JellySlimerMan said:
mfeff said:
The Ubermensch said:
Since you both were talking about Evangelion, may as well add this:
http://chezapocalypse.com/episodes/s3e2-end-of-evangelion-and-the-audience-author-membrane/
For what i can gather, if i compare ME3 ending with EoE (yes i know, i am comparing 15 minutes of a game to a whole movie), one was done in a rush, was made on the spot because the series was never planned to begin with, and shits on everything before it by contradicting its own message and themes, thus provocating a outrage. And the other was a
response to fan entitlement to what was already a functional and intended ending of the series (EVEN when they also run out of money while making it), and that response consisted in shitting on the last 2 episodes of character developement of tha audience surrogate by starting the movie by masturbating to a comatose girl.
ME3 ending wasnt intented to troll everyone and getting pissy. EoE WAS intented BECAUSE of the outrage (and death threats, did i mention that?).
Hey JellySlimerMan,
Thanks for the linky link to that video, watching it now, never seen it before, agree with quite a bit of what he has to say. Let me finish it up and I will continue a response to your post! =D
Watches Stuff...
Well... I don't want to come off as an apologist for either Eva or EoE. During the course of my post on the subject in this thread I think that I said that I liked them both, however, I felt that the original ending was "the ending".
That said, and here is the tricky part. During the course of my post here I acknowledged that I had been a practicing Buddhist for some years and had "a sizable" collection of esoteric religious material. Like yourself I have also studied at the academic level many philosophers and philosophical movements. (I am assuming this because having of read some of your post you seem to know a good deal about the subject).
To that end, and as a "practitioner" I will personally attest to "one" of the reasons that I usually (very usually)
"do not" teach or promulgate certain philosophies, especially the ones that are extremely introspective...
If you have not guessed why yet... it is simply because what happens in EoE, is also "just as valid" as a conclusion for a person as the last two episodes of Eva.
I have personally seen it go both ways. Ultimately it usually goes "both" ways, at various points.
People have a lot of baggage and not everyone is ready for that/any/a notion of responsibility and or accountability. Nihilism is in so many ways is the atheist hell. Many people simply do not accept their part in the creative process of life/reality.
To go a step further I don't bother with any sort of practice with someone until they demonstrate they have "2 years" at a minimum of financials set aside for the "possible" depression that the practice "may cause".
This is the "pointing at the moon" aspect of the original series. Simply "pointing at the moon", is not any sort of work towards that goal. This is all to common with the "guru", it is a huge part of Eva; fact is, many people where simply not ready for that sort of "zen" chiming of the bell. Two episodes works, but essentially (just like the video pointed out), the first 10 or so episodes are mech fodder, the last episodes are the depression so another 10 episodes with 2 dedicated to the summing up.
Debate-ably it is a backtrack story dump and writing fiat accounting for 10 percent of the total work actually being an arc. I personally think "it was there" from the beginning to the end. Then again I also said that anno "at some point" didn't know what the hell he was making any more. Most of the "art" is coming from this period. Maybe art by adversity?
I do think it is an element of working in the fantasy genre. It's flexible enough for this sort of metaphor generation.
The backtrack story dump is notorious in Xenogears, which I also mention in one post, nearly the entirety of the second disc is "text". Same deal, ran out of money, had so many loose ends there was simply no way to get it all in without expository dialog dumps which mess with the pacing.
It is a "problem" with this sort of narrative. Now for a lot of folk it makes it "art" because it is loaded with metaphor...
it doesn't. It is hard to discern sometimes between contrivance and expression though. This is going to be my talking point of ME3 vs. Eva/EoE. It isn't that hard to figure out in these cases.
I acknowledge the communication and the artistic nature of both works (Eva/EoE). There is a distinct communication happening between both the artist and the audience in both the works. I find it interesting, although Eva/EoE do sit in a pretty big pile of anime dvd and blu-ray in meh' home. In fact I had to laugh because I own Baccanno and Azumangadaiho that are shown in the opening of that video. What I am saying is, it is "interesting" it's not in my personal top 10.
I find it interesting in many of the same ways the guy in the video you shared found it interesting. It's risky to have that much creative control over a relatively big project.
One of the post in this thread, I mention the masturbation scene, it is the tone transition taking the implied fantasy of Shinji to a reality... saying that, I own the series, I have watched it maybe 3 times end to end, and the film twice...? You have seen it. For me, there is going to be a little blurring of the two I.P. in my own mind.
Baring that I found Gendo to be a pederast. The doctor to be a mid-lifer. Could go on and on... there really isn't any character in the work that I could really relate to. They all have a one dimensionality to them which sets them up as archetypes and stereotypes. There is probably something to "this is how Shinji" sees them... shrug.
The video is absolutely correct that western religion is treated like European religion in our pop culture... extremely surface. I have commented on this many times in the past, so much so that I have become bored with the discussion and often times just let people drone on and on about nonsense, even the real stuff (to roll my own eyes at esoteric philosophies in general), uses a lot of allegorical embellishments to make their collective points.
