Respect Sakura

Back in the mid-nineties a guy called Hideaki Anno had this pretty fuc^H^H^Hcool idea that got turned into a 26 episode series called ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’, it got produced by the now infamous Gainax and went on to become one of the best known anime ever. Now, in 2006, there’s a number of official games (and a sizeable quantity of fan-made ones), a manga that’s not yet finished, a spin-off manga, the ever-present threat of a live-action film (thanks, America) and of course the pair of movies that were basically a re-tell of the story with a different ending.

In this month’s Newtype Japan, there’s an article on the production of a further 4 movies: a prequel, a mid-series one, a sequel and a “final”. The first one’s due around June 2007 and I’d be my bottom dollar on hardcore fans and the mildly interested alike flocking to theatres and the relevant ‘internet sources’ to see it. Question is, how much life has this horse got left?

Personally, I’m a big fan of the series. I’ve got the original box set, Death + Rebirth, End of Evangelion and a fair quantity of merchandise. Hell, my first teenage crush was on Asuka Langley-Soryu. Still, I look at the announcement of these movies warily. Anime News Network says that you won’t have to have seen anything about Evangelion prior in order to get the movies, but that it won’t also just be a remake or improvement on the series. That doesn’t rule out telling the story again using different story techniques, however. Active Anime’s translation of the article however, makes specific mention of the re-doing of original drawings from the anime. So, it’ll be the same story being told again.

Enough people complained about not getting ‘it’ the first and second times that a third take on the story could be warranted. Of course, Anno always wanted his audience to draw its own conclusion and it isn’t really his fault if parts of the audience don’t want to. I remember part of the appeal of the Evangelion series was how much debate it warranted amongst online communities about what suitable and likely conclusions were. On the other hand, using techniques that involve not providing all the information (directly or indirectly) to the audience is seen as being fatally lazy, these days. However, the ending is only one part of the series and it’s the body of the story that will have to be appealing to get people to see the movies. The problem with that is that despite being a major brain-fuck just before the ending, it was quite definite in its progression and meaning, except for a few niggling details that only observant people managed to pick up on. So, is there really any more of the main story that can be told without the risk of alienating those new to the story? Not really, and none of it is worth a number of movies.

I assume when they say “prequel” and “sequel” they mean relative to from when Sachiel attacked to the end of episode 24. I doubt they could make a full movie about Instrumentality worthwhile, so it would be likely that the sequel would slot, chronologically, in between episodes 24 and 25 (or End of Evangelion). That would poise the final movie as being extremely dramatic and ‘profound’ when the audience finds out what happens to all the characters and humanity in general. The more difficult issue is the placement of the prequel. It would seem likely that we’re going to find out more about GEHIRN, the Ikari family and what was learnt about the Angels from circa Second Impact to 2014. However, I can’t help but be pessimistic about that. The original series conveyed all the information in what ended up being a very non-linear way which helped to build tension and intrigue. Finding out everything in the order in which it happened would destroy a lot of the shocks of the series.

I’m not sure what they plan on doing with the series that they haven’t done already. I know that I’d like to see further exploration of Instrumentality and the characters themselves (with the exception of Shinji who was explored far too much for my liking). But, like I said earlier, it’s unlikely that we’ll get that because I don’t see a way that it would fit well into a movie format, and it also requires going on tangents from the plot, which would confuse new people who wouldn’t be sure where the timelines are going at any particular time.

My gut feeling is that the series will be given the same sort of treatment by these 4 movies that End of Evangelion gave to the ending of the series. It will be altered in such a way that to long-time fans, it will seem as though the characters have made different key decisions in the same environment and there’s a whole new ending, whereas to newcomers it will be a really weird story with a bunch of cool concepts, even if they are a little dated by now.

A lot of people are saying that this is an attempt to cash in on the series again. I have to agree, there doesn’t seem to be any logical way that the series could be told in a 4 movie format. So, why do it other than to make yet more money out of this franchise? With any luck, the “final” movie really will be final and after the inevitable live-action film we can get on with life. Evangelion will continue to be an awesome series without continuously coming under fire for being the perpetual money cow of Gainax with each new announcement.