My Thoughts on "Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time"
Note:
This was originally written and posted on DeviantART on Wednesday February 8, 2023. I first saw this movie on Amazon Prime because that was the only place that I could see this movie, but later on in the year, I bought the Blu-Ray release 💿. They slightly retitled the movie for the home release as is Evangelion Rebuild tradition, to Evangelion 3.0+1.11: Thrice Upon a Time. I think I bought it in November because it came in October, but I had to wait to until payday 💵 in November to actually buy it. And I watched it again on Blu-Ray 💿, and while I was disappointed by the special features they had on the second disc 💿 besides the animated shorts and that motion comic (or motion manga I guess), and I still really like the movie. I still think it's a great conclusion to the Rebuild series, even if not everyone likes this movie specifically or likes the Rebuild series as a whole, and it's very divisive amongst fans.
Most of the fans who don't like the Rebuild films are the older fans who grew up watching the TV series, Neon Genesis Evangelion because they changed a lot of things in the Rebuild films, especially in the second and third film. And of course, the fourth film (this film) went in a wildly different direction than Neon Genesis Evangelion. It’s a completely different story than the original series by the fourth film. They altered certain events, they added a new character, they removed some characters, and they changed some character's names, backstories, and even personalities. They even changed what certain characters are. Like, I'll talk more about what the Rebuild version of Asuka is and how she's different from the original Neon Genesis version, but even the Seele people aren't same as in Neon Genesis Evangelion.
In that show, they were actual humans, they were guys in suits that around in a circle of some kind and Gendo would talk to them in the center of them. But, in the Rebuild films, specifically You Are (Not) Alone and You Can (Not) Advance, they're like machines or AI or whatever. They have no human form whatsoever, and are just these grey monoliths that surround Gendo in a circle. Pretty much implying that the Seele people forsake their biological human forms, and transferred their consciousnesses into these monolith things. Gendo essentially kills them when he shuts them down, and carries out his plan to bring about the Third Impact. And of course, the older fans don't like the way it all ended in this film, Thrice Upon a Time. In some ways, I understand where they're coming on. If they did a reboot of something that I loved and grew up with, and changed all sorts of things, I'd be upset too.
I fully get why, for example, a lot of older fans of Rugrats weren't happy with the 2021 CGI reboot series that premiered on Paramount+. Like, they updated the show for the present day (as in, the 2020s), they made all of the parents Millennials instead of Baby Boomers like they were in the original in order to fit with this new time period, thus making Grandpa Lou a Baby Boomer and a hippy. A lot of fans were really upset that they turned Grandpa Lou into a hippy in the reboot, and drastically altered his personality to fit that.
If you're unfamiliar, in the original Rugrats, Grandpa Lou was apart of the Greatest Generation (the generation that gave birth to the Baby Boomers), and he was a World War II veteran, and that aspect of his character and his backstory informed how his personality was because he always talked about his World War II experiences. But, by making him a hippy in the reboot, they removed a key aspect of Grandpa Lou's personality, and pretty much made him a different character entirely.
In my opinion, they could have easily have just made Grandpa Lou a Vietnam War veteran 🇻🇳, since Vietnam 🇻🇳 was the Baby Boomer's war, just as World War II was the the Greatest Generation's war. You'd still maintaining the war veteran aspect of his character, but it'd just be a different war that's more age appropriate for the generation that the reboot version of the character is apart of. He'd still be a bit different since Vietnam 🇻🇳 was a radically different war from World War II, even just from an American perspective 🇺🇸.
So, the Vietnam experience 🇻🇳 was radically different from the World War II experience, whether it's the European theater or the Pacific War. The original Grandpa Lou served in the European theater. For one thing, the US 🇺🇸 lost the Vietnam War 🇻🇳, whereas they won World War II along with the other Allied nations such as the UK 🇬🇧, France 🇫🇷, the Soviet Union ☭, and China 🇹🇼. All of whom ended up becoming the permanent members of the UN Security Council 🇺🇳. That's just the perks of being one of the victors, and being apart of the Big Four.
I mean, France 🇫🇷 wasn't a member of the Big Four, since it was occupied by the Nazis and had a collaborationist government (that was loyal to the Nazis) as well as a government-in-exile (that was working with the Allies) for most of the war, and had to be liberated by the Allies, two of which were apart of the Big Four, the US 🇺🇸 and the UK 🇬🇧. But, France 🇫🇷 still got to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council 🇺🇳 because it was still a major world power and still had a sizable colonial empire. Which it eventually lost through decolonization, along with the UK 🇬🇧 and every other European colonial power, except for the Soviet Union ☭ and by extension, Russia 🇷🇺.
Russia 🇷🇺 is still technically a colonial power because it never gave up any of the territories that they've conquered over the centuries. Some of which used to be independent sovereign countries like Tuva for example. Tuva was an independent country during the Interwar Period, but it was conquered by the Soviets ☭ during World War II, and the Russians 🇷🇺 have never relinquished that territory even after the Soviet Union ☭'s collapse. Instead, it kept it and made it a republic, which is a type of territory inside of Russia 🇷🇺 that's supposed to have more autonomy, but ever since Vladimir Putin took control and centralized the entire country around Moscow and the Kremlin, these republics have autonomy in name only.
The only one that does actually have some sort of autonomy is Chechnya, but that's only because it's being ruled by a warlord who's loyal to Putin. Ramzan Kadyrov was put in charge of Chechnya by Putin. He wouldn't be there if it weren't for him. So, pretty much all of Russia 🇷🇺's territory in Siberia and the Northern Caucasus is part of their empire, those are all their colonies essentially. There have been calls for Russia 🇷🇺 to decolonize ever since they invaded Ukraine 🇺🇦, but the current Russian leadership 🇷🇺 has no interest in giving up any territory, even if the people in that territory want independence.
