Thanks for the memories!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Blistering performances.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Watching this movie was a pretty surreal and irritating experience. After watching the first 15 to 20 min of this highly expected movie I thought for some time that maybe I was watching the wrong movie or that I accidentally missed Evangelion 2.5. Sadly I found out, that there was no Evangelion 2.5 and this was actually the sequel to the amazing movies Evangelion 1.0 and 2.0, the movie i was anticipating with great expectations for years. I have watched the original series and loved it as much as the first two Rebuild-movies, though at the end I was a little bit disappointed, because the last episodes of the original series created a lot of new questions and didn´t provide much answers to bring the plot to a satisfying ending. Unfortunately Evangelion 3.0 and the last movie may have the same issues.After I had mentally coped with Evangelion 3.0 the experience reminded me of my disbelief, anger and disappointment after I had watched Matrix Revolutions or the last season of Lost. The experience of watching those examples can be compared to a punch in the face: Your eyes tear, you are disoriented for some time and after the punch you either get very angry or start to cry.This movie intentionally destroys all expectations you might have after the first two Rebuild-movies. Neo Tokyo 3 is destroyed, the world is destroyed, everybody hates Shinji, who accidentally caused the 3rd Impact. Shinji continues to work with his father and a braindead Rei-Clone against Misato and the others, though Commander Ikari seems to be the real villain, who for some reason planned the destruction of the world with the 3rd Impact to fulfill some sort of prophecy. Shinji plays a lot of piano with the new character Kaworu, who seems to be a clone of Shinji or Ikari just like Rei is a clone of Shinjis mother. The incoherent plot and the imagery are absolutely surreal and like Shinji you are constantly confused and have no clue, what is happening in this movie.I cannot rate this movie 1/10 because the artwork and the battle at the end are great and simply because I love NGE and the first movies too much.BUT PLEASE, HIDEAKI ANNO, DON'T PUNCH US FANS IN THE FACE AGAIN WITH THE NEXT MOVIE

If you are like me, you grew up with Evangelion; it was one of the very first anime you watched along with the likes of Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z; however, unlike Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z, Evangelion was a special anime that focused on the deeper meaning behind it all. That of course was the human instrumentality project; the symbolic purpose of the EVAs, and the interactions and characterizations of the characters. This made Evangelion special; it had a unique focus in addition to being a typical anime; it was, needless to say, at least ten to fifteen years ahead of its time. The series ends with a lackluster finale, but is re-envisioned as a movie to help better deliver an ending to the series.However, the series is far from over. Rebuild of Evangelion is testament to this. It is nearly fifteen year after the events that took place in the series; things have changed as Third Impact has rewritten the face of the Earth and otherwise brought humanity nearly to extinction. All that remains is the destruction of the human civilization, all human souls contained within an sea of LCL fluid, and a few survivors of NERV that otherwise wish to finish unfinished business. Many of the cast of Evangelion are back along with some newcomers; characters have different personalities, and the movie is often direct and to the point with their interactions. Any loose business with characters from the previous series, is largely finished and tied up nicely.As for the movie itself; the plot is a bit of a weird one, but go figure – this is Evangelion we are talking about. If you are familiar with the series and the movie conclusion, this will feel like a continuation of events prior. What you would expect from the series, but with more modern animation and computer effects is here. In fact, that robust frame-skip style animation that includes cellshading, as well as neon lighting is also present. Camera angles are a plenty, and there are also lots of movement effects to keep scenes enticing. Scenes are executed wonderfully and the pacing of the movie matches; there is a lot of action, story, and otherwise conclusions and continuation of what has been, and what will be. The movie is not shy to admit this with a 'to be continued' at the end of the movie. In a word, it feels like an episode of Evangelion as it was always meant to be intended; it is just too bad we don't get twenty six or even thirteen of these style of episodes in a series to finally conclude it once and for all.It is not dry, it is not dull; and it makes no attempts to shy around changing the story for the better. The movie is seriously in a light of its own; it features special effects that are not normally seen in animation even these days and there was clearly a big budget that played a hand in it. The animation style is wonderful; character expressions are simply top of the line and more expressive than I've ever seen in anything animated. The characters' interactions are what this movie is really about, and it makes for a good two hour watch. I recommend the movie for anyone that likes symbolic anime with a lot of good art for effect; this anime uses special effects and is hardly what you would believe or expect – be ready to suspend your belief of realism and enter the unknown.Originally posted to Orion Age (http://www.orionphysics.com/?p=6178).

