Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Movies and TV => Topic started by: JP Dogberry on February 26, 2004, 11:02:36 PM
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First off, it's kind of old news.
Secondly, you can already get the scripts off www.evaotaku.com. They've been there for a while.
Thirdly, it will make sense just like the rest of Eva did. (Which it did. It's not that complex). Don't get me started.
Fourthly, I will have to buy it immediately, even though i just bought the original DVDs.
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JP, I want you to know that it's not complimentary when I compare you to the first two panels of this comic strip. (http://home.myuw.net/durandal/aa/archive/aa20040224.htm)
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Well it is old news! I'm just wondering why a press realese is being published after I saw the same press release about a month ago. And the script link is for anyone who wants to know what's new in them.
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it wasn't just that, it was the whole snobbish: "you must not be capable of understanding, it was fairly simple" method of discounting disagreement that hadn't been brought up and wasn't relevant to what had been discussed.
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That was in response to the blurb comment on the front page about it not making sense. I think it does. I said don't get me started because I *am* elitest when I talk about Eva, and I don't want to start a flame war. (Mainly because I agree it can be confusing, it took me about four years to get it.) So it had been brought up.
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If it took you four years to get it--and you're a fan--how exactly can you claim that it's "not that complex"?
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Ok, it is that complex. I rephrase:
It can make sense, if you are willing to try and make sense out of it.
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Ah. Yes, I think you're right. I'm not an expert (Tage is the Eva junkie,) but the explanations I've heard have been very interesting. Apparently, the series has a very clever, mythologically-grounded core. The director just didn't feel the need to give many internal explanations of what was going on. Personally, I liked his balance right up until the end, where it became incomprehensible without external sources of explanation.
It's kind of like the Penny Arcade comics--brilliant, as long as you already know what is going on.
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I don't think you need external explanation to get the end. What you do need, if you don't have that though, is a very, very good understanding of classical music, Christian and Jewish mythology (No offence intended; I'm not suggesting any belief is or is not correct) and also a knowledge if Qabalism. In addition, you need to know Japanese culture, various types of philosophy, Freadian psychology, and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm missing. If you understand all that, you could puzzle it out yourself.
That said, once I knew what was going on, and watched it again, there are so many lines that explain what was going on that I can't believe I missed. The trouble is, it's not explicit that it's explaining things.
The beauty though, is how the series melds all of this together on many layers. I prefer to consider everything a metaphor, and focus on the series as a discussion of lonliness and human nature, and a comment of the difficulty of growing up in modern society, but that's just one reading. (The freadian reading, particular, is kind of fun...)
Of course, the average Anime fan is into Dragonball Z. So it's kind of above their heads.
Ok, I'm going to stop now. I said not to get me started. I write essays on the series in my spare time, you see, so I think you'd all be best off if I just shut up. If anyone does want any part of the series explained though, ask me. :)
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write the essays for TWG and I'll bet we publish some of them.
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Well, I've only really done one (had some ideas for some others) and I need to edit that, but if you're interested in publishing them, I might actually start up again. (The one I wrote is about the character Keel, and his motivations, We hardly see the character, yet he affects the plot more than anyone).
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See, call me a heretic, but if i have to spend 4 years thinking about something to begin enjoying it, then i begin to suspect its actually a pile of dog poo. The 4 years are spent persuading yourself that it was good.
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i've never seen it, so I have no idea what you're talking about.
It does seem more academic than most of our stuff. But the RPG as modern myth article, as well as a couple of articles by KK were academic. I'm not the guy in charge, but I don't see why we WOULDN'T be interested.
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It didn't take me four years to enjoy, just to understand. I enjoyed it from the first time I saw it. I just didn't have much understanding on what was going on. (partly beacuse I started with the fifth episode.)
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If you understand all that, you could puzzle it out yourself.
I realize you're being a bit ironic here, but I'm going to take the 'you don't need an explanation' line at face value. While I do think Eva is brilliant, I just don't think it can be puzzled out--no matter what you know. The problem being that the last couple episodes happen inside the mind of the main character, who has at that point gone insane. I'm sorry, but it just gets unintelligible near there.
