![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Pacific Rim (2013)
I really love the world of this movie: the claustrophobia of giant walls going up, the success then failure of the jaegers, how so many people were exhausted and tired of fighting, instead of just encountering the threat for the first time. It also gets points for having more than one speaking role for POC. On the other hand, I wish more of the supporting cast were POC as well and that Mako had more to do.
I'm also surprised that I've found little to no comparisons to anime in the write ups I've seen on my network! I know both Guillermo del Toro has said the movie is not based on Evangelion, and Travis Beacham says he wrote the bulk of the script before having seen the show/movies/franchise, but it feels as though the influence of the show is everywhere.
That said, I think Pacific Rim mostly adopts the parts of Evangelion that are a take on other mecha anime, as opposed to the philosophical and religious stuff. This is a plus for me, as I found Evangelion very Deep and Thoughtful in high school and.. not so much as I have gotten much older. I do still have a lot of nostalgic fondness for the series, however, and I love its take on mecha tropes.
Pacific Rim does a lot of similar things with regard to the logistics of having giant battle mecha; as with Evangelion, we see much more of the command center, of the massive amount of people necessary to keep all the jaegers in working condition, the engineering required just to deploy them for battle and etc. Logistics! I like them. One of my favorite bits of the movie was watching the jaegers be lifted out to the battlefield by helicopters, then dropped into the water, the emphasis on how the jaegers weren't entirely self-sufficient, and also the giant sound they make as they hit the water.
I really love how much weight the jaegers and kaiju have in the movie, in a literal sense. With anime and a lot of CG, it's so easy to have the large-scale battles feel effortless in a way, and Pacific Rim has the jaegers and kaiju look and sound heavy enough that when they do clash, it feels massive.
Aside from the logistics, other things that reminded me of Evangelion: the way the kaiju are all individually named and different from each other and how the people never know when an attack will come, and then the entire compatibility/synch rate thing.
Also, I laughed so hard when one of the jaegers' breastplates opened up to reveal a ton of artillery: hello Heavyarms! The jaegers for each country felt very Gundam Wing as well.
I can see why a lot of people love Mako. I think I love the idea of her more than the actual execution; she could so easily be the center around which the movie revolves, but despite the script giving her a good sparring scene, some excellent bits with Stacker Pentecost, and that sword thing (yesssss!), she felt very passive to me for most of the movie. Some of it is her silence and how many shots of her are on her reaction to other things going on. I wanted a lot more of her relationship with Stacker, along with more of her taking initiative inside the jaeger, and I was especially frustrated when Raleigh jettisoned her from the jaeger before the self-destruct sequence. Also, possibly I was expecting less Mako-Raleigh due to reading an interview or two before seeing it. I can see it as platonic, but I think weird moments of romance-ish-ness creep in, and I'm not sure how much of it is me being so used to the male and female leads getting together that I read more into it and how much is actual subtext. Mostly I'm thinking of that moment when she's watching him go around topless from the peephole in her door, as well as that weird bit where he fights the other pilot for insulting her while she just stands back, watching.
While I really love that one of the main relationships of the movie is between two POC, I wish they had had more POC in the secondary speaking roles. Obviously, if Raleigh's character had been POC, that would be awesome, but couldn't they at least have had one of the scientists be POC? Or more of the pilots with actual speaking roles? It's nice that the guy playing Tendo Choi is a man of color, but it would have been nicer if he had actually been mixed-race Asian. Re: Hannibal Chau, part of me is glad that at least the Hong Kong crime lord isn't Chinese, but it'd be nice to skip the Hong Kong gangster thing all together.
Unsurprisingly, I think Stacker Pentecost is BEST. Am glad that he gets a lot of screentime and importance before being the black guy sacrificing himself for people, but I really wish he didn't end up dead.
I really wanted more of the world after watching the movie, so I checked out the Tales from Year One comic. Alas, while it had some good backstory, I found it largely skippable and rather annoying.
Yay more women? On the other hand, it'd be nice if the majority of them weren't love interests or dead. I especially wish that the one about the scientist who developed the neural link thing was from her POV instead of her regretful ex-lover's, and having the narrator be a former jaeger pilot groupie who nearly broke up the Bennet brothers was even more annoying.
Was even more annoyed at the portrayal of Tendo's grandfather, who is dressed in old-style Chinese clothing as a way to make it really clear to the reader that he's Chinese? Also, dear Pacific Rim wiki, his name is NOT Yeye Choi, and saying "his grandfather Yeye" is redundant.
The art is also too comic-y; one of the things I loved about the movie was how dirty and worn and used everything felt, and not in the Christopher Nolan/GRRM grimdark way.
I'm also surprised that I've found little to no comparisons to anime in the write ups I've seen on my network! I know both Guillermo del Toro has said the movie is not based on Evangelion, and Travis Beacham says he wrote the bulk of the script before having seen the show/movies/franchise, but it feels as though the influence of the show is everywhere.
That said, I think Pacific Rim mostly adopts the parts of Evangelion that are a take on other mecha anime, as opposed to the philosophical and religious stuff. This is a plus for me, as I found Evangelion very Deep and Thoughtful in high school and.. not so much as I have gotten much older. I do still have a lot of nostalgic fondness for the series, however, and I love its take on mecha tropes.
Pacific Rim does a lot of similar things with regard to the logistics of having giant battle mecha; as with Evangelion, we see much more of the command center, of the massive amount of people necessary to keep all the jaegers in working condition, the engineering required just to deploy them for battle and etc. Logistics! I like them. One of my favorite bits of the movie was watching the jaegers be lifted out to the battlefield by helicopters, then dropped into the water, the emphasis on how the jaegers weren't entirely self-sufficient, and also the giant sound they make as they hit the water.
