I did not watch the original 26 episodes series but I watched in these days all Evangelion films, because of the high ratings: Death and Rebirth (a recompilation of the original series), The End (a rewriting of the End of the series, still considered one of the best Anime ever), and then the last three, 1 and 2 which reboot the series apparently without mayor changes, and 3 which goes in new territories. At first I will write about Evangelion in general, and then about this specific movie here. In all Evangelion the writer touched any possible demagogic stereotype and cliché on earth: father/son relationship, Oedipus complex, a bit of the typical Manga Style sexuality, cheap psychology, and a huge amount of very cheap esoterism with symbolisms of all kind. My opinion? A big omelet of everything, which finally means absolutely nothing. Wiki says that after the failure of his previous works (which he judged as childish) he wanted to make something "deeper". My impression is that he did not even try to BE deeper, rather just to SEEM deeper in order to impress the audience. And I am afraid that only the Naive could be impressed by such a confused mess.
I can still see why this show had success: Evas are cool, fights too, and there is enough mix of drama, action, teenage nerd sexuality in the typical Japanese style, and some sort of epic. I suppose that if you are younger than me and without any knowledge of psychology or esoterism, and a bit nerd, you may enjoy this works pretty much more than I did.
About this film: well, the first half is just a recompilation of episodes of the series, and the second part is a preview of the movie "End of Evangelion", so I would say: watch the first half. If you like it, you can watch directly End of Evangelion skipping the last part of this movie. I personally did so. The first half of this, then the End, then 1 and 2 (reboot of the Series), and then the horrible 3. Even if I am sure that watching the whole series would be a more complete experience, the vision of this recompilation and of the reboot 1 and 2 gave me enough not to feel I miss the series, and showed me that I may not like the series so much to dedicate to it more time.
I can still see why this show had success: Evas are cool, fights too, and there is enough mix of drama, action, teenage nerd sexuality in the typical Japanese style, and some sort of epic. I suppose that if you are younger than me and without any knowledge of psychology or esoterism, and a bit nerd, you may enjoy this works pretty much more than I did.
About this film: well, the first half is just a recompilation of episodes of the series, and the second part is a preview of the movie "End of Evangelion", so I would say: watch the first half. If you like it, you can watch directly End of Evangelion skipping the last part of this movie. I personally did so. The first half of this, then the End, then 1 and 2 (reboot of the Series), and then the horrible 3. Even if I am sure that watching the whole series would be a more complete experience, the vision of this recompilation and of the reboot 1 and 2 gave me enough not to feel I miss the series, and showed me that I may not like the series so much to dedicate to it more time.