Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth

The series itself is a true masterpiece, I spoiled it by watching "The End of Evagelion" first, do NOT do that. "Death & Rebirth" is a good re-cap if you've seen all but the last 2 eps. It's a bit back and fourth but overall it erases any confusion. Again, this series is beautiful, it's not just 'robots' fighting monsters it's SO much more...they are NOT robots... DO NOT pass this series up! It's an experience.

"Evangelion - Death & Rebirth" is, obviously, a film of two parts. "Death" is a futile attempt to stuff the content of the first 24 episodes of the "Evangelion" TV series into a running time of just under an hour. It succeeds in getting the very bare-bones of the plot in, but leaves out all of the subtler moments, the moments of psychological drama, and the fully-realized character developments that helped to make the TV series so popular to begin with. The few minutes of animation made help fill up this immense loss fails miserably.

But it does its job. And its job is to promote "The End of Evangelion". It is virtually impossible to watch "EoE" without some significant background knowledge of the TV series, and that is exactly what "Death" does.

"Rebirth" is, essentially, the first few minutes of "EoE", there for the sole purpose of whetting the appetites of audiences all over Japan for the initial release of "EoE". But since "EoE" has since been released, what's the point of keeping "Rebirth" around, anyway?

As far as promotional packages go, this is one brilliant piece of marketing. But viewers expecting to be thoroughly blown away by "Evangelion" are best off watching the TV series and then "EoE" (all in one sitting is NOT recommended, due to the sheer length of it all). "Death & Rebirth" has served its purpose, and now is no longer needed.

The Evangelion series itself may well be a true masterpiece, a rare example of a popular work that transcends its commercial origins and enters the realm of great art. Unfortunately, this film fails to really do it justice as it consists primarily of material already seen in either the television series or the film End of Evangelion. Additionally, they redubbed many of the voices for the English version, and the new voices often fall quite short of the old ones (even if they didn't necessarily live up to the Japanese ones to begin with). Touji's lines, in particular, fall spectacularly flat. On the positive side, it does introduce some new and hard to get footage interspersed with some nice musical numbers from Bach and Pachelbel.

Basically what we got here is a 100 minute recap of the 1995 Japanese cult TV anime series "Neo Genesis Evangelion". It cuts up pieces from the 24 episodes and pretty much strings them together with a choppy narration, until it gets to it abrupt ending. Then you got the movie which ended the series "Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion" to watch and there's some scenes from that thrown into it as well. So, if I was going to give it a outline of this film I'll be here all day explaining, as it's a 24 episode show which explored different themes, plus giving away too much detail away can spoil the story and surprises for you. I found this to be more for the fans of the series, but if you're a new comer I recommend watching the 24 episodes instead and then watching this to refresh your memory. Also there's some new additional scenes popped in too.

I remember when I first started watching this sci-fi anime, I became remotely hooked by its stirring context, straightaway actually. It seemed to get better with each episode! It was my favourite anime series, well along with "Astro Boy", that is the series from the 80's. But this post-apocalyptic story is stunning entertainment. Sure this summary is hugely disjointed, with hectic editing and a plot that goes back and forth through its time line, but that's because there's so much to squeeze in. The many involving sub plots and specifics on mankind makes this an incredibly complex experience where your ask to ponder a lot on what your hearing and seeing on screen. When I first saw the show I was expecting something fairly childish, but the concept was very mature and this recount proves it. There's always a moral to the story and notions are vividly depicted in an very emotional state, but they aren't too hard to swallow, or pushed onto you. A lot of it focus on people overcoming the things that bring them down and stop them living their life to the best. Plus another look at man's fate and arrogance and how we would easily turn on each other. Really, there's more too it then that of its stunning animation and arty visuals that cover the running time. I agree it might be hard to follow at times, but there's some beauty and mystic within this moody series that keeps you compelled. What makes that so, is the perky characters that are believable and simply appealing to watch. We truly get to know these characters and to see what makes them tick, therefore you honestly care for their well being. Worked into it is a moving, whimsical score, which at times enters some nice classical music. The dialogue is strongly put, with cunning idea's, natural conversations and snappy humour flowing through it. Then you got the action, which is a sight to behold… it's always at full ball and not afraid to show blood splatter. For some I see where they are coming from when they claim it's strained and hard to understand, but I still recommend watching the whole series first before looking at this. Because it's pretty deep stuff.

Engaging and overwhelming to the highest agree. So check out the series and then this piece, for a better understanding on what's truly going on.

I would like to preface this review by saying that I absolutely love the original series of NGE. It has aged astonishingly well, and I think it's truly timeless. However, this film occupies a bit of a strange spot in the franchise. About an hour is recapping the series, and the final half-hour is a "sneak-peek" at the next film in the franchise, "End of Evangelion" (which I have not seen at the time of writing). This begs the question - if your intent is to follow the storyline of the franchise from start to finish, what point does this film play? You could watch the series and (I'm assuming) go straight to End of Evangelion and you wouldn't have missed anything. It's a bit like having a "previously on evangelion" segment, then a half-hour trailer for something you're probably going to watch afterwards anyway. I will admit, the recapping of the series did make me view some of the themes in a different light by juxtaposing scenes I didn't connect thematically before, so it's got that going for it. But it hasn't got a lot else I'd recommend it for other than that, or for revising the story so far if you haven't seen the series in a while. It's not bad. There's just not much reason for it existing.