Ah yes, the Kaiju-ity (sorry) of the movie’s compassionate soul which contrives through the medium of the plot structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other, and one is left with a profound and vivid insight into … into … er … into whatever it was the movie was about!
I’d say that too, though. Just to see who fell for it.
Y’know, there the “death of the author,” and there’s dragging the author out to the street and hanging him. :dubious:
Just watched this, thought it was awesome. Like a lot of you i don’t think we got enough crimson typhoon and cherno alpha, it was kinda lame they went down like bitches in what was basically an even fight.
Not being that familiar with Soccer (ie Football) rules, when Gypsy Danger landed on the football pitch after seemingly falling from orbit, was he offsides?
Is that like, a yellow card or something?
Funny, they don’t look kaijuish.
We finally got to see it, and I agree with almost all the criticisms, and yet also heartily agree with the dismissals. I got to see giant mechs punching giant monsters in the mouth! Mission accomplished.
I am thinking that this is the end of 3D for me. I feel like it made tricky (but not horrible Transformers-level) action scenes all the more hard to follow for me. Plus, I’m just old fashioned. “Back in my day, we could look at any part of the screen we fancied, without getting a headache! You kids get off my lawn!”
(I am also rather amused that, in restrospect, there was a fair amount of screen time in which the main background image was a big ol’ kaiju vulva. But sadly, that was the second-greatest female presence in the movie.)
Marshall to Raleigh: You and I are the only two people who’ve ever piloted a Jeager solo. That’s why I wanted you here.
(Raleigh didn’t respond to this, but it should have gone like this…)
Raleigh: So, you want me to pilot a Jaeger solo.
Marshal: No. Why the hell would you think that?
Like how the triplets kept ‘checking Raleigh out’ if you know what I mean. Watch for it, you’ll see it.
Turn off brain, and enjoy.
My big issue was that “hero” and “aussie dickwad” both looked alike in that “Robert Redford -> Brad Pitt -> Chris Pine” sort of way and I really couldn’t tell them apart.
And I say “hero” and “aussie dickwad” because after half the movie, I figured out Raleigh’s name, and I still don’t know aussie dickwad’s name. Nor do I care.
I’ve been looking forward to this movie for months, and I enjoyed the heck out of it. I agree with the criticisms, but they’re overpowered by the GIANT ROBOTS PUNCHING MONSTERS that I came for.
I’m actually tempted to see it in 3D, which is almost never the case for me.
Aussie Daddy: I know this is a suicide mission for you, son, and since I’ve been in your mind, I know… <gives son a look that says: I know you love me and you don’t have to say it or break down crying in front of the others and break your over-the-top douchebag dickwaddiness>
Aussie Son: Great, I’ll save my affection for the dog. <gives dog a deep kiss>
I saw it last night, and enjoyed it.
The jaeger controls were a minor bother. I can understand neural controls, I can understand physical controls - but BOTH? I suppose you could say it is for redundancy or something (again a minor thing)
The 1st kaiju were taken down by planes and tanks. Don’t see why planes and tanks couldn’t supplement jaegers. (not to mention nuking them form orbit…)
I think the “romance” was done very well.
Brian
It was big. It was dumb. It was fun.
I don’t think it will be so good on BD / DVD: I think it needs that element of size.
I think that was actually one of the in-jokes:
Raleigh, Yancy, Stacker, Herc, Chuck.
Pick out the non-overwrought name, and you’ve found the aussie dickwad.
Pacific Rim Neuroscience:
The compatibility of two people to link their thoughts, their personalities, and their brain activity can be determined by a draw in a fight with sticks.
It being the only test was dumb but it being a test of compatibility I thought was pretty interesting. The test should have been how long they could go without scoring on each other–showing ability to get in the other’s head.
It’s a major motion picture. The over/under is usually about an hour into the movie before the two leads score with each other.
ETA: Oh, on each other, not with. I guess that makes clean up a bit harder.
I just saw it last night, and it was almost exactly what I expected of it. It really is about as close to a live-action anime as I’ve ever seen. In that regard, I think a lot of the complaints about story and physics and design and all are actually exceedingly well done, because they’re very much exactly how I would expect them to have been done if the same movie were animated. Or the general ridiculousness of the technology. They did an awesome job of building a somewhat distopian yet still cyberpunk near-future world.
Some of the understated parts were really amazing. Like LHoD pointed out upthread, the whole “oh yeah, I have wings.” "Oh YEAH!? I’ve got a sword and the subsequent flaming fall to the Eath. It’s completely ridiculous, but it’s exactly the sort of thing that happens often in anime and makes sense in a childlike awesome monster fight sort of way. In anime, I also often notice how ridiculously stereotyped certain other nationalities, and certain types of roles are. For instance, the Russians, from the characters themselves to the appearance and function and oldness of their Jaeger or Ron Perlman’s character, similarly, could have been animated exactly as they were and fit in perfectly. And the romance between Mako and Raleigh was done.
And, of course, the fight scenes were spectacular; unlike some other recent films, it was clear that they got the full budget on the screen in some of the most visually stunning action sequences I’ve ever seen. There were several points where the splash and lens flare or the darkness made it a bit difficult to follow what was happening. I would have liked some more fighting in day light to get a better view of the combatants, and I similarly would have liked to have seen more of the other Jaegers, but those are relatively minor complaints in the face of how awesome the scenes were and, really, the other Jaegers pretty much had to be trashed like that to make the other two crews seem that much more bad ass.
Really, my only real complaint was about the scientist subplot. For the most part it works, in a ridiculous anime sort of way, but revealing that they had tried to nuke the rift multiple times with no success and that was their great plan again without any alteration really just made them all look stupid. I would have prefered a slight twist. Perhaps they hadn’t tried it, say, out of fear of quakes and tsunamis and thinking they had it mostly under control, but revealing that the events were soon going to escalate exponentially was making them desperate. Or maybe they had tried it but after realizing they were cloned and being sent by another force, realized that they’d have to go through and blow up the source, but not realizing it required the Kaiju DNA part.
Regardless, it’s a nearly perfect live-action translation of a anime mechs vs monsters anime and, as such, extraordinarily well done, very enjoyable, and definitely worth seeing in IMAX 3D. It’s definitely not a best picture candidate or whatever but it’s a lot of fun and my second favorite film this summer behind Man of Steel. I really hope the box office returns internationally pick up it’s current dismal showing since, at this rate, the studio could lose $200M+ and it definitely doesn’t deserve to be that kind of bomb other than perhaps the terrible job they did marketing it.
Speaking of the nuke-the-portal plot/mission at then end, something I forgot to mention in my earlier remarks. they mentioned something about only being able to go through the portal if it were inside kaiju bio material or something like that. I fully expected Gipsy Danger to grab the kaiju it gutted snout to tail with the sword and wrap it around itself like a raincoat before jumping into the rift.
That’s not what happend of course, but that’s what I expected. 
Kaiju have DNA?