Idealism, Cynicism, and The End of The World - Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo Review

*BEWARE! Spoilers lie in this review! Proceed with caution*
 (For the purposes of this review I'll simply refer to the film as "Rebuild 3.0")

Hideaki Anno's Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the all time greats of anime. When the original NGE television series aired in the mid-90's it was groundbreaking and set a new bar for not just the super robot genre but for anime as a medium. For those who don't know, NGE takes place in a somewhat post-apocolyptic world following the events of "Second Impact" an incident which wiped out half of the world's population. 14 year old Shinji Ikari is called in by the mysterious organization called NERV (led by his estranged father) to pilot a giant robot known as an Evangelion. The reasons for this is to fight these beings called the Angels who are trying to cause "Third Impact", basically the end of the world. Famously, Anno and his team ran out of money for the final two episodes of the series which led to said episodes being nothing but still frames and talking. These episodes hardly cleared up the numerous questions that had been building during the series and unsurprisingly the fans expressed their discontent. Anno would go on the remake the ending with a movie budget, this being known as End of Evangelion, the franchise's penultimate and finest moment. That being said, it's not as if End was incredibly straightforward either. So that brings us to the Rebuild movie series, the series that NGE was originally supposed to be but Hideaki Anno lacked the funds to make such a work possible. The first Rebuild film, Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone, is a remake of the first six episodes of the TV series with zero deviations from the original plot. Rebuild 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance began the divergence from the known path to the all new storyline in it's final scenes. Rebuild 3.0 is the first film in the series to be all new, original material. The film was actually released in November overseas in Japan and has even made it's way to DVD there. However, it has not been dubbed yet and there is no set North American release date (Funimation, who did the first two films, has actually picked the film up so a dub should be on it's way in the next year or so). I had originally planned to hold out until the dub was released to watch the film but I couldn't wait any longer. So with all the backstory out of the way, I can finally get to actually reviewing the film.

It's all the characters you know and love! Sort of...

(Disclaimer: Plot summary requires some basic knowledge of EVA and it's characters, otherwise this review would be obscenely long. Also contains SPOILERS)

Rebuild 3.0 takes place 14 years after the events of Rebuild 2.0. When we last left Shinji he had risked everything to save Rei Ayanami from the hands of the Angel, Zeruel, and in the process started Third Impact. However, in the stinger after the credits, it is shown that Kaworu Nagisa put a stop to Third Impact before it could do any damage. So Shinji wakes up from a 14 year long nap to find that the world is much different than the one he left behind. It turns out that Third Impact was never actually stopped, only slightly altered (and is redubbed Near-Third Impact), as a large portion of the world's population has been wiped out. To make things worse, Shinji actually didn't save Rei either. As a result of his effort to save her she remains dissolved inside EVA Unit-01. As a result, Misato Katsuragi is now the leader of an organization called WILLE, intent on stopping NERV's attempts to cause a Fourth Impact to finish what they originally intended with Near-Third Impact. Many of Shinji's former friends and allies (Asuke, Mari, Ritsuko, and the NERV staff) have also joined WILLE and blame Shinji and NERV for Near-Third Impact. It's very disorienting to see characters that you know and love become so cynical and cold. Misato is especially guilty of this, the time skip has changed the bubbly character into a cold and efficient military captain. It's not as if this side of Misato wasn't present before (in the TV series she was a crack military strategist) but it is sad to see her character so stoic and cold. In fact, pretty much all the WILLE staff seem to have become this during the WILLE/NERV civil war and it's certainly gut wrenching to see them alienate Shinji. WILLE gives a Shinji a collar that will kill him if he ever pilots an EVA again since the last time he did he nearly destroyed humanity. Shinji obviously refuses to believe anything that his former allies tell him which leads to him being manipulated into running back to NERV, who have plans for him. At NERV, he finally meets Kaworu and reunites with what he thinks is Rei. All during this time, his father moves around in the shadows manipulating the plot to suit the scenario that he dreams of, Fourth Impact and Human Instrumentality.

After an action packed opening to the film one would think the middle would accommodate for explanations of what happened during Near-Third Impact. This being Evangelion, explanation is passed by in order to show Shinji's deteriorating mental state dealing with the fact that he was responsible for dooming humanity and Rei's "death". The first two Rebuild films had a lighter tone that the series ever did and really looked like Shinji was going to get a happy ending. But no, Rebuild 3.0, plunges Shinji back into the psychological torture center, probably deeper than he's ever gone before. Rebuild 3.0 is easily the franchise's darkest work which is saying something since End of Evangelion crossed the disturbing threshold more than a few times. This is a much welcomed change though, I really missed the psychological aspect in the first two Rebuild films. After all, isn't that what Evangelion is supposed to be? EVA is supposed to dark, creepy, and psychological, it's what made the original series such a success. The lighter tone of the first two films is definitely gone and I'm pretty satisfied. It's hard to judge the plot of Rebuild 3.0 because I have nothing to compare it to. This is the first film that has completely deviated from the original storyline and has an all new, original plot. In fact, none of the scenes from the preview at the end of Rebuild 2.0 are even in the film! (However, theres some hypothesizing that these scenes may have happened during the timeskip and thus aren't shown) This is the plot that Anno originally intended for Evangelion but he lacked the budget to do so. Theres several familiar plot aspects: the Evangelions, Human Instrumentality, NERV, and familiar characters (although most of them are different than how we remember). But obviously theres plenty of new stuff: WILLE, EVA's 8,9, and 13, an organizational civil war, Near-Third Impact. Theres so much new material for EVA fans to sink their teeth into. However, not everyone can be as happy about this as I am. The biggest complaint that I have seen about the plot of the movie is the lack of explanation. The movie's plot itself is pretty self-explanatory but the film leaves many of the questions about what happened during the timeskip unanswered. Personally, I don't think that this is such a bad thing. Knowing Evangelion, why do we need answers? EVA thrives on the mysteries, after all that is what made the original series so compelling. The film puts you in Shinji's shoes, disoriented and confused at the changed world that he has woken up in. This is a changed, new world of Evangelion and it only makes sense for the viewer to be confused as well. Obviously, it's a little hopeful to say that all the answers will be supplied in the 4th and final film but I'm excited regardless.

