so i just watched the third fucking movie, and


more on that later

So yeah, I'm definitely sticking with a 5/10.

I guess the best thing I can say about 2.0 is that, since we've officially diverged from the original story, we do get to see a lot of new character interactions, which in turn leads to a lot of fun and memorable scenes. Rei, in particular, received a bit of a personality upgrade. She expresses her thoughts a lot more, takes an active interest in things like cooking, and it's actually quite pleasing to watch her relationship with Shinji actually go somewhere tangible.

Asuka, on the other hand, appears to be a completely different character this time around. Even her name is different. She's still pretty unlikable, but not for all the same reasons. This time, she actively dislikes socializing and prefers to be alone, although she does appreciate a good heart-to-heart every once in a while. Still don't like her at all.

Shinji and Misato remained mostly the same, as far as I could tell. I guess you could say Shinji bitches a little less, and there's many more scenes of him doing nice things for his friends (especially Rei). I guess the complaints about Shinji being a whiner were taken very seriously, because I don't know how anyone could dislike this kid anymore.

As much as I enjoyed the new scenarios and character interactions, I can't say that I really understand why the story is being "rebuilt" this way in the first place yet, though it may become obvious later. The way things have been changed aren't entirely unwelcome, but the characters do feel considerably more shallow. It kinda gives the first half of the film a completely different atmosphere from the series. I don't want to say it feels happier, but it feels almost like Anno started taking his meds, or something. Before everything goes to shit in the second half, it's almost slice-of-life-esque, with the addition of brighter color schemes, pleasant conversations, comfortable scenes, and a seemingly increased amount of comic relief and fanservice.

Speaking of...

As I feared, this Mari character shows up in this one. You probably don't need me to tell you that I hate her, but I do. Her design and personality seem to have been pulled straight out of Gurren Lagann (which is a bad thing), and her fifteen minutes of screentime were entirely spent on bouncing her breasts all over the place and getting fucked up by Zeruel to job for Shinji. She's utterly useless, and I wanted to end my life every time she was on screen.

I am genuinely interested to see if there's anything else to her character, but her utter lack of presence here, knowing she had already been teased in 1.0, is a little concerning. In any case, she added nothing to the story but fanservice. Maybe Anno's onto something with her. I don't know.

I've heard some people try to argue that these films are meant to be an acerbic takedown of modern harem anime (if not just anime in general), and Mari is just there to help sell that point. If that's true, then I can dig it, but I'd be lying if I said I'm completely on board with that hypothesis just yet. Even so, it wouldn't necessarily improve my opinion. I can always get down with any possible underlying anti-otaku sentiments, but... I have the original series for that. What do I need these movies for, exactly? I guess we'll just have to see.

Mari's not the only source fanservice, though. The movie has (just as Misato promised, I guess) a lot of it. Way too much. I mean, any amount would've been too much, but this was actually getting on my nerves. The original show certainly had its fair share, and I don't give it a free pass on that, but 2.0 is noticeably over the top about it. So that sucked.

Structurally, I think the movie is a hot flaming mess. It's basically trying to cram, like, ten or twelve episodes from the show together at once (where 1.0 limited itself to just six, and already had pacing issues), so my biggest problem with the first film has been heavily exacerbated in 2.0. So much shit is packed in, and it never stops moving, even for one second. I decided against rewatching the film for this reason alone. It's just a headache to get through.

Once again, there's a lot of CG action that I didn't care much for, and the music choices weren't exactly up to snuff. I can appreciate the technique where a soft and upbeat song gets played over an intense, violent scene to make it all the more disturbing, but I don't think it really worked this time. End of Eva did it WAY better; here, it felt a little cheesy.

There's also a number of scenes with some gratuitous Engrish, and of course, they're ALL horrendous. Pretty sure they didn't even try.

Pretty sure that's all I have to say for now. The ending was cool, I think. Loved the visuals. Certainly not End of Eva level, but still enjoyable to watch.

Let's see what 3.0 does.

Spoiler

Verb is killing me without even realizing it. What they did to the Mark 06 is criminal.

does this post spoil the rebuilds overall or just 2.0 specifically

So I just watched Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, and it was decent.

