Erm, he actually says the opposite.
Paraphrasing, he says that nobody would have imagined him and his brother as heroes, but for two things, they could hold their own in a fight, and they were drift compatible.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure the line was that they weren’t the greatest athletes in school and they weren’t the top of their class academically, but that they could hold their own in a fight and they were drift compatible.
Regarding Pentecost drifting with Aussie son, despite never having done so before, my thoughts watching the movie were:
- Pentecost was the only person (other than Raleigh) who had successfully piloted a Yaeger solo - so maybe he’s a little more flexible as to who he can drift with.
- I got the (probably incorrect) impression that maybe Pentecost had drifted with Aussie dad in the past back near the beginning of the Yaeger program. So since dad and son are drift compatible, and dad and Pentecost are compatible, then son and Pentecost are as well.
There’s a big difference between “can hold their own” and “the greatest”. There are plenty of MMA champions and decorated veterans out there who got passed over in favor of the brothers.
And they said some things about the alloys the Jägers are made out of-- I didn’t catch all of it, but there was something about titanium, at least. And really, they have to be strong to stand up to kaiju-- They’re designed that way, and damn the cost. In any event, even if “unobtainium” is overstating it, the point is that they’re still a heck of a lot stronger than shipping containers.
To be clear also, I’m not criticizing because of a dislike of the movie. Fact is, I did like it. It was a good action flick. I just didn’t like it as much as I might have, and it could have been even better.
Yes, there are plenty of combat specialists. But the important thing about the Beckets is that they were good at combat and were drift compatable.
The movie says multiple times that drift compatability is the vital component. They mention how rare it is. They line up dozens and dozens of candidates for Raleigh in the hopes of finding one who is drift compatable. It turns out that Mako is compatable and the drift almost ends in disaster anyway. The movie demonstrates this again and again.
Stacker’s compatability is specifically called out as exceptional. It’s not a plot hole; it’s characterization.
And Gipsy Danger hit the kaiju with its fists. There were just shipping containers in them making them heavier. This is why quarterolls are used in fistfights.
Man, how did I miss this? My hat’s off to you for this beautiful piece of literature, obfusciatrist. I’ll have to write it down, or maybe even make it (part of) my signature!
In addition, it’s already been established, via Raleigh’s assessment of Mako, that veteran pilots are pretty good at sizing up potential drift compatbility. And Stacker is specifically given dialogue demonstrating that he understands Aussie Kid on a deeper level than Aussie Kid even knows himself (“I figured you out day one”), with the strong implication that this, plus his solo experiences, gives him confidence that they will be drift compatible.
Very interesting blog post on The Visual Intelligence of Pacific Rim. It suggests, for example, that a lot of the most interesting characterization (including that of the Russian pilots) happens wordlessly. It strongly rejects the idea that the movie is dumb.
Worth a read.
Although I’d agree with that article’s points, I actually do think that Mako needed more dialogue in the Jaeger cockpit. About the only dialogue she has is when she reveals Gipsy’s sword.
Raleigh is shouting stuff the entire time; some of his lines could’ve easily been switched to Mako, making her seem more of an equal partner. In particular, I think it should’ve been her telling Raleigh that they could follow Stacker’s last orders since Gipsy is a walking nuclear reactor – after all, she’s the one who rebuilt it (with improved powerplant). And it is her foster father’s last order; she was all in about avenging her family, so she should’ve been likewise about Stacker’s death.
She was in charge of the upgrade/restoration program, though – she put it in because it would be useful and she’s a swordmaker even if it wouldn’t be her using it.
My interpretation is that Raleigh knew about the sword, possibly had even been briefed on it at some point, and then just forgot about it because Gipsy was his old ride and he knew her inside and out from back then, and was too busy being a badass and avenging Yancy to bother remembering the upgrades.
They’re perfectly compatible, she just has extreme PTSD and got stuck in the bad memories. He grounded them because he didn’t trust her to control her emotions, and was looking for any excuse to keep his adopted daughter out of the fight.
- I think it’s more that Pentecost is a burned-out shell of a man (possibly because of his solo jaunt), and has given up on such things as feelings.
- That’s a reasonable interpretation, but it seems upon further reflection that “jackass with daddy issues” is a pretty common trait in the jaeger business, and he’s learned to deal with it and/or is everybody’s dad. Hence the “and I figured you out on day one” line.
Personally, I think that’s a brilliant bit of characterization – Raleigh’s yelling, and Mako’s standing there thinking at him Dude, we can read each other’s minds, you don’t have to shout.
IMO, the best parts are the subtle bits. Right seat is senior pilot because most people are right-handed; Raleigh taking the right seat was him metaphorically stepping into the elder sibling role for Mako after losing his own big brother.
Similarly, Sasha is on the right in Cherno Alpha, and obviously the command pilot. Strong female characters/Russian wives, hee.
