Bartimaeus

Mari whom? What were we talking about again? (Apples to oranges, pal...apples to oranges, .)

Sure wish I could be like this sometimes. KP's gonna watch Utena and be like "yeah, it was a pretty weird but good time, what's the problem?". Screw you, KP (but not really, ). In regards to Mari, I also just read somewhere else that Mari wasn't even initially supposed to be in 2.0 at all but was only supposed to appear in 3.0, but after fans saw her and wanted to see her earlier, he apparently caved and gave her a part in it and increased her role thereafter. The fandumb strikes again...

My memory of the original show outside of The End of Evangelion (which I watched separately and a couple of weeks after watching all of the original show in one sitting) ain't too hot either, and you watched it longer ago than I did. Interestingly, this would seem to imply that she was actually conscious and aware for all of that. One, that must've been terrifying having your own Eva get hijacked like that and being able to do nothing about it; two, if this is indeed what she was talking about, I can see what she would mean. There are only a few pilots and she's helplessly sitting there watching her own Eva try to murder Shinji after...uh, having already dispatched Mari? Oh gosh, I can't remember what happened in the fight where Unit 04 gets infected vs. the fight where Rei gets absorbed - they've blended together in my head. Well, ANYWAYS, I'm pretty sure if Shinji failed to stop Asuka, that would mean all of their deaths (including Asuka's) regardless, so yeah, I can understand being mad at him for it. It's less about him being indecisive about multiple possible choices and more about him being indecisive about the single possible choice that he wouldn't take but should've because...yeah, it was the only choice (especially seeing as, uh, he could've been a lot more gentle with destroying Unit 04 than the dummy plug). Sure as heck don't remember seeing that in 3.33. ...Did I forget or did this just never happen? (e): No, nothing in this preview ever happened. Dang, now I'm intrigued and wish that we'd seen that version instead of the complete disaster that was the actual 3.33. ...The emperor has no gosh danged clothes indeed. Figure out what the heck you want to do before you just go and do it, George Lucas. And that's just Mari, nevermind the entirety of 3.33...this is all complete baloney! No wonder Rebuild felt like a giant pile of patched together garbage, good lord. And apparently everyone will just eat it up...not me, no sir, not me. Hey, if they could've gotten there soundly, all those things would've probably been okay with me. But how you get there matters - as it is, "disgusting" made way more sense and fit way better for moi, . And to be honest, an ending like that may be ambiguous, but boy is it sure poignant and memorable when done right, and I think The End of Evangelion mostly did. Mostly. ...Mostly. Eh, all of the original show excluding the End of Evangelion was made in one go, so I think it's a lot more likely than in the case of this nearly fifteen year project where they clearly had severe developmental issues both pre- and during production. I mean, even The End of Evangelion was released just a year and four months after the show concluded. ...Actually, how the hell does that work? How is it that traditional animation is apparently so freaking expensive when it only took them just a year to make The End of Evangelion while this Rebuild crap took so much longer? Quoting myself from a few pages ago... Maybe it's less to do with costs and more to do with nobody knowing how to do it anymore. That'd be even worse than if it was just because studios were being cheap. If she acts the same way in public as Mari does, I do indeed despise her. However, I seriously doubt that, .