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That's what I was referring to when I said there were a bunch of lines explaining what was going on. In episodes 25 and 26 (Original, not movies) there are a bunch of lines explaining what is going on in terms if instrumentality. If oging to quote a bit, *spoiler alert*.
The very first line tells us what's going on:
"The reason to exist, La raison d'etre "
Right there, is what the two episodes are about. Shinji, presented the choice of life or not life, trying to find a reason to continue. Hence the moral questions gnawing away:
"Why did you kill him?"
Later, Rei's Origins are explained:
"No. you are a human whose false soul was made by a man named Ikari Gendou. You are a false object which is pretending to be a human. Look, you have a dark, invisible, and unintelligible mind within you, where the true you exists."
And the meaning of instrumentality begins to be hinted at. We start to realise it is the joining of all souls:
"I am I. I've become me through the instrumentality of the links between me and others."
Rei says that, so by inference, we must assume that the instrumentality of Shinji must therefore be caused by the link between him and others (all mankind).
"The Self's world will disappear."
"The Self will disappear."
Hence, we learn that instumentality requires the destruction of what already exists.
Then, a more complete explanation, given by Shinji:
"What feeling is this? That I feel like I have experienced before. My body seems like it's disappearing. Agreeable. I feel like I'm spreading, and becoming large, to here, there and everywhere."
"That was the very beginning of the complementation of the people by the instrumentality of man. The thing people lost. The lost minds. Complimenting the vacuum in the mind. The complementation by the instrumentality of minds and soul begins. All things return to nothingness. The complementation by the instrumentality of man has just begun."
Of course, to understand that, we must look at the word "Instrumentality". An instrument is an object that becomes an extension of yourself, and thus imrpves you at some task. So to use another person as an instrument? Isn't that allowing them to become a part of you that you may no longer feel lonely?
"All the minds become one mind, obtaining peace forever. Nothing but that."
"We always have a vacuum, something lost in our minds."
"So you unify people's minds and make them compliment each other?"
It's not as beautiful as it sounds, however:
"That's nothing but cheap friendship."
Episode 26, is called "The beast that shouted 'I' in the heart of the world." This makes sense, hinting again that people will become one being, for the selfish reasons of Shinji. (See how it's starting to be obvious how this is a tale about lonilness and Shinji coming of age?)
Another explanation:
"We are trying to compliment by the instrumentality of each other."
Then, through most of episode 6, Shinji becomes mindful of his lonliness and fears, and realises he can choose between instrumentality or the real world. Finally, he rejects the instrumentality, realsing his self worth and that people do, in reality, care about him.
"I hate myself .But, I might be able to love myself. I might be allowed to stay here. Yes. I am nothing but I. I am I. I wish to be I. I want to stay here! I can stay here!"
So it is suggested what is going on, but you need to look really hard several times to find it.
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To set the record straight, I posted the press release two days after I got it.
And I maintain that even if you can make sense of something, that doesn't mean it makes sense on its own. But please don't let my opinion bother you.
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You make a very good, well-thought-out argument JP. However, I will stick to my stand that I found Eva horribly confusing. Maybe the clues were there, but I think they were buried deeply enough that they simply became part of the confusion. It's hard to make sense of something when you're not sure which parts you should make sense from.
That said, it really wasn't that hard for Tage to explain to me what the show was about, once I'd seen all the episodes. I just don't think I could have puzzled it out for myself without extensive re-watching.
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Which, incendentally, is exactly the same as what I'm saying. The stuff is there, just hard to spot. And you need to be one of about three people on Earth who have full understanding of all these external things to puzzle it yourself. It is possible, but in a very loose sense of the word.
As for extensive re-watching, I am currently watching it in Japanese without subtitles, because I know what they're saying anyway.
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Okay, now I'm kind of interested. Is this a movie or a television series or what? And is it very hard to get a copy or whatever and watch it?
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As for extensive re-watching, I am currently watching it in Japanese without subtitles, because I know what they're saying anyway.
