Like the fact that you've embraced the changes brought on by Rebuild. But I don't think that it's fair comparing the original to the new one. Common, it's a big movie budget versus...uh... still frames?
Rather an excellent apocalyptic humongous mecha movie with broken down characters against a breath-taking mind screw psychological analogy of the end of the world with living encyclopedias of psychological traumas overall as of 2.0 i find rebuild more entertaining, satisfying and lovable but it certainly isnt as ground-breaking and innovative as the original .If eva had been released more similar to rebuild since the beginning it could probably be considered an amazing anime but would never have been the phenomenon that neon eva was and is. My thoughts with rebuild is that yes it is dumbed-down but, bear in mind that neon eva was already very intellectual, actually too intellectual so it isnt necessary a bad thing. I cant decide whether i like mari or not, she seems interesting but she lacked characterization and evidently was put for novelty hopefully shell be more on the spotlight in the next movies. As for Kaworu appearing earlier is one great idea as well as Asuka piloting Unit 3, these add more drama and helps the characterization developing the turns that on the original happen too fast for at least me to care and perhaps this time using better those two particular interesting characters that ended up wasted in the originals. I think this movies are a great opportunity for the franchise to clean the defects it originally had and perhaps finnally becoming the near perfect anime it almost was (the original ending murderaped the whole series: talking ISNT a good resolution no matter what phylosofical ideas it revolves, ive never seen end of evangelion but the way it has been described to me it hardly seems like afitting ending)
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This review applies to the first film only..
I am not an anime fan. However, the constant raving about Evangelion made me bite the bullet and take a chance. So I bought a copy of the rebuild 1.0.
I loved it. It was dark and angsty, but not excessive. The misery was realistic and understandable (being that the whole premise of the show is to deconstruct the whole Falling-Into-The-Cockpit cliche and show how awful such a situation would actually be). The animation was impressive too.
I recently purchased the box set of the original series, and although the original and rebuild 1.0 are different continuities, I have to say I find the rebuild more effective. The tone of the first six episodes of Eva is lighter and more inconsistent, wheras the Rebuild is more forward with its dark approach. The fact that there is less space within a film (time-wise) actually means that the characterization is, in my judgement, more effective. It goes straight to the core issues of each character and doesn't pad things out. Yes, this may be dangerously close to Flanderization, and some people may scream 'dumbing down,' but the overall effect is a starker characterization boiled down to the essentials.
What must be singled out for praise is the improvement in the production. The battle against Ramiel (the big diamond Angel) is absolutely stunning and very, very tense. Comparing against the original; there is no comparison.
In short, this non-anime-watcher would have to say the rebuild 1.0 is very much a distillation. The absolute essentials of Eva episodes 1 to 6 (with of course some changes for continuity purposes) boiled down to their tense, angsty, dark essentials. Consistent characterization, excellent technical detail, and a more mature feel make it quite clear that this work is fundamentally Evangelion.
Would a hardcore Eva fan like it? I am not in a position to answer that question. But I was impressed. Greatly.