I Can (Not) Unsee This: The End of Evangelion
OK, ladies and gentlemen, if you
can tell by the title, you can conclude two things: one, today’s review is related to Evangelion, and two, it was not
pleasant. And coming from a newly
converted Evangelion fan, that’s
saying something cause I’ve have been dreading as well as anticipating
reviewing this movie. Now what do I mean
by unpleasant? Well, let’s just say this
was the first time ever in all of the time I’ve been otaku that I’ve openly
laughed and said “that was stupid.” And
what do I mean by this? Keeping reading
this review and you’ll see why. So hold
on and let’s get started on this week’s review on The End of Evangelion.
To give you guys fair warning, the film
is split into three parts. And if you
didn’t see the original series up to episode 24, you might be a little lost to
some of the details. Speaking of, the
movie opens where episode 24 left off with Shinji mourning Kaworu’s death. He also makes time to visit Asuka in the
hospital, who has fallen into a coma following her mental breakdown. Then (I kid you not, ladies and gentlemen)
proceeds to masterbate over her comatose body.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that really happens. We then cut to more pleasant things like Nerv
staff scratching their heads as to what to do now that all of the angels have
been defeated. As this is going on, the
higher ups at Seele feel they can no longer trust Gendo and so decided to take
the remaining Evas. Their first attempt
plays out like the plot of episode 13 where Seele hacks into Nerv’s computer
system and Ritsuko stops the hack and evades them completely. After this, Seele decides to use force and
sends troops into Nerv headquarters, killing staff members along the way. Along with ground forces, Seele also launches
their own line of Evas. Speaking of
which, Askua is put in Eva Unit 2, which is then set at the bottom of a lake outside
of headquarters. She wakes up from her
coma and attacks Seele’s forces not already in Nerv, wiping most of them
out. But after this, she then faces
Seele’s Evas. At first, she is able to
take out all of them, but things take an ugly turn not only when a Lance of
Longinus is launched and pierces Eva Unit 2, but also when all of Seele’s Evas
simultaneously regenerate. Asuka is
easily overwhelmed and brutally killed by the Evas. As this is going on, Shinji is saved by
Misato who literally gives her life to get him to Eva Unit 1 to provide back up
for Asuka. However, the Eva is trapped
in Bakelite- a measure used to prevent Seele’s troops from moving any further-,
keeping Shinji from getting inside. It
is only until the end of Part 1 of the film that Eva Unit 1 awakens and breaks
out of the Bakelite on its own accord, allowing Shinji to pilot it. Part 1 ends with Shinji discovering the
grisly remains of Eva Unit 2.
Part 2 opens with Gendo and Rei in
Central Dogma with Lilith. Prior to
this, it was noted that Gendo fused part of his body to the soul of Adam and
that Rei was fused with the soul of Lilith.
Combining the two souls would supposedly start Third Impact, which is
Gendo’s intent (and that’s your textual jargon for the day!). Previously in part one, Ritsuko meets the two
down there and attempts to self destruct headquarters. This fails, allowing Gendo to shoot and kill
her. Now circling back to Part Two, Rei
rejects Gendo, taking what was merged with Adam, and then proceeds to merge
with Lilith herself. This causes her to
transform into a giant monster hybrid of herself and Lilith. And with Eva Unit 1 being captured by Seele’s
Evas, Third Impact begins. And
then...and then...and then...Ok, at this point, it’s impossible to describe in
detail what happens here. But to give
you a quick rundown, here’s what happens: Third Impact happens, we get almost
thirty minutes of Shinji introspection, humanity is wiped out, Shinji realizes
this is a mistake and decides to reverse the damage that was done, Third Impact
is stopped which causes the Rei-Lilith hybrid to die, and the film ends on Part
3, which is a strange and debatable ending lasting only thirty seconds. And that’s it.