Also the Russians’ names basically translate to Alex and Alyx (Sasha is literally “Alex,” “Aleksis” is not actually a name but basically Alex); wife has boy’s name and husband has girly different-for-the-sake-of-being-different name. It’s like Roberta going by Bob and Robert going by Bobbie. According to the writer, this was a conscious decision; obviously, being mobsters, those aren’t their real names, and they chose them to mess with people.
It’s explained it more detail in the novelization; basically it’s trying to read his mind and get more jaeger-knowledge out of him.
To make a metaphor: you were on the right track, but it’s more that jaegers are F-15Es and kaiju are Reaper drones.
There’s a neat Pacific Rim homage song/fanvid up on the Escapist this week. Possible spoilers in the vid.
The point I was making was: we see that they are perfectly drift-compatable, and even so their drift goes horribly wrong. I had been replying to someone complaining that for all the talk about how important drift-compatability was, it wasn’t an issue for anyone.
It was an issue, even for the pair that was obviously compatable. If their drift can go so wrong, that tells us that non-compatable pairs would be worse.
Presumably, since we hear how far off % Raleigh & Mako are on being in sync, other would-be drifters just start out there and never recover.
Also: Raleigh took the right side because his left arm was still messed up from Knifehead’s attack; that’s what he’s saying when Mako walks into the cockpit. Raleigh actually has horrible luck with whatever arm of the Jaeger he’s controlling – Gipsy’s right arm then promptly gets chomped off in the trench.
That’s not mutually exclusive with Gunslinger’s point, though - Raleigh’s injured arm is presented as the “plot” reason he takes the right side, but that conveniently also reinforces the thematic point that he is taking the senior position in the jaeger, taking Mako under his wing while simultaneously paying tribute to his brother.
IOW, it’s a perfect example of why “Pacific Rim” is smarter than most people who saw it think - beyond the (intentionally) cheesy dialogue, Del Toro engages in a great deal of visual storytelling, which reinforces the deeper themes of the movie without needing to spell them out explicitly. The blog post linked to by Left Hand of Dorkness describes several other good examples of this.
I don’t think that the right position is necessarily the senior or dominant pilot position, though. Chuck took the left, but was portrayed as the dominant partner when with Herc; it’s only with Stacker that he wasn’t the dominant pilot. And the dominant pilot in Crimson Typhoon seems to be the guy behind the other two; he’s the one who calls out their signature move. And it’s debatable who was in charge with Yancy and Raleigh – it’s Raleigh who pushes the strategy; Yancy just agrees with the plan.
But, agreed on the visuals. The establishing shot of Mako demurely concealed beneath an umbrella in the rain conveys an entire character in visual shorthand without either dialogue or action occurring.
Sure, but Crimson Typhoon literally has two right-hand men.
I think Godzilla could be easily explained since they’ve already introduced the idea of extra dimensional portals(the breach). The movie makers could just interject the idea of dual timelines or something like that.
The crossover idea has vast potential in my opinion. They could introduce a new super jaeger and name it jet jaguar and have it fight along side of Godzilla against a series of other kaiju the final one being a class 7 that looks suspiciously like Megalon.
My friend the kaiju fan totally-not-obsessed-about-Pacific-Rim tells me that Del Toro has dropped hints that the sequel idea involves the parts of Gipsy Danger left in the Anteverse being incorporated into new kaiju designs. Dunno if that means mecha-kaiju or piloted kaiju or if it’s a big ol’ fakeout. Apparently a sequel is likely, because of how stunningly well it did in China.
… assuming Legendary ever sees any of the $ from China.
Heh.
Meanwhile, it’s just occurred to me that the Wall actually made sense. No, it couldn’t stop a kaiju attack, but that wasn’t actually its purpose.
Think about the position we were in at the time we started building it: We’d been at war for twenty years with an enemy that could destroy cities nearly on demand; the best defense we have against them (which doesn’t even always work) is probably killing even more people than the kaiju themselves do; and we don’t have any real means of offense available. Any sane person could have concluded that it was time to surrender. But how? We don’t know their language, and we don’t know what they want.
So we communicate by what we do, instead. We make them an offer, and see if they accept it. In this case, the offer was “You can keep the entire Pacific Ocean, and we’ll stay over here on this side of the wall and not bother you any more”. Side benefit, it can be spun as not an actual surrender, if some of your people are testy about that. It was probably about the best offer we could make. Unfortunately, they rejected the offer.
Well since it had been proven before that conventional weapons could, over time, have some effect on the critters (and even kill them) they should probably have put 16" - 18" or bigger naval gun turrets, MLRS emplacements, etc. on top of the walls as well. No, in the long run it still wouldn’t have stopped the critters, but it would have given the SFX team another chance to show us awesome shit blowing up for a few seconds.
You do see giant turrets atop the Wall in one of the shots in the movie. And giant turrets at the Shatterdome, too. Mutavore still broke through.
According to the background info on the wiki, it seems the Wall was intended to slow the kaiju enough for them to be nuked to death. The wiki also says that the Jaeger program started because they’d had to nuke the prior Kaiju, and the contamination was becoming a problem.