You know... I look at something like Casshern (which I mentioned before) and clearly it is stuff like this that is the progenitor of most of these early "pulp" tropes. Though in Eva it's these tropes reversed. Like an anti-hero's journey of sorts, especially with the gender role reversals... There is a lot of this in the Mass Effect narrative arc as a whole. That's fine, it's all coming from most of the old sci-fi/sci-fan "pulp" which was an rife with esoteric influences and hipster philosophies.
The Series:
Shinji wakes up, great... if we are looking at the hero's journey this is right around supreme ordeal and seizing the sword... at best 3/4 of the way through the arc. It does not really have much in the way of a third act. It does if we assume the world is a fantasy from one end to the other. Matrix trope for the win.
EoE:
Now all this said... for me, one has to "have been" or "be" in a dark place to create effective "dark material". The EoE is a reaction of the artist and his contempt for this audience, but as far as I am concerned it is a contempt for himself as well.
He is the one "making" this shit to be consumed. Simply meta commenting on a jerk off, doesn't excuse the fact he drew it or commissioned it for the purposes of selling it, at a profit. Then again a lot of folk get their start in that industry doing porn/hentai, so it really is just another day at the office.
Shinji either becomes "Shinji" (and let me be frank on this, doesn't matter which thing we are watching, Shinji is a total pussy in my eyes), or he uses his dad's cool Frankenstein robot to murder the planet and eliminate every possible obstacle between himself and his physical desires, in turn destroying everything that could "conceivably" impact his emotional state.
For the most part doing exactly what his father wanted, only to be rejected all over again. Gendo has the same troubles, rejected by his tabula rasa version of his wife.
Alas, no matter where you are... there you are.
I think the AT-Field is interesting, again this is certainly a loaded topic in eastern influenced philosophies.
For me, this is the third act that is missing from the original series. Shinji pilots the killing machine, kills his her boyfriend, kills the world, returns to the ordinary world; and is "just Shinji" in all his looser splendor.
They are both solutions to the same problem in many respects, so as far as I am concerned, it is a giant "whatever". The interest for me lies in the dramatic contrast/polarization of the henshin trope.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SplitPersonality
This isn't any different than perhaps "Star Wars Prequels" where it could be said Anakin is total pussy who is mad at the world because he doesn't have the power to stop death, and make people love him.
It is really the only thing interesting about the prequels, same thing that is interesting about Eva, creative control to the extreme, leads to a reflection of the artist him or herself; the character study of "anakin" or "shinji" is ancillary to the meta story of the artist indulgence.
Is it an entitlement of the audience?
For me no. It is a reflection of the narcissistic nihilism that pervades the western cultures perhaps how that same "sense of the thing" is reflected in the artist themselves and the works they produce.
The joke for me is... Anno isn't above it. The original ending was the calm before the storm, that sense of "oh, so this is what it is all about".
Conquers his depression, thinks he has it all figured out... did he?
Then the fan response... and he makes a very dark very angry contemptuous work... this is coming from him as well. Comes from the same place, could almost consider a relapse of the depression.
It is an artistic expression through and through, I question whether or not he know's enough about the subject matter too "design" to it.
I think something like this handles the ideas a little better. For me there is more objectivity in the work even though it suffers from the same narrative and perhaps financial issues in the third act.
As far as ME3... like you said, although I will add lazy, lazy compounding onto lazy which culminates into a crescendo of laziness.
It's the same sort of contempt for the work, and the audience... a backtracking story dump and jazz hands to get the work over with and out the door. A piece of butter
spread real thin over 3-4 pieces of toast, and it doesn't matter. Take a dump in a box and sell it on.
It is a reflection of the culture in which the work and the conversation is being conducted. ME3 (to me) is nothing more than the reflection of the audience in which the work was sold to, a reflection of the lack of craftsmanship, an indulgence. Exercises in copy paste.
Anno, for better or for worse, plays the guru exploring depression and his own revelations as to the nature of ones identity... very eastern in that, very esoteric philosophy. Bioware's nonsense is a different cat in that (for my money) Hudson co-opting Mac, writes himself "into" a story.
It's almost like he couldn't help but jag off the ending. It's not completely hopeless, it just doesn't have anything to do with the series as a whole. Themes are wrong, genre is wrong, the game itself is mediocre at best, within 20-30 minutes the game introduces a backtrack story dump with the crucible which has no plausible in universe explanation and a matrix narrative jazz hands with space Jesus.
Check this out... worth a read rather than me going off on yet another tangent.
http://www.cracked.com/article_18817_5-reasons-future-will-be-ruled-by-b.s..html
I did know about the death threats, it has happened with other studios as well, from game shit to tv shit. Same shit happens in the states and the west in general; I am quite sure that Bioware has received death threats. The difference perhaps is in how that is "spun" as a meta vehicle to carry the I.P. into more $$$.
Like the video pointed out, there was the gas bombing, I remember that actually, so for the sake of safety I suspect it was treated a little differently and (for better or for worse) perhaps altered the work some.
On the other hand... ffs... it's Japan... otaku kids are pussies... in that states they are no more and no less pussies... but the availability of arms is considerably different thus I think it is treated differently.
Didn't Stephan King do a movie about that once?
