I Will (Not) Re-Use this Pun: Evangelion 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo
Greetings, ladies and
gentlemen! Welcome back to part three of
This is (Not) an Evangelion Event and
my final review of the month! So far
I’ve talked about two of the currently three movies in the series and gave a
couple of spoilers in between in examining the good and bad things from the
films. Now we get to press on and talk
about the last current film in the series!
Let’s not wait any longer and get started talking about the third film
in the Evangelion Rebuild series, Evangelion 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo!
If you read my Talkative Thursday
post earlier this week, you’ll know that I felt the first thirty minutes of
this film was a wreck and hard to follow.
Well, despite that, I’ll do what I can to explain what happens. Fourteen years after the Third Impact, a new
organization called WILLE, lead by Misato, tries to save what’s left of humanity
and destroy the Evas and Nerv. Somehow,
they’ve managed to recover Shinji who’s
been catatonic ever since Third Impact and doesn’t look like he’s aged at all. It’s not longer after this that an electric
collar is placed on Shinji’s neck.
Should he pilot an Eva and cause another Impact, the collar will explode,
killing him instantly. However, Nerv attacks
via Rei in a new Eva Unit and takes Shinji.
Everything after that point slows down a bit and is easier to
follow. After the capture, Shinji is
told by his father that he and another boy named Kaworu Nagisa will pilot a new
Eva Unit called Eva Unit 13. Much of the
film’s second act focuses on Shinji exploring the remnants of Nerv and bonding
with Kaworu. Though much of their time
involves the two of them playing the piano together, they quickly grow a
budding friendship. Eventually, Kaworu
reveals to Shinji the outside world ravaged thanks to him triggering the Third
Impact. He also reveals to Shinji his
father’s plans in starting the Human Instrumentality Project, which involves
uniting all human souls into one existance.
Other facts like the origins of the Evas and Rei are revealed to Shinji,
making him feel he can no longer trust anyone.
But Kaworu manages to turn him around and convince him to continue with
their mission at hand by removing the collar placed on him by WILLE and putting
it on himself. The mission starts accordingly
by having the two being dropped to Central Dogma to recover the Spears of
Longinus and Cassius from Lilith with Rei coming along as backup. The two are quickly met by Asuka and Mari in
their respected Evas and a fight breaks out.
Shinji still manages to pull the spears even with Asuka and Mari trying
to stop him and Kaworu changing his mind at the last minute, and awakens the
twelfth Angel. This Angel in gulfs Eva
Unit 13, but is later devoured by Unit 13.
Shortly after this happens, the Fourth Impact begins. At this point, WILLE, Asuka, and Mari try to
stop Unit 13 and Nerv from carrying out Human Instrumentality. But Kaworu manages to help end it when the
collar activates and kills him, shuting down Eva Unit 13 as a result. Shinji still remains in the Unit until he’s
ejected by force by Mari. As things
settle down, Asuka finds a traumatized Shinji and forces him out of the ejected
cockpit. Rei joins the two shortly after
and the three traverse the landscape as the film ends.
Much like what I did with Tokyo Ghoul Re:, I’m actually going to talk
about the downsides first mostly because of the three, this one was the weakest
and those weaknesses were pretty noticeable.
But to start things off, I give Evangelion
3.33 You Can (Not) Redo a 7.5 out of 10.
Like I said earlier, the first couple of minutes of the film were where
a lot of the problems lie. I talked
about this in my Talkative Thursday post earlier this week, but to give a
general idea of what went wrong here, the first thirty minutes decided to throw
as much information at the audience as it could but never bothered to elaborate
on it. Now granted, I can understand the
approach that the film is trying to take putting us in Shinji’s shoes and have
us experience the sense of fear and uncertainty. But it’s not necessarily done well. We see all these new characters and hear and
see all of these interesting things but really don’t learn that much about
them. So in other words, the film had
some good ideas, they were just rushed and haphazardly thrown in. Another problem that I had with the film that
I also talked about Thursday was that a lot of the film seemed very
inconsistent. There were a lot of
details that were added or changed that weren’t in the first two movies. Some major points for me included the note
that Eva Unit 6 was a completely autonomous unit despite that fact that we
clearly see Kaworu pilot it at the end of the second movie. WILLE was also a conundrum because it made no
sense for them to want to destroy Evas even though they have two units that
they actually use. And probably the
biggest inconsistency that I found was, of course, “the curse of the Evas.” This
was a plot point I already talked about, but it made no sense to have this
anti-aging affect from the Evas when you consider that the series established
that only fourteen year olds can pilot Evas-to be fair though, the film don’t
mention this, but it still challenges what’s already been cannon to the
franchise. I get that Anno wanted to be
a little different with the third installment, but it really didn’t make any
sense to me to change so much, especially considering that before this, there
was already a pretty clear story and direction that the film was supposed to
take. And sure, it sounds like I don’
have that much faith in this movie and the original twist it tried to take. However, there was one saving grace that this
film had that I can definitely say was what comprised some of the film’s best
moments. And that was Kaworu.
For as much as I’ve started in
negative remarks and referencing to the top ten things Rebuild got wrong, if you also read my top ten moments that Rebuild got right, you’ll know that
Kaworu was one of the biggest improvements to the franchise. In fact, he was the runner up for that
countdown. It’s no exaggeration that
Kaworu gave the audience a lasting impression in the first movie; we know from
movie one that he would have some significant impact to the story of the
films. And while his debut in 3.33 was subtle and arguably no
different from the series, we still got to see more of him, which let us know
that Kaworu would be big once he was finally introduced. Story wise, Kaworu also served as a great
support for Shinji as he not only acted as a friend, but also didn’t shy away
from hiding the truth from him about the world.
He was in fact a wonderful and likable character, which admittedly makes
his death pretty heartbreaking for us as well as Shinji as he goes out on the
mother of all headaches (yes, I know, I made a poor-in-taste decapitation
joke). Another smaller note that I think
a lot of people mention is that the ending of this film was pretty
satisfying. It wasn’t entirely left up
for debate or trying to throw as much crazy imagery as possible (I’m talking to
you, End of Evangelion) and actually
ended on a good note. In fact, if there
had not been a fourth film in the works, I would have very well accepted this
as the ending to the franchise. So yeah,
I may have started talking about the bad,
but I did in fact ended on the good.
I don’t think I can say much else
here except that despite the whirlwind of a mess the film starts on, Evangelion 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo ends
on a satisfying note that could please an Evangelion
fan. And so, that ends this week’s
review! Stick around for this Thursday
when take Rebuild and the original
series and put them head-to-head to see which one was better! Also be sure to stay tuned for next Sunday
when I reveal This is (Not) an Evangelion
Event’s Character of the Month!
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