"Dune" is an Experience

I understand now why Denis Villeneuve was so adamant about "Dune" having a theatrical release, because the only way this film works is on the biggest screen possible.  It's designed to be a spectacle, an immersive feat of filmmaking that puts the bulk of its efforts into creating these vast, alien worlds.  Even though I've read Frank Hebert's "Dune" novel, and I've seen the earlier David Lynch adaptation, I found the story difficult to follow - very exposition heavy, and full of outlandish concepts that are absurd on their face.  However, the sensory pleasures of the worldbuilding and the absolute commitment to the material ultimately won me over.

The Atreides family is appointed to the stewardship of the planet Arrakis, known as Dune, and its spice mining operations.  Spice is one of the most important commodities in this universe, because it makes interstellar travel possible.  Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac), his concubine Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), and their son Paul (Timothee Chalamet) face an array of dangers on the dangerous desert planet, including the hostile local population of Fremen and the giant sandworms, the Shai Hulud.  Then there are Arrakis's former stewards, led by Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgaard), who are conspiring with larger forces to retake the planet.  Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Stephen McKinley, Chang Chen, Dave Bautista, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, and Zendaya appear in smaller roles.

"Dune" is a long, slow-paced movie with not as much action as you'd expect, and very little humor.  The mood is very grave and somber throughout, and our young hero has to grapple with prophetic dreams, constant threats on his life, and being at the center of a lot of complicated political intrigue.  People are constantly reminding Paul of his hereditary duties, often emphasizing that some of the conflicts he's being thrust into have been going on for hundreds or thousands of years.  His father is readying him for leadership of his house and political power games.  His mother, part of religious sisterhood called the Bene Gesserit, is training him to use his inherited powers from her bloodline, and suspects he may be a messiah foretold to lead a holy war.  The first half of the film is a steady buildup to violence that just keeps setting up all the pieces of this conflict, and it's very frustrating that the film ends where it does - and the second half of the story is so far off in the future.

There was a very real danger of that second half never being made, because this version of "Dune" isn't very audience friendly.  Long stretches of the film might as well be in a foreign language because it's so dense with science-fiction terminology.  Characters constantly mumble and whisper their dialogue, including the famous "litany against fear."  The actors are very good, and I wish some of them, like Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa, could have had more screen time, but the film is structured in such a way that nearly all of the fascinating minor characters only make brief appearances.  Zendaya has been all over the film's marketing and only shows up in Paul's visions and the last fifteen minutes of the movie.

It's clear Denis Villeneuve and his crew were less interested in a perfectly coherent narrative than they were with creating a more visceral kind of cinematic experience that would make the viewer feel like they were on Arrakis, bearing witness to the events that were unfolding.  So, the MVPs of "Dune" are cinematographer Greig Fraser, who shoots deserts that recall "Lawrence of Arabia" and the original "Star Wars" more successfully than any of the recent "Star Wars'' films, production designer Patrice Vermette for conjuring a palpable grandeur to all the different alien environments, and Hans Zimmer for the elaborate score.   The film achieves feats of filmmaking that are absolutely worth the price of admission.

However, I don't know if I can call "Dune" a successful film because it's currently only half of one.  And in spite of how wonderfully executed it all is, the "chosen one" story hasn't aged particularly well over the years, and left me wondering whether audiences would be able to connect with it.  I think the existing fans of "Dune" should be satisfied with it - more than they were with the David Lynch attempt anyway, but I think it's far less likely that the movie will be able to create many new "Dune" fans.   

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My Top Ten Films of 1952

This is part of a series of top ten lists from the years before I started this blog.  Entries are listed below in no particular order.  Enjoy.

Angel Face - One of my favorite Otto Preminger films is this melodramatic film noir that casts a young Jean Simmons as a girl who might be capable of murder, and Robert Mitchum as the man who is drawn to her like a moth to a flame.  There's a refreshing realism to the film, from the presence of minorities to the detailed court proceedings to the multifaceted characters. Our villain is also very much a victim, and the ostensibly good characters do things that would be considered despicable in a less nuanced film.

The Bad and the Beautiful - A cynical Hollywood story that pairs nicely with "Citizen Kane" and "Sunset Boulevard," starring Kirk Douglas in one of his most despicable roles - an unethical studio mogul.  The unhappy characters are just close enough to real life industry players to be intriguing, and their ugly experiences in the moviemaking business are just honest enough to ring true.  The performances are good, with Douglas and Lana Turner as the seething standouts, playing out a love story that goes sour.