Given that it's essentially just a retread of the first six episodes (which I already knew about going in), it's gonna be kinda hard for me to find anything to say about it. I enjoyed the first six episodes of Eva; two of them (4 and 6) are some of my favorite episodes in the series, and for the MOST part, I feel as though they were all done justice with this fresh new coat of paint.

Almost everything I have to say that's positive, however, would also apply to the original series even more, which pretty much leaves only the negatives to discuss.

Here's the thing—first and foremost, Evangelion is a TV show. All of its episodes are written, directed, and paced in a very distinct way that I think only works in a serial format.

For example, in the original series, there's a handful of these slower episodes with really long and drawn-out scenes that show very little while saying a lot. Episode 4 (Hedgehog's Dilemma) is rife with these introspective moments, all of which are very important, because they provide some crucial insight into the headspace of both Shinji and Misato—yet, out of all the episodes that were crammed into this movie, this is the one that got cut down the most.

I get that this probably had something to do with time constraints, but this is kinda what I'm talking about. In a TV show, you can afford to have each episode paced a little bit differently, because that's the nature of the medium. Every episode is a self-contained segment, giving them some wiggle room to play by their own rules for 20 minutes. Films, on the other hand, are designed to be watched in one sitting, so in order for the narrative to feel cohesive, the pacing has to remain consistent throughout. I get all that, and that's what they were trying to adjust for here. However, not only does this make the end-result feel a little bit stilted and rushed, it also comes at the expense of the episodes' deeper emotional qualities. There's just something intimate about the original series that feels kinda lost here.

TV show episodes also allow for more cliffhangers, which I get nobody likes anyway, but I'd say the show always used them fairly intelligently. The first episode ends in a cliffhanger—just before the very first fight. When the second episode begins, we don't actually get to see how the fight played out until the end. Naturally, this is different in the film, where we actually get to see the fight play out in real time, but in my opinion, this is a far less interesting way to convey this part of the story. It feels too linear, and it puts more emphasis on the action, which has literally never been the primary appeal of Eva. Not to me, anyway.

The few changes made to the story so far have been pretty intriguing. Not only does Misato already know about Lilith (for some reason), she also reveals her to Shinji almost right away. That was weird. She doesn't even think she's Adam, so I guess that plot is gonna lead to something completely different now. Gendo's plans appear to be going in different directions as well. I'm also moderately excited that Kaworu is going to get more time in the spotlight, because his sudden presence in the show and subsequent lack of development has always been one of my least favorite things about it.

The new art, naturally, was very pretty to look at, though I'm not that big on the abundance of obvious CG used for the most mundane things, like the reels on Shinji's Walkman thing. It's not a big deal, but it tends to clash with everything that's not CG.

CG isn't automatically bad, though. It was used appropriately for the Angel special effects, which helped make them seem a lot more formidable—especially Ramiel, my favorite, who definitely had the coolest animations.

Wasn't really a fan of what they did to the soundtrack, either. Any time they used a song from the original show, I was happy, but every time some newer arrangement started playing, not once did I ever feel like it was an improvement. In particular, the dramatic choir vocals that play over a couple of familiar tracks were completely out of place, in my opinion.

Overall, while getting to revisit the early parts of Eva's story with modern visuals is inherently appealing, I do have to say that I'd much rather watch the original six episodes. This was fun, but I think too many aspects of the show don't translate very well to a movie format, because I feel like several important facets that made the series unique and special in the first place have been casually defenestrated in favor of more dumb action, making it feel watered down and ultimately not as good.

I remember watching these early episodes for the first time, and thinking to myself, "Hmm, okay, there's definitely something more to this show than just giant robots." But if I watched 1.0 first, that thought probably wouldn't have crossed my mind at all. Instead, as somebody who's already seen the entire show, I'm naturally more interested in seeing where the seeds of divergence planted here will take us in the next three films (which I'm sure was the whole point).

6/10, will watch 2.0 later.