I've argued against the consensus that Hideaki Anno hate's his fans before, I've tried to say that just because he feels the need to change some things and dislikes rabid Evatards, it's not reason to think him wrong. This movie has changed my opinion of him.I'll say this first off, you want to change continuity in a story, fine. It's your work, you can do whatever the hell you want with it, whether it's a good thing or not, we've seen that with some of the best sci-fi epics in the last 40 years.But don't expect to write utter rubbish and not be called out for it.A lot has been said on the depression that Anno went through in the writing process of the Eva TV series and how it's effected his story structure, you can see it around the mid-point of the series changing gears at a horrible rate, if I'm honest, this movie shows that he needs someone to rein him in, there have been changes to story structure(I mean 14 years of character destruction just because he wanted it) additions and retcons.This movie is a mess, from start to finish there seems to be no reason for it, nothing really happens in this other than build-up for the final movie. We've had major reset buttons being hit for major characters, we've had horrible, disgusting plot conveniences of no-aging for the Eva pilots without anything substantial being shown for them and the burden of spending 14 years in an adolescent's body (you know, the whole tortured Claudia style character). A major character was introduced just to be killed off, without any major development! AGAIN! I could let Anno off in the series, he'd come up with a brilliant idea, but the money was running out and he had to cut and paste together a quick resolution to probably the most important character interaction for Shinji. But doing this. After Two Films of build up, with a full movie to show just the blossoming friendship and possible love between a young man and an alien in the guise of a young man. This is unforgivable, I can't forgive a horrid mess of this mistake, Anno had the chance to give us what he'd complained so much about before. And he gives us the same basic thing, no character development, a choice to kill or not to kill and a breakdown of a Human mind.Like I said before, if you want to change continuity then that's perfectly fine, I don't mind that. Lucas and Roddenberry both did the same with their stories(with a sliding scale of success). Now I know he'd already changed a lot of stuff in continuity by the second movie, but doing this is idiotic, he's changed continuity within his own movie series, while it's still running. You don't DO that. Breaking continuity while you are still telling the story doesn't work, saying something like: "billy went to the supermarket and picked up dry cleaning from the laundromat for his new book, then on his way home, Jenny found a £1000 and was evicted from her home because she was flat broke" yes there's a story there, but it doesn't make a lick of sense.In essence, that is what he has done here, taking a story structure of "there was the First Impact 65million years ago, Humans came, then Second Impact came with Adam and brought the Angels, a union between Adam and Lilth will bring Third Impact, causing the end of the world." And stating now "Whoa, what are you saying, Third Impact is just a step along to the Apocalypse of Fourth Impact, didn't I mention that before?" If you'd stated that Third Impact was the end of the world, then stick to that and show a world in Purgatory for the third movie, you know because Kaworu stopped it at the end of the second movie. That could work, 14 years of a living purgatory would harden anyone, even people like Misato. So you can create a sacrificial Saviour of Shinji for the Fourth movie, you know like you're planning to do anyway.The visuals are the only major tent pole holding this film up, because that're amazing as usual, but as for the rest, it's terrible.The story is crap. It's a reason to turn away from the Rebuild series, I'll still see the final movie, mainly because I'm in too deep now and just have to hold my nose and swim through, if I'd fallen in on this just now, I'd have been easily able to give it up.The only bright point is that I've got the full series limited addition boxset on my shelf and all the movies, that's enough for me and even though it's ending is as convoluted as this one is currently, I'm more willing to forgive that than this. Hideaki Anno hasn't impressed me with this sharp right turn, can his final movie change my opinion. I seriously doubt it.

