Review for Evangelion: 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone

Introduction

Evangelion 2.22 is almost upon us, and as it has been over a year since the release of the first film, I find that I need to have my memory jogged a little before I watch it. And now that I have the high definition equipment, there's no better time to upgrade to the Blu-ray. After all, I had one or two issues with the DVD, and I am hopeful that the Blu-ray disc addressed those problems. But as it is the same film, expect a fair bit of cut and paste in this review.


Where do you even begin with a title like Evangelion? For a whole generation of fans, Neon Genesis Evangelion quite simply is anime. It was a revolutionary tour de force when the 26 episode series was first unleashed on an unwitting public back in the mid-nineties. It took a stale mecha genre, and completely re-invented it with complex religious symbolism, philosophy, and rounded and realistic characterisations. It didn't hurt that for the period, the animation was blisteringly good, and the music wonderfully operatic. It showed the world that anime wasn't just a kid's genre, but a fully rounded medium that could appeal to adult audiences as well. The Second Impact that wipes out half the world's population is a plot point in Neon Genesis Evangelion, but its arrival on the scene was as big an impact itself, totally reshaping what the medium could offer, and what audiences could hope to expect. You'd expect such an anime series to have a long and complex life in home entertainment as well, and you'd be right. Neon Genesis Evangelion was ADV's jewel in the crown, and by heck did they promote it! First came the original series release, and then came the Director's Cut Platinum Editions, which spruced up the audio and video, and added extra footage to expand the story, and there followed various boxsets. In fact until their demise, ADV re-released the Evangelion boxsets in various incarnations practically on an annual basis.


There's just as much interest in Japan if not more, as well as plenty of controversy. Even with the Director's Cut version of the series, apparently the budget well ran dry at the end, and the finale of the story was not to the liking of many fans. So Hideaki Anno announced that there would be a theatrical feature to round things off, and provide the ending that fans had been looking for. In fact there were two features, Death & Rebirth that provided a fractured narrative summary of the first 24 episodes of the series, and a preview of the finale. The End of Evangelion was that finale, a theatrical release that in the end generated more controversy than it was supposed to alleviate. Manga Entertainment have released both Death & Rebirth, and The End of Evangelion here, but still the fan mania about Evangelion persists. With the franchise being permanently milked, and the story constantly in the forefront of fan brains, the question of what to do for the 10th anniversary must have been a thorny one. Surely no one would be satisfied with yet another series release, even if it meant the show's Blu-ray debut. In the end, creator Hideaki Anno dropped quite a bombshell when he announced that Evangelion would be remade from the ground up. The entire series would be rebuilt, only this time as four theatrical features.


I'm usually wary of adapting long series into short movies; there usually isn't enough space to squeeze 20-odd episodes of story into just 90-odd minutes. However, squeezing 26 episodes into 4 films is pretty doable, especially when you consider a typical 24-minute episode has about 4 minutes of credit sequences, previews and summaries to it. Evangelion will have to dispense with very little if it is to be a pure remake of the original story, which it must be emphasised, these 4 films aren't. This is a reboot of the original Evangelion story, and while the first film does conform pretty closely to the first five or six episodes, there are subtle differences, and one whopping great change, and the preview for the second film at the end of this one promises an even more drastic diversion, with the addition of one new character never before seen. Above all, the best reason to remake Evangelion in this form is that now we get to see it with modern animation techniques applied, in widescreen, and in high definition as well. There's no reuse of the original animation here, it's all been animated anew.