For me, it's more about whether Anno intended for there to be sequels or further explanation of mechanisms and story in Evangelion or whether he was just doing it because fans were demanding that he do so. Like, was this whole universe loop mechanism really intended in the original Evangelion by Mr. Anno? If not, then...pretty much literally of this was just silly nonsense that he was doing and made up way after the fact purely because fans had been demanding that he do so for ten years, in which case, yeah, I wish I had known that going into it so I could've approached it with a "this is just going to be silly nonsense" mindset. Instead, what I was told was that it's not simply a remake of Evangelion, but actually a direct continuation of it not constrained by the same budgetary and creative limitations that he originally faced while the original NGE was being made that would meaningfully and satisfactorily conclude the entire series. If that really is the case, then the good news is that it becomes even easier to separate Rebuild from Neon Genesis, because it would really truly not have much to do with the original intended narrative. True...but I didn't know who the heck Mari was when she first appeared in 2.0, and I found her immediately jarring and off-putting the very first scene she appeared in. I don't think I would want this character in literally any show ever, especially given how utterly pointless she is to...everything and everyone, but especially not Evangelion whose emotional core and foundations rest upon its characters. It's such a weird character insert that never gets any decent setup and inexplicably goes nowhere until literally like the last fifteen minutes of the final movie...and by then, we've spent ten hours on this, and you couldn't find the time to do anything meaningful with her during that entire time? What... (e): @majestic has the right of it - it feels like literally only Shinji and Asuka even know who Mari is, she never interacts with anyone else, and the scenes she's even in with those two are almost entirely weird, inexplicable, and/or pointless. Even the scenes where she and Asuka are working together in their Evas, she mostly just sits back and throws batteries or whatever at Asuka so that Asuka can do everything herself. Even when Asuka is infected and needs to have her Eva terminated and it seems like Mari is going to serve some purpose and goes berserk through some super secret technique that the others don't know about...nope, brushed aside, Shinji's gotta pilot the Eva and do it himself. Every fight, just about literally every scene she's in could just have her be written out with nothing changing because of it. It's so incredibly strange. It's almost like they literally wanted her to be a pointless, aimless character, and I have no idea why. Does this character only exist in Shinji's and Asuka's minds? That would almost make more sense... But no, Fuyutsuki has a short conversation with her right at the end, and I think Misato acknowledges that she at least exists during 2.0 when she arrives, so I guess she really is supposed to exist in the narrative. (e): Lots o' edits for this final paragraph, probably done now.

Not at all - for example, I immediately took a liking to Sakura, Toji's sister. She didn't end up being in it too much compared to Mari, but I literally immediately thought "okay, here's a new character whose personality isn't the most foul and ill-fitting personality one could possibly insert into Evangelion, hope she's in this more and that Mari's in this less" upon meeting her. Ah, alas. Wait, what? Wasn't the sole spear in NGE from Adam, as Lilith's had been lost and never found as a result of her crash onto Earth, which is why Adam suppresses himself with his own spear? I thought I remembered SEELE basically being "yep, we're screwed if we can't get the true spear back". I know the Mass Production Evas have their own spears, but I'm pretty sure they're fake, lesser spears that weren't meant to be used for more than anything but combat. I guess that in of itself is a little inexplicable, but as it doesn't really feel that important because it just serves as a way for Asuka to be suddenly defeated in a shocking manner...but she had already run out of power and was going to be ripped apart unless she went berserk anyways, I guess. Anyways, point is, feels a little different from Misato and Ritsuko being like "yo Shinji, we just made another MacGuffin that has supposedly been completely unobtainable up until just now in the last 5 minutes, here ya go, go make your wish with it". And never mind the Spear of Gaius - are we ever given an explanation for even the Spear of Cassius existing? I thought maybe there was an explanation someone else would know, maybe it was hinted at some point to be Lilith's lost original spear...but if so, nobody seems to know. Them being "immortal" is probably the thing I have least issue with. LCL is primordial life goop, it delays their aging, whatever, it's fine I guess. They're probably not even truly immortal, just delayed aging until they stop getting exposed to LCL constantly, and if that's the case, I'd totally accept that. ...Wait, did you just say the fans asking for it is the reason this exists to begin with? In other words, Anno didn't originally envision any of this when he made the original show? If so, no wonder all of this feels like first draft, ad hoc phony baloney. @majestic, a fandumb strikes again... If that's the case, I can kinda almost forgive Anno for this disaster, because at that point, it really is just to print money, and hey, we all like money, I get that. I wish I'd known that going into it...would've had a much more laid back "lmao the absolute bullcrap they came up with for this literal cash-grab, am I right?" approach to it. Somebody should've told me...

