Pacific Rim

[DarkMoineau]

Indeed for normal peoples, a lightsaber is stupid, that's why Han Solo rely on a good old blaster as he say in the same movie.

But a Jedi rely on the Force AND on the lighsaber fore philosophical reasons more than practical one: a lightsaber handled by a jedi can stop an amount of blasters shot determined by battery power and Jedi own stamina, not by resistance like a shield. The lightsaber then force a Jedi to be close to the one he arm or kill, forcing him to watch what he does, he can't arm or kill because of a lost shot. AND lightsaber are mostly used to fight ex-Jedi and Sith Lords who can rely on the Force to evade any shot fired at them (just like Vader stopping blasters shot BY HAND, just like Neo but 20 years before him). But a Jedi can't stop the blade of a lightsaber (except in TOR trailer).

But for normal people like us, yes that's not effective.

[Atekimogus]

Yes, you don't have to completely burn it to ash, but the amount of creature you have to seriously burn to kill it, assuming it's rather like a normal animal, is immense and because of the thickness of it's hide would require a tremendous, and long enduring fire that has the potential to do as much or more damage than the Kaiju. It's like trying to kill a guy by burning him with a Bic lighter. I'm sure you can do it if you're determined enough but it's not going to happen anytime soon.

You know I probably have to watch it again, but from what I remember the kaijus are big....but not that big. It certainly doesn't translate to burning a guy with a lighter being the same as dropping a few tons of naphalm bombs on the thing.

The shit? The closest we've ever been given as to why simply cutting the GPD a check wouldn't help more than facepunching criminals is "they're really corrupt." That's it. The entire reason why dressing up like Batman is a rational solution to the problem of a city wide crime epidemic is three words, four if don't count the contraction. Even Batman's motivations aren't gone into deeply. "His parents were killed in front of him by a criminal." That's his motivation. Four words to handwave away why the billionaire playboy can't just throw money at the problem, and nine for why he'd rather dress up in leather and do it himself. We never get into the nitty gritty of why any one of a thousand plans would work better than dressing up like a bat and punching criminals.

Because Batman is a nutjob. He saw his parents killed and want either justice, retribution or revenge, depending on universe and writer. Everyone can pretty much understand why throwing money at the problem, well he probably won't derive the same satisfaction from as punching the people who hurt him in the face.

It doesn't have to be very eleborate since it is something easily understood. Trauma, emotions etc. . Building giant robots to hunt big game.......I am so sorry, not being of an anime-inclincation, that requires some explanation imho.

By buying a ticket to see the movie you have acknowledged that you accept the premise of the kind of movie it is. Same with a superhero movie. I don't watch Iron Man and then count it against the movie when it doesn't explain why Tony doesn't just start building Arc Reactors and end the world's energy crisis tomorrow, or use his amazing technical skill for other endeavors. No, I get that it's a movie about Iron Man.

However, while we never get to know how an arc reactor functions, we are explicitly told what it does. There is no obvious drawback to his solution (why doesn't he just use duracel batteries? Why doesn't he run it on diesel etc. etc.) which need to be explained away. Arc reactor is absolutely fantastic. There are no real life comparable energy sources which would be a better solution for powering a power-suit.

Building Jaegers....well, even in the movie they are not sure if this is a viable idea. So please explain to me how they came to THAT conclusion in the first place.

Except that you get it. Just as much as Batman gets. During the initial Trespasser attack they talk about how even throwing the military might of the US at it it still took them six days and three destroyed cities to kill it. "They needed a new weapon," is a line right out of the intro immediately following this. And then they kick into the Jaeger building montage. You've got as much backstory as Batman ever got in any movie and it indicates that the country with the biggest, most capable military in the world still needed nearly a week to kill a category 1 Kaiju. That they needed a new weapon and giant robots were it and after giant robots we go from six days and three leveled cities to beating their asses right off the bat and winning.

No....a three minute intro does not compare to the introduction to the character we get for example in batman begins. But even then, it took them six days to hunt it down? Not that much considering a completely unknown threat. They needed a new weapon? Stands to reason. Now they should add a line why ALL the more common sense solution had not worked and they needed something else.

You talk about wasted time, but I really do not ask to much imho. Just a bit more information about the universe. I don't ask for a half hour documentation or history lession but just a bit more than we got to justify the whole premise.

it's all wasted time because... GIANT FUCKING ROBOTS.