In the year 2000, the Second Impact took place in Antarctica. An event on the scale of the first impact that wiped out the dinosaurs, managed to wipe out half of humanity in a matter of moments. It also heralded the appearance of the Angels, strange mystical beings, apparently intent on destroying what remained of humanity. These Angels project an AT (Absolute Terror) field that renders them impervious to conventional weaponry. There is a defence against them though, and in the rebuilt world of 2015, an organisation called NERV has developed EVA technology to protect humanity. The Evangelions are giant bio-machines that can only be piloted by those children born in the aftermath of the Second Impact. Shinji Ikari is one such child who has been summoned by his estranged father to Neo-Tokyo 3. Gendou Ikari is the man behind the Evangelions and he wants his son to pilot the second EVA-01. His arrival in the city coincides with the return of the Angels, but with Rei Ayanami, the pilot of the prototype Eva is injured and unable to fight. Shinji gets thrown in at the deep end, having to defend the city single-handedly, as the Evangelion is the only thing that stands between the Angels and Third Impact, which will wipe out what is left of humanity. The problem is that Shinji doesn't want to be there. He still has issues with his father, who even now is distant and cruel towards him, he's awkward and isolated, and he's torn between running away and trying to live up to everyone's expectations. Meanwhile, it's not just the Angels who are trying to bring about the end of the world.

Picture

I was pretty happy with the DVD presentation of the film, and I wasn't expecting a major leap in quality when it came to the Blu-ray. How wrong could I be! The 1.85:1 widescreen image is sublime. The image is clear and sharp throughout, the animation is smooth and detailed, colours are rich and vibrant, and there are absolutely no typical DVD issues like aliasing or colour banding to worry about. It's astounding how much more detail there is in the Blu-ray, I was spotting things that you just can't see on the DVD, the birds in the distance around the 6th Angel, the detail in all the readouts and displays in the Evas and in NERV. Blu-ray really is the way to see this film.


This is Evangelion writ large, and it's as if the story has finally found its natural medium. 12 years is a long time in animation, and Evangelion gets a CGI makeover. The first thing you notice is the grandeur and scale of the Evas and the Angels. Our first encounter with Eva-01 is during a twilight confrontation with the 4th Angel, and with the green neon highlights it looks like it escaped from Tron, but with the CGI animation opening up the possibilities for the animators, the action is a world away from the original television series. Less of a change is applied to the characters, although they too seem a little more fleshed out and vivid, indicating what extra time and budget can allow for.

Sound

The Blu-ray offers you the choice of Dolby TrueHD 6.1 English and Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and the signs only track (It was the absence of signs translations that so bugged me about the DVD). The sound here is outstanding, a richer and more vibrant experience than the already excellent DVD, making great use of the soundstage to convey action and effects, ambience and atmosphere. Just as with the visuals, this is a chance to give Evangelion the space it always deserved, and watching and listening to this film, I realise how confining a medium television was for this epic story. Shiro Sagisu's music is present and correct, but has had a full orchestral makeover for the film, sounding richer and fuller than it did in the series. The end theme by Hikaru Utada is also very catchy.


Once again, I opted for the original language track that reunited the original cast, but only sampled the English dub to verify its presence on this disc. But I did watch the English dub last year… There wasn't complete continuity for the English cast between the original and Platinum releases of the television series, so it's unsurprising that not all of the cast returned for the film, and there were some Funimation stalwarts doing the honours for certain characters this time around. The English dub is a cut above the average, but not by much, suffering more than I expected from awkward gap syndrome, where actors had to unnaturally pause to allow for a lack of lip flap. Also, I still dislike English Shinji, who as before really plays up on his whiny annoying brattiness, and loses some of the complexity of the character, complexity that the Japanese dub excels in.

Extras

I bought the single disc Blu-ray release, rather than the SCE, which has the Evangelion 1.01 movie on a separate DVD, as well as a booklet. Manga really need to proof-read their sleeves though, as apparently this Blu-ray disc runs a PAL sped-up 97 minutes, is anamorphic, and coded Region 2.

Otherwise the extras are just the same as the DVD release, only in HD. The largest is the 16-minute featurette, Rebuild of Evangelion 1.01. It isn't, as I expected a look at how the film was enhanced for the home video release, rather a series of clips from the film, showing the transformation from storyboard to final product via varying stages of animatic. There's no commentary, no context, just imagery set to music, and I must admit that my boredom threshold was passed before the 16 minutes were up. You can watch this either with Shirou Sagisu's score, or a Joseph-Maurice Ravel version.

