‘Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone’ review
By Adam Tatelman, Senior Columnist
2/5
Hideaki Anno, of Studio Gainax, was facing disillusionment with his fanbase following his work on Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water when hedecided to create a savage deconstruction of the popular Giant Mecha genre in 1995. The result was Neon Genesis Evangelion—a preposterously titled, existential take on typical Mecha Anime—rife with religious symbolism. To his surprise, it became a mega-hit.
Flash forward to 2007, when Anno looked back at all the imitators his work inspired and decided to remake his Evangelion series as a quadrilogy of films, this time directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki of FLCL fame. Thus was born Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone, a streamlined take on the first six episodes of the series with a little less isolationist angst. I can only imagine how morose the original Evangelion must have been by comparison.
You Are (Not) Alone tells the story of Shinji Ikari, a student who is summoned by his estranged father to an underground military base called NERV. Against his will, Shinji pilots EVA-01, a humongous robot with bizarrely humanoid insides, against shape-shifting alien giants called Angels who want to stomp out humanity for some reason. Shinji’s cowardice and need for filial approval clash, leaving his loyalty to NERV conflicted as the Angels approach in force.
Despite my recent interest in all things Otaku, I am not part of this film’s intended audience. You Are (Not) Alone fails immediately as a remake becauseit assumes the viewer has already watched the series. Don’t know what the Second Impact is, who SEELE are, why Shinji is the only one who can pilot EVA-01, or what the Dead Sea Scrolls have to do with all this? You’re in good company. Why remake a series in a way that alienates potential new fans?
The film’s structure is confused due to the glossed-over backstory: characters behave inconsistently, likely because pertinent scenes from the original Evangelion were cut for time. The whole thing drags, feeling much like an overlong television series pilot, or a glorified clip show. The film tries to end on a cliffhanger, but as a newcomer, I don’t have enough information to understand what exactly is being set up and why it matters in relation to what I just watched.
Nonetheless, through Shinji’s narrative, the film does effectively explore themes of displacement, social isolation, and commitment in the face of failure. Some of the most mundane moments in You Are (Not) Alone are its most profound, such as seeing the slovenly life Major Misato leads when she’s not on the job, or the sense of place Shinji gets from something so simple as seeing a familiar ceiling when waking. Then someone’s pet penguin walks into the room and I don’t know what kind of scene we’re trying to have anymore.
The action is especially impressive when accompanied by overblown crucifixion imagery and Gregorian chanting in the soundtrack. The visuals are memorable, particularly the gruesome Angels whose hideous bodies defy every physical law ever scribed by man. Unfortunately, Studio Gainax’s considerable technical acumen is undercut time and again by a predictable narrative pattern—brood, fight monster, repeat, roll credits.
By the end, nothing’s really resolved. Though he’s more attached to his squadmates, Shinji is no more willing to fight than he was in the first place, the Angels are still looming, and SEELE’s omnipotent council of vagueness is still planning—something. Maybe the sequels elaborate, but I hold out little hope.
Fans might say that I don’t understand this movie because I was never invested in Neon Genesis Evangelion. I would say that this was Anno’s chance to get new fans invested, and instead he chose glamorized nostalgia. I’d exclusively recommend Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone to anyone who liked the original series.
