The End(s) of Evangelion

When the original ending to the popular TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion failed to satiate its public, a major motion picture was tapped to fill the gaps (Well, two motion pictures to be exact). While the TV ending was highly impressionistic and dealt solely with the show's psychological underpinnings, The End of Evangelion film depicted physical events that concluded the story's primary plotlines.

As a kid I couldn't really follow EoE. I certainly enjoyed it, but more for the atmosphere and extremity. At that age I didn't have the mind power to put two and two together. It didn't help that I was watching, on a tiny TV, a letterboxed fansub whose subtitles were almost impossible to read, even while they may not be halfway accurate to begin with.

It cost me $40 to get a crappy used copy of Manga Entertainment's mediocre DVD release of EoE, but it was worth every penny (it was also a pretty good deal considering I was outbid on an identical item which went for $50).

And now that I actually understand it.... good God, it's fucking brilliant. It's not only the best part of Neon Genesis Evangelion (which is saying something!), it also easily ranks among my favorite films of all-time. But more importantly than that, it's a truly perfect conclusion to Neon Genesis Evangelion.

I greatly enjoy the TV ending of Evangelion, and it has some especially worthwhile content, which I'll get into shortly. But The End of Evangelion is the true ending to Neon Genesis Evangelion. All the essential plot threads are miraculously wrapped up, in an incredibly satisfying way, and it even manages to do a better job with the philosophical aspect than EoTV did. It's a perfect bloody film, it really is.

Information...

It's amazing once you know what to look for. The information is there, period. While smaller mysteries are certainly left ambiguous in the peripherals, there isn't a single thing that's necessary to the story of Evangelion which isn't made clear through the canon. Now one thing that I'm very curious about, which I'll never truly be able to understand, is the extent to which fans can be reasonably expected to understand Neon Genesis Evangelion from just the canon alone, without outside help.

I had all the secrets of Evangelion explained to me when I was a tween. Often piece by piece, with copious screen caps, by some of the biggest Eva geeks in the US (they went on to found www.evageeks.org). So it's difficult for me to say how well EoE necessarily handles its reveals. It may be a mixed bag. That Rei has Lilith's soul is made pretty clear by the "I'm home"/"Welcome home" exchange she has with Lilith's body. That Kaworu has Adam's soul, however, and was inside Lilith with Rei, was hard for me to grasp even WITH people explaining it to me. The fact that Nerv has the ability to salvage the souls out of dead bodies, that was hard for me to wrap my head around.

And all the crazy shit that goes on during Instrumentality, it can be pretty hard to decipher. But, repeated viewings help. The Eva Series forming the Tree of Life used to strike me as kind of superfluous, but from what Maya says, that must be how they're creating their anti-AT Field. It's actually quite a marvel. Anno took the content from EoTV, about eliminating the borders between people, and then reforging the same borders, and all these absolutely metaphysical concepts.... and they managed to show them, on screen, as physical phenomena. It's really fucking clever.

EoTV...

As a child I was partial to the TV ending because it presents a more uplifting conclusion and a stronger resolution. I used to find The End of Evangelion oppressively dreary, obliteratingly grim. The thing about EoE is, it tears you apart, with Asuka's brutal disembowelment. And then it never picks you up again. The message of the film is positive, but after the disembowelment, a mildly upbeat message isn't enough to balance you. To do that it would need to bring in a positive image that is equal and opposite to seeing Asuka get eaten alive.

And as luck would have it, that equal and opposite scene exists. But it's in the TV ending. I speak of course of the famous alternate reality sequence where our protagonists exist in a happy little normal world free from their crippling hardships. It's adorable, and having gone through so much pain with these characters, it's really uplifting to finally see them win some peace. And perhaps even more crucial, it's followed by a scene of Shinji finally breaking free of his depression.

This is the sole thing that EoTV accomplishes better than EoE: the mood control, the pure unadulterated aesthetics. EoE has the content and the information down pat, but you have to stare pretty hard to get the uplifting message out of it. EoTV runs you through the ringer but then it gives you this big release at the end, to free you from the darkness.

All that being said... The End of Evangelion still tends to leave me slightly melancholy, but as an adult I find the TV ending to be scarier. As a kid, wallowing in the darkness of the mind was par for the course. As an adult, I've learned how to mold my own reality, much like Evangelion instructs us to. And having to be faced with that kind of neurosis again, that kind of throbbing, pecking instability: it's even scarier than being eaten alive by monster Evas. The constant doubt, the constant berating; EoTV is depression itself.

Ultimately, EoE and EoTV are meant to be viewed together. The amount of coordination between them is no minor coincidence. The secrets become much more clear when they're working in tandem. Together they tell a much richer story. I have more than half a mind to combine them myself, so that I can see the truest and best Evangelion ending possible. It should be a pretty easy project in this day and age. The only possible issue would be the screen ratio, presumably EoE would be widescreen and EoTV would be fullscreen. But I can work around that.