What are everyone's thoughts, feelings, opinions about both the old and new Evangelion series?
4.0 SPOILERS
I thought the rebuild ending was more depressing than EoE, partly because when given the power to create LITERALLY ANYTHING, Shinji goes ahead and creates a copy of THIS WORLD (evidenced by the use of a live action shot in the end), where he will live as a capitalist salaryman with his literal waifu.
At least in EoE everyone could choose to come out of instrumentality by themselves to create a new world, thus leaving everything ambiguous.
Pure ideology, Mark Fisher is vindicated yet again.
They also couldn't go 5 MINUTES without showing some 14 year old girl ass....
I have never found any of the endings (original series, EoE, or Rebuild) depressing. The entire thesis of Evangelion, the original series, EoE, and all of Rebuild, has always been about stepping out of the warm, umbilical embrace of escapist fantasy into the bright, harsh light of the real world, and Rebuild hammered that point home so hard that Anno used live-action footage as a visual metaphor in that final scene. It was never about Shinji's self-actualization, it was about the audience's. Shinji's ultimate happiness was only intended to convey that there are things which make the real world, despite its faults and difficulties, worth inhabiting. They didn't need to create a world better than our own, that would be yet another retreat into fantasy. We don't live in global communism, and we can't build it if we spend all day dreaming instead of acting.
I also think it was the kindest presentation all of the characters have been given in any form. We got a chance to understand and empathize with Gendo, of all people.
I strongly disagree with this interpretation of the original Evangelion series having such a didactic message towards the audience. Such a message would require us to view the characters of Evangelion through the traditional "hero/villain, good/evil" moralistic lens, which I think takes away much of the nuance and humanity within the show. In applying such a message, we graft the archetype of the Shounen Protagonist onto Shinji and seeing how he fails to live up to this ideal instead of seeing the utter horror of the situation he is in within "realistic" terms. Furthermore, if we were to interpret a message from Evangelion, it would probably be more of self-compassion/self-love exactly due to this rejection of the Shounen archetype. There is simply not enough solid evidence within the show to claim that it has such a moral.
Like a salaryman job and a girlfriend pulled directly from the wet dreams of a 12 year old anime fan? I fail to see how the ending of Rebuild 4.0 validates such a thesis. Moreover, I disagree that the Rebuilds have the liscence to take a "god's eye" view of life, humanity, and this world completely divorced from the basic fact that we all live under neoliberal capitalist hegemony and make unclouded judgements on the very nature of human life. All the elements that make Shinji "happy" within the rebuild ending are only valid as such under the current order (mainly the salaryman job), not some grand universal secret that makes life worth living. This is just capitalist realism.
Nah they shafted Asuka hard by reducing her to a psycho clone instead of giving her a proper backstory like in the originals, now she's literally just fanservice and a vehicle to drive Shinji to fulfill his destiny or whatever. Furthermore, they shafted Shinji by framing his reluctance to pilot the Evangelions as a grand moralistic failing in the 1st and 2nd rebuilds instead of highlighting the abject horror of being a child soldier fighting biblically accurate angels like in the original.
And this is the problem with the rebuilds, Gendo being some dude who was lonely and depressed makes less sense than his portrayal as a conniving psychopath in the originals. Just because someone is asocial doesn't automatically make them this evil bastard who neglects their child and acts as a running dog for the deep state.
Then you strongly disagree with Anno on that one, he's been pretty consistent when speaking about the themes these past 25 years. The original has an episode titled Hedgehog's Dilemma near the end of the first act, blatantly spelling it out. Anno's answer to the posited dilemma has always been an emphatic "other people are what makes life worth living".
The "grand universal secret" is spelled out pretty clearly in Anno's answer to the hedgehog's dilemma. Capitalist realism, in the context of the ending of 3.0+1.0, would be if Shinji remade everything exactly as it was, with Evas and NERV and the angels and all of the conflict inherent in that, because that is already the metaphor for the real world within the larger meta-framework of the narrative.
I gotta get to sleep so I'll write up a longer response to this tomorrow, but it sounds like you're considering the rebuilds as if they are meant to be understood separately from the original series instead of being complementary. They build off of one another, Asuka's development in the original is still important to your understanding of who she is in the rebuilds.
Well yes. Because I think the original Evangelion series is far too complicated to draw any sort of morality from, its art, something truly open to interpretation.
Yes again, there is no substantive consistency between the rebuilds and the original series imo. They just improved the form and hollowed out all substance.
That doesn't make a difference because they just replaced the "metaphor" with the real thing and cheaply posited that as the "happy ending". That is literally stating that the current world we have, although not perfect, is the best option, not only for individual self actualization, but in terms of seeking "happiness". I also fail to see how the angels, nerv, and the evas have any real-world equivalent other than climate change and the deep state.
that's not at all what any of that states. the textual "happy ending" brings with it the baggage that the entire show and five movies established prior: life is difficult and you will get hurt. it, by providing a point of contrast, underlines those ideas. life is difficult and you will get hurt, but it is worth it
the real world is never once posited as the best possible option for the world or individual happiness. it is the only possible option because it is all that exists. you, as a human being living on earth in 2021, cannot wave a magic spear and make global communism happen, you have to go out, into the capitalist hellscape of the real world, and work to bring it about, suffering as you do so, because that is what it costs to achieve things. other, better things can exist, but if all you do is sit in your room and watch mecha anime you will never bring them about, and that's the entire textual and metatextual thesis of evangelion
This is what I mean when I stated "the current world we have, although not perfect, is the best option, not only for individual self actualization, but in terms of seeking “happiness”. "
Again, this is looking at the world using a god's eye view stating that "Life" as a grand construct or universal state of being is this or that. We simply cannot view "Life" as something separate from material conditions or the current socioeconomic order through the narrow perspective we have as human beings.
Again, this is literally saying that all we have in front of us is all that exists and is the only possible option for individual happiness. "It isn't great but it could be worse."
Exactly! And yet Shinji goes and becomes a salaryman wagie living together with his impossible waifu. The rebuilds in essence state that happiness is a moral imperative, and the only way forwards unto happiness is through accepting the role of a married wagecuck. Shinji is not shown returning to the village struggling to bring about any form of collective power with his comrades.