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Crunkjuice posted:I swear to god if there is any MLP poo poo i might just murder someone. God I hate the internet sometimes. 
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Jul 18, 2013 07:25
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gently caress the internet. 
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Jul 18, 2013 07:33
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The problem is that this is when it translates into some sort of weird unix-based(???) neo-futurism or something, as in Jefferoo's posts. A big chunk of the enthusiasm in the thread centers around anti-intellectualism and purchasing dolls. What is it that's triumphing? This is a fundamentally broken painting of the brush here. This is a nerd hub of the Internet, with many forums dedicated to capitalism and the consumption of the all-mighty "content." To drat the film based on the reception of a message board is a fundamentally masturbatory dismissal of my posts. quote:I fuckin love Mothra. Too bad the Kaiju of Pacific Rim specifically aren't Mothra, defined mainly by their origin. quote:What is it that's triumphing? The collective human effort of many talents and mindsets coming together to trimuph over a massive, terrifying entity without a clearly defined form or end. quote:Kaijus almost never appear alone. They are only shown reacting to the robots. The very point of the film defines them as organic machines, built in another dimension to seek out and destroy major population centers. That's like programming a UAV to do sick flips and shoot off flares every time it successfully preforms a Hellfire missile strike. It's a very intentional distinction, and you'd be foolish not to appreciate it. Actually, Pacific Rim also works as a revenge fantasy of Earth representing the Middle East and the PPDC being Mujahideen/al-Qaeda, with the Western World being the undistinguishable monsters on the other side of the rift, unreachable. The end of Pacific Rim is essentially a melodramatic version of 9/11 told from the perspective of the Middle East. This is supported by the fact that there's a Pacific Rim 2 in the works and the rules around the second film in a trilogy being the darkest chapter, and if the ideals of Kaiju/Jaegar hybrids comes into play by a Kaiju occupation of Earth, forcing the resistance underground, whilst the PPDC use hit and run tactics to try and drive the Kaiju off the planet.
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Jul 18, 2013 07:34
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Jefferoo posted:I laugh at your assumption she isn't. Raliegh assumes at the end that all he has left is to push a button. It is technical malfunction that demands one final action sequence. They embrace as partners at the end. Her arc, her drawing of the sword screaming "for my family" is just as important and necessary to the survival of humanity. It is sadly not the final one. Pentecost also has a full arc. I'm not saying the film doesn't have problems, or is in any way perfect, and that there isn't legitimate criticisms to hold against it, but there is a massive problem with race and mainstream feminist criticism of the film - it is a huge progressive step. I told you not to make me laugh. I told you! And look what you did. The fact that our Evangelion movie's protagonist is Captain America instead of Shinji is an indefensible travesty and the fact that even as clear, obvious, and golden an opportunity as this one was kicked straight to the curb is extremely damning for our culture as a whole. quote:Pacific Rim outright acknowledges the problem is political, the entire storyline of the wall is about how ineffective the world's governments are to solve problems. Hacker culture is evolving, it's changing, there's more and more women in tech initiatives, women are making their voices louder and more clear. It's changing with the times. I already stated that the scene of Newt being hunted down and almost devoured by the Kaiju is an allegory for talent being devoured by CEOs in ironic t-shirts, so whatever you're trying to make me agree to, doesn't hold up. No, this is false. The Kaiju don't represent CEOs - the argument just isn't there. They're a hostile environment that Pacific Rim argues must be tamed with geoengineering, or adult femininity which must be thwarted with childish simplicity, and so on, but if you want to pretend that the Kaiju themselves represent capitalism then you can just ride your spinning bowtie to the moon because you are done here. quote:The capitalist greed presence in the film is Ron Perlman's character, who quite simply is - a fact of life, a reality, as scummy as they may be, they are a reality of our time, and are vastly different from the PPDC organization, which only works with, not a direct part of Hannibal Chau's company. Pacific Rim is not naive or foolish enough to advocate for violent communist revolution, as that is a fool's folly advocated for by those with the political mindset of children who think by simply using enough force, they can topple what stands in their way, the same mindset of the Cherno Alpha, a manifestation of Real Soviet Power which is violently destroyed by the State/Kaiju. Now, your personal value judgments aside, this I completely agree with (as well as your line about the wall from above). Points PR makes include: governments are stupid and ineffective, grasping mercenary greed is a cosmological constant that's distasteful but that smart people should ally themselves with and use, changing our political organization is an idea so absurd as to be totally unthinkable and so ridiculously expensive tech fetish projects must be pursued rather than social revolution. Like, you're right, that's what it's saying. I just don't get why you think that refutes any criticisms of the movie.