Anyway, so, the stories that a Vietnam vet 🇻🇳 would tell would be completely different those a World War II vet would tell. They would've had a tinge of defeat, sadness, disappointment, humiliation, and bitterness, rather than triumph, pride and jubilation like a World War II vet's stories. Specifically, those who served in the European theater, rather than the Pacific theater, which is referred to as the Pacific War. World War II vets who served in Europe had a different experience, and thus have a different mentality than those who served in Asia and the Pacific.
The Pacific War vet is actually closer to the Vietnam vet 🇻🇳 in terms of experience and trauma, I mean they fought in environments and faced hazards and conditions similar to those found in Vietnam. But, still a bit different since the Pacific War vet still fought in a justified war and came out victorious, whereas the Vietnam vet 🇻🇳 fought a less justified war, based on lies or faulty intel, and were ultimately defeated. They could've explored some of that with Grandpa Lou, but they didn't. Instead, they just made him a hippy. They could've made him both if they wanted to because my grandpa was a Vietnam vet 🇻🇳 and a hippy (kind of). Some Vietnam vets 🇻🇳 after they came back from Vietnam 🇻🇳 became hippies.
Anyway, in addition to drastically altering Grandpa Lou's personality and backstory in order to fit his Baby Boomer age range, they aged down Susie so that she's the same age as the main babies and is no longer a foil to Angelica. That was the one that really pissed a lot of people because they felt that they took away a huge part of Susie's character, deprived her of her important role as a necessary nicer and more honest foil to the mean, nasty, cruel, and dishonest Angelica.
She kept Angelica in check, and she protected the babies from her a lot of the times, helping them see through her lies, and ultimately, she sort of became Angelica's friend or frenemy as Angelica started to kind of mellow out as the series went on, and she started to bond with Susie and develop a true friendship with her. In All Grown-Up!, they're pretty much fully friends, although they still compete and argue with each other from time-to-time. They were teenagers in that show after all, and teenagers can quite nasty and brutal to each other sometimes, and high school, or middle school (since they're middle school during the show) is a very cutthroat environment. But, even with all that dumb teen and middle school competition, they're still there for each other, and have each other's backs at the end of the day. When push comes to shove, they'll put their friendship over anything else.
But, by aging Susie down to same age as the main babies, the Rugrats themselves, you lose all that. People felt they dumbed down her character, and removed her agency and strength by having her be just as gullible as the other babies, and fall for Angelica's lies and be roped into her schemes. There's no longer anyone to counterbalance Angelica anymore in the reboot. The power dynamic is now even more lopsided than it was before in the original.
They kind of had her switch places with Kimi in a weird way because they aged up Kimi to where she's closer in age to Angelica instead of Susie being the one who was close to same age as her. But, Kimi still has the same personality that she did in the original, only a bit more mature (given her age), so she isn't a foil to Angelica either. Oh, and Susie's also an only child in the reboot. She doesn't have multiple siblings like she did in both the original Rugrats and in All Grown-Up! Her siblings do technically exist as characters within the reboot, or at least one of them does, only they're her cousin(s) in the reboot instead of her sibling(s).
Angelica is pretty much able to act with impunity, at least, whenever the parents aren't around. No one really challenges her all that much. It's a good thing that the reboot Angelica is a bit nicer and not as cruel and nasty as the original Angelica was in the earlier seasons of the original Rugrats, otherwise the Rugrats would've had a really bad time 😨. I'm not against the idea of making Susie more of a main character rather than a side character like she was in the original. I mean, she pretty much was a main character in All Grown-Up!, just as much as Angelica was. But, at least, keep her the same age as she was in the original. Keep her as a foil to Angelica and future friend/frenemy that was in the original and in All Grown-Up! as well.
Then, of course, they turned Betty DeVille into a lesbian ⚢, and got rid of her husband from the original series and All Grown-Up!, Howard. He just not longer exists in the reboot. Who Phil and Lil's father even is in this reboot timeline or universe, I really don't know. I haven't watched the reboot in full, I've only seen a couple of episodes and clips of it on YouTube. I don't even know if Betty's last name is even still DeVille (that rhymed) or not, since she's no longer married to Howard since Howard no longer exists in this reboot. Now, this change mostly got backlash from the homophobic reactionary conservative right-wing, like of course it did. You put a gay character 🏳️🌈 in anything new that's apart of an already established franchise, or if you change an already established character in an already established franchise to gay or trans 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️, then all of those kind of bigoted people will come out of the woodwork to denounce it.
But, even people who don't hate LGBTQ people 🏳️🌈 had a problem with this change. A lot of people felt that it reduced Betty to the stereotype that all lesbians ⚢ are butch, or that any woman ♀︎'s even remotely masculine, or has less feminine traits and is more of a tomboy, is automatically a lesbian ⚢. I can definitely see that, and I tend to agree with it. I myself don't fully agree with the decision to make Betty a lesbian ⚢ since instead of her just being a feminist stereotype ♀︎, she's now a lesbian stereotype ⚢. Like, whether the writers of this reboot realize it or not, they inadvertently embraced a problematic and outdated stereotype about lesbians ⚢ by making her one.
