Ranked #1337

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth

I love "Death and Rebirth", I really do. In my mind, it's probably the least flawed segment in the Evangelion franchise. But I guess I know why people are rating it so low.

There are two reason people tend to give this movie a low score. The first reason is that this movie is split cleanly into two halves, and the first half, named "Death", is essentially a recap. I think most people just aren't as patient as I am and loathe recaps in general. "Death" deserves mention though, because they're probably the most well done recaps I've ever watched. It's not just scenes from the Evangelion series edited together, there is a considerable amount new footage and narration added in that combine to make the events that happened in the series a lot clearer (though there is still a good deal I didn't understand by the time I finished it). The edit is done extremely cleverly, retelling the story from several personal perspectives, all revolving around the theme of Shinji, Rei, Asuka and Kaworu turning up to the auditorium for a rehearsal of Pachebel's "Kanon in D-dur". I love the rendition that piece along with others such one of Bach's cello preludes. The classical music is used throughout the "Death" segment to great effect, lending it a certain elegance that the series, often riddled with cliches, sometimes lacked. This isn't the only improvement either. Since the recaps cherry picked key moments from the series really well, and got rid of most of the less interesting angel-of-the-week padding, it's not only easier to connect the dots in the story, but also gives "Death" a greater intensity and urgency when compared against the series. It's through this that I caught a glimpse of the greatness that people often go on about when they talk about Evangelion.

The second reason people hated this is because of the second half, "Rebirth". And no, it's not because "Rebirth" itself is crap, not by any stretch of the imagination. The reason people hate it is because "Rebirth" is repeated in its entirety by the follow up movie, "End of Evangelion", which kind of reduces "Death and Rebirth" to nothing more than a recap movie. But to be fair, since "Death and Rebirth" came before "End of Evangelion", I think it make sense that the latter should be one that gets the heavier penalisation for repeating what's already been shown in the former. The segment in question itself is excellent. Though it lasts less than half an hour, it's a very compelling watch with sky high production values. It really sets up the "End of Evangelion" movie in style, ending on a scene that made me want to continue on to the final movie immediately.

There really isn't anything majorly wrong with "Death and Rebirth", the few complaints I have are all rather minor. For one, some of the words that flash up on screen during "Death" disappears far too quickly and I couldn't read a lot of them - what's the point of having it at all if they're so hard to read? For another, at the start of "Rebirth", Shinji does something pretty f*cked up that I feel isn't really consistent with his cowardly character, so I chalked that scene down to something that's there for shock value more than anything else. Finally, there's the intermission. Yeah, that's right, this movie even has its own built in intermission. In a way, I didn't mind the idea itself. But considering the intermission lasts not one but TWO songs, and comes after the 5min+ ending credits of "Death"... that totals up to about ten minutes of doing nothing (although the ending credits of "Death" does have "Kanon D-dur" as backing music, so I didn't mind it so much")! It's all a bit too much really.

If you haven't seen the series, there is no point at all in watching this. Prior to "End of Evangelion" coming out, watching "Death and Rebirth" after the series made perfect sense - I believe it was released a year or two after the series (though don't quote me on this), and so the first half served as a nice condensed reminder (with bonus new footage) of what happened in the series while the second half wets the appetite for the finale. "Death and Rebirth" served its purpose as a bridge perfectly back then, but with "End of Evangelion" eliminating the need to watch the second part entirely, is this still worth watching just for the (admittedly beefed up) recaps? Well, it really depends on you. If you're a hardcore fan of the franchise, or if like me, you want to watch these kind of things for completeness, then yes. If there's only one recap that you'll ever watch, then make it this one. read more

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth is essentially a 2 hour recap of both the 26 episode Neon Genesis Evangelion series and The End of Evangelion.

The issue that I had while watching this despite it being a recap is that it felt almost hollow in how the story and other coexisting elements were conveyed to the viewer. The story seemed incredibly rushed, and there was hardly any focus at all on the character's psychological struggles as there is in the series, which is in itself a large part of Evangelion. The lack of character development coupled with the chronological displacement of clips made Death & Rebirth very difficult to follow, and left the viewer to come to their own conclusions with help from flashing text that appears throughout the movie.

Death & Rebirth leaves out a vast amount of core elements that should be present (especially in a recap), near the point of being unbearable to watch. It goes as far to include characters that you would have no idea of who they were unless you weren't new to the franchise.

It is highly recommended that this should not be chosen to be your first installment in the series to view, as it leaves you with little to no understanding of the plot and characters when it is viewed as a standalone piece. To get the most out of Evangelion, I suggest that you watch the 26 episode series and The End of Evangelion before watching Death & Rebirth, as this movie is more or less meant to be reflected on by the viewer after watching them to better understand the overall story of Evangelion.

The 2 hour time frame simply can't do a complex story such as Evangelion's justice. Go watch the Neon Genesis Evangelion series as well as The End of Evangelion to get the fullest experience of this wonderful story, because Death & Rebirth falls flat on it's face in attempts to do so. It's still worth a watch for people interested in the complexity and depth of the story, but beyond that, don't expect anything extraordinary. read more