Forum - View topic"The Mythology of Evangelion"
|
Goto page 1, 2, 3 Next |
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Glory Questor
 Posts: 456 |
|
||
|
I'm watching this commentary right now, which is being presented as the real reason behind Evangelion.
Does anyone agree or disagree with their suppositions? |
|||
|
|||
|
kid_draco10
Posts: 7 |
|
||
|
what do you mean
|
|||
|
|||
|
Glory Questor
Posts: 456 |
|
||
|
It's on Eva Platinum Volume 5 as one of the Extras.
|
|||
|
|||
|
kid_draco10
Posts: 7 |
|
||
|
ok cool i don't have that sorry
|
|||
|
|||
kamiboy
 Posts: 570 Location: CA |
|
||
|
What a coincidence, my platinum vol. 5 arrived in the mail today. I'll get back to you once I've checked it out.
|
|||
|
|||
|
kamiboy
Posts: 570 Location: CA |
|
||
|
I'm back once again with the renegade master!
I've just watched it and I have to say that I don't agree with their interpretations. They are overanalysing Evangelion way too much. In the same vein that most famous literature is overanalysed, especially in schools. But then again I've always hated analysing symbolism, or symbolism in general. I just hate it; and I refuse to believe that most people over think what they write to such an extreme degree where even the smallest of things have deep meanings just waiting to be discovered. When I write something I just have a few key things in mind and then I pretty much just sit down and write what connects them without much over thinking. Sure, a few things might sneak into my writing subconsciously, but most of the time it is no more complicated than me ripping something off without knowing it. As far as I am concerned a cigar is almost always just a cigar. |
|||
|
|||
|
Glory Questor
Posts: 456 |
|
||
|
I think the same thing, actually.
The Anime News Network article Understanding Evangelion is a much softer, easier to follow text that tells you the same things but without the very heavy references. Plus, I wonder who wrote the script. (Matt definitely looks like he's reading a teleprompter, while the "Evangelion Lecturer" [ and how do you become that?  ] ad-libbed through the heavy issues, sounding less like an "authority" and more like he was stumbling through it.)
|
|||
|
|||
Kazuki-san
 Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
|
||
|
They did have a couple of good points, like the double meaning of certain lines. And another thing I never actually noticed until they brought it up on the commentary track for ep 20 is how everyone at NERV (the pilots most of the time) are often shown on different methods of transportation that seem to take forever or endless. (the elevators, the escalators, the train, etc.) They brought up how it implied that they are all definately moving towards something, but they (the characters) don't know what yet. I had never made that connection before even though it was right there the whole time. There is also how his DAT is always playing tracks 25 and 26 over and over. (which I noticed back before Plat)
Actually, Matt appeared to be the one of the two actually putting thought into what he was saying. His eyes also moved around quite a bit for him to be reading from a prompter. The lecturer guy seemed to merely be reciting one of his "lectures" from memory.
|
|||
|
|||
|
kamiboy
Posts: 570 Location: CA |
|
||
|
Well, we did only discuss the superficial symbolism in Eva, so sure, there can be more. But I doubt there in anything much deeper that, say, that track 25-26 on the DAT, deal. I just have, very much, trouble imagining someone, actually, sitting down and thinking "hmmmm..... I wanna put some hidden meaning in this scene. Let's see, in Kabbalah the left side represents the past, so I should poke out EVA02's left eye as symbol of Shinji losing his past! Yay!"