But, I can also understand why they went in this direction. Howard wasn't really that much of a character. He was a very unexplored character in the show, and a lot of times, he didn't even have any lines, at least in the episodes that I've seen of the original Rugrats. He's very much the same in All Grown-Up! The most he actually does talk or does anything in All Grown-Up! is in the "Interview with a Campfire 🔥" episode, you know, the one that everyone talks about on YouTube. And he's always been shown as very meek and submissive towards Betty, as he's always seen doing the housework, and fulfilling the role that a stay-at-home wife or mom would do, implying that he's like a stay-at-home husband and dad. Betty was the real breadwinner in that family, she's the one who really wear the pants 👖 in the relationship between her and Howard. So, I can see why, for the reboot, they decided to write him out entirely, and just make Betty a lesbian ⚢.
But, I think there is a way they could've made that work without removing Howard entirely. Like, they could've easily have just said that Betty was married to Howard at some point, and still had Phil and Lil with him, but the relationship didn't work out because of Betty's sexual orientation, because she liked women ♀︎ and not men ♂︎, and the two parted ways with Betty coming out of the closet and embracing the fact that she's a lesbian ⚢. You could even have Phil and Lil still visit Howard from time-to-time, since he is still their father and that is something that does happen with divorced couples that have kids, even ones where one of the parents is gay 🏳️🌈 and the other one is straight ⚤. Like, if they did something like that, I doubt as many people would've had a problem with this particular change.
Oh, and there isn’t that much of a rivalry between Stu and Drew in the reboot. Like, in the episodes I’ve seen of the reboot that have both characters in them, they seem to get along better than they ever did in the original. In the original and All Grown-Up!, they were almost always at each other’s throats and always competing and trying to one up each other. But, in the reboot, they’re like two peas in a pod 🫛. They get along as good as you would want two brothers to get along. I imagine that the lack of a sibling rivalry between Stu and Drew might have also upset some older fans as well considering their rivalry was such a huge part of their characters, and was a key aspect of their interactions together in the original Rugrats.
Not as much in All Grown-Up!, but the rivalry was still there, especially in that Season 5 episode, “Golden Boy,” where the B plot was completely dedicated to Stu and Drew’s rivalry as it directly mirrored Tommy and Dil’s rivalry, which was the A plot of that same episode. Stu and Drew were fighting over Grandpa Lou’s old car, as neither of them wanted it, and tried to give it to the other, until ultimately, they both decide to destroy the car by pushing it over a cliff and having it explode upon impact, only for Grandpa Lou to tell them that the car was valuable, and was worth thousands or millions of dollars 💵. Oops.
And of course, there's the issue of the change in voice actors for the characters. Most of, if not, all of the baby and toddler characters are voiced by their original voice actors. The only one who isn't is Chuckie because his original voice actor passed away in time in-between All Grown-Up!'s cancellation and the reboot's premiere on Paramount+. That leads me to the reason why most of the voice actors that were replaced were replaced. In most cases, they had to because the original voice actors for the adult characters either passed away, retired, or if they are still working, they had no interest in returning to voice their character in the reboot. In the case of the original voice actors for both Stu Pickles and Grandpa Lou (who is Stu and Drew's father), they had both passed away in the time between All Grown-Up! and the reboot. So, they had to be replaced. As for the others, I'm not entirely sure, but I'm sure that it was likely one of those three reasons that I mentioned.
Anyway, enough about Rugrats, let's get back to Evangelion. The point that I'm trying to make by bringing up the Rugrats reboot is that I fully understand why older Eva fans don't like the Rebuild movies. But, at the same time, they kind of did have to change things. People would've complained if they just kept everything the same, and didn't change a single thing. Even with the Rugrats reboot, I'm not opposed to them making changes. I just think they went about those changes the wrong way, and as you read, I suggested ways that they could've made those changes better and make them go down easier with the older fans who grew up with the original.
To me, as someone who's never watched Neon Genesis Evangelion, but has heard a lot of things about it, I think the Rebuild movies approached the changes in the right way. They made changes when necessary, and the changes made perfect sense, but they maintain the same spirit of Evangelion. They stayed true to what Evangelion is all about, what it is, and what it always has been. It helps that the original creator, Hideaki Anno was heavily involved in the making of the Rebuild series, which was something the Rugrats reboot didn't have. The original creators, and all of the people involved in the original Rugrats series, had little-to-no involvement in the reboot's creation. But, not Evangelion Rebuild, Anno was with it every step of the way.
He directed all four films, and was one of the guys who suggested some of the changes or additions. Like, he was the one who decided to add Mari into the mix, because a lot of people in Japan 🇯🇵, the Japanese fans of Evangelion 🇯🇵, requested a new character, a new Eva pilot, and he decided to give it to them. Sure, Mari is a pretty divisive character within the fanbase (the Western side of the fanbase), but those people who hate her only have one guy to blame for her creation, the guy who created the franchise in the first place, Anno. And it is still his vision through and through, just as Neon Genesis Evangelion was. But, there things in that show that he wasn't satisfied with, there were things that he regrets, and he saw the Rebuild movies as an opportunity to correct those mistakes that he saw in Neon Genesis. I think that's part of the reason he signed onto the Rebuild movies and why he decided to direct all four of them.
But, in the case of this film, Thrice Upon a Time, in particular, it seems like he's trying to pass the torch to the next generation, and he's trying to emphasize the fact that film, and animation in particular, is a collaborative effort, and not just the work of one man. I mean, the marketing still emphasizes his name, because they know that Anno's name gets butts into seats, and they know that a lot of people still buy into the Auteur theory, and see Anno as an auteur. But, whether Anno actually sees himself as an auteur and buys into the Auteur theory is a whole other thing.