The Angel of Doom Promotional Video is pretty self-explanatory and lasts just under 3 minutes.

News Flashes last 1 minute, some Japanese text captions with an English translation, hinting at the forthcoming movie.

Finally there are three movie previews, trailers set to the Beautiful World end theme.

Conclusion

It all comes down to where you stand on remakes. I tend to take remakes on a case by case basis, having been burned once too often by the pointless ones, yet surprised and thrilled by those that turn out to be something special. On the surface, Evangelion 1.11 is one of the pointless ones. After all, its remit is to get the story started, be comfortably familiar to fans of the television series, and avoid too many surprises. This it does slavishly, sticking to the plot of the first few episodes like glue, with several scenes word for word, beat for beat, and visually identical to the television series, if in slightly better definition and wider. But then so much of Evangelion 1.11 isn't just the television series. The most appropriate analogy I can find is Star Trek.


There was an episode in Star Trek called The Changeling, where an alien probe of unlimited destructive power showed up, wreaking havoc before the crew of the Enterprise realised it was actually a probe sent out from Earth, that had combined with alien technology. You can see where I'm going with this, as Star Trek: The Motion Picture told the exact same story. Of course the movie had to take account of a cast that was 15 years older, and add back-story and continuity to compensate. Now imagine if the cast hadn't aged. Imagine if they had just remade Changeling but with a theatrical budget, widescreen, digital effects, modern audio, and an epic scope. That's what Evangelion 1.11 is, the television series, but with the budget and the scope to actually do the story justice.


Of course this is a film, not a television series, and despite the familiar points of reference and story, there are significant changes. For one thing, the story is much less cryptic. As the series unfolded from episode to episode, there were more hints and suggestions, but the film has a more conventional narrative to tell, and the fundamental points of the story are always clear. Of course the minutiae of the episodes, the little character moments and little irrelevant subplots, which would only weigh down the film, are mostly gone as well. The film concentrates on introducing the characters, explaining the situation, and putting Shinji through his paces at the helm of an Eva. It's about testing and tempering him at this point, throwing him in at the deep end against the fourth angel, then facing the fifth, while the sixth angel is a significant enough foe to require Rei Ayanami's assistance, and leads to a battle grand and momentous enough to serve as the film's climax.


That comparative lack of ambiguity applies to the characterisations as well, at least in the Japanese version, as I found them to be a lot more vivid, and clear cut than their television counterparts. With 90 minutes to get the characters across, it's understandable that they would be a little more flamboyant and larger than life. Rather than hint and suggest as the television series did, the film has the character idiosyncrasies a little more obvious, and they are fleshed out more quickly. Shinji is still whining and passive, but one factor that I didn't really pick up in the series was how manipulative he is. It's as if he is fully aware of his self-pity, and isn't above using it as a little emotional blackmail. There's a slyness to him that I didn't see in the television series, which instantly makes this film a little more interesting.


Some may see Evangelion 1.11 as an unnecessary remake, a quick cash-in, and to be honest, that was my gut reaction when I first heard of it. Nothing could be further from the truth though, as this film takes a familiar story, breathes new life into it, and re-energises it for a whole new audience. Evangelion looks stunning now; the cinematic feature is its natural home. But even for the old audience, this is no simple retread. The film gives the first six episodes of the series just enough of a twist in perspective, an altered storytelling style necessary for cinema that makes it fresh and exhilarating. What's better is that it sets the scene for a second film that should take the story into uncharted territory.


The Blu-ray addresses the one gripe I had with the DVD, the absence of signs translations in both the English dub and Japanese subbed versions. That's reason enough to buy the Blu-ray over the DVD, but I wasn't expecting so severe an upgrade in audiovisual quality. The DVD looks and sounds great. The Blu-ray looks and sounds heavenly. The colours are richer, the detail is stupendous, the image leaps off the screen, while the audio is vibrant, enveloping, immersive, and with a clarity and range that puts the DVD to shame. This is one instance where the double-dip is practically compulsory.