Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth (1997)
Originally a collection of clips from the Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series, Death was created as a precursor to the re-worked ending of the series. Rebirth was intended as that re-worked ending, but after production overruns Rebirth became only the first half of the first part of The End of Evangelion, with some minor differences.
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When people say "skip this and go straight to End of Evangelion", they actually mean it.I love Evangelion but this movie is a waste of time and money. I bought it at HMV in the summer and bought it because I owned the series on DVD and TEoE.I was excited and I nearly shat myself because it said "107 Minutes", and I thought it was a movie, and it had an 18A rating (I'm from Canada, mind you). I bought it and rushed home with the DVD, taking it out of the silver slipcase and frantically taking it out of the package and putting it in the DVD player.What a waste of time!!!!! This is basically The series recapped in 45 minutes, followed by the first 20 minutes of TEoE. The minute I saw the opening scene from TEoE, I went "wait... are you sure I bought the right movie?". 20 minutes into that part, I just turned it off.Either way I find this negativity sad, because I really did like the series. I really did. I also saw The End of Evangelion and loved it to death, and I think if I had seen The End of Evangelion before this I would have liked it more, however that does NOT change a thing.I dunno about you, but right now I'm halfway into REALLY getting sick of the whole story. I mean, The creepy "Angels", the forgettable protagonist, the girl he's after and all that other stuff... aren't they beginning to get a little... erm... boring ? I mean, really, the only original part of the movie is in the "Rebirth" section, which can easily be found in TEoE.This is a waste of time and money, and the only reason to see is is for the "Director's Cut" stuff (But not like there's a whole lot, there's only 2 seconds of it in total).So this is basically my first Spoiler-free review, because really there's nothing at all to spoil. NO, this will NOT help if you haven't seen the show, and NO, the 45-minute flashback (snarl) will not help, either.Avoid like the plague! Or only see it if you have a burning desire to find out what happened to Asuka in the series.
After the mass disappointment by a lot of the fans because of the last two episodes of the TV series NEON GENESIS EVANGELION, the creators decided to make an alternate ending known as NEON GENESIS EVANGELION: THE END OF EVANGELION, but before that, they made this film, which is only the build up to it. Split into two segments: the first segment is DEATH, which is just the whole TV series in a very condensed form, which only shows you all the events that have happened up until Shinji kills the final Angel. Then comes the REBIRTH segment, which is just the first 30-minutes of THE END OF EVANGELION.This movie is only worth watching if you've only seen the TV series with the last two episodes, since the intention of this movie is to make you forget about those two episodes and get you prepared for THE END OF EVANGELION. Other than that reason, it's not worth it.
The series itself is a true masterpiece, I spoiled it by watching "The End of Evagelion" first, do NOT do that. "Death & Rebirth" is a good re-cap if you've seen all but the last 2 eps. It's a bit back and fourth but overall it erases any confusion. Again, this series is beautiful, it's not just 'robots' fighting monsters it's SO much more...they are NOT robots... DO NOT pass this series up! It's an experience.
This movie is incredible. I have seen this in japanese, and i really enjoyed it...it recaps the movie, then brings on the new ending...any Eva fan will appreciate it *note* this movie should be watched by parents firast and deemed appropriate for those under 14, in fact, they shouldn't watch it at all