That is why it is an excellent big dumb summer movie....but not a very good sci-fi movie or very memorable.

It's a bit better Transformer movie with less shaky cam, more appealing villains/monsters. That's all I am saying. A bit more detail, a bit more character-depth etc. this could have been a really GREAT movie, instead of just a fun monster mash.

The Force, lynch pin of the Star Wars saga... "It's an energy field created by life that binds us together. There aren't a lot of people who can use it." Yeah, watch Episode 1 again, not a lot of info on the force, but that dwarfs what the lightsaber gets. "A more elegant weapon for a more civilized age." Want to start talking about the many, many ways a lightsaber is a stupid weapon to use even with the force? Does that make the movie any less enjoyable? Does it make the world being built any less rich real and fun? No, because when you see the movie poster with a guy holding a laser sword in the air and space ships flying around with the robots and the black kabuki helmet in the background you sort of pick up on the kind of movie you're going to see.

The Force is a plot device. It is basically magic and as such doesn't need to be explained. You just need to know how it works. The lightsaber is a victim of it's own coolness and went to being viewed as an obsolete and more ritualistc weapon (see Han Solo, the pragmatic smuggler prefering blasters) to the absoltue uberweapon in the prequels.

(In the original, in 4 it is viewed as obsolte, in The Empire Strikes Back Luke still uses blasters infiltrating cloud city, and only fights Vader with it, pretty much the same in TRoTJ were it also is more of a backup-weapong for close work, or against other jedis.)

So one is a magic plot device, the other is a close combat weapon which is largely used as such, but often only defensivly or as a backup. Nothing inconsistent or particularily stupid about it imho.

When you're making a film in a very particular genre there are conventions that go along with it that do not need to be explained. They are implicit in watching that genre. Unless you're going to be messing with those conventions then there's no reason to get into them and explain them, the audience is already on board by virtue of having bought the ticket.

I'm not saying this isn't a fun bit of mental gymnastics, it really is, but is it something to hold against the movie? I don't think so.

I disagree insofar as I am absolutely unfamiliar with this genre. It is obviously a nichè genre. They tried to bring it to an wider audiency and as such SHIT HAS TO BE EXPLAINED for the uninitiated. I assume that this is partly why the movie did not so well in the box office.

If you grew up on...I don't know...japanese-giant-robot movies you might view this as a waste of time, probably the same as a comic buff isn't particularily interested in Ironmans, or Spidermans origin. Well I didn't know shit about Ironman before the movie, so I am glad they told me.

[Teaos]

To burn through 6 inches of skin you would need a lot of sticky, hot burning, long lasting substance.

Going for the eyes is a half decent idea but who's to say they dont have a protective transparent eyelid like Crocodiles do? And even then you have a pissed off blind monster who can still hear where you are is not have other senses.

Kinetic damage seems to be the best bet, so unless they develope rail guns or the space based fist of god that drops tungsten rods at mach 12 out of the sky, these things arent going down.

[McAvoy]

Setting a giant monster on fire sounds cool but you are still setting a giant monster on fire. You have to do it away from an ocean which means in the middle of a city.

So... giant monster on fire is a bad idea. There is no acid strong enough or fast enough to do damage fast enough to slow or kill a Kaiju.

Background info says that idea of a Jaeger came after the third attack when everyone realized the attacks will not stop. They needed new weapons and one of the pronects out of many was a Jaeger. It was because of a prototype Jaeger that defeated a Kaiju quickly enough without use of a nuke that started the Jaeger Program.

That is how the Jaeger program started. You could assume they had other weapons that were tried on Kaijus that didn't work. That actually would have been a good throw away line for the intro.

[Atekimogus]

That actually would have been a good throw away line for the intro.

That's pretty much all I am saying and wanted. Nothing eleborate, just a bit more justification for a premise which is viewed with suspicion even in it's very own movie.

I do not think this additional 5-10 seconds would be a waste of time.

[Teaos]

"Man I cant believe the giant Jello pits didnt trap them!"

[Coalition]

"Man I cant believe the giant Jello pits didnt trap them!"

That's what you deploy for these invaders.

[McAvoy]

Still think they should have had Godzilla sit by the opening and kill any Kaiju that comes by. There is a reason why he is King.

