Cheap Neon Genesis Evangelion - Death & Rebirth (DVD) (Hideaki Anno, Masayuki, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Jason C. Lee) Price

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Customer Reviews of Neon Genesis Evangelion - Death & Rebirth

Evolutionary Dead End
I watched this movie mainly because it was Evangelion. Should you? Probably not. If you've seen the tv series then you've basically seen Evangelion: Death. Death simply recaps the tv series in a framework built around introducing the Eva pilots. Except for a couple of new scenes there is nothing fresh. On top of that, they had to re-dub the english dialogue and in some cases couldn't get the original voice actors back. It's pretty weird to hear the characters you've spent twenty+ episodes with now sounding completely different. And for some reason they've changed the pronunciation of Eva. Not a big thing but grating. Evangelion: Death is followed by Evangelion: Rebirth, which is really the first part of what becomes the next movie, End of Evangelion. There is really no reason to watch Evangelion Death & Rebirth, not even if you've never seen Evangelion in any form and are hoping for a quick intro. This is not the way to do it. You'll only end up confused and thinking Evangelion is crap, which it most assuredly is not. Go ahead. Borrow, rent, buy, whatever, but watch the original tv series. Then if you're interested you can check this out as a curiosity.

Having said all that, this movie is not totally without merit. You could argue that it's worth seeing what the creator thought was 'important' to take from the tv series. What scenes were really integral to understanding Evangelion? Presumably they would be the ones included here. The real value though is the audio commentary. It's actually worth listening to. Yeah, it's not the creator of Evangelion or any of the Japanese staff which obviously would be preferable. But Amanda Winn Lee (English Language Director, and voice of Rei Ayanami)and two other guys from the English production staff do an alright job. They might be a little too flippant for some tastes. I thought Evangelion was very intense and very psychological, but that doesn't mean just because they were having fun recording the commentary that they weren't respectful of the work. After all, they've spent a good chunk of their time working with the material so it's interesting to hear their thoughts on what some of the symbolism might mean. They pointed out several things I missed, and their insights, while not canon, were nonetheless thought-provoking and made my viewing experience richer. Also, if you like South Park there is a hilarious bit w/ Kaji you might enjoy ; )

Whatever you decide to do, definately watch the tv series. Evangelion is really amazing and you'll be glad you did.

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truly bizarre
Having only ever seen this movie in its fan-subbed version, I found it difficult to understand what was being implied by the characters and following the story was a little tricky too.
The evangelion movies are a recap of the episodes and a brief explanation of whats been going on, the main purpose of these movies was to make an alternative ending for the series, as the ending in episode 26 left much to be desired.
Death and Rebirth and Evangelion the Movie are much darker and enriched with deep, complicated notions, so you may need to expend a bit more patience than you usually would in following the story.
My main concern is that the new english language dialogue will faithfully recreate the intended storyline.
If you have collected the series on dvd or vhs BUY THIS. (and the next DVD too)
If you don't know of evangelion or you havent seen all of the series, dont watch this. It will make no sense to you at all.

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well....
I agree this was a rip off! I rented this movie and after 3 minutes or less I turned it off. Why shoulden't you see this? well, for a whole 60 minutes they show nothing but flashbacks of old episodes! They call this a movie? Though, I think unless your a die hard eva fan skip to rebirth cause thats where it truely begins. But still This is a complete rip off. I think you should just skip to the end of evangelion the "REAL" full lengh movie!