Yes, that's why I don't acknowledge a guy like Valentine as a person, and instead keep it more distant. Like I said to Guard Dog, Valentine is just a few half-formed ideas attached to a name in my brain, empathy's not even really possible when you know and feel so little about someone. But for the same reason that I can't be empathetic towards him, I also can't empathetically feel that I'm glad that that he the person is dead. Hatred is a form of passion, and I can't muster up that kind of passion for such a vague idea of a person that I really know nothing about. This dude may have been a fantastic dad, a loving husband, gone to great lengths to take care of his parents when they were terminally ill, had a tough upbringing, given money and time to local animal shelters or orphanages or other worthwhile charitable passion projects...you never know the entire make-up of a person at just a glance. But that's the thing: I don't know anything of any kind of substance about him, which is why he's not really a person to me, so all I can really do is be like "glad they won't be doing (x thing that I think is bad) anymore", which is not really at all the same as lighting up fireworks and being truly happy about someone dying - it's really quite worlds apart even if the sentiment may sound similar on the surface. Rush Limbaugh's death is exactly whom I was thinking of when we last had this discussion, where I previously made more or less this exact argument in the same manner: if you feel the world has become a net better place after someone who was a rotten, miserly bastard that sowed hatred and division (and who has actually had a meaningful hand in negatively impacting many lives*) has departed from it, I certainly can't blame you if you're glad about it. I wouldn't be giving out high-fives or holding parties for it (and I'd think it'd be in terrible taste for anyone else to do so), but I'd totally get it. *Personal responsibility not just for your actions, but also for your words, . I'm always hearing so much about personal responsibility...I think we should always stress the importance of personal responsibility, don't you? If you wish intolerance, hatred, and death upon others...is it any surprise others wish the same upon you? No: I reserve my general tolerance and respect for those who give general respect and tolerance to others - no more, no less.

Yeah, I was more shocked that Mike would even know what it was to accidentally hear it. Doesn't really seem like something that would stick around in his brain - more of a Jay thing to remember weird, random stuff like that, so it makes me wonder how that came about. IIRC, the only thing they've ever said in regards to animated stuff is that they don't feel like they could really cover it because it's too different of a medium and they probably couldn't make their commentary on it intelligent or entertaining enough. That's the exact kind of stuff where my eyes roll into the back of my skull and I beg for the sweet release of death. ...The End of Evangelion somehow pulled off its shenanigans through its characters in such a way that actually made me cry instead, so you know, I rate it a little bit higher than Rebuild. A little bit...just a little bit. Maybe it's because of The End of Evangelion being personally powerful for me that makes Rebuild feel especially fraudulent, I'm not sure. Maybe it was just to show acceptance and tolerance of Mari and all the weird crap she does after all this time by not reacting to any of it all. Not entirely sure, either. If they'd had done a little more with it, maybe would've felt more clear and deliberate, but it mostly stands by itself (I mean, she still won't even call her by her name...after all of this time?) so it feels out of place. I guess for me specifically, maybe it's because, again, I'm an all-character guy. In the original show, I want to figure out what the deal was with Rei right away, why she's so strange and almost seems like someone that has spent their entire life in an isolation tank (ahem); I like Misato but I don't understand why she acts so freaking weird around someone that should basically be her adopted son, and why she has so much trouble with behaving civil around Ritsuko and Kaji; Ritsuko and Gendo don't seem like they're quite on the same page, what's up with that...and for that matter, neither does Misato, what are they all trying to accomplish here; what the hell is wrong with Asuka and what possible reason could there be for her to act this way (oh gosh!); and then...there's Shinji. All of the things I care about generally tie into characters and why they are the way they are and where they're going and what's going to happen with them, including all of the plot, theme, and world stuff. I said it before when I talked about Utena and the Star Wars prequels - if I am not into the characters, I could not give one single crap about your plot, world, or themes, they are completely irrelevant at that point. If you make me care about your characters, then congratulations, you might have to chance to also make me care about stuff like the Evas, the Angels, Adam, Lilith, the Spears, your world at large, the plot, and maybe even your themes, especially if you start to get all of those things to tie into and matter to and for our characters. Enter Rebuild, where the characters are either bad or shadows of their former selves...combined with all of the plot, world, and theme stuff being half-baked and absolute lunacy...being told in a style of creator-to-viewer communication that is so much worse and full of holes...in art and animation that is so incredibly worse that it hurts to think of how bad things have gotten in the modern anime industry. Honestly, when I think about how much of a failure on pretty much every level Rebuild was for me, my ratings feel borderline generous. The first movie I forgave more because I think it was basically what I expected - an abridged version of most of the original show, and, you know...it wasn't as good as the original series, but at least it got most of the important stuff across while only making relatively minor amenities so that we could get into the new stuff. ...Wow, what an error that line of thinking was. Yikes.

