Forum - View topic"The Mythology of Evangelion"
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3 Next |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Glory Questor
 Posts: 456 |
|
|||
This is also a phrase that applies to the climatic point of End of Eva as well, spoiler[when Rei and Shinji are actually one: the Adam and Eve of a world where you are everyone and yet no one--simplicity at its purest. Shinji realizes that it was all wrong--that this really isn't Eden, that this isn't the world he wanted. In the end, he felt that he wanted them all back again, even if they would hurt him.] |
||||
|
||||
kamiboy
 Posts: 570 Location: CA |
|
|||
|
Exactly, that is the message Anno keeps hitting us on the head with. He is saying that Otaku (or just people in general) should not isolate themselves in their protective cocoons and live a life of artificial comfort, they should get out and live, even if it sometimes means getting hurt. In other words "Otaku should get out more."
I think it is fine that Anno came to that realisation but I happen to disagree with him on that point. Living in a world of artificial happiness is working out fine for me, and many others I suspect. Wow, look! I just rounded 500 posts, that is just, so, well… eh… well, let’s face it, it is quite sad. I spend way too much time here that could be put to better use playing videogames and watching anime. I should be ashamed of myself. |
||||
|
||||
|
Glory Questor
Posts: 456 |
|
|||
No need to be ashamed. You're part of the community -- posting and chatting, being social, talking with people who like anime and other interests as well ... there's no better investment of time IMHO. 
Actually, I just watched Taliesin Jaffe mention the same thing on the End of Eva commentary, where you see the scene of the Prime Minister and the three glowing windows. He talks about the windows in symbolism, but all three (Amanda Winn Lee, Jason Lee, and Taliesin) all agreed that sometimes "a window is just a window" and shouldn't always be read into. |
||||
|
||||
|
Aaron White
Old Regular
Posts: 1365 Location: Birmingham, Alabama |
|
|||
Actually it's precisely the opposite. My experience in the theatre, working with playwrights, directors and designers, has taught me that when a group of artists involved in a collaborative work has a conceptual framework and agreed-upon set of motifs, it makes the work much simpler. Under the influence of Carl Jung, Anno adopted several items of religious iconography as fundimental motifs in Eva. It's only natural that the logic of those motifs would suggest narrative approaches and would shape the work. It isn't a matter of hammering allegorical meanings into the story, but of setting up a conceptual framework and allowing it to function. I'd forgotten how much I love quotations, but in sniffing out relevant quotes I've decided the rest of my posts for tonight will consist of quotations from artists and thinkers who are Anno's kindred spirits. One fault of much Eva discussion is that it regards Eva only in the context of cartoons with giant robots in them; I hope this will go some way towards recontextualizing Eva within the greater framework of contemporary art, in which it is a minor but notable participant. |
||||
|
||||
|
Aaron White
Old Regular
Posts: 1365 Location: Birmingham, Alabama |
|
|||
Uh huh. Just keep telling yourself that. Reminds me of a guy who claimed hard drugs were improving his life. They certainly did, until they suddenly stopped improving his life. Empty pleasures will leave you empty. |
||||
|
||||
|
kamiboy
Posts: 570 Location: CA |
|
|||
I started out empty, baby! Besides, why mess with a perfectly working formula? You seem to be convinced that I am a pitiful creature leading a pretty horrible life to compare me to a drug addict. In fact I am a perfectly content and well adjusted person who functions well in society. Everything is relative, my friend, one man's hell is the other man's paradise. |
||||
|
||||
|
Aaron White
Old Regular
Posts: 1365 Location: Birmingham, Alabama |
|
|||
|
Literature is the question minus the answer.
