Falling Stars

It's been over ten years since I first saw Eva, and it blew me away, like it did many other people. And now Gainax is retelling it - for the nth time - for a new audience.

So a couple of days back I went to see Evangelion 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone at the Japanese Film Festival, along with leenabeans, hopexd, kawak, Sempai and friend. It was weird to settle back in the cinema and realise that this was how I first saw Eva too - not on TV, but huge on the screen of a darkened theatre, surrounded by countless other fans.

And how was this new incarnation?

I liked it. I'd recommend it, to both old fans and new viewers. (Unless you didn't like Eva the first time around. In which case, there's nothing to change your mind.) The plot is largely the same, but effectively streamlined, with enough new material added to make it worth seeing. All the drama and comedy of the original series, and the character moments interspersed with the action sequences, and Shinji reminding us why he got a rep for being whiny ("I must not run away. I must not run away."), and the full bloody primal fury of an Eva unleashed. And the music, damn, it still gets me right there, each track triggering a memory. And the animation is all bright and shiny with the last decade of advances and a budget that hopefully ensures the last movie won't be some random photomontage again.

I couldn't help laughing at the appearance of [spoiler] at the end of the movie, because way to go Gainax, that's not opportunistic fanservice at all. But I am looking forward to the next few movies, [spoiler] or not, and to see where this path takes us.