Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone

Summary:

An event called the Second Impact almost wiped out the existence of mankind in 2000, and all that remains of Japan is Tokyo-3. The city is periodically under attack by Angels, gigantic creatures out to obliterate the remaining mankind. An organisation called NERV is created to counter these attacks, with the help of the enigmatic beings called Evangelions (Evas). Ayanami Rei is the only pilot NERV has at its disposal and when she got injured, another pilot was chosen to pilot Eva Unit 01: Ikari Shinji, NERV commander’s 14-year old estranged son.

Director Anno Hideaki created waves in the late 90’s with his highly controversial brainchild, Neon Genesis Evangelion. The series resulted in legion-like fandom but at the same time, critics have blasted it for several reasons, namely the religious blasphemy, obvious budgeting issues and even tax evasion scandals. Fast forwarding a decade, it seems that Anno wants more of the immense popularity of NGE by being at the helm of Eva 1.0, somewhat a condensed reboot of the franchise. When I say “condensed”, imagine the idea of compressing the first six episodes of the original series into a mere 98-minute duration. Yes, with the notion, a few of my original doubts are realised but fortunately, the visually spectacular movie has its fair share of entertainment.

One of my doubts at the beginning of the movie is its coherence and pacing. Fitting the content of six episodes, totaling approximately 150 minutes, into a single movie is not an easy feat and inevitably, it means filtering scenes that may be important in developing either the storyline or the characters. The original series does well in developing Shinji’s personality and emotional background, but because of the story condensation, a number of subtle scenes went missing as a result. Those subtle moments are important not only because of development issues, it’s also because it is an essential factor in setting the pace of the original series. The pacing in the movie eventually gets affected, resulting in a story told in a rather hasty progression. Fortunately, Eva 1.0 does well in coherently linking the events together by introducing new scenes, serving as a saving grace to the movie eventually.

By being a recap of the first six episodes of NGE, Eva 1.0 escapes the dirty work of building from ground zero in developing the story. In other words, it is capable of speeding through the story and and skipping to the event highlights because of the verbatim retelling of the original story. Serving as the groundwork for the movie, the story of the six episodes was a success and logically, that would mean the same desirable outcome for the movie as well. This may invoke some viewers to accuse the laziness of the movie by reproducing the successful effect originally done by Anno’s decade-old work but as a generally neutral viewer, this doesn’t necessarily bother me. Anno doesn’t truly copy-and-paste his old work; he does offer something new in the movie, and he doesn’t hold back with the generosity either.

If there’s something the viewers remember the original series for, it’s the battles between the Evas and the Angels. The movie contain the first three fights between Eva Unit 01 and the third, fourth and fifth Angels chronologically. The battles serve as the highlight of the movie, and they are important in distinguishing the movie from the series. The conspicuous change in the movie is the rich, fluid animation and redesigns of Tokyo-3 and the Angels. Judging from the animation alone, it’s an obvious sign that budgeting is not an issue this time at all; each frame is meticuolously redrawn from scratch and careful attention is paid in the aesthetics. The first Eva-Angel fight is nothing special, although it is the first main event of NGE and the movie, but the renewed animation becomes more obvious afterwards. The animation and action are incredible; the glorious transformation of Tokyo-3 and the redesign of the arthropodan fourth Angel are enough reasons to keep the viewers glued to the screen. It gets even better too, the battle of the glass-like pyramidical fifth Angel is the climatic event of the movie. The redesign of the Angel oozes creativity, and the climatic event involving Operation Yashima even drives some viewers to revisit the event in glorious high-definition by any means necessary.

Eva 1.0 is not an alternate retelling of NGE; rather, it’s a remastered and nearly rehashed product of Anno’s original work. It eventually doesn’t really offer anything new, save the new transition scenes, the fantastic animation and great music. Personally, I was looking forward more to an alternate retelling because I ask myself, “Why bother deftly reproducing the same work?”. Judging from the situation, I may even go blunt by accusing Anno of blatantly milking his own franchise with this movie. However, hearing how Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance is where the actual Rebuild of Evagelion really begins, I’ll save the accusation momentarily. Eva 1.0 is not groundbreaking, but to those who merely seek entertainment, the movie certainly serves it in spades.