this unironically. The movie highly resembles fanfiction about Evangelion in this way- the characters begin to resolve their issues, Shinji "mans up" to save the girl etc. So far, so good. It even seems reminiscent of Gurren Lagann (Another show influenced by NGE, though thematically it's more bittersweet compared to Eva's cynicism. Super Robot Wars games also have had versions of Shinji like this, as well as Gurren Lagann and RahXephon characters at various points in time.) to a degree, where courage and hotblood are enough to save the day.
3.33 comes out, and not only did Shinji not seem to actually save Rei* (Fulfilling the parallel to Ayato's own failed attempt), his little stunt actually *beep* the world over and caused Third Impact. Everyone hates him, etc. His goal then literally becomes to undo the bad things that have happened through effectively time travel. He believes, rather uncritically, through pulling the spears he can undo Third Impact from happening in the first place. Right as he goes to pull them, we get this shot.
http://i811.photobucket.com/albums/zz34/Raxivace/vlcsnap-2013-04-28-00h59m15s232.png
It's the same shot as in 2.22, just without the red eyes and a different aspect ratio.
Do you remember how RahXephon ended? It ended with Ayato using time travel to undo all of the bad things in his life. All tragedies and deaths were undone and retconned out of existence. Ayato gets a happy life and gets married etc. This is, essentially, Shinji's goal in 3.33.
Also, WILL-E's uniforms in 3.33...
http://i.imgur.com/AEa0O.jpg
Seem oddly reminiscient of Ayato's uniform as a member of TERRA.
http://static.zerochan.net/Kamina.Ayato.full.4930.jpg
It's possible that all of these points are entirely coincidental, though I think that would be even more unlikely then Anno attempting to use post-Evangelion and pre-Evangelion works in the same way he used Gundam and Ideon back in the days of the original NGE.
From what I can tell, Anno is not only criticizing people that missed the point of NGE, but he's criticizing people who missed the point (Particularly creators that tried to capitalize off of the ideas in NGE...some in superficial ways, others were more thoughtful) and then used the work to just make wish fulfillment stuff. Or at the very least, there now seems to be cynicism on his part in that wish fulfillment stuff.
So in a way the movie seems to be saying with the time travel storyline, much like many before it, is that it's foolish to run away to the more comfortable past represented by 1.11 and 2.22 world highly resembling NGE. In a sense, Anno himself is saying that he can (not) redo Evangelion anymore, and neither can anyone else.
*Not really sure what happened to her myself, beyond still being in EVA-01 I guess.
This is a little more rambling than I meant it to be so I hope it makes some amount of sense.
"[Cinema] is a labyrinth with a treacherous resemblance to reality." - Andrew Sarris
Wonderful post, Rax. Lots to absorb. Give me a day or two to think over it before I respond, but I definitely think you're on the right track. The glowing eyes stuff is great; makes me wonder if the films will end up filled with as many visual/aural motifs as the series. It probably would've helped if I had rewatched 1.11 & 2.22 before seeing 3.33. I had obviously forgotten some of the details about how it ended so was trying to play memorial catch-up a bit too much in 3.33 to focus on details. Of course, I plan on rewatching everything when 4.44 is finally released.
As for Kaworu being "cast-down to the 13th Angel," remember that in the series he was both the first and last Angel as well, and the entire series was highly circular in nature. So there seems to be a lot of that "perfect circle" stuff going on in the films as well, though in a very different context now that we're in a post-apocalyptic world. It occurs to me that the series itself had a bipartite structure that split at the mid-way point of the series as well, where so much of the first half was traditional wish-fulfillment mecha, and the latter half, of course, went to hell. Anno is probably utilizing the same structure again, though perhaps with a different focus and slightly different purpose this time around. It's hard to say until we see 4.44.
warriorspirit: if the penis is used as a pencil holder we'll incur a cost.
Thanks, I look forward to your response. I rewatched the Rebuilds when the blu-rays came out and I want to do so again once I finish watching through Anno's filmography. Need to rewatch the original series too it seems- I had forgotten that point about Kaworu until you brought it up.
One last thing to mention is the title of the last movie. It's had several names at this point.
-4.0
-FINAL
-Either the musical notation for ending or repeating. We never quite figured what it was supposed to be. This ambiguous title is that actually included in the preview at the end of 3.33.
-The most recent title is 3.0 + 1.0. Who knows what that's supposed to mean.
I kind of expect the title to change yet again to be honest. I dunno if the changing titles is supposed to be indicative of what the movie is even supposed to be about changing over time too (It seems likely in any case), but we may never know for sure.
"[Cinema] is a labyrinth with a treacherous resemblance to reality." - Andrew Sarris
RE Kaworu stuff: If Rebuild is playing by the same biological rules as NGE, then Kaworu and Shinji can easily meet again since it's just a matter of Kaworu's soul finding its way into 4th Impact somehow. In EoE it happened when Gendo merged Kaworu's soul with Adam's embryonic body in his hand and stuck it in Rei. Something similar may very well happen in the 4th film. I was really hoping if they retold ep. 24 there would be something that would clue us into what was going on in the original series as that remains probably the part of NGE with the least amount of clarity/understanding. Unfortunately we seemed to just get more of the "so that's your plan/all is going according to the plan" vagueness.
