I bought this and felt I needed to give my Amazon rant about it to provide some thoughts to the public - particularly those who know the original (or who are deciding between buying this or the original!).
After being an Eva fan since the release of the original series, I used to watch (and re-watch) every episode intently, fascinated by the multilayered plot, themes and amazing sound and visuals. What we have here with Rebuild 1.11 and 2.22 are a highly desireable and well received remake of the original series that, instead of simply retouching the original, attempts to 'retell' the story in a manner more suitable for a modern audience. There are new scenes, touch ups to original scenes, a new character, a fleshed out story with some slight alterations and 'new' angels. Anno and the Eva team have done this all to create a movie length feature which can summarise 8 or 9-odd episodes worth of material from the original series. While rebuild 1.11 stays quite true to the original, 2.22 beats its own drum. The story here was designed not only to give a greater background to the bigger picture but also sets up the story toward what will be a more generic type of ending we can expect from 3.33 (ie. no unanswered questions). There is less mystery and intrigue, character commentary provides more understanding to what is going on, and much of the soul searching, depth of emotion of the original has, obviously been sacrificed to cater for a much shorter feature time. I was surprised however to see completed redesigns of certain angels, which was fresh.
I have given it 4 stars because of its freshness, storytelling and attention to detail overall. Eva has never lost its appeal after all these years and brings an original and powerful story to the anime public. The amazing mecha designs, battle scenes and plot keep you interested. Where I do feel this remake loses out in comparison to the original is in the soundtrack. I noted numerous changes to the soundtrack and the power of the original score doesn't appear to be here. While new viewers won't take notice of this, I felt a noticeable lack, particularly where the decisive battle and angel attack scores were missing - they added so much to the original but instead we are left with a silent tension in parts of the story were they would have worked to great affect. This unfortunately appears to affect both 1.11 and 2.22 and seems, to me at least, to be a strange direction choice. Happily though, unlike the DVD version of the 1.01 rebuild, the voices of Ikari and Misato (in English) have been faithfully reused and the English voices sound as they originally did.
Another change is character development, new characters and new angels. This is, of course, quite major. I have an opposing view on this. On the one hand, it certainly adds to the story, and fleshes it out more. Particular characters become more transparent, they can be better understood. On the other hand,certain other characters, such as the new Mari, parlay between an important set piece yet having no true impact to the story whatsoever. She is very much a 2D character that seems to have been thrown in to counter the undecisive, fragile persona of Shinji. While it's exciting to have a new character, I couldn't help but feeling Mari's addition was incohesive and slightly odd. She is a lively character, yet lifeless, without purpose and her movements appear to go unnoticed by NERV or SEELE. However, I can fully appreciate her addition, soley because she provides a counterpoint by which we can better weigh the character degredation of Asuka, perhaps in 3.33.
Lastly, I must say that the mystery and intrigue of the original series has been slightly compromised in the rebuilds. This may of course be to accommodate the feature length, but part of what made the original so great was the fact you could not understand many things until it was all over - rather than being able to understand it while it happens in the rebuilds. This just comes down to individual taste. While the original stays elusive, complex and dark - a mirror image of Shinji - the rebuilds are instead, straightforward, progressive, and bold.
Overall, I cannot do without the rebuilds in my collection - they are another great success for Anno. 2.22 had me glued to the tv, amazed at the changes and listening closely to pick up things I now understand better than what I did when watching the original. I love the crystal quality of the animation and the consistent pace of the story, as well as the fresh wonderful character development. But, I can't sell my old collection, ever. It has the blunt and raw power in its thematics, depth, and musical score, not to mention an intrigue the rebuilds will never match. I do think it is worth spending money to buy the rebuilds even if you own the original, just to enjoy Evangelion all over again - just be aware it lacks some of the haunting intrigue and darkness of the original.