Aside from the completely new plot, the biggest changes come with the characters. As I said before, most of Shinji's former friends and allies have turned away from him because of his role in causing Near-Third Impact. Misato is the most obvious example, though Asuka also shows herself to be quite cold to Shinji as well. Rei plays a pretty small role in the film in comparison to how heavily she was featured in Rebuild 2.0. This is because this isn't the same Rei from the previous film but rather another clone. However, Shinji insists on her being the "real Rei" (eventually he comes to accept this as a falsehood) which leads to this clone having a crisis of identity, something that will definitely be explored in the next film. The biggest bump in terms of screen time goes to Kaworu whose screen time in the original series ran for only one episode (his role still vitally important in the show however). The entire middle of the movie is dedicated to character development between him and Shinji (lots of piano playing). It's not as if they flesh anything more out of his character that wasn't there before however. His role is the same as it was during the TV series just for the length of a movie rather than minutes. Regardless, it was nice to see his character get more screentime considering how vital of a character he is to the main protagonist. Asuka is the character who probably changes the least out of the WILLE staff despite being 28 years old as a result of the time-skip. She's still a dominant and confident character, which also makes me wonder if the Rebuild films will ever get to her established backstory from the original series (unlikely, given how this film is concerned with mostly developing Shinji). Another major supporting character, Ritsuko, goes pretty under the radar during the film and other than sporting a new hairstyle, doesn't do much. At the same time for NERV, Shinji's father, Gendo, and his assistant Professor Fuyutsuki don't do much other than give out cryptic information the viewer. Well, other than the scene where Fuyutsuki blatant shoves 3-4 major revelations down Shinji's throat out of the blue. This is EVA after all so I guess I should be thankful.

In addition to the new characterizations of old characters, theres a handful of new characters who show up briefly. We finally get to meet Toji Suzahara's sister, who is now a major player at WILLE, along with some new characters that join up with the old NERV staff guys to play around with computers. theres also the matter of Mari Makinami, the EVA pilot that was introduced last film with pretty much zero backstory or character development. As of this film, nothing has really changed. The viewer still knows nothing about her other than the fact that she's basically the Mrs. Fanservice of the new Evangelion universe. This is once again a piece of the plot that I'm hoping will be explained in the 4th film.

One of the major themes of the film is the conflict between idealism and cynicism. In one corner it was Shinji's idealism that initiated the Near-Third Impact. All he wanted to do was save Rei, a noble action of course, but his EVA understood the action as "save Rei, destroy the world". Shinji often lets his idealism get to his head and rule his actions. He thinks with his emotions which is a dangerous thing to do while piloting an EVA. This is noted by the staff at WILLE who recognize Shinji as an out of control maniac who should never be allowed to pilot an EVA ever again. Thus leads to the aforementioned cynicism. It is Misato's cold and cynical treatment of Shinji upon his awakening that leads to him defecting to NERV's side. Of course, Shinji having just woken up doesn't know who's in the right or who's in the wrong of the conflict. NERV is able to use Shinji's guilt of being the one responsible for Near-Third Impact and the alienation he feels from his former friends to manipulate him and use him as a pawn for their plans. The film's message is that being overly idealistic or overly cynical only leads to problems between people. Being too cynical we can alienate the people who need our support while being overly idealistic can result in one making a decision without thinking about the consequences.

The animation, just like in the previous Rebuild films, is unbelievable though Rebuild 3.0 might have set the bar even higher on this one. To be perfectly honest, this is probably the best animation that I have seen in any anime. The battles in space are a feast for the eyes with popping colors and superbly fluid motion. I definitely recommend finding a high quality version of the film to watch and watching it on an HDTV. Soundwise the film was excellently scored. I can't say much about the voice cast mostly because I watched it in Japanese with subs. I will say one thing though. Normally Japanese voice casts irritate me to no end but I actually really liked the cast in this one. The film's soundtrack is perfect, mixing in some classic EVA music from the TV show though the old music has less of a prescence here than it did in the first two films. This is a good thing as well because it symbolizes that this is a new Evangelion and helps this version to stand alone.

I will say that I actually really enjoyed the newest installment to the NGE franchise. Sure, it's not without it's faults but because this is Evangelion faults such as leaving you with too many questions is actually a good thing. No other franchise could pull off such a cryptic film. Yes, there are a few things that I did want to know but I'm sure the next film will clear things up. That being said, the fourth and final film now has a great deal of pressure. Leaving all these questions unresolved is only acceptable if the next film wraps them up. Because this is EVA this is likely wishful thinking, but that won't keep me from being excited for the next film. Overall, I think that Rebuild 3.0 is a good, if not great installment into the franchise. It returns the series to it's roots which is dark, creepy, cryptic and uncomfortable. This is the Neon Genesis Evangelion that I know and love. Sure theres plenty of new stuff but the core components remain.

My Score: At the moment a 4.5/5 but I will definitely revisit this film once the series concludes with Rebuild 4.0