RE References: I wish I had more of substance to say here but I think you've pretty much said it all. I definitely remember RahXephon as there was a lot of discussion of it in comparison with NGE back in the day... there was even a site out there that tried to note all of the similarities, though there were tons of people that called them coincidences or the product of typical genre cliches, I always thought it was silly to claim that Rah (and so many series that followed) weren't influenced by NGE. I've seen mechas before it, and despite some basic similarities, those after feel quite different, I think because after NGE most tried to go for something more substantial, personal, and philosophical than Gundam's complex political narratives. Of course, Rah and so many others tried to undo the apocalyptic darkness underlying so much of NGE by finding narrative solutions to the mess, like Rah's time-travel. I think it's entirely possible that Anno was utterly dissatisfied viewing the post-NGE world as being more-of-the-same from a thematic perspective, as if works were only copying the superficial aspects while completely missing the point of its various genre-deconstructions and thematic investigation. It would make sense, then, that in placing Rebuild 3.33 in a post-3rd Impact world Anno is drawing a parallel to the post-NGE world of anime in all its facets.
warriorspirit: if the penis is used as a pencil holder we'll incur a cost.
Any thoughts on Asuka not changing in fourteen years (the "Curse of Eva")?
Btw, the clothes before 3.0-Rei's...well, where she lives, are the clothes worn by Rei in episode 26's alternative reality. Any significance?
I'm asking you all.
The movie is also very much about some of Anno's obsessions. For example the fear of change (clearly stated in the movie) and how this obsession with the past can just make everything worse.
This movie is packed with references, then there's info in the script that helps clarify some things (although observable in the film itself), like the fact that an ascended Eva/Angel doesn't turnthings into LCL but into core (apparently fusing everything with the planet and creating one being-notice the mouth and iris in Tokyo-3).
I own the groundworks, though the only thing of note is that they further confirm the giant Rei-head being Lilith's (her neck ends in the little legs typical of Lilith, this is blocked in the film by failures of infinity).
I'll have to rewatch it, I was rewatching Rebuild anyways, but had to stop before 3.0 sadly. I'd like to comment on them all. It had been more than a year since I watched them, and I have a clearer idea now.
I reread the evageeks faq earlier, and not even that has all the info, as long as it is.
The symbols on the DSS Choker standing for notes and playing the Mother is the first Other theme. There was so much stuff.
Btw Jimbo, you mentioned once you don't like watching trailers for movies. Are you interested in them in retrospect?
THe bd features them, and they were brilliant. First it was just montages showing 1.0 and 2.0, ending with Shinji saving Rei triumphantly, and then just adding weird images of a piano being played.
Then we began getting footage of the film. I get nostalgic actually thinking about that, these trailers are from 2012 (!). They showed nothing, but it seemed like they were representative of the movie (it looked like a basic retelling of episode 24). Nothing new was shown (and no, this did somehow not hurt the movie's performance, it was the second highest grossing film in Japan that year, not just in animation, yes Japanese people go see this weird stuff in droves apparently), even the DSS Choker was edited out. Anno managed to shock even the most obsessive fans who followed everything before the release.
(The last trailer, after the release, is a really.beautiful montage set to the credits song, and does show more)
There were no.interviews, Anno hasn't said anything about this film, later he opened up about his depression during that time frame, but nothing about the film itself. The only.interviews were with the cast who said they were surprised with the plot and that Anno is very good at directing actors.
I also remember that Kaworu's actor mentioned something about knowing some of this stuff during the 1.0 days, that only he was told (I can imagine Anno treating the actors like they are their characters lol, might be a good way to prepare them).
There is not CRC-book for this film either (interviews, concept art, storyboard).
It was handled very differently in general.
I'm really.rambling. Happens when I'm sleepy
Any thoughts on Asuka not changing in fourteen years (the "Curse of Eva")?Good excuse not to have to draw different characters.
Btw, the clothes before 3.0-Rei's...well, where she lives, are the clothes worn by Rei in episode 26's alternative reality. Any significance?Did not notice that. Will have to rewatch. Do you have any screen shots of what you're referring to?
I own the groundworks, though the only thing of note is that they further confirm the giant Rei-head being Lilith's (her neck ends in the little legs typical of Lilith, this is blocked in the film by failures of infinity).Yeah, I figured that, given how much it resembles the giant Lilith head from EoE. A leftover from 3I as well?
Btw Jimbo, you mentioned once you don't like watching trailers for movies. Are you interested in them in retrospect?Not interested, per say, unless you think there's something of interest in them. I may check them out. I've been meaning to catch up on some extras from various movies I've been watching anyway.
