Rating: 
Summary: The Beginning of the End
Review: Evangelion is undoubtably one of the most original mecha series to come out of Japan in a while. With that in mind, Evangelion became immensily popular, despite it's very disturbing imagery and storytelling. Therefore, when this double-feature arrived in theaters, it obviously drew a huge crowd.Death and Rebirth is sort of a look back and forward at the Evangelion saga. Evangelion Death is not really a compilation of the series, but more of musical montage. It starts out with new footage of the Second Impact and eventually goes through a couple of scenes that were deleted from the TV series. Evangelion Rebirth is actually the first third of the End of Evangelion film. The point of this is so that the audiance can get a taste of what to come. And if this doesn't entice you to see the End of Evangelion film, nothing will. What was a little surprising for me was that Manga entertainment kept everything of this title in tact. Everything from the original film is here. Even the 5 minute intermission sequence is kept in. But what really surprised me was they kept one of the most contriversial scenes in the film. Which is obviously the scene where Shinji is in Auska's hospital room (nuff said). The English dub of Death and Rebirth is really a mixed bag. Some of the voices are from the original series and some are not. Even more, the roars of the Evangelion had to be dubbed cause they were on the Japanese language track only. I am still pretty impressed at how great a job Spike Spencer does with Shinji in Death and Rebirth. Manga Entertainment pulled out all the stops on this DVD. First of all, the disc is double sided. The first side features the feature film and the second side has the extras. The extras include Maji Files, which has everything you want to know on Evangelion in there, Audio Commentary by the English cast (pretty funny), original trailers (makes it worth buying) and the End of Evangelion trailer. What more could you possibly want a DVD? Overall, Evangelion Death and Rebirth is one of Manga's best DVD features ever. If you can't wait for End of Evangelion (who can?) then get this now. Even if you already have seen it, go out and buy it still. It's worth it.
Rating:
Summary: love song for great series
Review: This movie is a great homage to the Evangelion series. A lot of the scenes are redrawn and look amazing. You almost take it for granted it looks so much like the original scenes. While, you only see a little bit of new footage, it's really cool to see all your favorite scenes put together all fancy. If you only want the 15 minutes of End of Eva you should probably wait till End of Eva comes out because it will most likely be included on it. Thank god Manga got a hold of this instead of ADV.
Rating: 
Summary: A Marketing Rip-Off!
Review: Ok, I'll cut to the chase: this disk is about 70% recycled content. Basically, they have taken the series and boiled it down to an hour and 30 minutes or so. Mind you, it is the better parts of the series, all brought together, but really, do we need to pay to see that after we've bought the whole series? My take is that they sought to break up the real movie (End of Evangelion) on to two disks in order to jack the price. The last 30-40 minutes is new stuff that tells of the story after the Angels are all defeated (read the synopsis). It IS fantastic stuff, probably best action in the series. The problem is that it ends at a completely arbitrary point that can hardly be called a cliff-hanger. Manga entertainment should have just added this to the End of Evangelion and called that the moive. One final gripe: the movie is in wide-screen, but it is not anamorphic. Shame on you Manga! It is clear that you boffed this one!...
Rating: 
Summary: Video is blurry but otherwise OK
Review: If you are a fan of Neon Genesis Evangelion (EVA) you should probably pick up this title. I am a hard-core EVA fan and I liked it very much. I liked the original ending to the TV series as well. Some questions are answered and some more are asked. But, you know, that's OK. For me, EVA is about finding your place in the universe. You will never have all the answers in real life either. The EVA TV series was brilliant and Death & Rebirth is brilliant as well. I strongly recommend seeing the TV series first. If you are not already familiar with the story, you will get very lost very fast. Also, parents should know this is no kids cartoon. Some very mature themes run through this story. And, much like the last two episodes of the TV series, this movie should be worth an honorary degree in psychology from Osaka University. The presentation on the DVD is acceptable but the video was very "blurry" on my system. I tried it on another system and it was still "blurry." Objects in the center foreground are in sharp focus, though. This leads me to believe there is either a problem with the DVD encoding or the optics on the telecine used to make the master. This DVD would not have passed my quality control standards. But, to be fair, the end result is only slightly annoying and not bad enough to ruin enjoyment of the DVD. Bottom line: I heartily recommend this DVD to any EVA fan. Those who are unfamiliar with the series will find themselves completely lost. There are some minor, yet distracting video problems which force me to give this otherwise excellent DVD only 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Fills me with EXCITEMENT!
Review: Wow, this movie is the beginning of the alternate ending for the Neon Genesis Evangelion Series. It definitely whet my appetite for End Of Evangelion. The first half is a summary of events up to the last DVD with some added content. The second half continues the story on the alternate path. I believe this ending will be MUCH better than the original one and I cannot wait to recieve my copy of End Of Evangelion in September. This is a MUST-OWN for any Neon Genesis fan.
Rating:
Summary: The begining of the end
Review: "Death and Rebirth" was a great begining to the 2 part ending of evangelion. If you had already seen the series and now what is all about death is a little slow. When you get to Rebirth things really start to heat up. The end of rebirth was well done as how it set you up for "The End of Evengelion", you will be left gripping the arms of your chair and wanting more. If you like Evangelion youll love "Death and Rebirth".
Rating:
Summary: Death & Rebirth the best before the worst
Review: Neon Genesis Evangelion - Death & Rebirth, Probably the best half of the evangelion movie! Giving a recap of the TV series and a further 25 minutes or more of extra footage leading up to the big finale at which point we're left at a cliff hanger ready for end of evangelion.....sadly this is where it starts going down hill. I'd recommend this DVD to all Evangelion Fans but I won't be recommending End of evangelion as I believe this to be a total waste of time, deep evangelion fans my disagree but I personally find the deep meaning religious overload of an ending a bit well...totally OTT and a mess of what was going on in the directors head at the time. All in All good start disappointing finish.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing end to a good series
Review: I enjoyed the Evangelion series, but was sorely disappointed by the ending. Not only is it disjointed and largely incomprehensible, but it is a profound anticlimax, the series deserves better. As the plot becomes less involved in external events (which rapidly begin to leave behind the strictures of even the most basic logic anyway) and more in the minds of the characters (always my lease favorite part of the series) we are forced to deal with more of the least attractive parts of the series, Shinji's whiny self-absorption, Rei's withdrawl from reality, and Asuka's bipolar depression and rage. If you liked the series up to this point, stop before watching this "ending" - whatever you may imagine as the end has to be better than what they came out with.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Marketing Tactic
Review: With the controversial ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion, it is easy to see why no one liked it. It doesn't quite end on a cliffhanger, but instead of answering questions, it simply asks more questions without really answering any of them. For this same reason, I expect many people to not enjoy Death and Rebirth. Very few questions are answered, and what's more, very little of the animation is original. The one department which this excels is in the editing. Death and Rebirth is to Evangelion as uncut heroin is to the heroin that is actually injected. It concentrates the essential parts of the twenty-six episodes in the series into a couple hours. If you don't want to watch the entire twenty-six episode series in order to understand The End of Evangelion, then this will be a great primer. If, however, you have already have your suspicions on how Shinji, the Human Instrumentality Project, SEELE, and the Angels fit together, I recommend waiting until The End of Evangelion comes out so it can warp your thinking even more.
Rating:
Summary: Recap of the best anime ever
Review: Evangelion - Death & Rebirth is the "must have" DVD of year! The entire series of Evangelion is recapped and new animations sequences are added. Didn't understand something? Had to keep rewinding to make sure you heard right? All you questions will be answered here...and of course new ones will be formed!
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