I tend to think now that he doesn't. Maybe, he did at one point when he was younger, but not anymore in his older age. Considering that his studio put out that animated short talking about the production of the movie, using a garden as a metaphor, and trying to relay the message that film is a collaborative effort, and it's the work of hundreds, if not thousands of people that makes it happen. And of course, a lot of his films have this recurring theme of a group of people working together as a team to accomplish a goal or solve a problem. So, you tell me whether Anno is a believer in the Auteur theory, or if he accepts the fact that film is an inherently collaborative medium, and is never ever the work of just one person.
Since watching the Evangelion Rebuild movies, I have learned a lot more about them. I learned the context of certain things, and gained a better understanding of certain things that I didn't really understand before. But, I also saw how much I did understand about these movies, I like I understood the story, I understood the characters, and I even understand the broad strokes about the lore. Like, I understood the idea that these movies are actually sequels to Neon Genesis, and the whole thing is apart of one big time loop ⏱️∞. I understood NERV, Seele, and of course, the opposition groups, WILLE and Kredit. I understood Gendo and Fuyutsuki's motive for doing what they were doing. I understood the whole deal with the Evas, the Angels, and the Impacts. I understood the spears, and why they're important. I even understood the basic idea of the anti-universe.
But, I didn't really understand or catch some of the specifics. Like, I didn't realize or pick up on the fact that Asuka was a clone just like Rei. Like, the Rebuild version of Asuka was cloned multiple times just as Rei was cloned multiple times from the DNA 🧬 of Gendo's wife and Shinji's mother, Yui. But, in the case of Asuka, all of the other Asuka clones died, and the one that we see in the last three films is the last one. That's why this Asuka has a slightly different name, a slightly different personality, why she's so emotionally and physically distant from everyone else, and why she always sits by herself and purposefully keeps her distance from everybody else. That's likely the reason why she never forms a friendship or bond with Hikari like she did in Neon Genesis. That's also why she's more dedicated to her work as an Eva pilot than she was even in Neon Genesis.
She's still a lonely character, a lonely person, but she's lonely in a different way than the Neon Genesis version because she never really had any real parents. She never experienced the mental deterioration and death of her mother (by suicide) or the neglect from her father like the original Asuka did. She was literally grown inside of a laboratory, she's quite literally a test-tube baby 🧪, and she has trained to be an Eva pilot her entire life, never experiencing anything outside of that. She never had a regular normal life prior to becoming a pilot like the original version did.
But, whether it was the original Asuka that was the genetic template 🧬 for the Asuka clones, including that one that we mainly follow through the Rebuild series, is the same Asuka from Neon Genesis is not exactly clear. I assume it is because Shinji does meet the same Asuka from The End of Evangelion at the end of this movie, after the other one (the one we were mainly following in these movies) died. Even after watching reviews and analysis videos of the Rebuild movies, there still things about them that I don't fully understand. That's just Evangelion for you.
I also didn't realize that when Asuka was absorbed by that Angel at the end of the second movie, You Can (Not) Advance, it altered her DNA 🧬 or her body in a way that she became half Angel, I think. That's why she has that glowing blue eye that she covers up with an eyepatch, why she's even more distant and reclusive after the events of You Can (Not) Advance, and refers to other people as "Lilin," and why she doesn't eat because she's technically not human anymore.
That's also why she gets so angry at Shinji for not eating, and why she tries to force feed him in this movie, because she feels that he's unappreciative of something that he can do that she can no longer do, eat. And of course, the Eva curse itself is due to the LCL, that liquid stuff that the Eva pilot are always submerged in inside of their Entry Plugs when they pilot the Evas. It prevented them from aging past their teenage selves, and kept them young forever. The LCL was like a fountain of youth, it completely stopped them from aging. It's only after Shinji does his wish that the effects of the LCL are undone, and all of the pilots are able to age to their proper ages, such like 20s or 30s.
Another thing too is when Asuka speaks to Shinji that last time before they begin the mission in Antarctica 🇦🇶, she's saying those things to him so she can tell him how she really felt about him all those years ago, and so that she can say her last piece before the mission starts. Because this is kind of a suicide mission, and she didn't know whether or not she'd come out of it alive, and she doesn't as we all know. She thought she would just let her heart out in that moment, and tell Shinji how she felt about him back then, and how she feels about now in the moment. She wasn't saying these things to be mean, she was saying them because she loved and cared about him, even if her crush on him went away as the years went by. She just did it in her usual Asuka way, which can come across as mean and aggressive. But, she's also matured in the years since the Near-Third Impact.
That's the other thing too. A lot of the changes, and a lot of the decisions that the characters make in these films is due to them being more mature than their Neon Genesis counterparts. They have more emotional and mental maturity than they did in that original series or in the original couple of films, most notably, The End of Evangelion, a movie noted for how dark, depressing, and sort of nihilistic it is. Like, people already say that Evangelion is edgy, and tries to be the edgiest thing possible, well, The End of Evangelion is probably one of the most edgelord piece of anime media that's ever been made. So, the Asuka that we see in the Rebuild movies is more mature than the one we saw in Neon Genesis, even before the Near-Third Impact happens.
Like, throughout You Can (Not) Advance, Asuka demonstrates more noticeable maturity than her original Neon Genesis counterpart. She ultimately decides not to slap Rei in the face when they get into that argument on the elevator. She's more willing to communicate with Shinji, and tell him how she feels. She forms a friendship or bond with Mari in the years after the Near-Third Impact when Shinji was MIA (missing in action), and opens to up her, and tells her how she feels about various things, including her crush on Shinji. And she isn't as quick to anger or childish insults like she was in Neon Genesis. And I like that, I like the more mature versions of these characters, especially Asuka. She's a lot less of a tsundere stereotype in these movies than she was in Neon Genesis.
