Product: Neon Genesis Evangelion - Resurrection (Director's Cut, Episodes 21-23)
Rating: 4.0
Brilliant episodes, despite ADV's attempts at sabotage.
Well, after years/months/days of waiting, it's finally here: episodes 21-23 in all their "director's cut" glory. And quite honestly, I was in the purest of ecstasies when I first purchased it. Immediately afterwards, an innumerable amount of questions raced through my head: "What could it be like? Sure, the cuts have been DESCRIBED to me, but how do I know they're not completely wrong?... God, I can't wait to get home." And so, when I was home, I quickly shoved the disk into the DVD player to see...Yes, another Anime Network ad, but that's not all! When the menu popped up on the screen, my eyes did a 180... this was not quite the menu of old. It looked the same, but it was so much cooler this time around... all grey and red and whatnot. And, as I do with all of my DVD purchases, I quickly checked the extras to find... next to nothing. Clean opening, clean closing, and... what's this? An interview about the Eva live-action movie? Well, since I expected it to be there, I decided to move onto the episodes instead of watching it first.First thing that struck me about episode 21: Holy shiite. NO MORE SUPER-IMPOSED TEXT! ADV finally decided to put a big fat brain in that space between their ears. Just seeing pure, unadulterated Japanese text in these episodes makes me yearn for the TRUE versions of episodes 25 and 26. And yes, to see the opening sequence from Death worked into an episode was truly awesome.Then came the opening theme. They retranslated the opening theme! Why should I be mad about this? Well, it's much more accurate this time around, but I must ask, why did it take them THREE translations to get to this point? And it's still flawed.But I decided not to let it get to me. Still, something was bugging me during the whole experience... of course! The episodes have been retranslated entirely! What's more, it seems Matt Greenfield, while writing the ADR script, lost his thesaurus. So often three or four of the same word will be repeated within a sentence. Yes, it bugs me, because I'm an English freak-o-matic. For example, the line "someone who keeps cats to keep loneliness at bay" is a bit to repetitive on the "keeps" for me-self.But that was fine with me, as long as the new scenes were there and were as wonderful as I expected. I'll let those of you who haven't seen the new versions know this: IT WAS BETTER THAN ANYTHING I'D EVER EXPECTED. Simply... Godlike. Then came episode 22.Asuka fans rejoice! The director's cut of this episode is truly for you. Asuka's breakdown is longer... and much better as a result. This is also the longest episode of the three, which was most likely the reason for all the cuts. But Asuka's character is finally done justice, and Lilith finally grows legs (as she should). And of course, I was ready to praise "At Least, Be Human(e)" as the best cut of the pack. However...First, let me state this. "Tear(s)", for years, has been my favorite episode of Evangelion. It provided the greatest amount of exposition on my second favorite character of the series, Rei. And it was the first death in Evangelion that was actually worthy of a tear (unless you really really liked Kaji). Well, while watching the director's cut, I discovered this: the original cut of "Tear" didn't make any sense at all! It didn't even show how Rei killed the angel! Now, with this cut, we have little Reis growing on Shinji's thumb (which sets the stage for a whole lot of End of Evangelion) and a good picture of exactly what happens when you invert an AT field while an angel's in it. And don't forget that wonderful one-frame shot of angel Rei. KABOOM! And this was all cut for TV broadcast... for no real reason at all, as far as I can see. Oh well. These little flashes of comprehension make "Tear" the best episode of the set.And so... that was an AMAZING experience. Now, as much as I hate to do so, I must overview a few other sections of the DVD. Now, please note this: I do not hate the dub of Evangelion. I, in fact, consider it to be one of the better dubs out there. And thus, what they did to it in these newly cut episodes is blasphemous. THEY RE-DUBBED IT. Not only this, but it seems that the entire reason for re-dubbing is the apparent absence of Tristan MacAvery as Gendo. Note this: not having Tristan MacAvery as Gendo in the dub is the equivalent to taking Allison Keith or Spike Spencer out. Essentially meaning they ruined it. This new guy has an accent... boy, is it annoying. Luckily, however, Allison Keith, Spike Spencer, Amanda Winn-Lee, and Tiffany Grant are still here. Speaking of Tiffany Grant, take a look at episode 22. Her performance is ASTOUNDING. This also further proves my theory that the more Tiffany Grant performs as Asuka, the better she gets. Unfortunately, Allison Keith's Misato doesn't seem very excited about redubbing. I wouldn't be excited about redubbing either if I did the exact same crap two years earlier for Death and Rebirth.So I had basically finished watching the episodes in both forms. Now I needed to check out that interview. Very surprisingly... it actually made me excited for the live-action Eva movie. The designs were astoundingly detailed and... quite well done. In fact, I can't wait until it comes out. However, if anyone says "Evan-JEL-ion," I'm going to run out of the theater.Overall, despite ADV's constant attempts to sabotage the project, the episodes alone garner the DVD four stars.