Revival of Evangelion
Revival of Evangelion was the third film in the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise to hit theaters in Japan. Released on March 8, 1998, it is essentially a concatenation of Death(true)2 and The End of Evangelion. Needless to say, the staff who worked on the previous two features came back. Gainax took over the production and Hideaki Anno directed the picture (with the help of Kazuya Tsurumaki and Masayuki)[1]. At the time of its release, it was considered to be the final form of Evangelion movies.
The first half of this movie is called Death and was directed by Masayuki. The version of Death featured in the Revival of Evangelion is called Death(true)2. Death was originally a part of Death and Rebirth. It was a roughly 70-minute edit of the original series and included some extra footage that was later added to the Director's Cut of Neon Genesis Evangelion. These new scenes were eventually taken down from Death(true) (which screened on January 2, 1998 on the Japanese satellite TV channel WOWOW) and Death(true)2 (which is a further edit that saw some of the cut content back, but not all). Some other minor changes were also made. Both Death(true) and Death(true)2 were later released on home video. That said, Death(true) only became available in 2015 (through the Archives of Evangelion DVD box set)[2]. The second half of this movie is simply The End of Evangelion in its full glory. The only thing separating the two segments was a 4-minute break.
Revival of Evangelion, alongside The End of Evangelion, was later featured in the Renewal of Evangelion box set. It also released on Blu-Ray as part of the 2015 Neon Genesis Evangelion box set[3].
