I would suggest waiting, yeah. Make sure it's a good copy.
My first impressions are a mixed bag. To begin with I thought the compression at the very beginning harmed the story. Shinji is in that cockpit so damned fast (perhaps some more character work and space at the start would have helped, the original is beautifully structured), and there are a couple of elements that added greatly to the original's sense of purpose that are curiously omitted (Eva acting of it's own will to protect Shinji, and him staring directly into its eye), perhaps for inclusion in some form later. I also felt the loss of some of the humour. Although we get Misato's welcoming party repeated in its entirety it stands out in a movie that doesn't pace its humour throughout.
But then there are already glimpses of a different kind of Eva, one that's much kinder. Misato shows Lilith to Shinji far, far earlier in the story, and explains a great deal more to him. He also has several unexpected moments of support, also mainly from Misato, but also in the form of a great insertion with Aida and Suzuhara. Operation Yashima is hugely bolstered by additional material, in fact the set-piece battles all benefit from the additional budget. And Tokyo 3 looks incredible, the film has a real sense of geography with a much grander scope and sense of more at stake with frequent cutbacks to civilians going about their lives.
Things I loved: Pen Pen. The next episode segment with Misato's promises of more fan service (brilliant idea to keep that stuff in). Kaworu making an unexpected entrance. Seele being featured throughout in audio-only conference mode. Shinji actually being allowed a moment of more overt heroism as he crawls back up to pick up the positron cannon (he was always a hero to me, but this is much more of a classic hero moment). Misato's impassioned speech to Gendo to believe in his son.
So far this is very faithful to the original, with many reused shots and whole sections of animation taken from the series. I guess that stuff was never broken in the first place and so doesn't need any fixing, but there are noticeable differences in the quality of the animation between the older and new material.
Things promise to divert from the original story considerably with the second movie, however. Check out the amount of new material in the next episode segment... |