Roland Barthes (Literary critic) Make sense who may. I switch off. Samuel Beckett (Playwright) To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now. Samuel Beckett I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images. Ingmar Bergman (Filmmaker) Art hurts. Art urges voyages - and it is easier to stay at home. Gwendolyn Brooks (Poet) I didn't think; I experimented. Anthony Burgess (author) Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. Casual curses are the most effective. William S. Burroughs (author) Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie. Jean Cocteau (Poet and Filmmaker) The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order. Jean Cocteau The only dance masters I could have were Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Walt Whitman and Nietzsche. Isadora Duncan (Dancer) I would define the poetic effect as the capacity that a text displays for continuing to generate different readings, without ever being completely consumed. Umberto Eco (Novelist) All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation. George Eliot (author) When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good. T. S. Eliot (Poet and Playwright) Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. T. S. Eliot Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. T. S. Eliot Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself, in the possibility of control over what seems essentially uncontrollable, in the coherence of the inchoate, and in its ability to create its own values. T. S. Eliot Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling? M. C. Escher (Artist) It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block. Paul Gauguin (painter) Life has no meaning unless one lives it with a will, at least to the limit of one's will. Virtue, good, evil are nothing but words, unless one takes them apart in order to build something with them; they do not win their true meaning until one knows how to apply them. Paul Gauguin Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed. Kahlil Gibran (Poet) I don't care much about music. What I like is sounds. Dizzy Gillespie (Musician) I don't think you should feel about a film. You should feel about a woman, not a movie. You can't kiss a movie. Jean-Luc Godard (Filmmaker) I think that films or indeed any art work should be made in a way that they are infinitely viewable; so that you could go back to it time and time again, not necessarily immediately but over a space of time, and see new things in it, or new ways of looking at it. Peter Greenaway (Filmmaker) There are, after all, approaches to be made other than the dependable routes that massage sentimental expectations and provide easy opportunities for emotional identification. Peter Greenaway We must overcome the notion that we must be regular... it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre. Uta Hagen (Actress) Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin. Hermann Hesse (Novelist) A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind. Eugene Ionesco (Playwright) Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize. James Joyce (Writer) Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious. Carl Gustav Jung (Psychologist whom Hideaki Anno credits as a key influence) The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. Carl Gustav Jung Jung is a logical stopping point. I'm sleepy but shall return to the task. |
||||
|
||||
|
omnipotent goku
Posts: 7 |
|
|||
|
guess that answers my question.. if Evangelion warrants this type of discussion, then I definitely need to scoop that one up. Sadly i've never seen it. Whats the most complete version of it?
|
||||
|
||||
|
Glory Questor
Posts: 456 |
|
|||
|
You can get:
- The DVD Perfect Collection of the original cut (with the original ending, but is also a transfer of the LS & VHS version, which means it still has the infamous "Evangelion Jitter" in the video and 2-channel stereo sound) - If you get the above box set, you will also want to get the two Director's Cut DVDs. These two DVDs are Anno's original concept for the ending of the series, from Episodes 21-26. - The current re-release of the TV series by ADV Films called the Platinum Edition. All the footage is digitally remade and the sound is changed to 5.1 audio in both English and Japanese. Also, it appears that this version will have the Director's Cut endings. (Currently, there are only 5 DVDs out of 7 available, but DVD 6 will be available in March and DVD 7 only a few months after.) - Finally, to complete any of the above collections, you will need End of Evangelion, which is more of a "fan-requested ending" that is actually a lot darker than the original and Director Cut endings. End of Eva is a replacement for the last two Episodes that is definitely worth watching. (The only one I didn't include on this list is Death and Rebirth, which is a movie that recaps the TV series in Evangelion: Death and then gives you the first half of End of Eva's Episode 25 in Evangelion: Rebirth -- therefore, if you get the above collections, this movie is not neccesary. If you have the extra money, though, I would say it would be worth buying since it has a very good commentary track and a glossary of Evangelion terms.) |
||||
|
||||
|
omnipotent goku
Posts: 7 |
|
|||
|
Damn it man... thats a lot of collections to scoop up, any recommended shop I should pick these up at good prices ?
|
||||
|
||||
TranceLimit174
 Posts: 963 |
|
|||
|
I just watched the Mythology On Evangelion and maybe its just me, but I think that they were both trying to establish the "difinitive interpretation" of Eva. On the commentary track they do say "Well you can read things this way or that way" which is cool and they make good points, but the actual mythology part came off to me as a "This is what it means, and this is how it should be interpreted." It all seemed a little narrow. I'm still sticking with my own thoughts but I like what they pointed out in the commentary track. The great thing about Eva is that it can be read so many ways, we all know this so a "correct interpretation" seems kind of silly. Anyway that's what I thought Mythology was trying to accomplish. I never saw the Director's Cut DVDs, so are they different from the original or are they extended? Did they use the same ending and just give it up to par animation or what? And on another note I kind of discredit End Of Eva, good movie but I think it serves as an alternate ending instead of the actual ending. There are some inconsistencies that I found and I liked the series ending. I don't think fans were happy with the emotion of the series one, so they got thier movie. Sorry I'm trying to keep the post spoiler free.