Minor spoilers for Eva 2.0 and 3.0Forewarning: I am not a giant Evangelion fan. I've seen the TV series and have noticed moments of brilliance, but I was in some ways annoyed with the finished product (especially towards the end). My biggest problem was that the characters were not very likable. They were complex yes, but I didn't feel very connected to Sinji, Asuka, Rae, etc. They seemed to fundamentally lack any sense of pro-activity. Much of the plot consisted of their reactions rather than their actions.That's not important however, and I only bring this up to clarify my surprise at Evangelion: 2.0, which did something I hadn't expected: It completely won me over. 2.0 is fantastic, clearing up nearly all the issues I had with the series. There is not a single character that doesn't improve; Sinji actually shows some integrity and becomes a protagonist I can get behind. Never did I feel that he was unjustified in how he was acting. Rae, surprisingly enough, shows consistent character progression versus the TV series where she too often remained stagnant. By the end of 2.0, it's almost a surprise to think this is the same character from the beginning of the movie. She goes from emotionless and hardly human to a caring person wanting Sinji to be happy. A small change, but very noticeable. Asuka stayed relatively the same but with some important changes. While in the series she was portrayed as egotistical and self-righteous, in 2.0 she comes off as more anti-social. Important dimensions are added to her character as it's hinted that her bombastic personality might not be because of her need for praise, but simply a defense mechanism to cope with her loneliness.And then EVA 3.0 happened.Where to start? Well, let's begin by saying much of the foundation laid by the past films are not existent just as much of the positive turns for the characters have been nullified. It really baffles me in some ways: Why have Sinji grow so much in 2.0, just to turn him into a self- loathing angst character again that can't handle the conflicts in this film? Why have Rae develop a personality and have audiences connect with her when she's rescued, just to say she's dead and have us deal all over again with an emotionless Rae clone? Why hint at feelings of self-denial and loneliness in Asuka, just to have those issues ignored and never addressed again? Why have Misato cheer Sinji on to save Rae at the end of 2.0, just for her to reject and coldly dismiss him at the beginning of this movie?If these characters have problems that have changed them - THEN SHOW US. Don't build them up, skip ahead 14 years, and completely change them without explanation. It's not clever, it's nonsensical. Imagine any other show or movie you've seen, can you imagine how frustrating it would be to see the characters just beginning to be fleshed out, only for the plot to move decades ahead in the future. All the open questions you have and all the issues raised with the characters instantly become meaningless because their resolution occurred off screen. Remember Asuka's final lines in the last film, "I can laugh, I didn't know I could"? Well I hope you weren't expecting this to factor into her character at all because it might as well have never been said. Any character development from the first two Evangelion movies have next to zero influence in how anyone acts.Unfortunately, there are no excuses for Sinji and Rae. Killing off the Rae we've come to connect with just to introduce her next emotionless clone and expecting us to connect with her all over again is completely unjustifiable. Rae had already progressed so far in terms of her personality. But no, all that progress is gone. Now meet a new Rae, who is coincidentally exactly like the Rae you knew at the very beginning. Sinji is no better. Him becoming an emotional wreck by the end that has lost the will to live is not shocking anymore, it's pathetic. Does this character have any other dimension to him, or is it all self-loathing? Why make him the least bit competent when all you intend to do is tear down his character again? Sinji is a microcosm for everyone in this film; any development is meaningless because they revert back to their starting point, just to begin the whole process over again - like a dog chasing its tail over and over again.The whole movie stands in stark contrast to the last. The fundamentals of how NERV operates and what its relationship is to the characters is completely changed, and never explained. In fact, barely anything is explained. Asuka and Sinji have not aged a day after 14 years and the only explanation given is some reference to "the curse of EVA". Yeah, sure. All I hear is "we wanted to skip ahead 14 years, but we still needed Sinji and Asuka to stay at age 14 and pilot the EVAs." Don't you think if a machine stopped people from aging they would I don't know, warn them before they became pilots? Because that's kind of an important side-effect.On top of this, the film is much darker than the second. But darker in EVA means better right?? Well if done properly, yes. But that's not the case here. This isn't a "dark turn" that is properly foreshadowed; the viewer has been thrown into another universe where consequences of the last film have not been dealt with or explained.I'm sure there are many fans out there that will have a different perspective and will like this film. But for me, many of the reasons why EVA 2.0 won me over to the franchise are either ruined, reversed, or ignored.