I've argued against the consensus that Hideaki Anno hate's his fans before, I've tried to say that just because he feels the need to change some things and dislikes rabid Evatards, it's not reason to think him wrong. This movie has changed my opinion of him.
I'll say this first off, you want to change continuity in a story, fine. It's your work, you can do whatever the hell you want with it, whether it's a good thing or not, we've seen that with some of the best sci-fi epics in the last 40 years.
But don't expect to write utter rubbish and not be called out for it.
A lot has been said on the depression that Anno went through in the writing process of the Eva TV series and how it's effected his story structure, you can see it around the mid-point of the series changing gears at a horrible rate, if I'm honest, this movie shows that he needs someone to rein him in, there have been changes to story structure(I mean 14 years of character destruction just because he wanted it) additions and retcons.
This movie is a mess, from start to finish there seems to be no reason for it, nothing really happens in this other than build-up for the final movie. We've had major reset buttons being hit for major characters, we've had horrible, disgusting plot conveniences of no-aging for the Eva pilots without anything substantial being shown for them and the burden of spending 14 years in an adolescent's body (you know, the whole tortured Claudia style character). A major character was introduced just to be killed off, without any major development! AGAIN! I could let Anno off in the series, he'd come up with a brilliant idea, but the money was running out and he had to cut and paste together a quick resolution to probably the most important character interaction for Shinji. But doing this. After Two Films of build up, with a full movie to show just the blossoming friendship and possible love between a young man and an alien in the guise of a young man. This is unforgivable, I can't forgive a horrid mess of this mistake, Anno had the chance to give us what he'd complained so much about before. And he gives us the same basic thing, no character development, a choice to kill or not to kill and a breakdown of a Human mind.
Like I said before, if you want to change continuity then that's perfectly fine, I don't mind that. Lucas and Roddenberry both did the same with their stories(with a sliding scale of success). Now I know he'd already changed a lot of stuff in continuity by the second movie, but doing this is idiotic, he's changed continuity within his own movie series, while it's still running. You don't DO that. Breaking continuity while you are still telling the story doesn't work, saying something like: "billy went to the supermarket and picked up dry cleaning from the laundromat for his new book, then on his way home, Jenny found a £1000 and was evicted from her home because she was flat broke" yes there's a story there, but it doesn't make a lick of sense.
In essence, that is what he has done here, taking a story structure of "there was the First Impact 65million years ago, Humans came, then Second Impact came with Adam and brought the Angels, a union between Adam and Lilth will bring Third Impact, causing the end of the world." And stating now "Whoa, what are you saying, Third Impact is just a step along to the Apocalypse of Fourth Impact, didn't I mention that before?" If you'd stated that Third Impact was the end of the world, then stick to that and show a world in Purgatory for the third movie, you know because Kaworu stopped it at the end of the second movie. That could work, 14 years of a living purgatory would harden anyone, even people like Misato. So you can create a sacrificial Saviour of Shinji for the Fourth movie, you know like you're planning to do anyway.
The visuals are the only major tent pole holding this film up, because that're amazing as usual, but as for the rest, it's terrible.
The story is crap. It's a reason to turn away from the Rebuild series, I'll still see the final movie, mainly because I'm in too deep now and just have to hold my nose and swim through, if I'd fallen in on this just now, I'd have been easily able to give it up.
The only bright point is that I've got the full series limited addition boxset on my shelf and all the movies, that's enough for me and even though it's ending is as convoluted as this one is currently, I'm more willing to forgive that than this. Hideaki Anno hasn't impressed me with this sharp right turn, can his final movie change my opinion. I seriously doubt it.
I'll say this first off, you want to change continuity in a story, fine. It's your work, you can do whatever the hell you want with it, whether it's a good thing or not, we've seen that with some of the best sci-fi epics in the last 40 years.
But don't expect to write utter rubbish and not be called out for it.
A lot has been said on the depression that Anno went through in the writing process of the Eva TV series and how it's effected his story structure, you can see it around the mid-point of the series changing gears at a horrible rate, if I'm honest, this movie shows that he needs someone to rein him in, there have been changes to story structure(I mean 14 years of character destruction just because he wanted it) additions and retcons.
This movie is a mess, from start to finish there seems to be no reason for it, nothing really happens in this other than build-up for the final movie. We've had major reset buttons being hit for major characters, we've had horrible, disgusting plot conveniences of no-aging for the Eva pilots without anything substantial being shown for them and the burden of spending 14 years in an adolescent's body (you know, the whole tortured Claudia style character). A major character was introduced just to be killed off, without any major development! AGAIN! I could let Anno off in the series, he'd come up with a brilliant idea, but the money was running out and he had to cut and paste together a quick resolution to probably the most important character interaction for Shinji. But doing this. After Two Films of build up, with a full movie to show just the blossoming friendship and possible love between a young man and an alien in the guise of a young man. This is unforgivable, I can't forgive a horrid mess of this mistake, Anno had the chance to give us what he'd complained so much about before. And he gives us the same basic thing, no character development, a choice to kill or not to kill and a breakdown of a Human mind.
Like I said before, if you want to change continuity then that's perfectly fine, I don't mind that. Lucas and Roddenberry both did the same with their stories(with a sliding scale of success). Now I know he'd already changed a lot of stuff in continuity by the second movie, but doing this is idiotic, he's changed continuity within his own movie series, while it's still running. You don't DO that. Breaking continuity while you are still telling the story doesn't work, saying something like: "billy went to the supermarket and picked up dry cleaning from the laundromat for his new book, then on his way home, Jenny found a £1000 and was evicted from her home because she was flat broke" yes there's a story there, but it doesn't make a lick of sense.
In essence, that is what he has done here, taking a story structure of "there was the First Impact 65million years ago, Humans came, then Second Impact came with Adam and brought the Angels, a union between Adam and Lilth will bring Third Impact, causing the end of the world." And stating now "Whoa, what are you saying, Third Impact is just a step along to the Apocalypse of Fourth Impact, didn't I mention that before?" If you'd stated that Third Impact was the end of the world, then stick to that and show a world in Purgatory for the third movie, you know because Kaworu stopped it at the end of the second movie. That could work, 14 years of a living purgatory would harden anyone, even people like Misato. So you can create a sacrificial Saviour of Shinji for the Fourth movie, you know like you're planning to do anyway.
The visuals are the only major tent pole holding this film up, because that're amazing as usual, but as for the rest, it's terrible.
The story is crap. It's a reason to turn away from the Rebuild series, I'll still see the final movie, mainly because I'm in too deep now and just have to hold my nose and swim through, if I'd fallen in on this just now, I'd have been easily able to give it up.
The only bright point is that I've got the full series limited addition boxset on my shelf and all the movies, that's enough for me and even though it's ending is as convoluted as this one is currently, I'm more willing to forgive that than this. Hideaki Anno hasn't impressed me with this sharp right turn, can his final movie change my opinion. I seriously doubt it.