I really love how much weight the jaegers and kaiju have in the movie, in a literal sense. With anime and a lot of CG, it's so easy to have the large-scale battles feel effortless in a way, and Pacific Rim has the jaegers and kaiju look and sound heavy enough that when they do clash, it feels massive.
Aside from the logistics, other things that reminded me of Evangelion: the way the kaiju are all individually named and different from each other and how the people never know when an attack will come, and then the entire compatibility/synch rate thing.
Also, I laughed so hard when one of the jaegers' breastplates opened up to reveal a ton of artillery: hello Heavyarms! The jaegers for each country felt very Gundam Wing as well.
I can see why a lot of people love Mako. I think I love the idea of her more than the actual execution; she could so easily be the center around which the movie revolves, but despite the script giving her a good sparring scene, some excellent bits with Stacker Pentecost, and that sword thing (yesssss!), she felt very passive to me for most of the movie. Some of it is her silence and how many shots of her are on her reaction to other things going on. I wanted a lot more of her relationship with Stacker, along with more of her taking initiative inside the jaeger, and I was especially frustrated when Raleigh jettisoned her from the jaeger before the self-destruct sequence. Also, possibly I was expecting less Mako-Raleigh due to reading an interview or two before seeing it. I can see it as platonic, but I think weird moments of romance-ish-ness creep in, and I'm not sure how much of it is me being so used to the male and female leads getting together that I read more into it and how much is actual subtext. Mostly I'm thinking of that moment when she's watching him go around topless from the peephole in her door, as well as that weird bit where he fights the other pilot for insulting her while she just stands back, watching.
While I really love that one of the main relationships of the movie is between two POC, I wish they had had more POC in the secondary speaking roles. Obviously, if Raleigh's character had been POC, that would be awesome, but couldn't they at least have had one of the scientists be POC? Or more of the pilots with actual speaking roles? It's nice that the guy playing Tendo Choi is a man of color, but it would have been nicer if he had actually been mixed-race Asian. Re: Hannibal Chau, part of me is glad that at least the Hong Kong crime lord isn't Chinese, but it'd be nice to skip the Hong Kong gangster thing all together.
Unsurprisingly, I think Stacker Pentecost is BEST. Am glad that he gets a lot of screentime and importance before being the black guy sacrificing himself for people, but I really wish he didn't end up dead.
I really wanted more of the world after watching the movie, so I checked out the Tales from Year One comic. Alas, while it had some good backstory, I found it largely skippable and rather annoying.
Yay more women? On the other hand, it'd be nice if the majority of them weren't love interests or dead. I especially wish that the one about the scientist who developed the neural link thing was from her POV instead of her regretful ex-lover's, and having the narrator be a former jaeger pilot groupie who nearly broke up the Bennet brothers was even more annoying.
Was even more annoyed at the portrayal of Tendo's grandfather, who is dressed in old-style Chinese clothing as a way to make it really clear to the reader that he's Chinese? Also, dear Pacific Rim wiki, his name is NOT Yeye Choi, and saying "his grandfather Yeye" is redundant.
The art is also too comic-y; one of the things I loved about the movie was how dirty and worn and used everything felt, and not in the Christopher Nolan/GRRM grimdark way.
no subject
no subject
Doooo iiittttt! I am of so many minds re: the movie! Like, I love the mecha stuff SO MUCH! And the world! And Stacker Pentecost! But then I think I got too hopeful and expected more from movie in terms of representation, so then that made me sad. Except... GIANT MOVIE MECHA. With a whole command center and engineers and Misato-like figures and scientists!
... and on a totally minor note, I am glad my favorite bridge in HK didn't get destroyed.
no subject
no subject
Yeah, I'm glad it was at least in a blaze of glory and also with another character so it wasn't just him. And SO MUCH RELIEF re: the lack of kissing!
no subject
I share most of your reservations -- I think I saw enough love for the movie beforehand on Tumblr that I was expecting more than I got. But yes, the giant robots were very very giant.
no subject
I had so much unexpected EVA nostalgia! I would have loved to see a rampaging jaeger munching on a kaiju, bwahahahaha. Also, I kept expecting them to get into those little tube things and have those filled with LCL.
Yeah, I think I got too much positive buzz re: the movie, even though I really wasn't reading much, and ended up expecting too much of Mako in particular... That said, still fun, and still more POC than probably all the other summer movies combined....
no subject
While I was sad about that, too, I was glad that at least Chuck Hansen died with him. After Herc told Chuck about how Raleigh was one of only two men who'd managed to successfully pilot a Jaeger alone, and after it was revealed that Stacker had been the other man who'd done it, and after Stacker and Chuck had that almost-but-not-really bonding moment, I was so sure that the movie was setting it up so that Stacker would die in battle and Chuck would "heroically" pilot their Jaeger back alone.
And then, to my great surprise and pleasure, the movie didn't go there! Chuck was slightly less of an asshole at the end than he had been previously, but he still didn't get to cheat death while actual!hero Stacker died beside him.
no subject
Yes, I was definitely relieved that Chuck died with him! It made it less of a "the black guy always dies" thing.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2013-07-19 02:11 pm (UTC)(link)-LG
no subject
Oh, I am sure there are comparisons to anime! I just haven't seen them on my network in particular for some reason.
Ahahaha, yeah, I think if you are bored by mecha, the movie will probably be pretty boring overall.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2013-07-29 02:49 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
I completely agree! I do think Pacific Rim has its own amount of angst and grittiness (characters' backstories, the wonderful lived-in-ness of the environments), it doesn't assume that angst and grittiness necessarily equate Artistic Importance, which makes it so much more watchable. (Christopher Nolan I AM LOOKING AT YOU.)