In my review of the first two movies of the Rebuild of Evangelion series, I noted that with these two new movies (especially the second one,) we saw a more refined, more world weary Hideaki Anno. With the latest movie, You can (not) Redo, now out in Japanese theaters, we see the divergence that we saw in the first two movies careen wildly off course into new territory. And by doing so, we are left in a fugue state, with no questions answered and with many new questions raised.
In essence, while being a completely original chapter in the series, it felt a bit like the old days of Evangelion. Whether the end result is effective or not, I leave up to the viewer.
Be warned, spoilers follow.
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After the end of 2.0/2.22 Shinji grows a spine and sacrifices his all to rescue Rei Ayanami. Truth be told I felt some hot blooded manliness from that scene. You'd think 3.0 would build on that and tout a new, braver, more assertive Shinji.
Nnnnnnnnnope. Anno turns the whole situation on its head and deconstructs the idea of hot-blooded "sacrifice everything for the person I want to protect" machismo. Shinji completely fails to save Ayanami, and in the process ruins the world even more; he wakes up into a new world, 14 years after the fact, where everyone hates him for what he did. Misato, who had actually egged Shinji on, now keeps distant; Asuka, who had cared for the Shinji of pre-Third Impact, treats him with nothing more than disdain. It seems to be a cautionary tale on what happens when you disregard everything to get what you want: everything has consequences.
Anno frames the story through Shinji's eyes, and Shinji is confused all throughout the movie, unsure of where his footing in this new world exists. Because of the lack of information presented to Shinji, this carries over to the viewers, most of whom I'm sure have no freaking idea what is going on (or what the hell happened over that 14 year gap.) Hopefully the DVD/Bluray release of 3.33 remedies this.
Eventually Shinji learns the truth behind Rei, his father and the Evangelions. It's not exactly the catharsis he desperately needs. In the middle of wading through all this emotional shit, Shinji comes across Kaworu, who offers him a way to undo the things that he did. It doesn't go well. It's weird that most of the conflicts in this movie can be solved by simply leading Shinji down on a table, carefully explaining everything, and leaving. The movie would end right there.
But one of the themes of 3.0 seems to be the lack of communication between people. Like the AT Fields in the original series, people keep an emotional and physical distance from each other with barriers, and hurt each other by failing to express their true feelings. It's a belief of mine that (whether intentional or not,) ignoring someone hurts more than actively hating them.
From a bit of a meta perspective, the 'newness' of this movie, being a production of completely original material, puts most Evangelion fans in the same place they were when the TV series ended almost 20 years ago. Unsure of what will happen next, speculation ran rampant. I remember walking in silence contemplating all the questions that the series raised during and after its run. It's a nice feeling.
Evangelion 3.0 is a flawed work. By cutting loose from the source material and going in a completely different direction, it treads unknown paths, and to a lot of fans, this sense of unfamiliarity may be jarring, maybe even alienating. With the release of the last movie, Evangelion: Final :|| still up in the air, we may wait all the way to the real 2015 to see a conclusion to the remake series, and get questions answered for this movie as well.
Until then, only time will tell.
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