The End of Evangelion really helped me with Asuka (whom I went in between loving and being like "what the absolute hell is wrong with you?") and to a lesser degree Misato (whom I already liked but didn't love) - Rei didn't really need any help. Rebuild, in contrast, helped me a lot with Shinji, I think...but only for the original show, not Rebuild itself. Indeed, put all of the original show characters equally into their first place, gold medal Olympic pedestals over the absolute butchering I saw in Rebuild. Like, yeah, at least I have the original VAs I knew and love to help me connect with them on some level, but what the actual crap was that?

No, I'm pretty sure that is actually a picture of George Lucas. P.S. Apropos of nothing, I just heard Mike say the words "Sailor Moon" out-loud in an RLM video, this is peak RLM. Although they used this mildly scary giraffe version of her to visualize her, but I'll forgive it unless Mike is actually a super secret Sailor Moon fan in which case he should've used better art (but thank goodness they didn't use SMC art). I actually consider The Phantom Menace to be the best out of the three...but I mean, I have it at a 3/10 while Revenge of the Sith is 2.5/10 followed up by Attack of the Clones at 2/10. ...The Holiday Special is sitting at 1/10, the only thing I've ever given a 1/10. Presumably the same reason Palpatine self-sabotages himself at every single step of the process in obtaining and corrupting Anakin - because the writer is a complete buffoon and the same conclusion is going to be reached regardless of whether any of the steps to get there make sense. I was pretty envious of her, not going to lie, especially considering the drastic turn the film did the moment she was gone. I couldn't tell if this was actually Asuka's way of showing that she *was* interested. Like...this is Asuka - wouldn't she rage and fight tooth and nail with that level of physical contact if she was uncomfortable with it? I thought maybe they were doing something there, but...no, nothing ever came of it. Gosh dangit, fine (...and it's not like I wanted that to be a thing anyways, but I thought, you know, just maybe, they're actually finally going to do something with Mari...a big fat NOPE). Palpatine crap again, I think - Gendo wants Shinji and Asuka to arrive, it's all part of his grand plan that he has foreseen everything for...but for some reason he's also fighting that from happening through other measures he's undertaking at the same time. What if they actually blew up and died on the way there, you doofus? Just like what if you actually killed Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan before they could rescue the Queen or get a warning back to the Senate or... Crap like that happens constantly in this Rebuild, and it's super annoying and George Lucas-esque. I actually wondered what the crap was going on there when that was going on, and especially where the three ships that had been attacking it suddenly went, but then I realized, I don't care. I can accept these two ancient spears simply existing because it's part of the backstory of two Seeds of Life arriving at roughly the same time on Earth and both of them having their own with the explicit purpose of making sure only one seed is dominant. That feels legitimate enough and makes enough sense and fulfills some kind of logical purpose. Misato and Ritsuko suddenly conjuring a new one out of thin air, on the other hand? Nah man, I don't think so. That's what I keep saying: prefer ambiguity or even nothing at all over utter lunacy, stupidity, or inexplicability. Yeah, I rather liked the first half (even as weird as it kind of felt). If it was just that first half, I probably would've given the film around a 6.5/10. That's a fine-enough rating, that's about what I gave just the original TV Evangelion prior to The End of Evangelion (which was about an 8 and drug the series as a whole up to a 7). Unfortunately, the second half happened and drug it down to a 4.5 instead. Woof. Absolute freaking mystery to me, especially for original fans of the show. I can only assume, again, that what I got out of the original series was totally, completely, utterly, incomprehensibly different from what others did.

If you believe he has had a hand in causing harm to others throughout his life (whether through his actions or his words, and I am personally a big believer in personal responsibility for the words you broadcast to the world - the United States has probably the highest standard of free speech throughout the world(?), yet even here you can be held personally liable for crossing specific lines, and I think that makes perfect sense...I'm sure we all have different personal lines on this matter, however), and especially if he would have gone on doing exactly that if he were not to die, then sure. The world would be made a better place without him hurting more people, right? I think that's the key for me - if the world is made a net better place by your absence, I totally get others being glad about it finally happening. And again, I don't know anything about this Valentine guy - I'm not looking at him as an actual person, I'm essentially objectifying him as purely what I've heard others say about him regarding his role in spreading needless stupidity (at the very least), and when you do that, it's a heck of a lot easier to go "glad he's gone". But the other side of that coin is that I'm literally not thinking of anything even remotely approaching a person, but rather a few half-formed ideas attached to just a name. I think the article had a picture of his face in it, but already memory fades and I recall nothing of it. So it doesn't exactly carry the same weight as, say, my hatred for Trump, and I'm sure that's true for a lot of other people too. Probably more everyone...being kind of aware of each other and how different we can all be on a global scale? People have always been highly tribalistic, but it's only in recent history that there was the ability for us to interact at any kind of length with people outside of our different personal "tribes" (through the radio, through the news, all of the rest of TV, and especially actually being able to interact with each other at will through the internet of course...) and maybe this is the eventual result - this sort of interconnection with billions of people makes it difficult to conceptualize each other as being anything more than nameless, faceless, person-less others.