Like I said, this film was
stupid. To the people who call this a
masterpiece, I will mercilessly laugh at you in the face. Hands down, this gets an even six out of ten,
easily. Now while I’m more than ready to
tear The End Evangelion a new one, I
will say that there are actually some great things to this film. First, I will straight up admit that I watched
videos and reviews on this movie before even watching the film itself. So I knew what I was getting into: a movie
that was violent, disturbing, and trippy beyond belief. When I actually watched the movie...it wasn’t
as trippy as I thought it would be. Many
of the reviews that I watched claimed this film had tons of WTF moments. My definition of a WTF moment is a moment
that is very strange, comes out of nowhere, and then is never talked about
again. Overall, most of the acid trip
moments were actually explained and followed along with the plot. The only thing strange about them was the
animation. And believe it or not, the
first hour of the movie, that being the majority of the conflict between Nerv
and Seele, was actually pretty good.
The moment when Seele’s forces invade Nerv to the beginning stages of
Third Impact was the most intriguing part of the film and really where a lot of
the story was. In fact, if you cut out
the beginning moments of the film to Midway through Third Impact, you’d have
the makings of a good Evangelion movie (and maybe something else, but we’ll get
to that in a minute). And while were
talking about the best parts, my favorite part out of the entire movie was
Asuka’s fight with Seele’s Eva Units. I
don’t care how illogical this fight was, this was the best moment in the entire
movie! If you read my “Should We Hated
Shinji Ikari” post, you know that Asuka is my least favorite character from the
Evangelion franchise. But oddly enough, she was actually great in
this moment, which almost plays out as a moment of redemption for her, even
though she loses the match pretty badly.
I also loved Seele’s Evas. I
don’t know what it was with these things, but they were just so cool. I liked the idea that they didn’t look like
Evas or Angels, they just looked like monsters.
Granted I joking called this whole fight a “Big-Lipped Eva Unit Moment
(yes, I just used a Nostalgia Critic pun).”
I’m hoping these guys make it in the upcoming Evangelion movie, design
and everything. And I’ll give the movie
credit, the animation was pretty good.
As trippy as it gets, you can tel the animators really put some effort
into it. The details and the facial
expressions were very vivid and intense.
So overall, the good things that the movie had were really good.
 |
| Seele's Evas (because you had to see them to believe me) |
Ok, so what so bad about this
movie? What was so awful about The End of Evangelion that it made say
that it was stupid. Well, it’ actually
pretty simple... THIS MOVIE IS THE LAST TWO EPISODES OF THE ORIGINAL SERIES!!! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I kid you not,
that’s why. If you pay attention, you
could make parallels from the movie with the last two episodes of the original
series. Everything from Ritsuko and
Misato’s deaths, Rei stating she’s an independent being who makes her own
decisions, Shinji realizing the world he’s created, and there’s even a scene
where EVa Unit 2 is in a body of water with Asuka inside! To those Evangelion fans who theorized that
the events that take place during the movie were going on in the last two
episodes of the series, this theory is 100% accurate. In fact, there was a moment while watching
this when I thought to myself, “why wasn’t this the ending of the original series?” I have no idea why this was made into a movie
(ok, I lied, I know why) and makes no sense for it to be a movie. This movie overall is an cut and paste, extended
version of the last two episodes of the series, and anyone who tells me
otherwise will not like my response to it.
That aside, another major downside to the film was, (ugh) once again,
the thirty minutes worth of Shinji introspection. It was a problem in the series, and it’s a
problem here. And much like the series,
there was way too much of it. Because of
that, the last third of the movie was just boring. And since we’re talking about Shinji, let’s
bring up the Nostalgia Critic again and talk about the Horny Big Lipped
Alligator Moment in the movie: the hospital scene. Many people often call this scene disturbing
giving that Shinji is in fact jerking off to a comatose body. For me personally, I found this scene out of
place more than disturbing. It is
unsettling, don’t get me wrong, but there’s no point to having it here. If you want a classic definition of a Big
Lipped Alligator Moment but far more unsettling, you won’t find anything closer
than this. So again, while there were
some great moments in the series, what was bad just stood out more.
Guys, I don’t know if I can say
anything else nice here. Coming from a
fan, this movie is overrated and unnecessary.
Once again, if you left out the beginning with the hospital scene and
the repeat of episode thirteen, and started with Seele attacking Nerv and cut
out 2/3 of the introspection, this would have made a great finally to the
series, even with the trippy Third Impact parts and the ending. Hands down, this was (not) a decent ending to
Evangelion. So yeah, I wasn’t all
that positive with this review. But stay
tuned next week for a more positive Autism Awareness post this Thursday!
-Hanime
on Anime
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