Quote from: Verbatim on August 23, 2019, 02:37:57 AM

Quote from: MarKhan on August 23, 2019, 02:11:34 AM

Quote from: Verbatim on August 22, 2019, 02:47:57 PM

I'm also slightly afraid that there aren't anything enjoyable left in store for you in anime.

Also what are you busy with right now?

playing new games (i have a project going where i'm trying to play the debut game of every character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate), going to the gym, listening to new music (still trying to work on that 1995 albums project), school's starting up soon, general life stuff, and all of this with me trying to get my first novel written in the background

oh, i know, i could watch the rebuilds

Hmm, glad to hear that it goes well for you! Honestly thought it would be worse. Also school? How much years left for you to graduate?

barring shenanigans, i shouldn't have more than three semesters to go, two if i'm very lucky with scheduling

most seniors can kinda just kick back and relax if they were good students who knew how to use their time properly, but i wasn't, so i have to work very hard unfortunately

aw sweet me too, how much can you lift now and what are you focusing on

nothing impressive, because my partner says i should be focusing more on reps than weight right now

for one rep:
90 pounds on the bar for military (RIP, i fucking suck at these)
100 pounds on the bar for bench
180 pounds on the bar for deadlift (these are my favorite)
180 pounds on the bar for squat (smith machine though, because i suck and need to work on my form)

idk how much the bars weigh if you can't tell, i get different numbers every time i ask

because i'm very out of shape (200 pounds, not fat but very out of shape), i'm mainly focused on just conditioning right now, so basically getting to a point where these unfamiliar motions start feeling natural to me

i'd say i'm halfway there, but my inability to squat properly is rather discouraging

unrelated, but you might get a kick out of this:

i'm not taking it super seriously, or anything, but i started lifting a couple months ago (hour a day, four days a week)

a friend of mine goaded me into it, but i only agreed to do it because i wanted to prove to him that i wouldn't get anything out of it (it also gives me an excuse to hang out with him more and get more water in my system, which is particularly important for me because i have kidney stones now), but for what it's worth, i haven't missed a day

it's been fun, even though i can't squat for shit (my form is fucking HORRENDOUS) and i haven't really made any serious gains yet (need more protein i guess)

This thread sucks

i was gonna transform it into a proper review of Dragon Warrior with actual structure and effort, but i decided that the formatting tools on this website are inadequate for what i had in mind, so i did it on google docs instead

i decided to write 6200 words for some reason, so i guess i had a lot more to say about it than i planned for

i'm gonna start the very first final fantasy game now, because why not

i only responded in the exact manner that he chose to respond to me, only i did it better, because i always do it better

Quote from: Verbatim on August 14, 2019, 05:46:53 PM

Quote from: challengerX on August 14, 2019, 05:46:00 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on August 14, 2019, 05:37:10 PM

Quote from: challengerX on August 14, 2019, 05:23:14 PM

Flee barely even talks to me you retard hahahahaha

so why do you predictably jump to his defense every time i stomp on his neck

I’m not even active here anymore lmao and I had plenty of disagreements with Flee over the years. The real question is why are you still on this website being such a bitter bitch. Do you seriously have nothing to do?

i seriously have nothing to do

damn I thought you’d find a hobby or something after I kicked you from the discord

yep it's all been downhill for me since that day

Flee barely even talks to me you retard hahahahaha

so why do you predictably jump to his defense every time i stomp on his neck

the funniest thing ever is that there ARE legitimate arguments to be made against circumcision

it's just that nobody on this forum has ever made any of them

i would be MUCH more sympathetic to anti-circumcision folk if they would just admit that being circumcised is objectively better

say "it's objectively better, but i still don't think that makes it okay" and you're off to a better start than most people on your side

still laughing at this thread

no one can touch me on this subject

yeah, i can definitely understand wanting to skip this gen

i'm on the fence about it, because while i ultimately don't care that much about dexit, and have given them passes on outdated design aspects since the beginning (so there's no reason why i can't now), those shortcomings do feel more noticeable than ever, and there's absolutely no excuse for it anymore

it just sucks, because i'd love to play a new game in the series, and i've been waiting for a worthwhile pokémon purchase for a LONG time, between disappointing wastes of money like ultra sun/moon and the let's go games