[Tsukiyumi]

Finally saw it; I have to agree that the wall concept is asinine. Why not spend those resources on improved/more Jaegers? Or at least a series of missile batteries like the ones Striker Eureka used, or plasma cannons like Gypsy Danger's around every major city. For that matter, staggered rings of batteries around the Rift would at least be better than waiting until the (possibly flying) Kaiju reached land.

All that aside, it's a fun movie, with solid performances by the supporting actors (who bring life to otherwise two-dimensional characters), fantastic SFX, and a new take on the old Japanese giant monster genre.

Very cool.

[Tyyr]

You know I probably have to watch it again, but from what I remember the kaijus are big....but not that big. It certainly doesn't translate to burning a guy with a lighter being the same as dropping a few tons of naphalm bombs on the thing.

Tresspasser towers over the Golden Gate bridge and he was one of the small ones. The makers of the movies published scales for the Jaegers and they are just that big. It does translate just about that way. Is local damage done? Yes, you napalm a Kaiju and parts of it will be burned. The problem is that the area isn't gigantic and because of it's size the thickness of its dermal layers will be tremendous because it has to be. Burns cause significant damage based on coverage and depth. Human skin and tissue is only millimeters thick. You're cooking vital parts of our bodies after burning only a few millimeters of epidermis. A creature the size of a Kaiju will have epidermis inches thick. On top of that the tissue under that skin will be equally thick. Napalm and other incendiary devices are hot, but Kaiju's are big and burning one long enough to cause damage isn't going to be done with one napalm bomb, or a dozen.

It doesn't have to be very eleborate since it is something easily understood. Trauma, emotions etc. . Building giant robots to hunt big game.......I am so sorry, not being of an anime-inclincation, that requires some explanation imho.

No it doesn't. You said it in the first sentence of that paragraph. If doesn't have to be elaborate if it's easily understood. Well, Giant robots = cool. Giant monsters = cool. Giant robots rocket punching giant monsters in the face is really fucking cool. That's the explanation. I don't really know how I can say this more explicitly. In reality giant mecha make no sense. Period, end of discussion. Giant monsters make no sense. Period, end of discussion. There is no logical real world reason why you would build a giant mech when you could just put that plasma cannon thing on a tank or airplane. NONE. You cannot make the movie make sense logically. Explaining things beyond, "Conventional weapons don't work, giant robots do," is just going to keep opening up questions that can't be answered. The reason is entirely that it's just fucking cool. When you purchase the ticket you are acknowledging that it's fucking cool and buying into the premise.

And I'm sorry, "Well Batman is crazy" doesn't explain things. The guy is supposed to be the world's greatest detective, an amazing martial artist, and fully capable of maintaining his playboy cover. Batman just being crazy does not jive with any of those other bullet points. A man capable of that kind of deep, rational thought is not going to completely ignore the more logical solutions. He does because he's a superhero and that's how superhero movies work.

However, while we never get to know how an arc reactor functions, we are explicitly told what it does. There is no obvious drawback to his solution (why doesn't he just use duracel batteries? Why doesn't he run it on diesel etc. etc.) which need to be explained away. Arc reactor is absolutely fantastic. There are no real life comparable energy sources which would be a better solution for powering a power-suit.

You missed my entire point with the arc reactor example. Simply put, why doesn't Tony start building them industrial sized and solving the energy crisis of the world? Clean, limitless energy. An end to fossil fuel use over night. Everyone on the planet can benefit from having cheap, abundant energy. Tony just uses it to power his own personal revenge fantasy. This is not a ridiculous question to ask. Just like Batman it is a logical outgrowth of the set up. They could both do vastly more good by leaving the criminal punching to the police and turning their personal fortunes and talents on broader problems but don't. Why? Because comic books. It's a superhero movies and you accept the premise that the best use of their talents and abilities is face punching bad guys.

No....a three minute intro does not compare to the introduction to the character we get for example in batman begins.