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Jul 18, 2013 07:38
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I'm talking scenes of citywide destruction outside the robot combat. The robots are there to defend the cities, but we are rarely shown the threat they're trying to counter. Kaijus almost never appear alone. They are only shown reacting to the robots. Did you even watch this movie? First of all, Kaiju's loving poo poo Up was shown several times, and secondly, it was expounded upon significantly with commentary and dialogue references. They have a thing called a budget, they can't just entirely destroy 5 whole cities on scree just to satisfy your self-fellating mega posts. Besides that, even if they had shown that, you would have just bitched that it was a repetition of an already understood situation, and that that time could have been used to kill feminism more, or something. (Despite the fact that the movie open rejects and directly counters big racist and sexist themes.) The lengths you're going to criticize the movie while also completely disregarding its entire premise are pretty remarkable. Lets establish one thing: This movie was made to show giant robots fighting giant aliens. That's not to say there's no subtext or subtle messages within the movie, because there are and they have been and are being expounded up on this thread, but that's not what it was really about. It was a pointedly optimistic approach to a 10-year-old boy's fantasy. To throw that premise out the window and then use it as ammo to attack the movie.... doesn't make any sense. You're grasping at straws with really desperate attempts to prove your perceived critical superiority.
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Jul 18, 2013 07:40
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:A big chunk of the enthusiasm in the thread centers around anti-intellectualism and purchasing dolls. What is it that's triumphing? The problem is this patently untrue. Unlike most blockbuster movie threads (like World War Z and Man of Steel) we have posters openly challenging you outside of "Uh, gently caress you, just watch the movie" or arguing semantics. The problem has nothing to do with buying dolls (Also seen in the Avengers threads or Transformers threads) but with presenting a liberal transhumanist message as a opposed to a liberal humanist centered socialist one. I mean reading a pro "second wave" consumerist/capitalist message with a caricature like Hannibal Chu is plain baffling. It's so absurdly on the nose it isn't funny. When Day (and the audience) confronts him, we expect a Chinese gangster or businessman. What we get is an old white man dressed so absurdly that a dozen posters could say he looks like a dozen different things, whether he's a cowboy, an anime character, a steampunk whatever, it wouldn't matter because you'd be right no matter what. He's the hollow empty, consumerist capitalist system benefiting off the Kaju. He repackages and sells people what's out there killing them to help with their broken dicks. Hell it's in his name: Hannibal Chu, first name taken from his favorite historical character and his last from a Chinese restaurant he lived across from in Brooklyn. He even says this while gold plated cowboy boots clap on the ground as if to punctuate each sentence. He's as "American" as you can get, he shouldn't be the leader of an underground Chinese black market mob, but then again he's really as American as a three dollar bill. It's absurd facsimile disguise of history of a culture he's supposedly from, in an equally laughable mockery of the culture and identity he assumes now for cash. He doesn't create, he doesn't even destroy like the Kaju. He just takes unique things he likes from others and then sells it back to them at a profit. For all the pomp, arrogance, menace, and competence he pretends to have he's almost killed because of mixture of stupidity, arrogance, and cowardice. For he perceived need to aid Newton in his scientific and technological pursuits, Day needs only to rely on his fellow scientists and peers among the international community to help. Undead Unicorn fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 07:40
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUKmq7UMJys
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Jul 18, 2013 07:41
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Ferrinus, the problem you're having here is that you're taking the showdown seriously. When you watch a cowboy square down with a bandit, pistols readied to be drawn at high noon, you don't tell one of them to just go ahead and shoot the other. There is a grace to this kind of dance.
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Jul 18, 2013 07:41
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You guys should totally call out in bold the type of argument you are using at the beginning of each paragraph/post.
