I watched this, and spent two hours blithering about it to anyone who would listen, eventually bending some poor guy's ear with a long rant about how sad it is that nobody has managed to live up to Eva except Eva again. It's become one of those projects that should have been a gamechanger but instead becomes sort of a roadblock, and everything splinters around it.
Apparently Kitoh Mohiro worked on this.
It's fucking great. I barely have anything else to say about it, or possibly too much to say and no idea where to begin.
But that
bum bum bum bum BUM BUM music is on the same level as the Doctor Who theme when it comes to reducing me to a quivering heap.
Cannot wait to watch this. I'm with you in your love of the "bum bum bum bum BUM BUM music". That's probably the only track from the Evangelion OST that I listen to on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteI can't get enough of the Eva BGM in general. Off the top of my head, I'm particularly fond of the random spaghetti-western guitar score for the fight with the bomb angel.
ReplyDeleteYou'll be happy to know they used the same music for the redone version of that sequence (which now has actual character beats thrown into the mix, and is a billion times more intense) although the main melody line is now SUNG by a massive choir.
ReplyDeleteI didn't even know that guy was in the movie until I went on Wikipedia to find his name so I could find that bit on Youtube since only, like, six or seven of the Angels ever get their names mentioned during the actual show.
ReplyDeleteSo, sweet! I look forward to the day I can see this in some form that isn't a shakily-translated fansub or bootleg.
I didn't remember any of that happening in the original at all, even without the Evas doing parkour across the city to get to it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Asuka does a muay thai knee kick to stab a third knife into the Angel's core.
Fucking entire movie just takes it to 11. I don't think I'll be able to go back and watch the TV series after these.
I don't think I'll be able to go back and watch the TV series after these.
ReplyDeleteY'know, that was actually kind of my fear when I heard these movies got announced, that people would basically just use them as a wholesale replacement for the TV and never look back at it. 'Cause, you know, I think Eva TV is one of the all-time greats, and I was sort of horrified at how badly served it was last time Anno decided to remake part of it theatrically.
Jury's still out on the new flicks, but at least doing them as 4 movies is better than the usual anime-movie-remake idea of trying to cram 13+ hours of character development into about two.
I was sort of saying the same thing after the first one, but this one just really reworked stuff so successfully that I've changed my mind. Asuka in particular is just a totally different character, bringing in quite a lot of what worked about the manga version of her, and creating something that's both more obviously broken and yet more natural and believable. They changed her name for a reason.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I probably wouldn't be talking like this if you hadn't just sent me to a clip that was like going back to old school Who and watching the sets wobble while the bit players wait for their cue.
ReplyDeleteHee.
ReplyDeleteI've no doubt the new movies will bring the pretty, but that's not everything OG Eva brought to the table, you know? I'm not going to object too strongly 'til I actually see the second movie.
That also plays into the contrast between the two scenes. Like I said, they found a way to work a pivotal character beat into the middle of this action scene. Character wise, I felt like this movie was consistently stronger than the original, despite the compressed time.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it's been a decade since I watched it.
Can't really compare the third big peg, since I can't fucking follow the jargon in this thing raw either. There were definitely some interesting bits there, though.
Just finished watching this and it is fan-flipping-tastic. Most impressive. Not only are the visuals stunning, but the reworked bits could not have been handled any better. FUNimation needs to grab this and release it pronto. Not to mention I need to see parts 3 and 4 two years ago.
ReplyDeleteJust finished the pair back to back...
ReplyDelete"Fucking entire movie just takes it to 11. I don't think I'll be able to go back and watch the TV series after these."
At least to 11, if not 12. God damn. I thought I was over being excited about Eva, but I was very, very wrong.
Really late to the party, but yeah, this is damn good. Too late for really specific thoughts, but here's a few: I feel that the only really regrettable portion is the fight with Unit-03 -- considering how visceral it is in the series, the musical juxtaposition is just too obvious and takes me out of the scene. Dunno how I feel about Mari just yet, but that's largely because I can't quite figure out her role... I definitely like what Anno's done with moving Asuka's and Rei's personalities and roles; the anti-social paranoia in general, in fact, is so removed here, that working in their original personae wholesale would not fit here.
ReplyDeleteThe final battle is awesome; doesn't live up to the climax in 1.11, but it's still great. And it's nice of Anno to really fuck with us right before and after the credits.
I know it's weird to look beyond the next Eva movie, but once he's finished with these remakes/reimaginings/whatever, I really hope he continues directing. He's already left his mark in the industry and then some, but I'd really love to see him stretch out even more.
Well hey, I'm even later to the party, but at least my dedication to waiting for a professional release will pay off... in probably six to eight months.
ReplyDeleteI too would like to see what else Anno has in him, though I suppose I should get around to seeing his non-Cutey Honey film work before saying that.
I have seen both of his other films, and they are interesting, but not unmissable by any means.
ReplyDeleteLove and Pop is kind of a bog standard don't be a schoolgirl prostitute movie, but he got some good performances out of it and did a few tricks with the camera that make it feel like the way the girls might have filmed it themselves.
The other one -- name forgotten -- is based on a memoir by a lady with pretty intense mental breakdown issues...who plays herself. There's absolutely not story whatsofuckever, and Anno appears to have been playing with stylistic minamalism for some reason, so the camera just sort of sits there. Obsessive shots of power lines and urban areas and all, but any two bit indie director working off this script would have produced the same movie.