I mean, she is still Asuka. She can still be mean, and still sort of be aggressive, but she has a lot more maturity, especially after her accident, when she was inside of that Eva that became an Angel, and Shinji couldn't bring himself to kill her, which led to Gendo removing the restraints on Shinji's Eva, and having the Eva kill the Angel with Asuka still inside, thus causing her to fuse with it, and lose whatever humanity she had left. The more mature versions of these characters in these films is kind of the reason why I'm a bit hesitant to watch Neon Genesis. I don't really want to go back and see the immature versions of the characters after seeing how much they grew and developed in these movies.
I also watched that animated short for Evangelion that's set after the events of You Can (Not) Advance and before You Can (Not) Redo, that's on the Blu-Ray 💿 for Thrice Upon a Time as a special feature on the second disc 💿, and gained a better understanding of that pink haired character who hates Shinji. We see her as a little girl ♀︎, trying to survive in the post-apocalyptic hellscape that the Near-Third Impact created, and she gets attacked by this Angel thing, this Eva-looking creature with no head, and she is saved at the last minute by Asuka piloting her Eva. But, while she does survive this encounter with that creature thanks to Asuka's intervention, her body is permanently altered by the experience because the creature that attacked her was trying to absorb her or do something to her, and it caused her hair to turn pink.
That's why that character (who I can't remember the name of) has pink hair. It's not a stylistic decision. And this is the reason why she went to work with WILLE, and why she hates Shinji so much. She lost her parents during the Near-Third Impact, and she almost died while trying survive in the post-apocalyptic landscape that event created, and she blames for Shinji for why everything went bad, and not Gendo, even though Gendo is ultimately the one behind everything. That's not to say Shinji isn't blameless in any of this, and the movies themselves certainly don't try to convince you that he is, but the Near-Third Impact happened because of things that Gendo himself set in motion. He manipulated his son, and everyone else in order to try achieve his goals in bringing about the end of the world, and getting the chance to reunite with Yui. They were all pawns in his scheme.
Which brings me to the other thing that I gained a better understanding of after watching the movie both times, Shinji's wish. I mean, I understood the basic idea of his wish, and what he was trying to do at the end of the movie, but I didn't really understand the logistics or the mechanics of what was happening. Basically, what Shinji was doing is that he was sending everyone off to their own alternate realities where they get everything they want, or they get the chance to live a better life than they did before, and the reality he chose for himself and Mari is one where Evas don't exist, and none of the events of Neon Genesis or the Rebuild films happen.
So, the way I interpret it, the way it was explained in that video I watched, is that everyone is inside of their own realities, their own bubbles 🫧 so to speak, where they get to have the most ideal life for them. That was the only way that Shinji could actually put an end to the Fourth Impact or the Fifth Impact, whichever Impact that was, and save everybody. That was the only way he could break the vicious cycle that he and everyone else was stuck in. You can watch that video I was talking about, by clicking on the link on the word, "video." It's a review or video essay on the entire Rebuild series, and explains a lot of things within those films that may be confusing to some viewers, gives some context to certain things, and makes you think about differently than you might have before. It's really good, I promise. I wouldn't be linking it to you if I didn't think so. With all that out of the way, enjoy my review of Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time, AKA Evangelion 3.0+1.11: Thrice Upon a Time.
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I wasn't planning on writing about this, but I feel compelled to write about it, so I'm going to do it. I just finished watching the Evangelion Rebuild series, and boy, was it a ride 😁. It was long ride, I barely started watching these films last year, in 2022, and I barely got around to watching Evangelion 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo and completing the tetralogy with Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time, this month. I had been putting off watching Evangelion 3.0+1.0 until I saw Evangelion 3.33, till I could get the next chronological chapter in the story after Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance.
But, it was worth the long wait, because I really liked Evangelion 3.0+1.0, and I really like this series overall. I still cannot believe that these movies get a lot of hate from some "Evangelion" fans, because these movies are genuinely good, and on top of that, they got better and better with each installment. Like, once I got to "Evangelion 3.33," and once Kaworu showed up, I was fully invested in the story and the world, and I was ready to see how it was concluded.
Because Evangelion 3.0+1.0 came out in 2021, which was two years ago at this point (can you believe that!? 😧), so this series was already wrapped up by the time I got around to watching it. And to me, Evangelion 3.0+1.0 wraps up the story perfectly. Like, you couldn't ask for a more satisfying ending than that. Everything is resolved with a neat bow 🎀 at the end, and this franchise definitely needed that after it had been going around in circles ⭕️ for around two decades, retelling the same story over and over again.
Now, Hideaki Anno has finally brought that story to a close. Though he did allude to the idea of the door 🚪 being left open to make more Evangelion content, just a crack 🤏. However, he did say that if there is ever more in the future, it would be with other creators, and not himself. He said that this movie will be his last Evangelion movie, and that it's a send-off more so for him, than it is for the entire Evangelion franchise; his final run with Evangelion if you will.
He also said that he wanted Evangelion to be an expansive and long running franchise akin to Gundam, where there are always new Evangelion shows, movies, video games, and of course, manga, light novels, and everything else that comes with a multimedia franchise. But, after watching this movie, I don't really know how you can continue this franchise without just retreading the same story again. I feel that if this franchise is going to have a future past this movie and past Hideki Anno, then it needs to move past this particular story and these particular characters.
