New Rebuild Stuff
By The Eva Monkey on Saturday, September 15th, 2007
As you may have heard, Rebuild of Evangelion 1:0 “You are (not) alone” came out in theaters on September 1st in Japan. The reports have said that despite opening on only 84 screens in Japan, the first installment in the Rebuild series of films consistently sold out, and broke records for profit per theater. Over the first weekend, “You are (not) alone” managed to earn 280 million yen, or 2.4 million US Dollars, putting it at #1 in the Japanese box office.
The discussion has been interesting, from Japanese reports translated into English, to Japanese viewers with some English proficiency, to Westerners who happened to be in Japan to (among other things) see the film with our Japanese counterparts. It’s interesting to note that the discussion hasn’t focused too much on the first film, but rather the second film, and what’s going to happen in it from the divergence from the original story. For instance, Kaworu makes a brief appearance at the very end of Rebuild 1:0, which puts his appearance in the timeline just before episode 7, which is much earlier than in the series, or even the manga where he briefly appears in volume 7, placing him in the events of episode 20. In the second film, he is reported to awaken from a black coffin-like box, at Nerv’s moonbase (Huh?) and descend to Earth in Eva Unit 06. That just blows my mind. There’s also a new Unit 05, a new female character, a Unit 04 which will appeare in animation, and some rumors that Rebuild as a while may be a direct continuation from The End of Evangelion. For instance, Lilith’s blood remains on the moon, the ocean remains red, and apparently Kaworu has some memories of the previous Evangelion’s events. This is something I’m unsure of, and it may just be something that was lost or confused in translation.
As a general rule of thumb, I don’t engage in piracy here on Eva Monkey. Occasionally however, I have been known to host things that I feel that fans (and consequently the industry) would benefit from having access to.
Without further ado, I will be hosting the audio recording that managed to leak out. Yeah, it isn’t video, and yes, the quality could stand to be better, but it does allow you to follow along with the film. And a big thanks should go out to Ornette, for providing us with a breakdown of the film to follow along with the audio.
Of interest to a lot of people is the preview that played at the end of the film, showing off the new Evas and character. While a video isn’t available, a fan was good enough to edit together some old footage with drawings from memory to approximate the visuals. This video should be a first look for many people at the new Evas and character. I recommend viewing the file in either VLC or Media Player Classic. If neither of those works for you, or you’d just like to cut to the chase, I have an image of the new imagery for your convenience.
Finally, I’m not sure if this Beautiful World music video has anything new or useful, but it does appear to (despite some overlayed text) have higher quality imagery than other Rebuild videos floating around. And if you’re bored, there are tons of reviews and podcasts out there reporting and speculating about these films. Google is your friend, although I would like to plug Patrick Macias’ podcast, where his review (amusingly) plays out as a review of standing in line for the film, rather than the film itself. Also, there’s the inaugural episode of Fanboy Hell, in which I get conscripted as a guest at the last minute.