One approach you're looking at them as an actual person - a person, with all of their friend and family bonds, a lifetime of experiences, accomplishments, dreams, memories, all that they've ever been and that they ever wanted to be from birth to death - and thinking to yourself, "Yeah, I'm glad that person is dead." That was a person - regardless of how flawed or even simply undeniably terrible they may have been, they've now suffered the ultimate terror that we'll all have to go through at some point. A little empathy for others, especially when it's difficult, makes all of us better - even the APPEARANCE of empathy is better than the kind of bloodthirst that happens today whenever someone famous dies. The other approach is looking at them purely through the lens of the harm they've done and were doing via their platform or position and being "phew, glad that ain't happening anymore". I don't know this Valentine guy, so he falls into the latter category for me. But I would not go nearly so far as Guard Dog would - I would not begrudge anyone who did celebrate the death of someone who had a lifetime of hating and hurting others through their words and life works. I would still always advise courtesy and empathy, but I'd totally get it. And after the last four years, if Trump dropped dead of a heart attack tonight, it'd be pretty difficult for me to not be genuinely glad he was gone - the hurt, division, and actual death that he, as our President, has had a major hand in causing (and could still cause in the future!) in not just my own family but throughout our entire country as well feels very personal indeed, so Guard Dog will have to forgive me (...or not) for being temporarily unable to suppress those feelings. I'm pretty sure I've said all of this on this subject before, though. Should save this post just in case this comes up again, I guess.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we've all had this particular discussion with Guard Dog before... At least Valentine didn't go to his grave still spouting the same garbage like so many other have. Heck, Hermain Cain was still tweeting Covid-19 skepticism after he died from it an entire month later... No, really.

I kinda just ignored that, to be honest. I'm not gonna let any more of the idiotic plot crap get in the way of my characters. Yes. But I think we may get something out of Evangelion that most other people don't (or maybe the other way around - they get something out of it that we don't which leads us to focus on different things), especially given the ratings I've been seeing others give this. I had to do that right around where you did as well, my brain was melting, especially after the previous hour of being slow character stuff and then to suddenly jump into seizure CGI action. Plus, it's a really gosh-danged long movie.

Yeah, uh...my average rating was lower for the two Madoka movies than the average for the four Rebuild movies. Here's a major difference that should tell you enough: while I may have mostly hated everything that Rebuild did...I also hated everyone in Madoka, and that's kind of a big deal for a person that experiences things through characters, to say the least. The only character I hate in Rebuild is Mari, and she's only in like...I don't know, maybe 15% of it? Sure feels longer, but I'm pretty sure it's not that much over the entire run-time of all four movies. ...Though I suppose that might be a little unequal, because Rebuild had the unfair advantage of having already had me pre-attached to this universe and its characters. But I'm not trying to account for literally every factor in how I perceive and consequently rate these things - my 75/25 subjective/objective rating rule exists for a reason after all. I really thought you already had Usagi in mind when you mentioned that about Shinji, .

