And this week's Friday night movie has been... Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone!
It's a new year and i want to kick it off with a bang. So I'm going to aim for something ambitious: On each Friday of this month, i will be watching one of the new Evangelion movies (and confuse all the non-anime fans in my audience).
I have been holding out on these as i wanted to wait until all of them were readily available. Well the time has come to finally watch a saga that has been fourteen years in the making.
But that's not all: As I will be going through each of these movies, i will be sharing my own experiences with these franchise. I will be sharing my own perceptions on this and how they have evolved over the years. After all, creator Hideaki Anno went through his own odyssey in creating Evangelion, the franchise itself has been through a separate odyssey, but I have an odyssey of my own to bring to the table: That of the viewer. I want to talk about my thoughts on this franchise and how they have evolved over the years, contrasting Evangelion with my own journey through this thing called life.
So here we go:
I - Genesis
It was late 1998 - a time when SBS began flogging an anime TV series called Neon Genesis Evangelion. As this was an age well before online streaming, and one had to actively hunt down anything resembling anime, my interest was well and truly piqued (that and the trailer SBS used was monumental). I watched every episode, every weekend, expecting to see giant robots knocking the stuffing out of giant aliens. Well that was exactly what i got but at the same time there was something else: As I watched I noticed that a lot of the characters were going through a lot on a psychological level. I was puzzled by this at first - and at times annoyed as I wanted to get to the action - but what did it matter? I had found something new and was eager for it. I do recall someone people at the time made fun of me for liking it but did it matter? After all, i was getting a lot out of it - even if it's lead character, Shinji Ikari was a whinger to the point of exasperating.
As for this new movie, it wears it's intention as a reboot on it;s sleeve: It's a reconstruction of the first six episodes of the TV series. The familiar beats and themes are there - with many shots looking exactly the same - and there are some new footage thrown in. Some mysteries are revealed early on, Shinji is less whiny (mercifully) and, although things are moving at quicker pace, it is all there, just as i recalled it.
Obviously a sense of familiarity is being applied here - a perfect scenario to have the rug from pulled out from under them.
And that really is the only goal of this movie: to welcome back it's viewers. But in the end, it is still a big ask: I mean, I can't expect this movie to deliver the same thrill as it did back in early 1999. I mean i am the same person i was back then? I hope not
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