The Shinji story is over, it's done, there's nothing more that can be done with it; give the kid a break, let him have his happy ending. So, the people at Studio Khara need to figure how to continue this franchise without Shinji and the other Four Children (or Five, or whatever), tell other stories in this universe that has nothing to do with any of them. Kind of like how Star Wars had to move past the Skywalker Saga to continue forward. Hideaki Anno already kind of started this with that animated short he made called Neon Genesis IMPACTS. It was set in the Evangelion universe, it was set in Tokyo-3, but it had nothing to do with Shinji and the gang. If they can do more stuff like that, then they'll be good 👍.
It is the longest film in the series. It's over 156 minutes long, which is 2 hours and 36 minutes. So, it is a long movie, but it kind of needed to be because there was so much ground to cover, so many things to resolve. On top of that, this isn't even a traditional three act movie, like it doesn't have a traditional three act structure at all. It has more of a two act structure, which all about setups and payoffs, as opposed to a rising action, falling action, and conclusion like in a three act structure.
And that sort of structure works for this movie because it is a finale, and it is meant to, above everything else, resolve everything that was established or setup not just in the previous three movies, but also within this movie as well. And Hideaki Anno is definitely a nonconformist filmmaker, he's a very deconstructionist filmmaker, so it makes sense why he could go for that sort of two act structure for this movie, when most people would probably expect a three act structure like most movies, and like the previous three Evangelion Rebuilds.
The entire first half of this movie takes place in this village called Village-3 (just like Tokyo-3) that was set up by and is run by WILLE (the organization set up by Kaji and Misato to oppose NERV) and its subsidiary, Kredit. And it's just Shinji, Asuka, and Rei (the third Rei from Evangelion 3.33) living in this village, hanging out, and bonding with the people within it, all of these refugees that survived the Third Impact, or Near Third Impact as they refer to it since it wasn't a full impact and it was stopped, and are now housed inside of this village and living a simple farming and subsistence existence, growing rice in rice paddies 🌾. It's almost as if the characters went back in time, to the pre-World War II time or even pre-Meiji Restoration time, where most of Japan 🇯🇵 was dominated by villages of people living off of subsistence farming and foraging from the land.
The Third Impact, or Near Third Impact caused everybody to regress back to life before all this modern technology, and live as their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. Only, they do have modern technology, they do have modern medicine, and they're able to live this simpler and more ancient farming lifestyle thanks to being protected by machines. Rei (or Ms. Look Alike as she comes to be known as by the villagers, including Hikari who gives her the nickname) is really the only one out of the three that actually adapts to life within this village, and actually embraces. She genuinely enjoys living there, and she's grown to love the people there, and she doesn't want to leave.
But, she soon realizes that she can't because her body cannot sustain itself outside of the NERV chambers, in those LCL tanks that she and the other Rei clones were grown in. So, we know that she's living on borrowed time, and she has to say goodbye to everyone that she made friends with in this village, and has to say goodbye to Shinji. And we feel bad when she does die 😔, because we grew to love her, and we wanted to her finally have happiness without being tied down by the Eva. But, she isn't even the only one living borrowed time, as Kensuke later shows Shinji, the village itself is living on borrowed time because it's being protected by these machines that hold the Evas and the effects of the Third Impact at bay, and it's heavily implied that it won't last forever, and eventually, they will get through and destroy the village.
Speaking of Shinji, he doesn't speak at all until the 10 or 20 minute mark. That's a pretty ballsy move to have your main protagonist not speak a word for the first 10 or 20 minutes. And he still very much hurting from what happened in the last two movies, waking up after being in essentially a coma for 14 years, and then realize that everyone he once knew is older (and much more harder edged) while his body remained the same age (due to the Eva Curse), and they're all angry at him and hate him because they blame him for causing the Third Impact. And on top that, he almost caused the Third Impact to start back up again in his attempt to reverse everything and turn it back to the way it was, and he loses his one and only true friend, Kaworu, in the process.
So, he spends a lot of the first half, sulking and feeling sorry for himself, until he finally opens up, starts talking and engaging with others, and hears words of wisdom, not just from Kensuke, but from Toji as well. It was really cool to see Toji, Kensuke, and Hikari all grown up, and to see how they matured since the last time we saw them in Evangelion 2.22. Toji and Hikari are married, and have a baby, a baby girl ♀︎, while Kensuke is this maintenance guy, a guy who checks the perimeter around the village to make sure everything is still up and running, and the water supply 💦 is clean and safe, and he's also teacher 👨🏫 as we see in one of the montages, teaching the younger generation how to survive in this post-apocalyptic world.
And give Kensuke credit, he understood Shinji enough to know that forcing him to come out of his shell wouldn't work. He knew that Shinji would have be the one to decide to come out of his shell on his own, and in turn, make things right; only he could decide on his own to climb out of the emotional abyss he found himself trapped in. And his strategy worked, Shinji did eventually come out of his shell on his own, and did start opening up to people, accepting their advice, accepting their help, and realizes that they have problems too and experience as much pain as he does, if not more than he does, and yet still keep on going.
This whole section of the movie is very sweet and wholesome, like all these people, including Toji, Hikari, and Kensuke, managed to eke out an existence and find happiness in such a dire situation. They're living the best lives they can, as long as they have left, they don't know how much time they have left, and yet, they're still living life to the fullest. This part of the movie is like a slice-of-life anime, and I do kind of like that. It's definitely the part of the movie that people like the most, at least from what I've heard and seen online; which kind of says a lot about this franchise, in a franchise full of cyborg mechs, alien monsters with godlike powers, and flying battleships, the things people gravitate towards the most are the character stuff and the more down-to-earth slice of life moments.