Beauties of the Night - One of the later films from French fantasist Rene Clair examines the dilemma of a man, played by Gerard Phillippe, who prefers his dreams to reality.  It's a playful, madcap, silly film that orchestrates raucous spectacle and action with great skill and energy.  Clair juggles multiple realities before sending them crashing into each other in a joyously wild final chase sequence that feels decades before its time - or maybe like a loving throwback to the earliest days of silent comedy.  

Forbidden Games - Two children witness wartime horrors and deal with it by being children - playing games, indulging in fantasies, and putting their own selfish desires above everything else.  And Rene Clement captures the terrible poignancy in this, following the pair as they bury dead animals and steal crosses to put on their graves.  They are happy together, in a situation where we would expect them to be miserable, and can we be surprised that they would take steps to preserve their happiness? 

High Noon - Gary Cooper never struck me as a particularly compelling leading man, but this is the role he was born to play in the film that is tailor made for his particular strengths.  Though celebrated as an action and suspense film, as well as a beloved western, I think of "High Noon" as a morality play.  A good man must do the right thing in spite of overwhelming odds and little incentive beyond his own code of ethics.  The slow build to the famous ending showdown is one of the best ever captured on film. 

Ikiru - Kurosawa may be best known for his samurai, but some of his greatest work was done telling contemporary stories.  "Ikiru" takes place in mundane settings, with very ordinary characters, but is one of the most profound and life-affirming films ever made.  Takashi Shimura, in a career defining performance, plays a low-level bureaucrat who grapples with his mortality, and then seizes his chance to make a real difference in the world.  It's subtle, funny, heartbreaking, and the very definition of a classic. 

The Importance of Being Earnest - One of the ultimate comedies of manners, that derives its humor from poking fun at the kabuki-like rituals of formality observed by polite British society.  The film, and the Oscar Wilde play it was based on, have only grown more effective over time as the Victorian mannerisms of the characters come off as increasingly absurd.  The cast is a joy, but it's Dame Edith Evans' delivery of the handbag line that surely must be counted as one of the greatest moments in cinematic history.    

The Life of Oharu - A noble woman is disgraced, and discovers that she has very far to fall in society, as chronicled in one of the best Kenji Mizoguchi films.  Through the unfortunate life of the title character, the film examines the pettiness and hypocrisies of both the highborn and the low, from the nobles to the nuns and everyone in between.  Oharu, played by Kinuyo Tanaka, is my favorite of Mizoguchi's tragic women because she yearns so stubbornly for what she desires, heedless of propriety, to the very end.

Singin' in the Rain - When I think of Gene Kelly, I immediately think of him singing and dancing in the iconic "Singin' in the Rain" number.  For me, it's not only representative of the best of the musical genre, but the best of Hollywood filmmaking, period.  "Singin' in the Rain" shouldn't have been a classic.  It was a jukebox musical based on preexisting songs, a product of the MGM assembly line, and had all sorts of chaos behind the scenes.  But I watch Gene Kelly dance, and I'm swept off my feet in an instant.  

Umberto D. - An elderly man has to grapple with the indignities of age and obsolescence in "Umberto D.," a socially conscious melodrama from Vittorio De Sica that urges us to feel some compassion for those living on the margins.  What makes Umberto so compelling is his stubborn pride - the shame of poverty nearly drives him to suicide, but his duty to look after his dog keeps him from the brink.  Set in post-war Italy, De Sica also gives us a critical look at the state of his country as it attempts to rebuild.    

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Investor Calls, Fandomes, and Tudums

So, Comic-Con was stuck being a virtual event again because of the pandemic, and most of the bigger media players decided not to participate.  However, Hollywood has latched on to these big, splashy webcast announcements for their upcoming projects.  Everyone has been putting on their own events to premiere new bits of marketing and make announcements.  Many of these are being dubbed "fan events" of some kind, because the companies want fans to tune in and hopefully generate some hype.  The DC Fandome, Paramount's Star Trek Day, and Netflix's recent Tudum come to mind.  And then there's Disney, which saves many of their big announcements for investor events, but also does their own fan events like Disney+ Day, and special one-offs for some of their bigger franchises, like "Star Wars."  Even Apple, home of the Steve Job product launches that greatly influenced this style of event, had their "Unleashed" digital event in October.