Nadia's pretty good...er, maybe wait until I finish it and know for sure, though, . If it worked for Crystal Usagi, why shouldn't it work for Rebuild Shinji? ¿Que? Actually, all of what you wrote sounds pretty much like RoE to me right now, so I can't blame you for making the parallels, . I'm the lord of making massive additions and revisions to my posts (both before AND after I've posted them), so it's not like I can say anything about it. The setup is your meta-knowledge of the series and knowing that Shinji and Asuka are supposed to be...something to each other? Isn't that enough and totally satisfying on a character level? (No, no it's not.) I was having a real Dr. Phil seizure reading the second half of your post once you actually got into the 3.33 stuff because I was actually trying to make what you were saying make sense for 4.0 instead and, well, it just wasn't working. Then I started to remember some of what happened in 3.33 and was like "oh yeah, that was a movie too! I just watched that, actually". I thought I was being hyperbolic when I said I wouldn't remember anything from Rebuild in a week or two, but I may not actually have been, because a lot of this is already starting to blur for me. That's how you know I really loved it, . Hopefully you get at least a little enjoyment out of the first half of 4.0. I did - not a ton, but...enough. It was a little weird, but it felt like a long-deserved respite after the first three movies. You might not because it's still probably not really that great, but...

I can't believe you forgot poor Fuyutsuki's name, . And also, I actually thought he was like the only one to get noticeably aged up - lord knows Misato didn't (I guess looking ridiculous in her current get-up is what we got instead?), but at least the English voice actress did a good job at sounding old and raspy. ...Because she wanted to sound old and raspy. Yes, because she wanted to, @majestic, and for no other reason - quit hating on my incredibly lovable English dub VAs*! *If you don't, I'll start watching Sakura in English just to spite you. ...And, well, obviously myself too, because that crap sucks. Oh, *that's* why I was more okay with the first one. Now it all makes sense! Yeah, that's fair. No, that's part of her charm! Asuka being Asuka is like the best part of this entire thing, even when it makes no sense! ¿Que?

Please do, I want to experience the disgust and annoyance all over again.

Yeah, it's actually pretty well setup, but still feels weird after having spent so much time with the alternative persona. It's been so long that my mind had jumped all the way around to it actually being Sakura's dead mom. Whoops. How's 3.33 going?

Cardcaptor Sakura:

No, I still plan on trying it. I want to feel the wrongness myself - especially because if I've learned anything from RoE, it's that it will make the original look even better in hindsight. It's just that there's about a 0% chance I'll watch more than a few of the first episodes and the couple that you said that were actually good. In the sense of them loving it, no, it didn't - said it was very well-made but just didn't hold any inherent appeal to them. Regardless, my aim of finally getting an answer on Sakura was fulfilled, which also means I can finally finish the second arc, . Yeah, I didn't really have...too much of a problem with that particular scene. It was a bit too indulgent for me, but at least it felt like there was some kind of purpose. Unlike everything with...Who-Know-Who. ...I should've listened to her in Japanese, maybe she would've been slightly less repulsive - even just her voice in the Amazon English dub is simply nails on a chalkboard for me. A better character and maybe I would've gotten used to it, but all of it together made for easy yet utter intolerance. It is kind of amazing how watching Evangelion's action scenes is completely unappealing AND makes my brain bleed, and then seeing something like that is like...well, it's obviously a bit more crude in terms of technique and style than something modern, but who cares when it works and doesn't give you an aneurysm? Looks like a dark and dingy proto-Utena almost, .

That's such an utterly ludicrous and ad hoc manner of "mattering", though, and feels like a Star Wars-level of absurd detail no-one in their right mind should ever care about. That could've been anyone, and the fact that it didn't matter at all in the original story (even though it should be literally the same there) makes it feel borderline revisionist to me. I vastly prefer an ambiguous or even no explanation over a bad explanation. In broad strokes, I guess the story's...fine, for the purpose of fulfilling the intended goal, but on a real level, it feels like one bit of arbitrary nonsense after the other made by someone that didn't know how to get their plot, characters, themes, and world to all tie into each other in a satisfying manner. And never mind the animation. ...So yeah, I found The End of Evangelion to be way more satisfying on pretty much every level, even if it was difficult to parse the details and more ambiguous. It also didn't literally make me feel physically sick like Rebuild did, so there is that too, . And that's all you needed to know. I think I can do without any more "BIG BROTHER!!"-ing or "Pegasus!"-ing it up in anime for the time being. Glad you enjoyed it more than RoE, though, . More Nadia: this is for @KP the meanie zucchini : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/uydiwp9cg2vwkbv/7dY7dua4yY.mp4 (note: slight choppiness in the frame rate is my video recorder's fault, not the show's)

Luckily, I have Alex Jones here to help explain Evangelion for me: Phew, at least I understand everything now. He had to call SEELE "Google", but that was just so he didn't trigger the psychic vampires sucking out his brains. Anyways, the gist of everything is that it's actually Gendo, not SEELE, that is turning the freaking frogs gay, so there you go.