|
||||
|
||||
Kazuki-san
 Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
|
|||
The DC adds a few scenes, but nothing too big. Originally, ADV was only able to get a copy of the Gainax broadcast masters, which did not include those extra scenes. They were added for the Japanese home video release. |
||||
|
||||
|
kamiboy
Posts: 570 Location: CA |
|
|||
Ehhhhhh, I dooooon't know about that…. You see, I think the fans were pissed at the TV ending because, well, it wasn't much of an ending at all. In terms of story, a lot of threads had been created, especially in the last few episodes, which people were expecting to be resolved, in one way or the other, in the last two episodes. Alas, they were not. The only thing those episodes added to the series in terms of plot was to explain the nature of the Instrumentality project and demonstrate its effect on the mind of a single Individual, Shinji. The TV endings were less an ending than a piece of art cinema, and the thing about that kind of art is that it only caters to the tastes of a select few. Were the TV endings good art? Well I certainly didn't like them, but then again I’ve always hated that kind of art. Asking people like, Aaron White, who are "in the know", it seems that it was good art, by the standards that these things are measured in. But, people watching an anime cartoon were not looking for art, they were not prepared for such a ending to the series that had them glued to the TV screens for several weeks. It's hard to imagine how those people felt like, back in 96, when the credits were rolling after the original endings were broadcast, but I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say that they were not particularly happy. I can't possibly imagine how it must have been like, as by the time I got around watching it, the EoE was already out and I already knew that the series had a "f*cked up" TV ending, so I went into it prepared. Thinking about it, it is actually not so hard to understand why people rejected the first endings. When someone decides to put in the "effort" of following a particular show every week and stick with it till the bitter end, they slowly develop certain expectations for it. Having watched 24 episodes of a particular series, one imagines that one knows, more or less, what to expect next. After all, after 24 episodes people are well familiar with the world, characters and setting of the show. They certainly didn’t expect all that to be totally abandoned, in the last two episodes, in favour of "something else". I don’t know about Japan, but in the west that kind of art does not sit well with the majority of Eva’s target audience, which were mostly ordinary people and Otaku. If a person thinks that wine tastes like piss and orders a glass of coke then it is quite understandable for them to be unhappy when they are, non the less, served a glass of wine. No matter how exquisite the wine in the glass is, it will taste still taste like piss to the person being forced to drink it, because that person hates wine. Anywaste, on a side note, the events that actually led to the series having those endings, while still largely shrouded in mystery, do still suggest that Anno originally had a more “traditional” ending in mind. The scripts for these endings, which I would sell every organ and body part to obtain a copy of, was, for reasons unknown, rejected by..... eh, I forget who it was that rejected it, but I believe it was a television executive or something like that. If anyone knows which person or company it was please feel free to post it here. For now just imagine some suit that best represents you’re vision of “the man”. Anywastey, the script was rejected and somehow this set off a chain of events that eventually led to Anno & gang writing the TV endings that we know now. Or so the story goes, as I have yet to find any retelling of the exact accounts of that story, and it might very well remain a mystery forever. However, after fan outcry the movie was made with the original rejected TV ending scripts as a basis. So logically the EoE is closer to being a true ending to Eva than the TV endings, as everyone thinks. But even that is up for debate, which won't really resolve anything as they were both made many, many years ago. Of course I could be wrong about any of the above mentioned as I have gathered the information in bits and pieces, here and there, from the Internet. Not exactly the most reliable source if information. |
||||
|
||||
|
Kazuki-san
Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
|
|||
Anno has always said that the original endings were always his intention, and that the series stands on it's own to completion without the movies. Of course, that doesn't mean he's telling the whole truth. |
||||
|
||||
|
Aaron White
Old Regular
Posts: 1365 Location: Birmingham, Alabama |
|
|||
On the other hand he stated in his intro to the manga that he didn't know how the story would develop. I suspect that what he means is that the ending was precisely the kind of ending he had in mind, not that he had it planned that way from the start. Often it's that way in art and life; you don't know exactly what you want, but you've got a sense of what you want to accomplish. And sometimes in retrospect you realize it all worked out in ways that you couldn't have planned for, only hoped for. I've stated my criticisms of the show ending elsewhere, but I'd rather celebrate the way it opened the door for fresh approaches in anime than fret about how it fell short on its own terms. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group