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Jul 18, 2013 07:43
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Ferrinus posted:I told you not to make me laugh. I told you! And look what you did. Except this isn't Evangelion. As much as one likes to fetishize the "all or nothing" approach to achieve Max Legitimacy, it requires hard work and progress and making a summer blockbuster directed by a Mexican with massive credit in typically white dominated circles where 2 of the 3 main characters are people of color is still a pretty big deal. The fact that you treat this as a "laughing" matter worth sarcastic derision is an insult to the importance of this work. quote:No, this is false. The Kaiju don't represent CEOs - the argument just isn't there. They're a hostile environment that Pacific Rim argues must be tamed with geoengineering, or adult femininity which must be thwarted with childish simplicity, and so on, but if you want to pretend that the Kaiju themselves represent capitalism then you can just ride your spinning bowtie to the moon because you are done here. Well if you'd like to stop declaring when people are "done," which is the same horseshit masturbatory, self declaration of intellectual superiority I've come to expect, I was specifically referring to a single scene where the lone, non-masculine scientist who hacks together a mental drift out of garbage, four-eyes hides in a cement womb to be hunted down and consumed by a massive, muscular hulk and if you can't see the logic behind that then you're more concerned with being right than having a discussion. In Cinema Discusso. quote:Now, your personal value judgments aside, this I completely agree with (as well as your line about the wall from above). Points PR makes include: governments are stupid and ineffective, grasping mercenary greed is a cosmological constant that's distasteful but that smart people should ally themselves with and use, changing our political organization is an idea so absurd as to be totally unthinkable and so ridiculously expensive tech fetish projects must be pursued rather than social revolution. You fetishize social revolution at the end here when at the beginning Pacific Rim is a step in that direction, yet you deride it for not instantly bringing you the land of milk and honey. You are being directly contradictory and nonsensical in your approach here. This is like bringing a Category 1 tentacle monster, flailing about and getting goo everywhere, to the doorstep of a Mark IV Crimson Typhoon and covering yourself in Kaiju tattoos. Your last "point" is entirely off the mark here. Pacific Rim is saying to come together and build great works to defeat the problems of our time. Jefferoo fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 07:50
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Here's why I liked the movie: When leatherback jumped on Cherno Alpha, ripped it apart and held it underwater, I felt it. I was fully immersed in the movie and the utter destruction of the most bad-rear end jaeger completely shook me. I was in a trance through the entire Hong-Kong battle scene. I cannot remember the last time I felt that in a theater and that's why the movie was awesome. I turned into an 8 year old boy for those 2 hours and when stuff like: "drift compatible", "Gipsy is analog" came up, I just smiled and nodded because to the kid in me, it all made sense. Edit: spoiler tags
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Jul 18, 2013 07:59
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Jefferoo posted:Except this isn't Evangelion. As much as one likes to fetishize the "all or nothing" approach to achieve Max Legitimacy, it requires hard work and progress and making a summer blockbuster directed by a Mexican with massive credit in typically white dominated circles where 2 of the 3 main characters are people of color is still a pretty big deal. The fact that you treat this as a "laughing" matter worth sarcastic derision is an insult to the importance of this work. What do you think I was laughing at? Do you think it was the movie? quote:Well if you'd like to stop declaring when people are "done," which is the same horseshit masturbatory, self declaration of intellectual superiority I've come to expect, I was specifically referring to a single scene where the lone, non-masculine scientist who hacks together a mental drift out of garbage, four-eyes hides in a cement womb to be hunted down and consumed by a massive, muscular hulk and if you can't see the logic behind that then you're more concerned with being right than having a discussion. In Cinema Discusso. The giant monster hunting the scientist down does not represent a corporate CEO, because the Kaiju are not analogous in the movie to corporations. I can tell you're sweating about your inability to sustain this by how wordy you just got there. quote:You fetishize social revolution at the end here when at the beginning Pacific Rim is a step in that direction, yet you deride it for not instantly bringing you the land of milk and honey. You are being directly contradictory and nonsensical in your approach here. This is like bringing a Category 1 tentacle monster, flailing about and getting goo everywhere, to the doorstep of a Mark IV Crimson Typhoon and covering yourself in Kaiju tattoos. Well, no, you see, that's wrong. In fact, this is total nonsense. I realize that you just called what I said nonsense so it kind of looks like we're just calling each other names at random here, but what you're saying there is actually nonsense in light of our discussion because
I'm not being sarcastic! That's seriously and actually a cogent reading! But, like I keep telling you, it informs and builds upon, rather than somehow defeats or cancels out, other readings of the film. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 08:02
