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.
 Alternative Titles Synonyms: Shinseiki Evangelion Gekijouban: Shi to Shinsei, Neon Genesis Evangelion - Death and Rebirth Japanese: 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン劇場版 シト新生 Information Type: Movie Episodes: 1 Status: Finished Airing Aired: Mar 15, 1997 Source: Original Duration: 1 hr. 44 min. Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity) Statistics Score: 7.481 (scored by 145,913 users) 1 indicates a . Ranked: #19972 2 based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded. Popularity: #921 Members: 262,349 Favorites: 735 Available AtResources |
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