I've seen a couple of these now, including parts of Netflix's Tudum, DC Fandome, and the wild 2020 Disney "Investor Day" that was largely devoted to detailing all the content that was coming to Disney+.  These are marketing exercises more than anything, meant to deliver sneak peeks, trailers, announcements, and updates on upcoming media.  I didn't watch the full events, and I doubt anyone can be expected to, because all of the disparate bits and pieces are meant to be split up and posted separately on Youtube or Twitter once the event is over.  Watching the presentations roll out, one after another during the actual events gets pretty tedious in a hurry and these things go on for hours.  Disney's investor event devoted time to highlighting every major brand in their content portfolio, including ESPN, National Geographic, FX, and Hulu. The content is usually pretty basic too.  You get a parade of different presenters talking up the various shows, movies, games, or apps, and then showing a clip or making an announcement.  

Tudum had around forty different segments for various Netflix media, averaging about ten minutes apiece.  The segment devoted to next year's "The Sandman" series offered brief appearances by creator Neil Gaiman, stars Tom Sturridge and Kirby Howell-Baptiste, and a "first look" teaser.  Sturridge presented the teaser, and all Howell-Baptiste got to do was to announce that the show's social media accounts were going live.  The Duffer Brothers, Gaten Matarazzo, and Joe Keery introduced new "Stranger Things" teasers, John Cho showed off the opening credits of "Cowboy Bebop," and Imelda Staunton made an appearance on behalf of "The Crown" to assure us the production was going well, and to offer a projected release date for the next season - November of 2022.  As far as I could tell there wasn't any real opportunity for fan interaction, or really any kind of content other than announcements and promos.  A Zoom call with Regina King, Noomi Rapace, Zazie Beetz, and Charlize Theron was billed as an "Action Panel," but was really more of a group interview.  It was so tightly edited and slickly overproduced that it had none of the energy of a real panel discussion. 

Frankly, I miss the Comic-Con crowds.  There's something about a hyped up audience reacting to seeing celebrities and oohing and aahing over new footage that is so much fun to see.  The virtual conventions that they've tried to put on haven't been too successful - essentially limited to prerecorded panels conducted over Zoom.  However, they're still much more interesting to watch than events like Tudum because they offer more content and don't just feel like people reciting marketing copy and bingeing trailers.  The DC Fandome event is easily the best of these webcast style events, because it's following the Comic-Con model.  It devotes much longer stretches of time to each piece of individual media, and includes a few interviews, discussions, and Q&As with the creators involved.  Fandome also manages to combine a few live appearances with prerecorded material and fancy graphics in a way that makes it feel a little more dynamic and exciting.   

 

I don't think Comic-Con is in any danger of being replaced, especially once in-person events start happening again, but the Tudums and the Disney+ Days are probably here to stay, with a few adjustments.  The fight for attention online is only intensifying, and with other avenues for advertising shrinking, creating events like this to attract media coverage and curious viewers seems irresistible.

                     

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The Return of Jon Stewart

I waited to write this post until I'd seen three episodes of "The Problem With Jon Stewart," which tested my patience a bit because episodes are released once every two weeks by Apple+.  It's been six years since Stewart left "The Daily Show," and it's good to see him again.  His new show is more ambitious, taking elements from "The Daily Show," John Oliver's "Last Week Tonight," and other comedic current affairs programs, and combining them with more serious long-form investigative journalism and interviews.  It's not a very comfortable hybrid, though an admirable attempt by Stewart to strike a more serious tone with his work.

Each episode of "The Problem" centers around a big issue like "War" or "The Economy."  The first segment puts Jon behind a desk to deliver a fairly traditional comedic monologue on the topic of the day, filmed with a live studio audience.  Then there's a panel discussion with activists and experts, and sometimes a separate interview with a more high profile lawmaker or administrator that Stewart conducts outside of the studio.  Interspersed with these are pre-taped comedy bits about the theme of the day, similar to the ones used by most late night comedians.  There are also framing segments showing Stewart in his writers' room holding discussions and pitching ideas.  These segments are fun, and seem to be included in an effort to put more diverse voices onscreen.