That's probably why I prefer Shinji in Rebuild so much, because he has more of a back bone. My favorite scene in 2.22 was Shinji making Unit 01 go Berserk, and he attempts to save Rei's life. Then it becomes a Shinji/Rei fan fict, in what is arguably the most gorgeous animation and visuals that I've ever seen in an anime film.
Last Films seen:
Jason Bourne(2016)- 7/10
Tallulah(2016)- 9/10
Shin Gojira is getting released in 100 territories. I might be able to watch it at a cinema.
Jimbo, you finally watched 3.0!
Not to dismiss your judgement, but this really is one of those movies you appreciate and get the more you watch it. I just said that because of that 8.5 you gave it. Not that that is a low score...
I'd recommend you to go the the Eva 3.0 thread on this board. The first post has a link to a detailed FAQ about 3.0 written by our savior Reichu.
It's by far my favourite Rebuild film.
Wait where are you reading this about the new Godzilla?
"[Cinema] is a labyrinth with a treacherous resemblance to reality." - Andrew Sarris
You should be able to find it just by googling (with the English "Resurgence" name). It's tge largest distribution ever by Toho. They trust this movie.
I'd like to give you a link, but I'm not home and it's kinda hard with the phone haha
It's quite ingenious, and the film is structured much like a sonata (fast-slow-fast, almost in perfect temporal symmetry: 30min./30min./30min.)
Amarcord - Federico Fellini - 9/10
Often regarded as Fellini's last masterpiece, Amarcord was also the first film since La Dolce Vita in which Fellini's fecund imagination and fantasies were tethered to something resembling tangible reality. After 8 1/2, Fellini's films could often feel like little more than free-associative surrealist dreams completely unmoored from anything substantial; they also threatened to become self-parodies the more indulgent they became. Amarcord, however, tempers those indulgences and is all the better for it. Fellini's tics and tricks are still here: the characters are still like carnival caricatures, the narrative is still fragmentary and episodic, the camera still roams, there's still the faux-documentarian speaking into the camera (ala Roma and The Clowns); but there's also much more here. Amarcord is a film filled with bittersweet beauty, overflowing with the abundances of life and, perhaps, the nostalgic memories of it. There's sweetness, humor, and, most importantly, humanism. Instead of feeling like a surrealist dream, Amarcord feels like a memory (appropriately so given that the title loosely translates to "I remember" in a certain Italian dialect), and memory allows for Fellini's Fellini-esque funhouse mirror exaggerations and distortions--the magnificent ship in the fog, the tobacco lady with enormous breasts, the town nymphomaniac, the peacock in the snow, etc.--without completely violating how reality is.
The Match Factory Girl - Aki Kaurismaki - 7.5/10
At 68 minutes this film is about as brief as feature films get, and because of the narrative concision one doesn't feel as if anything of relevance was left out. It's almost as silent as it is short, with the first line of dialogue not arriving until nearly 14 minutes into the film, and 10 minutes later there's a grand total of three more lines. Despite the silence, Kaurismaki's direction is an object lesson in narrative economy, as he never lingers long enough for scenes to become dull or artificially quiet as in, say, the films of Tsai Ming-liang and other arthouse directors. The film lives and breathes organically thanks both to the direction and the lead performance by Kati Outinen, whose homely face and large, expressive eyes deliver all the emotion and tonal qualities needed. Given how much her character endures--her parents' oppression, the rejection of her first "boyfriend" who ends up as a one-night stand and impregnates her--it's remarkable that this film never bogs down in melodramatic weightiness. Instead, it has a surprisingly comic undertone to it, as well as a satiric social commentary. If there's any flaw, it's that Iris's decision to kill everyone feels like the only artificial note in the film, and doesn't provide for much of a satisfying climax.
A Generation - Andrzej Wajda - 8/10
If Rossellini and his War Trilogy had a true successor in both style and substance it was Adrzej Wajda. A Generation was his first film and while it may lack some of the dramatic impact of Rome: Open City, it seems to be breathing in the same air. Here we have a coming of age story set during the German occupation of Poland in WW2. The protagonist moves from a naive kid throwing coal of German trains, to a young factory worker, to eventually being one of the hardened leaders in the underground communist movement. Wajda's direction in comparison with his neorealist predecessors is both more visually stylish, but also more dramatically natural. Wajda doesn't "hype" events as much as Rossellini, nor does he need to when a narrative is crafted as finely as this. Even outside the action scenes there's nary a dull moment, and it allows the eruptions of violence to carry all the more emotional and dramatic impact when they do, especially the shootout in the streets that ends with the protagonist's friend trapped at the top of a stairwell.
warriorspirit: if the penis is used as a pencil holder we'll incur a cost.
Outbif curiosity, has anyobody here ever been interested in Bionicle (don't know if you were at the right age during that time).
shareI don't have time to respond now.
But I wanted to inform that Godzilla is licensed by Funimation and planned to be released by the end of this year.
This is Funimation, so the bd will probably come out 2020.