Wow, umm yea for you? I personaly can't constenetly rewatch things over and over again. Even movies I realy like I cant watch more then once or twice a month. I saw Eva once and that's enough for me. Maybe if it was as good as Beserk,Macross Pluss, or FLCL I'd watch again. But it's too out there to enjoy casualy. And I'm with EUOL, I don't want to have to have someone explain everthing to me, or get a book that does the same, that's not enjoyable for me. Maybe if I studied Judeo-Christian mythology more (I know a decent amount, but I'm no scholor) I could enjoy it. But I'm not going to just so I can try and fully undstand a mini-series that a few years from now no one I know will ever talk about.
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EP, it's an Anime in 26 half hour episodes and two movies. Pretty easy to find on DVD, but very deep and difficult to understand, as you may have picked up. I think it's the best thing ever, but ask someone else if you want a non-fanboy opinion.
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If its something I can just wander over to Hollywood Video and rent (they actually have a lot of anime movies and series, so I might luck out), then someone saying "this is good" is enough for me to check it out. Of course, if you knew how many movies I watch this wouldn't be suprising at all (its to the point that when I go rent a movie, I have to look for a movie I haven't saw rather than a movie I think I might like). I actually own over 300 movies on dvd, so buying it isn't a big deal as long as 1) I can actually find it to buy (believe it or not, I run into this problem a lot) and 2) its a movie I'd at least be slightly interested in. There's still a number of movies I'm interested in getting, so I tend to buy stuff I think I'll want to watch more than just once or twice, but I do own several movies that I've only watched once.
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not sure if you can rent it or not out here, I rarely goto movie rental places anymore. It was popular enough a few years ago that some stores might have carried it then. Don't know about now since it's not one of the currently popular animes anymore.
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Yes, I wasn't expecting I could rent it... just saying, who knows, I might get lucky. My problem is how hard it can be to find a movie unless its a big blockbuster movie. Like when Forever Knight came out on dvd, I managed to find it at Wallmart the day before I was getting paid. So the next day I get my paycheck and head back to Wallmart but it was gone. So then I'm sort of on a quest to find it, and I go to provo mall, orem mall, Media Play... all over the damn place and can't find it. So then I just gave up. I tried again last week but still can't find it. Its like that with tons of stuff I want. I know its out there, but when I'm actually looking I can never find it. I know I could probably find a lot of this stuff on the internet, but I hate buying stuff off the internet or out of catalogs and such. Its not that I think I'll get ripped off, its just when I buy something I don't like waiting two weeks to actually get it. I want to go down to the store and buy it and leave with it in my hand. The only things I can recall buying off the internet was my Elric and Death Dealer books, and I looked for them for years to buy locally before going to the internet. The only things I can remember buying out of a catalog was some Highlander shirts and hair ties, and a bike. So if I have to get it on the internet, I probably won't bother, but if I see it in the store I'll pick it up.
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well don;t forget you can goto mediaplay and have them order it for you if you cannot find it. Takes 3-7 days for them to get it. Don't need to use the net if you don't want to.
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I didn't have a problem getting the Eva DVDs; I see them in stores regularly (I'm in the city, but I've seen in a smaller city too)
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I have seen it in shops in my town - 100k people, in the UK which lags badly behind the US in terms of anime i think. Only 1 anime con to speak of afaik.
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yeah, if you refuse to buy online (i'm sort of the opposite, it's so much easier for me to point and click than to ever actually visit a store), nearly every store around will be happy to special order it, most of them without charging anything extra.
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If you're going to invest in an anime series, I'd recommend Cowboy Bebop over Eva, but that's just me.
On a vaguely related note, I've been looking everywhere for a copy of "Ride on Shooting Star," the end title song from FLCL. Does anybody know where I could find it?
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Yeah....Cowboy Bebop is "teh good"
As for that song Fell, I've never heard it or seen the series, but I have resources. If no one else enlightens you, then I can probably dig it up in a couple of days.
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ya I've got the two FLCL soundtracks Fell. I'll upload that song to the site for you.
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Thanks, Sprig. It has cheered me up many a time.