Bullshit. I'm sorry, but bullshit. There is very little talk about what makes Bruce Wayne tick, very little justification for why dressing up and chasing down criminals is logical. You can adequately deliver Batman's entire backstory in a paragraph and not miss anything. His backstory is incredibly thin because pretty much every Superhero's is because when you get into the genre there are expectations and conventions that are established between audience and movie. Those conventions cover those logical questions. Why? Because Batman. Because Bruce Wayne writes a check for $100 million dollars to the GPD is a really short and really dull movie. Why don't they just nuke the Kaiju at the portal or put plasma cannons on airplanes? Because that's fucking boring.

But even then, it took them six days to hunt it down? Not that much considering a completely unknown threat. They needed a new weapon? Stands to reason. Now they should add a line why ALL the more common sense solution had not worked and they needed something else.

Six days, and leveled three cities which based off proximity is probably San Franciso, Oakland, and San Jose. I'm gonna go with it's probably not acceptable to lose three cities or even one per Kaiju attack. Not to mention they had to nuke the thing to kill it so there's a good chance a large area near those cities is now uninhabitable for the few thousand years. Of course, this is covered in the opening, how it took several of these creatures before they realized conventional weapons weren't going to work.

You talk about wasted time, but I really do not ask to much imho. Just a bit more information about the universe. I don't ask for a half hour documentation or history lession but just a bit more than we got to justify the whole premise.

I don't know what I'm not getting through here. There is no logical explanation for giant robots. None. If you want to really kill a Kaiju you probably need to be commandeering cargo planes, stuffing them full of bombs (start building Grand Slam sized ones again) and carpet bombing the damn thing. When you invent the plasma cannon, start mounting them in C-17's and just rain death on the motherfuckers. Once you figure out where they're coming from ring the Breach with nuclear mines and nuke the fuckers as they come out. At no point will giant robots be a viable alternative and at no point is that a terribly interesting movie.

And that's my point. You can't justify their existence through logical explanation. It doesn't work. The premise will not hold up under intense scrutiny. And explanation will ultimately be handwaving bullshit or technobabble. Which will be easily disproven, look stupid, and waste time. The opening prologues explanation gives as much info as it can/should. Conventional weapons don't work, we needed something new. Giant robots.

Again, YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS MAKE SENSE. Just like the average superhero movie makes no sense when you really think about it, or the average fantasy movie is ludicrous, giant robot movies do not hold up under any real consideration. Like those aforementioned genres by purchasing the ticket you are agreeing to the conventions that make those genres viable.

That is why it is an excellent big dumb summer movie....but not a very good sci-fi movie or very memorable.

There is a lot of very good sci-fi that does not obsess over the details of how things work in their universe or if they do use utter bullshit to cover it. You wanna know a great Sci-Fi series that does that? I'm gonna give you one guess.

Star Trek.

Is it hard sci-fi? Not even remotely. Is it good sci-fi? It can be amazing sci-fi. I reject the idea that you have to explain all the minutia of a setting for it to be acceptable. I've read too much good fiction that requires a degree of SoD to just jettison things out of hand for not trying to eliminate every bit of SoD.

Is PacRim a big summer action movie? Yeah, it is. And believe me I'll agree it has weaknesses. I don't think Charlie Hunnum could turn in a more wooden performance if you'd whittled the guy out of oak. I just find that dismissing it out of hand because there wasn't a good explanation for the existence of big robots to be... petty.

I disagree insofar as I am absolutely unfamiliar with this genre. It is obviously a nichè genre. They tried to bring it to an wider audiency and as such SHIT HAS TO BE EXPLAINED for the uninitiated. I assume that this is partly why the movie did not so well in the box office.

It's a big gigantic fucking robot punching a monster in the face. What did you think you were getting into? The movie didn't do well not because things weren't explained but because giant monster and mecha movies are not a US kind of thing. They're a distinctly Japanese kind of movie which winds up being very niche here. In areas where that kind of movie is a tradition, Asia, it went off like gangbusters. That was it's biggest issue, it's just not a genre that US audiences are used to.

Kinetic damage seems to be the best bet, so unless they develope rail guns or the space based fist of god that drops tungsten rods at mach 12 out of the sky, these things arent going down.