Anyway, so Shinji finally opens up, and starts listening to the advice of Toji and Kensuke, and finally starts growing up and becoming a more mature person, someone who is willing accept the responsibility of his actions and try to atone for them in the best way he can. The best thing about that is when Kensuke is giving Shinji advice, it brilliantly sets up how the conflict is resolved in the end. He tells him that he has to talk with his father, to make things right with him, and try to understand him, and Shinji listens to him and that ends up being how the world is saved. It's not saved through any battles or fights, it's saved by the simple act of a father and a son talking to each other and getting to know each other better.
Shinji not only understands his father and why he's doing what he's doing, and his father apologizes to him for he treated him all this time, and in doing so, accepts his wife, Yui's death and gives up his life to be with her, instead of trying so hard to bring her back. Misato also atones for her mistakes as well because she was the one who told Shinji to rescue Rei when she was being absorbed by that Angel, and thus, played a hand in causing the Near Third Impact. She stands up for Shinji once again, just as she used to 14 years ago, in a crucial moment, when Shinji decides to redeem himself and confront his father in the anti-universe, and everyone on the crew of the Wunder wants to kill him to prevent him from making things worse like he did with the Near Third Impact.
She then makes the ultimate sacrifice and gives her life to break through to the anti-universe to deliver Shinji the new spear to pierce the cores of both Eva Unit 01 and Eva Unit 13, the last two Evas and the triggers of the Fourth and Additional Impacts. So, Misato dies a hero, which is really great to see. It was great to see how her character developed over the course of these movies, and she truly became a hero.
And because of her sacrifice, Gendo's sacrifice, and Shinji's wish, the entire world is restored, the Evas and the Angels disappear, and everyone pretty much gets a happy ending. It's even implied that all the people who died in the Near Third Impact are restored back to life, or their souls are finally released and allowed to rest peacefully. When Shinji undoes everything by wishing for a world without Evas, we see those headless Rei Angel things turn into people as they fall down to Earth 🌏. Not sure what that's supposed to mean, it really could be either of those possibilities that I mentioned.
Even Kaworu gets a happy ending, which was pretty cool. He never really got any ending or conclusion in the original Neon Genesis Evangelion series, like after he becomes Angel and dies, that's really about it for him. So, I'm glad that they wrapped up his character arc and give him a happy ending, and I like that it's Kaji that facilitates it, that he's the one that helps Kaworu find happiness in a life outside of the predetermined path that he's following all this time.
Speaking of which, this movie, and really this whole section of the movie in the South Pole and the anti-universe pretty much confirms the fan theory that many people have had about the Rebuild movies for many years: that they aren't remakes or reboots at all, but are in fact sequels in disguise, and the entire franchise has been in one big time loop ♾️. So, all the events of the Neon Genesis Evangelion and The End of Evangelion movie did indeed happen, and now they're repeating in these Rebuild movies, only they're happening differently, sometimes slightly and sometimes drastically. It's only when Shinji finally breaks the cycle for good that the entire world is saved, the Angels and the Evas completely disappear, and everyone involved in this conflict is finally allowed to live normal lives.
Yes, yes, I know that a lot of the fans were upset that Shinji ends up with Mari in the end, and they were even more upset that Asuka ends up with Kensuke. But, I think Mari is a much better fit for Shinji than Asuka ever was. Yeah, she's weird and eccentric, but she has no baggage, and she accepts Shinji for who he is, while also urging him to grow up and become a better person, which he does. Mari is kind of the key to everything. She's the one new factor that allows things to be different than in the previous timeline, the previous loop ♾️, and allows everything to be undone, for the cycle to be broken, and thus allowing everyone to have a happy ending.
As for Asuka and Kensuke, I don't mind it at all, it is kind of a cute relationship in its own way. And it isn't like it comes out of nowhere, they do set it up earlier on in the movie, during the village section. We see that Asuka chooses to live with Kensuke, instead of live in the main village. She says that it's because she doesn't want to be around so many people (who she refers to as Lilin), and while that may be part of it, we see that she is pretty close to Kensuke, he's like a caretaker for her, she has a real bond with him, and she trusts and respects him in a way that she doesn't trust or respect Shinji. Oh, and when Mari meets up with Asuka again after her and Shinji board the Wunder to confront Gendo and Fuyutsuki at the South Pole, Mari says that Asuka doesn't care for teenage boys ♂︎, despite being a teenage girl ♀︎ on the outside. That heavy implies that Asuka likes men ♂︎, men ♂︎ close to her actual age, which is like late 20s, men ♂︎ like Kensuke 😏.
The only thing that was really holding their relationship back from becoming something more was that Asuka was trapped in a 14-year-old's body, even though in reality, she's really in her late 20s, and has the mind of an adult due to her living through those 14 years after the Near Third Impact and after Shinji disappeared. But, after Shinji makes his wish, and undoes everything, the Eva Curse is lifted, and they all age up to their proper ages. So now, Asuka can pursue a relationship with Kensuke, which is something she might've wanted to do, but couldn't because her body was frozen in time and wouldn't age past adolescence.