Clearly there's a lot of talent involved in the show, and Stewart is fully invested in what he is doing.  The first episode, "War," is focused on veterans' health, an issue that Stewart has been keen to spotlight and advocate for in the past.  His interview with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough is appropriately tough and enlightening.  However, the format of the show occupies an uneasy space between comedic and more hard-hitting commentary, and it doesn't occupy it nearly as well as something like "Last Week Tonight" does.  While Stewart's work here is extremely informative, and does a great job of framing big issues in a way that is more easily digestible for the average viewer, none of it is particularly entertaining.  Instead, his occasional jokes just serve to punctuate the tension, or else they feel out of place and counterproductive, adding to a feeling of unease.  The tone of each show can swing wildly from irreverent to dead serious, and not in a good way.  It doesn't help that episodes of "The Problem" run nearly a full hour in length, and the energy just isn't sustainable for the duration.  

Jon Stewart is committed and passionate in his advocacy, but he doesn't strike me as any more incisive than the pundits and news presenters that he regularly skewered on "The Daily Show" when he's in this mode.  The fact that he clearly comes at these interviews and discussions with an agenda creates an odd sort of cognitive dissonance.  Jon Stewart never tries to pretend that he's anything other than a comedian, but "The Problem" is blurring the lines more, and Stewart's not afraid of getting more confrontational.  It's an uncomfortable reminder that his last few years on "The Daily Show" were plagued with similar tonal problems as he started using his platform to take positions on certain issues.

I want to make it clear that this is not necessarily a bad thing.  Many of Stewart's contemporaries and the presenters that he's helped mentor have been able to do this kind of commentary and advocacy far better.  With some adjustments, I think Stewart could have the kind of long-form examination of current events that he wants to do, while still putting on an entertaining program.  I like parts of "The Problem," and I think it has promise, but there are changes to the format that are necessary.  Simply splitting the show in half, and switching between different interview and discussion formats from week to week would help considerably.  Or de-emphasizing the monologues and just focusing on the interviews, Barbara Walters style.

I still count myself as a Stewart fan, and I'm rooting for the show's improvement, but it may be an uphill battle.  One of the reasons that his show isn't coming off so well is that he's got so much competition now, and his basic shtick hasn't changed with the times.  His time away from the spotlight was clearly needed, but it's also left him playing catch-up with the rest of the crowd.

 

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Untangling "Lisey's Story"

Throughout the '90s, the Stephen King event miniseries was a mainstay of network television.  Since adaptations of King's work have recently seen a resurgence, I don't think it's any surprise that someone chose to make a miniseries of "Lisey's Story," one of King's more personal books.  It's a thinly veiled thought experiment, musing over what a famous horror writer's wife might have to deal with emotionally and psychically after the death of her husband.  Because this is an Apple+ project, the talent involved is all top shelf - Pablo Larrain directs, King himself wrote the screenplay, and the cast is downright amazing.  So,I'm not sure how the eight-episode miniseries wound up being so much more difficult to watch and to parse than it should have been.

The story is told achronologically.  For the most part it follows Lisey Landon (Julianne Moore) two years after the death of her husband Scott (Clive Owen), a famous author.  She's put off dealing with his legacy, despite being hounded by a professor, Roger Dashmiel (Ron Cephas Jones), to get access to Scott's files.  He recruits a disturbed superfan, Jim Dooley (Dane DeHaan) to help persuade her.  At the same time, Lisey's sister Amanda (Joan Allen) suffers a psychotic break that forces Lisey to confront her past and her relationships with Amanda and their other sister Darla (Jennifer Jason Leigh).  She's also sent on a "bool hunt," a treasure hunt set up by Scott, that leads her through the more disturbing parts of his life.  Scott and his older brother had a fantasy world they shared as children called Booya Moon - and he might be trying to lead Lisey there from beyond death.

There are several stories being told in "Lisey's Story" that overlap considerably, but don't quite all exist in the same space comfortably.  First, there's the fairly realistic story of Lisey and Scott's marriage, and Lisey going through the grieving process.  Then there's the fantasy tinged, violent memoir of Scott's miserable childhood with an abusive father (Michael Pitt) and troubled brother, Paul (Clark Furlong).  Then there's the escalating situation with the disturbed Jim Dooley, which plays out like a more melodramatic brand of crime drama.  Most of the episodes from the past happen in the context of Lisey's reminiscences, as she tries to puzzle through various mysteries.  There's a lot of slow meandering from scene to scene, and an infuriating amount of repetition as she connects the dots.  While the series looks absolutely gorgeous, with cinematography from Darius Khondji, parts of it are a real slog.  And because this is a series and not a film, it's multiple episodes of slog that wear out their welcome quickly.      

