Pacific Rim - anyone else strangely psyched?

+1, if I may. Exactly.

The Killjoy Critics on Rotten Tomatoes are bringing its rating down (currently 77%, but it was something like 85%+ over the weekend), but it’s still going gangbusters amongst viewers.

Heh, I’ll grant you it’s not a totally original idea. But it seems to be a new original movie in the giant monster genre.

Charlie Hunnam and Idris Elba looking fine in a movie AND I get to see it in 3D? Oh my yes.

There are a lot of worse things to rip off than “Get away from her, you bitch”.

I have a friend who’s really psyched about Pacific Rim: He’s a big fan of kaiju movies, done right (hint: The American Godzilla wasn’t). Myself, I’m not psyched, but optimistic, mostly because it’s Del Toro directing (though GLaDoS doesn’t hurt, either).

Ditto.

And as mentioned it is from Guillermo del Toro. Pan’s Labyrinth was amazing.

And it’s a big ass action movie with giant robots and Cthulhu looking sea monsters!

This is not my usual kind of movie, but for some reason I AM psyched for it. I doubt I’m in the target demographic(I’m a middle aged female) but I think I’m going to go see this movie. It looks like fun, and since my life is in the pits right now I need some fun.

What character is doing that speech about “cancelling the Apocalypse” in the trailer? Sounds like the typical rousing, before battle speech.

“Today is called the feast of Crispian…”

“Today we celebrate out Independence Day!”

“Today we are cancelling the Apocalypse!”

Don’t forget Théoden’s speech

“Forth! Down fear of darkness! Arise! Arise, Riders of Théoden! Spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered! A sword day… a red day… and the sun rises! Ride now… Ride now… Ride! Ride for ruin and the world’s ending! Death!”
Brian

I’m not strangely psyched, in fact not even a little bit psyched. I didn’t grow up watching giant monster movies (all the nerds call them Kaiju, a word I’d never heard before this film), and have no particular interest in robots. The scale of everything leaves me cold, it just seems too big to me. I think I’d be more interested if it was ten foot robots vs dinosaurs.

Is it just me, or does it seem at least somewhat bizarre that mankind, faced with annihilation by a gigantic monster, would decide that the best possible solution would be to build a gigantic robot to battle the monster in hand-to-hand combat?

Japan invented the concept, and for them it probably makes a lot of sense. So I say No. I also expect that is addressed in the plot.

I’ll trust in Guillermo del Toro enough to watch it. But it looks awfully stupid from the trailers (but then I’ve never really enjoyed the genre, Voltron when I was 8 being the most engaged I ever was with it).

From the trailers, the rationale is: Monsters are big. Bombs and rockets and bullets are small. Big is stronger than small. Big wins. Therefore, we need a really big fist, so, build big robot.

But then again, real world biology could not support monsters so big and powerful on Earth. And then again, if you buy into the idea that a big robot punch is more powerful than a tactical nuke, why don’t you make a robot that’s twice the size of the monsters?

My take is this: If you want a fantasy world where the only countermeasure to giant monsters is a giant robot, go for it. Just please don’t pretend in any way that this is even remotely possible in the real world. Not only are the monsters from an alternate dimension, but this must be an alternate dimension Earth.

Saw the trailer a couple weeks ago, and immediately turned to my husband and said, “Giant mechs battling giant aliens, directed by del Toro? WE MUST SEE THIS!” He agreed, to say the least.

Maybe, with Del Torro directing I’m a little intrigued, at least beyond my initial “What the hell? They’re rebooting the Transformers?” phase.

Dude, all movie worlds are alternate dimensions.

Quoted for Truth. How often do you hear background music that matches your mood in this dimension?

See, this is why I’m psyched Charlie Day is the scientist who designs the robots. Because I can’t see him as anyone but Charlie Kelly from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, and sending giant robots to fight giant monsters is exactly the kind of solution Charlie would come up with.

Here’s what I’m talking about: Charlie Builds a Robot.

This logic is sound, as proven in the AT&T ads with the guy talking to kids.

In the comic strip Brewster Rocket this week, giant monsters attack Earth, so the mad scientist Dr. Mel makes giant robots to fight them.

Then the robots make friends with the monsters, and destroy the cities together. Whoops.