This movie is unreasonably long, I'm only halfway through where I paused. Here I go again... The music in Rebuild is pretty weird. It started out almost entirely with music from the original show in the first film, but then I think transitioned to weird modern stuff during the second movie, and then entirely during the third. Presumably meant to signal a divergence...but it still feels weird. Almost none of the new stuff works all that well, but I guess it mostly doesn't detract either. Mostly - generic "epic" music isn't really my thing, and that's usually the weakest stuff in this. And now...some of the original show's music is creeping in towards the end again. "OH CRAP, SHE DID EXACTLY WHAT HE WANTED!" Boy, I'm getting deja vu here, feel like this has happened once...or twice...or a dozen times before. Sometimes get the feeling that everyone doing literally nothing would've averted all of this nonsense. My reaction to seeing Eva Imaginary: Let's not do CGI ever again, mmkay? Man, well, that was an absolute load of... What the heck was I supposed to get out of that? It was just one bit of nonsense after the other. Does any of that mean anything to anybody, besides the basic character stuff anyways (which is barely even a thing in Rebuild)? I'm sure it must, but man. The first half of this sort of reminded me of what I liked in the original Evangelion series and was pleasant enough (if a bit weird feeling), the second half of this was a CGI seizure-inducing action nightmare (although not as bad as the third, which was truly loathsome) while being punched in the mouth non-stop with endless nonsense that just...kind of happened. If nothing else, I think I got over my hatred of Shinji - rewatching the original show should be freaking awesome now. Any time Shinji might start to annoy me and I'll just be like "hey, at least he's not Mari". Please watch the following video and pretend it's about Mari (existing) instead of Joe Biden (becoming president): (P.S. Turns out...yeah, Mari didn't matter at all and could've easily not been here. Big surprise that someone you did absolutely nothing narrative or character-wise with didn't end up mattering character or narrative-wise. Wow! @majestic is gonna love this.) I give Rebuild a...4.5/10 as a whole. That's almost good*. 6/10 for the first movie, 5 for the second, 3.5 for the third, and...a 4.5 for the fourth, I guess. My headcanon is that none of this ever happened and that the series finished with The End of Evangelion. Thanks for coming to my metaphorical crucifixation at the hands of Hideakki Anno's Evangelion, I hope you (or rather we) all burn in hell...or at least get gooped and sucked up into Human Instrumentality. (e): Restructure of my post because I accidentally more or less repeated an entire few sentences.

No excuses! ...Okay, I guess excuses are alright, grumble grumble. Oh, also, one other thing: Kaworu more or less directly spoiled it at the end of 1.11. Said something about not letting bad things happen to Shinji again or "this time" or something like that. Felt way too meta, suspected from then on, especially as events diverged more and more in 2.22. Right to all of that. She feels even more pointless past 2.22, where you could literally remove her from every single scene and sequence and...make the slightest of modifications to the scenes and she wouldn't be missed even one iota. Where is the middle finger emoji at?

Man, do you know how many times I re-wrote and edited out her name in this little side-discussion about her because I kept remembering "wait, Majestic doesn't even know if she survived yet"? Good lord, give a guy a reaction emoji at the very least, my gosh! I didn't even notice that, to be honest - I guess I was already semi-consciously interpreting it that way because there's no way this could be considered to be simply a remake or "improvement" of the original. Had to be some kind of "alternative" telling. Mainly, it was the beginning and the end in that image that made me groan and laugh, . But seriously, she is the worst. You know what? She's worse than The End of the World. Yeah, there, I said it. What an ill-fitting, odious abomination from an entirely different universe to insert squarely straight into Evangelion. To have literally anyone else from the entire rest of the cast serve her "role" would have been grand. At the very least, The End of the World fit into their own little messed-up universe and was loathsome on a character level - Mari is revolting on even a meta-level. Gosh dang, I think I would've preferred even literally The End of the World to take her place. And every time I think Rebuild has shook her, there she appears again... It's slightly PTSD-inducing. No, I did get through the entire first episode.