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Evangelion: Death and Rebirth - thoughts.

Death and Rebirth is basically the first half (Death) recapping the TV series with additional animated scenes that were later added onto Director's Cut editions of episodes 20-23 of the TV series while the second half (Rebirth) shows off the first half of the End of Evangelion movie. I would say unless you're a diehard fan seeking to see anything Eva-related, you would skip Death and Rebirth and jump to End of Eva as it is the next movie you would watch to follow Eva's plot continuity.

End of Evangelion was the 'true' ending that Hideaki Anno had planned out for the TV series which he couldn't accomplish due to Gainax running low on money for their animation budget for the show's final two episodes. Whether End of Eva or the final two TV episodes of Eva are considered the true ending of the series has been a big debate amongst fans.

The Rebuild movies are supposed to be a re-imagining of Eva with an easier narrative for new fans of the series to follow which does make the plot to the movies easier to follow yet at the cost of the great amount of character depth the TV series provided. So your mileage will vary on whether or not you find the Rebuild movies better than the original TV series.

While it is more concrete in the fate of its characters, End of Eva contains just as much (read: more) mindfuckery as the end of the series, hulten. You'll probably still have lots of questions regarding the plot.

Well that depends on how much they give you to work with in the movie ending. If it can give me something more solid to work with as opposed to the series then I could peace together my own ending. At least that's what I'm hoping for.

It is more solid. spoiler[Or should that be "liquid"?] The main event towards which the series progressed is exposed very graphically. Upon reflection, you may find the series' ending somewhat disconcerting once you realise how it looks from the neutral perspective in which the film is shot.

Death and Rebirth is a totally useless movie/OVA really. It covers some stuff from the series which you've already seen and then the second half is something you can see by watching End of Evangellion. The only possible reason to even watch it is for the awesome jpop song that plays durring the credits, "Soul's Refrain" by Yoko Takahashi.

I don't know who made up the story for Evangelion, but no amount of therapy could ever help that person. Don't get me wrong, it's a real head scratchier and all but its just a lot of what ifs come to mind.

Did you hear someone laughing in the end scene BGM? That was the director giving everyone the middle finger salute. I have my hunch he'll be doing it again at the end of the [not] movies. Like " I Can [not] Screw You Guy's Enough"

I feel the Death and Rebirth were ways to introduce viewers to the series (basically Shiroi Hane said), but also to prep viewers for End of Evangelion. Furthermore, Death and Rebirth is kind of useless to watch now because Gainax is already releasing the current rebuilds of the show. I would watch those instead; they are much more gorgeous to watch, the only downside being is that they lack the in depth relationships between the characters.