This is a shame, because "Lisey" does a lot of things right.  The cast is perfect, with Moore and Owen demonstrating that they still have plenty of chemistry together, and Michael Pitt is terrifying every time he appears, making the scenes of Scott's brutal childhood nailbitingly tense.  Fantasy elements are often difficult to integrate into a show that tackles such heavy subject matter like this, but Larrain and company pull it off.  Booya Moon is this spooky twilight world that exists in a metaphysical space between life and death, and manages to be exactly as creepy and magical as it should be.  I also generally enjoy Larrain's style, and there are noticeable echoes of "Jackie" in "Lisey," including this lovely, moody atmosphere of nostalgia and regret.     

But what leaves me unsatisfied in the end is that Lisey feels like such a flimsy character.  It might be "Lisey's Story," but it's really about Lisey only as far as how she relates to Scott, the obvious stand-in for Stephen King.  Her relationships with her sisters are shown to be very important to her, but don't get much development.  You can view the narrative as the result of Lisey fixating on her dead husband at the expense of her own personhood, but it's much too late in the series before we really get any sense of who Lisey was before Scott, and who she could  be after.  

Compared to the Stephen King miniseries of yore, I vastly prefer a prestige project like this instead of the campy old chillers like "The Tommyknockers" or "Rose Red."  However, "Lisey's Story" could have been something much more interesting that what it is - a flawed, difficult curiosity.       

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"Annette" Sure is Something

I'm glad that I saw the recent Edgar Wright documentary about the history of the band the Sparks, comprised of musician brothers Russell and Ron Mael, because it gave me some idea of what I was in for with "Annette," the film musical that they co-wrote and created all of the music for.  Collaborating with French provocateur director Leos Carax, "Annette" is like no musical I've ever seen before.  The best thing I can say about it is that it's very committed to its particular style and aims. 

Henry (Adam Driver) and Ann (Marion Cotillard) are a comedian and an opera singer who fall in love, undergo a tumultuous marriage, and eventually have a child, Annette (Devyn McDowell).  From an early age Annette is able to sing with astonishing skill, resulting in a career as a child prodigy.  The story is mostly told from the point of view of Henry, who sees a tragic decline once his career hits the skids, and eventually becomes the driving force behind Annette's exploitation.  Another key character is the Accompanist (Simon Helberg), who helps to orchestrate Annette's career and is in love with Ann. 

"Annette" is billed as a musical, but is more accurately described as an opera.  It's almost totally sung all the way through, and exists in a very heightened, very artificial version of reality.  Annette appears onscreen as a living puppet, which allows the filmmakers to put her in situations that would be uncomfortable with a real child, and also to show Henry's detachment from her.  The other characters are also wild exaggerations that don't hold up to much scrutiny, and are best regarded as symbolic or allegorical creatures designed to serve the film's larger themes.  Henry, for instance, is supposed to be a shock comic, and has a wildly indulgent act where he rants at his audience, sings snatches of Tom Lehrer, and is generally incoherent.  

I was a little disappointed with the music.  After the upbeat opening number, "So May we Start," the rest of the songs are much more low key and unmemorable.  There's also a dearth of anything that could be called a production number.  This is in keeping with the career of Sparks, which produces very experimental, very off-kilter music that appeals to very specific sensibilities.  It's the kind of music that I can appreciate, but don't get much out of.  Likewise, Leos Carax has made a career of keeping one foot firmly planted in avant garde cinema, and it should be no surprise that "Annette" stays stubbornly in its own peculiar groove of "Holy Motors" style absurdism throughout.  

On the one hand, this is all wildly pretentious and obscure, and on the other hand it's sometimes brilliant.  There's a fabulous scene with Simon Helberg's Accompanist, where he delivers feverish exposition via a long solo, which is occasionally interrupted when he's obliged to conduct the orchestral music accompanying his performance.  It's all done in one shot, and it's magical.  The opening and ending song sequences, where the cast and key crew members all come together to address the audience directly, are lovely and invigorating.  However, an awful lot of the film consists of fairly straightforward domestic melodrama and mundanity, and becomes something of a slog.  

Driver and Cotillard sing about love and loss and doom, and make great efforts at convincing the audience that they're anguished and forlorn, to some success.  It's really Driver's movie, a chance for him to portray a charismatic monster who gets exactly what's coming to him.  His performance is a lot of fun - showy, physical, and weird, but the material is so hemmed in by the artifice, it also feels very compromised.  When the film is being wild and unorthodox, it's fascinating, but the bones of the thing are neglected, and the execution is lacking in some crucial ways.

