In 2005 whilst away on a training course for a new job, between my short evening strolls along the streets of Bristol as I smoked whilst listening to Pendulum’s album "Hold Your Colour" on repeat, and watching season two of Lost, I had to share a room with someone I’d never met before, luckily we shared a common interest in animé and would wax lyrical about our favourites and each offer up recommendations, it was at this point I was told that I NEEDED to check out something called Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Once the training was over, we parted ways never to speak again, but days later I bought the boxset on DVD and binged it over the course of a particularly hungover weekend, and wow! How did I call myself a fan of anime having never seen what is considered a landmark in anime history, in my best attempt to explain it in an understandable way, in an alternative future, Earth is under near-constant attack by gigantic and dangerous beings called Angels, to combat these there are the Evangelion units, piloted by children, these enormous mechanised machines are able to synchronise with the pilot’s nervous systems and battle the threat the Angels present.
We’re introduced to Shinji Ikari, new recruit pilot and estranged son of the head of NERV, Commander Gendo Ikari, NERV work under the United Nations to build, maintain and control the Eva units, Shinji is reluctant to pilot and simply seeks to reconnect with his father, but along the way he finds that things aren’t necessarily what they seem, his fellow pilots remain distant despite his efforts to befriend them, his dad never engages him unless to give him his battle orders, and when an awful turn of events threaten their lives he starts to question everything he has come to believe.
The best comparison I can make currently is Pacific Rim, however Evangelion goes wildly off the tracks of simple mech VS invaders, themes like loneliness, the supernatural, judgement, and even the spiritual are looked at, conspiracies, science VS God, self-belief and what it is to exist, is it worth fighting a war for humanity when we risk losing our humanity in the process? The original 1995 Neon Genesis Evangelion series asked more questions than it answered, even with the release in 1997 of the feature-length “The End of Evangelion”.
Much to my joy, a remake of the series was announced in
2006, due for release the following year, Rebuild of Evangelion was to be a big
screen four-part film-series, retelling the story to clear up any confusion,
put right the previous errors and present everything again without the
constraints of budget or technology, 1.0 basically took all the best bits of
first six episodes of series, 2.0 adapts episodes eight to twelve and then loosely
uses points from episode eighteen onwards, taking everything we’d learnt
previously and gradually moving the story in a similar but new direction.
In 2012 we were graced with Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not)
Redo, set fourteen years after part two, the cataclysmic Third Impact having
decimated Earth, Shinji Ikari awakens to a world he no longer recognises, he is
kept under close guard following his actions in the previous film by the crew
of WILLE and their captain, Shinji’s former friend Misato, who advises him
that to prevent a Fourth Impact he will be killed should he ever attempt to
pilot an Eva again.
Whilst under quarantine Shinji hears a voice calling to him,
believing it to be Unit-00’s pilot Rei Shinji calls out, and with that the wall
of his cell is blown open by an Eva unit resembling Unit-00, unsure of his
allegiance Shinji leaves with this unit, heading to the new NERV headquarters,
his father appears informing him that he is to pilot the new Unit-13 they are
producing, along with a co-pilot by the name of Kaworu when the time
comes.
With nothing else to do and Rei not being anything like the
person Shinji previously knew, he quickly befriends Kaworu, who teaches him
piano and catches him up with everything that happened in the wake of Shinji’s
missing fourteen years, revealing to him the shear level of decimation to the
world that Shinji caused whilst attempting to rescue Rei in the previous film,
he then learns that the Rei he met earlier isn’t even the same, she is a clone,
and she has always been a clone, a replica of Shinji’s mother with none of her
former memories or personality, created as comfort for his father and to pilot
the Evas.
Upon Unit-13’s completion the two boys take their positions
and begin their mission, descending beneath the facility into Central Dogma,
the resting place of the second Angel “Lilith”, they are tasked at retrieving
the two spears buried in Lilith’s corpse, however Kaworu senses that something
isn’t right insisting that they both stop and consider what they’re actually
doing, but with that Asuka in Unit-02 appears in an attempt to stop them,
forcing Shinji’s resolve to put right the previous disaster he caused.
This really is the loosest summary of the film believe me,
I’ve watched it twice now and still don’t quite understand half of what occurs,
the shear spectacle of it all however is nothing short of stunning, personally
it’s up there with Blade Runner 2049 in terms of eye candy and bewildering plot,
but Evangelion has never been a series that adhered to any norms, and whilst
movie 1.0 was a very accessible almost popcorn release, 2.0 saw a little more
of the symbolism and former eccentricities creeping in, but 3.0 dials it up to
eleven.
The setting of fourteen years later allows for a huge leap
in the technology used in the film, advancing not only the abilities of the Eva
Units and the Angels alike, but also how humanity has adapted to the world as
it is now, an inhospitable barren wasteland of red and purple, the members of
Wille living aboard the battleship AAA Wunder and its fleet, and the new NERV
facilities beneath the ruins of their former headquarters, everyone doing what
they can to survive.
The Angels now taking on new and more-bizarre forms, leaving
death and destruction in their wake, their presence on Earth really pushing what
remains of the human race to its limits, familiar characters are older and
wiser, some battle-hardened and displeased with Shinji’s return, others,
frightened and nervous, thrown into the conflict through no other reason but
there being no-one else left to join the fight, it’s a universe we’ve been
familiar with since 1995, but this third movie really turns everything on its head.
Visually the film raises the scale to absolutely epic
proportions, from the opening sequence in space, to the maiden flight of the
AAA Wunder and subsequent Angel battle, personally I wish I’d been able to
watch this in the cinema, just to be enveloped in the extravaganza and
imagination of it all, the imagery is beautiful, fantastic scenes of our
all-but destroyed planet, Shinji’s exploration of the dilapidated Nerv facility
and seclusion from the world he once knew, gigantic unpopulated spaces invoking
a sense of loneliness and isolation.
Evangelion: You Can (Not) Redo is a film that comes close to
losing its story underneath its own pomp and pageantry, but manages to step
away from the edge at just the right moments, something that director Hideaki
Anno excels in, it’s no surprise why we’re still yet to have receive the forth
in the series, where can 4.0 go to match or even beat what we’ve seen so far? For
the moment however, for such a defining franchise that’s been around over
twenty years, 3.0 capitalises on everything prior and takes the series in a
fresh direction, there are new
questions to be answered, but even if it takes another five or ten years to get
those answers, I for one am happy to wait.
Evangelion: 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo is out now on Blu-Ray & DVD