No freaking way man, no-one, not even Anno, is crazy enough to put so much thought into things. I, mean, just imagine how long it would take to write a script for a episode if one was trying to sprinkle such nonsense all through it. Forever, is how long. Obviously, Anno was trying to sneak, or sometimes, hammer in, some philosophies into certain scenes in Evangelion. Other than the one prevailing all through the show, which simply was “Otaku should get out more!”, there were some other ones. These reared their ugly heads mostly in the second half of the show, where it is quite easy to see that Anno is referencing certain ideas, which he no doubt got from those psychology books he started reading during that period. Most, if not all, of these ideas and philosophies are lost on me because it is hard enough to understand philosophy when it is plainly written, but almost completely impossible to “get them” if they are presented to you in a garbled artistic way. In my opinion, the only people who have a “snowballs chance in hell” to get those ideas, are the ones who are already familiar with the works that Anno read, and was inspired by. Perhaps the dvd's should have come with those books included in the package. Besides, that is not taking into account the fact of whether one is interested in knowing these philosophies in the first place. Personally, I never cared about Anno’s personal beliefs which started to take more and more focus as the parts that interested me, the freaking story, started to fade away. This of course, as we all already know, culminated in Anno entirely abandoning the story in favour for the regurgitation of his views on life in the last two episodes, which only prompted that fabs who didn’t care about Anno’s newfound meaning in life, to in a Monty Pythonesque way say, “Get on with it!”, and much death-treats ensued. Anywaste, my point is that if Anno tried to insert some "hidden" symbolism in the Eva, then it prolly wasn't anything deeper than the above mentioned. It certainly, in my opinion, isn't anything as complicated as what those guys analyse their way to. I mean, sure those long train and elevator scenes could be a symbolic representation of the characters going somewhere, which they don’t know where is. Or it could just be that people in Japan are often forced to suffer trough lengthy commutes in trains to get to their place of work, and that somehow worked itself into the story. This is the flaw of symbolism, and the main reason why I hate it so much. Nothing in it is definite, nothing can be proven, there is always doubt. Being a logical person I have a extreme dislike for things that cannot be broken down into a series of definite facts in the analysing process. Now here is a fun little game, take a piece of fiction without any hidden meanings in it, no matter how badly written, and give it to a group of “intellectuals” and have them “analyse” it. I guarantee you they will find lots of hidden meaning it the text, even thought the author never meant for them to be there; and the scary part is that most of them will make sense. This is the nature of symbolic analysing, as long as you are prepared to put some time and effort into it, you can, just about, find any connection you want, in any text, as long as you wish it to be there. There is of course the other type of burying hidden stuff in works of fiction, such as is done here, which I find much more to my liking. |
|||
|
|||
|
Kazuki-san
Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
|
||
That's why I said I didn't agree with alot of what they came up with. But they also touched on some symbolism that was there, and was "deeper" then the DAT deal. Anno uses an incredible amount of symbolism. There are cases where little things turn out to forshadow so much more, (like the DAT) but I have to agree that nobody would make a show where every single thing turned out to be a symbol for something else. |
|||
|
|||
|
kamiboy
Posts: 570 Location: CA |
|
||
|
Here is a good example of someone (the interviewer) finding lots of interesting connections in the Cowboy Bebop movie, only to have the director tell him that they were not intentional.
By the way, Kazuki-san, could you perhaps write some of those found hidden meanings that you agree with? I've only seen that 20min segment on the Platinum releases and I pretty much disagreed with all of what they said in it. |
|||
|
|||
|
Aaron White
Old Regular
Posts: 1365 Location: Birmingham, Alabama |
|
||
|
I wish I weren't so busy-I can't WAIT to delve into all this. But it looks like a quiet night, so stand by...
|
|||
|
|||
|
Kazuki-san
Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
|
||
Listen to the commentary for ep 20 which is on the same disc. I will try to write out specific stuff later, but that is mostly where the stuff I agree with comes from. (until the "lecturer" starts into the same stuff he said on the special) |
|||
|
|||
|
kamiboy
Posts: 570 Location: CA |
|
||
Uh uh! You know what this means, boys and girls. The Eva Trio (also known as The Axis of Evil, courtesy of Pr. Bush) has now officially requisitioned another Eva thread in the name of liberty and Justice for all. Run for your godforsaken lives! We are the trio, prepare to be assimilated, resistance is futile. Last edited by kamiboy on Fri Feb 11, 2005 8:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|||
|
|||
|
kamiboy
Posts: 570 Location: CA |
|
||
I just did, and the only thing I agree with them in is the following line: This world is what you make of it and if you try to be alone, if you try to go back to the garden of Eden, try to get back to the point of simplicity, there is not point in living. You have nothing to gain. That line is them discovering the, not so well hidden, message that Anno wanted to convey with Eva. As I said earlier the message basically boils down to "Otaku should get out more". |
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group