Review of Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo

Now here on Blu-Ray in surprisingly fast (read: reasonable) time, compared to its previous installments, Eva 3.33 is finally out and is probably the most divisive thing that Hideaki Anno will release. This division, which will certainly lean towards being mixed and outright negative and disappointed, is more because of expectations, rather than its flaws. Expect to be thrown in a loop and being unfairly led on watching Eva 3.33. Though it is flawed-the Eva franchise is one that is endearingly flawed at its core. These expectations are because of one watching the show. But nobody would care about this movie if the TV animewas not watched beforehand. But watching it should also make one expect a high and increasing obtuseness towards its end like its original series.

The main criticism is that the film generally resolves nothing, obscuring everything, only to leave even more questions at film’s end, which are not answered in typical Eva fashion. This is exacerbated by how Eva 1.11 and 2.22’s previous tonalities-bombastic, straight-forward, streamlined and considerably more upbeat-are now inverted. The information revealed in the movie are things that the general Eva audience already know, but Shinji does not. Rei being a Yui clone for example. These facts finally being explicitly stated in and series and to Shinji contributes to his character development, leading Shinji to the same mentally broken state that he was in towards the end of the TV show and in the End of Evangelion.

You Can (Not) Redo is not really a film in a sense. It acts primarily, for better or worse, as an interlude to the tetralogy’s finale [1]. It also externals the angst found in the anime. Set 14 years after Shinji nearly caused Third Impact, he awakes to find his friends and coworkers giving him an extremely cold reception, due to nearly killing them all and hurling them towards 14 years of war as compensation. NERV is revealed to actually wanted to cause Third Impact, and so Misato splits off, creating WILLE to stop them.

The color red is quite predominant throughout the film, further highlighting a post(-post-)apocalypse. The world is a sea blood that cannot be cleansed, yet attempted to be cleansed regardless; everything points to the Instrumentality Project being carried out. LCL was also change to red in this series, further hinting at the chaos to come. Redo heavily framed things through Shinji perception, greatly highlighting his immaturity and mirroring how the audience is left in the dark, like he is. That utter confusion and anger many will feel after seeing this movie is what Shinji feels-totally out of his element-thrown into something that does not make sense. The resentment that Misato et al treat Shinji with mirrors his own self-loathing and guilt. Yet, there are still small remnants of affection and caring shown to him. The coldness was not so wrong, as the truth (mostly) gets revealed to him anyways, and he does not handle it so well. It is likely that they predicted the he would react that way, and sending the trigger for the end of the world is obviously not a good idea.

You Can (Not) Redo is truly an apt title. The spear piercing Unit 01 in the end of the second film not only stopped Third Impact, but also eradicated all of the momentum of the previous films. Before they were doppelgangers and must be scrapped. A jarring, stronger change is needed and inevitable. Shinji, still running away, tries to end the world again only to rebuild it as it 14 years ago. But the world itself is not causing him and everyone around him pain, the general inability to truly push forward is. From Gendo’s plan to bring back Yui, to Shinji using Eva as a figurative time machine, to Misato et al not looking past Shinji’s immaturity... All of Eva's characters are living in and trapped in the past. This is why Shinji become so adamant on retrieving the lances, despite Kaworu’s sudden protests; he is desperate to change things to the way they were before-where he was accepted. There is still a cyclical theme here [2]. At lot of the movie seems to feel oddly referential. The timeskip illustrates the lack of undoing and change. That is the “curse of Eva,” despite the large amount of time passed, nobody has seemed to age and the world is just as on the brink of destruction at is was 14 years ago. It is most obvious with the pilots that are closest to Eva, particularly Asuka, who does not age at all despite her age doubling.

At the end of the movie, all of the pilots are together on a reddened landscape, forced to head to where the Lillum are. Shinji has broken down again, like in last few episodes of the anime and End of Eva, and Asuka has that same loving disgust for him she had in End of Eva. Yet now, it is with a colder, more mothering tone. Eva thrusts itself into a drastic unknown, setting its finale up and so in that respect, it is particularly hard to judge the movie because it appears to be inextricably linked to its unrealized finale, and so its final reception depends heavily on how Eva 4.0 is received. It also places high expectations on the finale, but I feel that they will be met.

[1] Which will be released in God knows when. Eva 3.0 and 4.0 were initially supposed to be released together too. Though initial drafts of the script seem likely to have been nearly completely rewritten
[2] “ ‘Eva’ is a story that repeats. [You Can (Not) Redo)] It is a story where the main character witnesses many horrors with his own eyes, but still tries to stand up again. It is a story of will; a story of moving forward, if only just a little [You Can (Not) Advance]. It is a story of fear, where someone who must face indefinite solitude fears reaching out to others, but still wants to try [You Are (Not) Alone].” ~ Hideaki Anno
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-02-20/hideaki-anno-releases-statement-about-new-evangelion-movies