Now, the other one that also made fans angry 😡 was Kaworu ending up with Rei. They really show or say if the two of them dating, we just see them standing next to each other at the train stop, but I do think it's pretty safe to say that they're together. But, a lot of Kaworu fans hate this because they thought he was gay 🏳️🌈 or they wanted him to be gay 🏳️🌈, and be with Shinji. To that I say, they never show or say that he's gay 🏳️🌈, and he's in love with Shinji.
The most that happens between them is that Kaworu says that he likes him, because that doesn't romantic love ❤️. I feel like they made their relationship intentionally ambiguous, so you could interpret it any way, and many people interpreted it as them being gay for each other 🏳️🌈. It's a lot like the male interactions ♂︎ in the first Top Gun, people saw what they wanted to see, and thought they were all gay 🏳️🌈, even though they weren't. Gay representation 🏳️🌈 is fine and all, but not every same sex relationship ♂︎♀︎ in a piece of fiction needs to be a romantic one 🥰 . Some times, characters can just be friends, and nothing more.
And before you accuse Hideki Anno of gay erasure 🏳️🌈, I highly doubt that Anno is the kind of writer or director who would try to cover up a same sex relationship ⚣⚢, and make everyone straight ⚤. He seems like the kind of guy that would be fully willing to put a gay or lesbian relationship ⚣⚢ in his stories, if he wants to. What this could be is that Anno never intended Kaworu to be gay 🏳️🌈, or maybe he did, but changed his mind, but the fans still interpreted him as gay 🏳️🌈, and Anno was taking back his story and his characters and reaffirming his true intentions with these characters. That could be his motivation behind all the relationships at the end: he's giving the finger 🖕 to ALL the shippers, by making none of their ships canon and having the characters end up with people the fans never really expected.
Though, I will say that Kaworu possibly ending up with Rei has the least amount of setup. At least, with Shinji and Mei, it was set up, not just in Evangelion 2.22, with their first interaction where she lands on top of him, and his face ends up in her boobs, but earlier on in this movie where she meets him again in his holding cell, sniffs him, and tells him that he's starting to smell more mature, and then tells him to wait for her after he completes his mission, and then she rescues him, and they both transport back to civilization together; I say transport because they literally get teleported back to Japan 🇯🇵, to the post-Eva world where everything's back to normal, and all the Eva pilots are adults. Or with Asuka and Kensuke, like I said, they set it up earlier by having Asuka live with Kensuke, and her be all close to him, and choosing to live with him instead of Toji and Hikari like Rei did.
But who knows? Maybe, they aren't dating, and they're just friends, leaving room for Kaworu to still be gay 🏳️🌈. Or maybe, he's bisexual, I don't know. But, even if Kaworu isn't gay 🏳️🌈 (in either the original series or the Rebuilds), at least Maya's still a lesbian ⚢...maybe 🤷♂️? Besides, as the movie shows, Kaworu was not the best fit for Shinji either. He had his problems that he needed to work out, and reconcile with, and he was kind of feeding off of Shinji's happiness rather gaining his own happiness through a source externally from Shinji, which what Kaji shows him how to do. Plus, he just told Shinji what he wanted to hear at the time, and Shinji wouldn't have grown that much as a person if he did get together with Kaworu. So, things ended up the way they should have, and everyone did end up with the best fits for them.
Lastly, the animation was gorgeous in this movie. Like, the animators really brought their A game for this movie, there are some truly visually stunning shots. I could only imagine what seeing this movie in theaters would've been like, because it was released theatrically in Japan 🇯🇵 (as were all of the other Rebuild movies), but I bet it was a treat because this movie is a feast for the eyes. They managed to blend 2D animation with 3D animation seamlessly, and they used the 3D animation when it was absolutely necessary, when then 2D animation just couldn't do it.
The only part of the animation that I didn't think looked all that great was rotoscoping at the very end, in the epilogue with Shinji and Mari. In the final shots, they rotoscoping the 2D animated characters into live action backgrounds, but they like augmented them to sort of look animated, so that the 2D animated characters wouldn't look flat and stick out like a sore thumb. But, to me, it just didn't work, it didn't look right. It looked really awkward and uncanny. They honestly would've been better off making those environments entirely 3D CG, or just doing them 2D, the old fashion way.
But, I could kind of see what Anno was going for. By using live action backgrounds, he wanted to show that the world back to normal. There is no more Second Impact, Near Third Impact, Fourth Impact, or Additional Impact, and there is no more Angel or Eva threat, no more NERV or Seele. It also plays into the greater theme of this entire franchise, which is accepting and embracing reality as it is, even with all its flaws, and actually engage with it, instead unhealthily retreating into escapism and ignoring the real life all the time. So, they had the characters move in rotoscoped live action environment to show that they have embraced real life, rather than retreat into escapism, which was the source of a lot of their problems, both internally and externally.
All of the sci-fi and fantasy stuff that came before was sort of a metaphor for this unhealthy escapism that Anno is very openly criticizing in these films. You can tell this by the fact that the Shinji and Gendo fight takes place in this set, this type of tokusatsu model city, not dissimilar to the kinds you would see in Godzilla movies. And then as Shinji undoes everything, and resolves the conflict, the layers of the world are stripped away to reveal that they were nothing more than soundstages or mocap stages.
Even in the Asuka montage, where we see backstory in this timeline (the Rebuild timeline), and we see her turn into a doll, and her doll become a person, it turns out her doll was just Kensuke wearing a costume. That was definitely the part of the movie where it really became meta 🤯, and almost broke the fourth wall, almost. But, putting aside how the use of rotoscoped live action backgrounds in the final shots may play into the themes, it still doesn't look very good. But, the reason of the movie looks great, top notch stuff 👍.
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