Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone
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Rebuild of Evangelion movie series |
Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone is the first film in the Rebuild of Evangelion movie series. It premiered in Japan on September 1st, 2007.
Overview
Evangelion 1.0 is an alternate retelling of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion series, covering material up to the battle against the Angel Ramiel in Episode 06 of the original series. Evangelion 1.0 very faithfully recreates many scenes from the original series, often shot for shot, but with better animation quality, using modern digital animation techniques.
Plot Summary
Shinji Ikari receives a message from his father, asking him to come to meet him. He is picked up by Misato Katsuragi, and taken to meet his father, at the headquarters of his organization, Nerv. Meanwhile, the city of Tokyo-3 is attacked by a strange creature, the Angel Sachiel. At Nerv HQ, Shinji is shown what his father has been working on: A giant "robot," Evangelion Unit-01. Shinji's father, Gendo Ikari, forces him to pilot it, saying he is the only one who can. Shinji fails to defeat the Angel, and blacks out in pain, but Eva-01 goes berserk and defeats the Angel on its own.
Soon afterwards, Shinji wakes up in hospital and is officially instated as the pilot of Eva-01, the Third Child. Shinji runs into problems in school with Toji, whose sister was injured in the battle. The Fifth Angel, Shamshel, attacks Tokyo-3, and Shinji is forced to battle again. He defeats it, but he disobeyed orders during the fight, and decides to run away. After making his way to an under construction bridge (whether or not Shinji was contemplating suicide seems to be individual interpretation), he is brought back by Nerv employees. At school, Toji decides that Shinji isn't a bad person, and they become friends. Following this, Shinji interacts with his fellow pilot, the mysterious Rei Ayanami for the first time. Another incredibly powerful Angel appears, Ramiel, who nearly kills Shinji with its powerful beam attack. It then proceeds to drill down into the Geo-Front cavern below. When Shinji recovers, Misato takes him down to Central Dogma (instead of Terminal Dogma in the series), where she shows him Lilith, a white giant hanging from a cross. She explains that if an Angel were to unite with Lilith, it would cause Third Impact. This encourages Shinji to pilot Eva-01 again. A plan is developed to defeat Ramiel by using all of the electrical power of Japan to power an experimental positron rifle which Eva-01 will use to snipe Ramiel while Rei, in Eva-00 supports by blocking its attack. After his first shot fails to kill the Angel, Shinji is successfully able to fire a second shot and destroy the Angel.
Meanwhile, in the final scene, the camera pans up from the end of the battle with Ramiel and zooms in on Earth's Moon. On the Moon, a line of what appear to be coffin-like boxes is on the lunar surface, with a giant stain of blood intersecting the landscape through the middle of the row of boxes. Out of one of these rises a nude Kaworu Nagisa, who begins talking to Chairman Keele's Seele 01 "sound only" monolith communicator. Behind them on the Moon appears to be a secret Seele base, with a white giant with an appearance similar to Lilith restrained behind them in a pit covered with scaffolding. Kaworu says that the "Third" hasn't changed, and he can't wait to meet Shinji...
Similarities between Rebuild and Original Series
Many scenes were recreated almost shot-for-shot. See: "Guides:Neon Genesis Evangelion vs. Evangelion 1.0"
Differences between Rebuild and Original Series
For a thorough list of differences between the first Rebuild movie and the original series, see: "Differences between Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0 and Original Series"
The Final Scene
While most of the movie was a very close (at some points, shot by shot) recreation of the original story, the last scene is not only entirely new but also unlike anything seen in the original series, and has resulted in a great deal of fan speculation concerning the nature of the remaining three Rebuild movies.
The movie cuts from the end of the Ramiel battle to a site on Earth's moon. A line of what appear to be coffin-like boxes is on the lunar surface, with a giant stain of blood intersecting the landscape through the middle of the row of boxes. Out of one of these rises a naked Kaworu Nagisa, who begins talking to the Seele-01, represented by his monolith. Behind them on the Moon appears to be some sort of a moonbase, with an as-yet unidentified giant restrained behind them in a pit covered with scaffolding. This giant has a purple mask held on to its face with massive, visible stitches, and barely visible on the lower half of the mask is the crest of Seele - the same symbol seen on the original Lilith's mask.
A shot of the Earth, its atmosphere still blue but its oceans stained as red as blood is seen, and Kaworu says that "The Third is still the same." and that he looks forward to meeting Shinji.
Bizarrely, Kaworu speaks to Seele-01 on the moon, although there is no air on the moon and so no sound can propagate. Even if Kaworu didn't need to breathe and could survive in a vacuum, extreme-temperature environment, to speak normally as on Earth (or in any atmosphere) would be impossible. However, it considering the proximity of the location to the moonbase with the giant, that particular region might have an atmosphere at habitable temperature and air pressure, allowing human beings to survive without special protective gear and talk normally, as they would on Earth.
Soundtrack
- Hikari Utada's song "Beautiful World" is the main theme for the movie.
Reception
On its opening weekend in Japan, Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone took the #1 place at the box office: 236,158 people spent 280 million yen (about US $2.4 million). Unusually, it earned this much money despite playing at only 84 theaters, though many of them were packed to capacity [1]
Notes
- The first trailer for the film was released online on July 13th, 2007
- After the credits finish, a trailer plays for the next movie in the Rebuild series, "Evangelion 2.0". Amusingly, its structured exactly like the "next episode on Evangelion" segments that ended each episode of the original series, including the same musical theme and a voice-over by Misato.
- An spelling error: when Misato and Shinji are in the elevator, right before it opens and they meet Ritsuko for the first time, the instructions printed next to the level display clearly say "Emargency" instead of "Emergency".
- Another spelling error is seen briefly during Operation Yashima, where "Storage" is misspelled "Strage"(The "o" is missing).