Interesting idea, the problem is you need a direct hit with a rod from god. Hmm, figures, the CEP of a MARV isn't talked about all that much. Still, it would seem you could adapt the tech to a rod from god. Even if you can't be certain you'll hit you could shotgun the target looking for a hit or two. It'll fuck up the area but the Kaiju will have done that already and it won't be as bad as a nuke. You know, given the need for rapid response you might be able to adapt an ICBM to kinetic strike. You'd have to do some major negotiating with Russia and China but given the set up they'd likely want to be able to take the gloves off as well. It could be a stopgap weapon to a true rod from god setup, pepper the Kaiju with a few dozen tungsten MARVs. They'd only weigh about a ton a piece but they'd be moving at mach eight. Probably worth more thought.

suspicion even in it's very own movie.

It's not viewed with suspicion. The Jaegers are killing Kaiju and very good at it. The problem is that they can't build them faster than they're getting killed. It's viewed as a solution, but an unsustainable one. Mind you, this is the viewpoint of people who think a wall with no weapons on it is a good Kaiju barrier. So take that as you will.

[Atekimogus]

It's a big gigantic fucking robot punching a monster in the face. What did you think you were getting into? The movie didn't do well not because things weren't explained but because giant monster and mecha movies are not a US kind of thing. They're a distinctly Japanese kind of movie which winds up being very niche here. In areas where that kind of movie is a tradition, Asia, it went off like gangbusters. That was it's biggest issue, it's just not a genre that US audiences are used to.

Ok I'll keep it short since obviously we have to agree to disagree on this point. What I was hoping with this movie - and it disappointed me on that front - was something more than a big dumb summer movie. I really like del Torro, I like his visual style and so far I haven't seen a movie from him I didn't like, be it the Hellboys, Labyrinth of the Faun etc.... and I thought if anyone can take a basically very stupid premise and build a cool universe around it, it'd be him.

Unfortunatly what I got was just a nice looking "gigantic fucking robot punching a monster in the face" , as you put it, movie with the depth of Transformers which is ultimatly completely forgetable. Granted, that they didn't even really try to justify a stupid premise isn't the biggest problem of the movie. (Imho, the biggest problem of the movie is that the most memorable performance comes from a little child-actor being afraid of kaiju...)


So yeah, it is an enjoyable B-movie with a huge budget, I just think it could have been something more and quite a bit better with a few tweaks. The same as every superhero movie ever was just a B-movie before someone started to take them a bit more seriously and started to produce A-grade movies. They didn't here, which is fine but ultimatly a bit disappointing to me.

If the movie is perfection to you, enjoy...but that is how I feel about it. I am not a child anymore and the time were "hey, it's robots vs. monsters what more do you need to know" is enough for me is sadly past and I'd have prevered if they'd at least tried to put a bit more thought into the whole thing.

You feel obvously differently, I have no problem with that. But telling me to basically have no right to complain about things I didn't like about the movie since "I knew what the premise was and I accepted it the moment I bought a ticket"......well, I think that is very condescending of you. I accepted the premise of both, Batman and Robin and Batman Begins when I went seeing them, that doesn't mean I have to like them both. In one a basically stupid premise is just a tick better presented.

[stitch626]

I felt they explained things quite well and clearly in the intro.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

I felt they explained things quite well and clearly in the intro.

same, here. "Conventional weapons either didn't work or produced Pyrrhic victories. Therefore giant robots punching giant monsters in the face." What more is needed?

NOTHING!

[Coalition]

Just had a few thoughts after watching the DVD:

• For the Drift-compatible people. A lower level version of it could be useful for learning new languages. You and the 'instructor' find a common level that you can drift on, then let the instructor play through all their memories of learning the language. You learn in the process.
• For the Hong Kong fight, you could have it where Cherno and Crimson are individually beating their respective Kaiju. However, the Kaiju are actually luring Cherno and Crimson apart (hive mind). When Crimson and Cherno are far enough apart, the Keiju swim over to Crimson (darn things are fast in water), and double-team it. Once Crimson is down, they return the favor on Cherno. Cherno is tough enough to hold one off, so the EMP effect is used.
• The Kaiju were adapting to the current Jaegers in use against them. Gipsy has not been used in several years, so the Kaiju have dropped the adaptations to deal with it in favor of the current models, and are once again vulnerable.

[Tsukiyumi]

That whole fight with Cherno and Crimson was one of my biggest gripes with the movie. Sound tactical doctrine dictates that you never hold back; you hit the enemy's weakest point with maximum strength. Going 2-on-2 when you could go 4-on-1 is just plain stupid, from a tactical standpoint.