I like the idea of "Annette," and the spirited attitude of its creators.  But though the film occasionally shows signs of greatness, this is pretty far from being the truly outre piece of work that I was expecting.  It's undeniably a spectacle, but one that confuses instead of wows, that provokes but doesn't get very deep or bother to entertain.  There's a good chance I may have missed the point completely, but I don't much care to look any deeper, as there's not much here that seems to need interpretation.  And for a movie with such big emotions, I left it strangely unmoved.

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It's the End of "Evangelion" as We Know It

Spoilers for the first three "Rebuild of Evangelion" films ahead.

I watched and reviewed the first of these "Rebuild" films way back in 2011, and promptly stopped paying attention to the franchise.  That first film, which I'll refer to as "1.0," was largely a retread of the first part of the 1996 "Neon Genesis Evangelion" television series with spruced up animation, so I expected the subsequent ones would be too.  Now it's a decade later and "1.0" has been followed by "2.0," "3.0," and "3.0+1.0," which complete the series.  

I have no idea how this series of films is going to play to newcomers to "Neon Genesis Evangelion."  I can only approach these as a fan of "Evangelion" who watched the show in the late '90s and got wonderfully confused by the wildly esoteric "End of Evangelion" follow-up film in 1997.   "2.0," "3.0," and "3.0+1.0" increasingly diverge from the original storyline, though they're directed and written by "Evangelion's" original creator Hideaki Anno.  They cover most of the same general plot points, including the apocalypse scenario of "End of Evangelion," but with some significant reshuffling and streamlining.

There's a new character, Mari (Maaya Sakamoto), a foreign pilot who has little real bearing on the plot, but who gives Asuka (Yuko Miyamura) someone to pal around with, and seems to represent Anno's spouse, mangaka Moyoko Anno.  There's also a significant timeskip between "2.0" and "3.0" that gives us new versions of most of the characters, including the amusing transformation of NERV commander Misato Katsuragi (Kotono Mitsuishi) into a Captain Harlock-like figure leading a ragtag band of rebels.  "3.0" is largely devoted to the pivotal relationship between our hero, Shinji Ikari (Megumi Ogata), and fellow pilot Kaworu Nagisa (Akira Ishida), which was only covered in a single episode of the 1996 series.    

Is the new film series better than the original run of "Evangelion" media?  Yes and no.  While it uses many of the same elements and assets, the "Rebuild" films manage to distinguish themselves as very much their own thing, and have a very different style and aims.  The production is certainly much more impressive and expensive, showing off fancy animation produced on a scale that would have been impossible to achieve in the '90s.  There are thirteen Evangelion mechas in "Rebuild," compared to the original four, and all kinds of new Angels and other opponents for them to battle.  The story is much more comprehensible, though there are still a lot of wild concepts and ideas in the mix that nobody bothers explaining.  The worldbuilding and characters are much more fleshed out and well-rounded, especially the more mysterious figures like Kaworu and Shinji's father Gendo (Fumihiko Tachiki).  I greatly prefer Misato's characterization in these films, even though her fate is the same.  

The biggest difference really is the tone.  The "Rebuild" films have their moments of angst and moroseness, especially in "3.0" when Shinji hits an emotional low point.  However, the story is far more hopeful and optimistic, even as it charts the end of the world in more painful detail.  "3.0+1.0" deliberately spends a great portion of its running time showing how Shinji and Rei Ayanami (Megumi Hayashibara) recover from their traumas and learn how to reconnect with humanity.  I miss the quieter, contemplative mood of the 1996 "Evangelion," which was often so internally focused and so painfully intimate, but I also think that "Rebuild" strikes a better balance between its examination of Shinji's psychological state and the bigger story of the fight to stave off the apocalypse. 

Frankly, I'm glad to have both versions of this story available.  "3.0+1.0" does its best at providing all manner of epic giant robot battles, but it never lives up to the magnificent, horrific, carnage of "The End of Evangelion."  On the other hand, after twenty-five years, it is so rewarding to see Shinji grow up a little, and find an unlikely happy ending at last.  Really, the only strong objections I have to "Rebuild" are Studio GAINAX's sleazy fanservice shots of the female pilots, which have somehow gotten more gratuitous over time.  

Then again, I guess it wouldn't be "Evangelion" without the perverted fanboys, would it?

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