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The monsters and robots don't have any personality, and are bad at representing what they are ostensibly supposed to. Does a typhoon have personality? I've seen disaster flicks where they did, and they always felt a bit stupid. As a homage to kaiju movies I can appreciate the expectation that the monsters here would have a level of uniqueness and personality rapidly shuffling across the border of ham, but as it was made I don't think the "monster as literal natural disaster" works out badly. Its not the same as its inspirations, but you said yourself you can go watch those for that experience. Despite the references, this isn't a kaiju film, but plain remaking your inspirations isn't what you do when crafting an homage, so I'm not sure why you're making the point that it's a terrible example of the films that inspired it except to engender discussion as to why that's a loving stupid position to take. Now I feel a little weird and faintly manipulated that you got me to type all that considering you outright admitted that you're the Ironic War Criminal of CD. BrianWilly posted:
Thank you for picking that out so I get an excuse to link this again. (only nsfw if your boss is a humourless pill) The swords-as-phallic-imagery thing has always narked me off a bit; the one doesn't come from the other, they share a common source (i.e. there's basically only one good basic shape for a penetrator to be). The problem isn't that swords are masculine because IT LOOKS LIKE A PENIS  , the problem is that swords are masculine because women never loving use them, or at least are not portrayed as doing so (or being fighters in general) frequently enough to neutralise the idea that fighting (and swords) are a man's game.Pushing the idea that a sword is a penis pretty much plays straight into the hands of sexists and gender essentialists by making it much harder for a woman to use a sword (be seen as a warrior) and still remain a woman. The same also applies to guns, weapons in general and other statements of power/strength. By insisting these things are phallic we make it so that women who take them up effectively declare themselves to be men. This is less than ideal if gender equality is something you give even half a care about. So please, cut it the gently caress out. e/ I won't deny the relevance of such readings given how obviously intentional they are in many cases; what I'm denying is the legitimacy of it as a narrative tool. I feel it's more often harmful than not, and an aspect of our culture we should leave behind. Renaissance Robot fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 08:03
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Jefferoo posted:SMG doesn't like Pacific Rim because Pacific Rim scares him. It is out and out, a film that utterly denies the relevancy of his existence - it outright says that the Philosopher, the man who stays up late at night wrapped in metaphor and ethereal wonder, typing out long form forum posts on the Internet; he does not matter. Doesn't SMG believe that 3D movies deny the moviegoer agency and therefore are the worst thing to ever happen to cinema? I can't remember if it was he who had that long speech in the old Avatar thread, but it sounds like the sort of angle he'd take.
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Jul 18, 2013 08:12
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I'm talking scenes of citywide destruction outside the robot combat. The robots are there to defend the cities, but we are rarely shown the threat they're trying to counter. Kaijus almost never appear alone. They are only shown reacting to the robots. That's a lack of nuance, certainly, but one I didn't mind just because I've seen so many mecha and kaiju-related narratives in the past. People are familiar enough with Godzilla to know that giant sea-dragons destroy cities, and the movie is already over 2 hours. But it's true: the kaiju themselves are not characters and have no personalities, probably because they're relatively generic and largely symbolic antagonists, that represent faceless challenges - on systemic and personal levels (they're global warming super-storms, and also personal trauma, but in this story you wear robot armor and punch them.) The psycho-sexual and sexual-developmental aspects of the story are, in my opinion, the most salient concept you've touched upon. Because although the characters in Pacific Rim are adults, their behavior makes more sense if they're 12. Especially with regards to Mako, the entire story is about coded sexuality and sexual fears, and her own sexual empowerment in light of them. The phallic nature of the "sword activated" scene is totally there, but I see it as more about claiming sexual agency than something specifically masculinizing. It's her conquering and understanding sex on an adult level, conceptually. In general, though, I feel that her entire backstory is thinly-veiled sexual panic. Certainly, Stacker Pentecost is an overprotective father ("I don't want you to date that boy" is a valid reading of his refusal to let her co-pilot a Jaeger.) But also, the entire kaiju attack nightmare is about a child being exposed to something frightening and intense and beyond her control. This isn't to say that I see the Tokyo kaiju attack as a metaphor for sexual abuse or rape (though I guess someone could see it that way), but rather as a general dramatization of Mako's trauma due to premature exposure to sexuality: it's like she walked in on daddy loving mommy and felt confused and unsafe by the experience. It helps that after the confrontation, her literal father-figure (a participant in the "fight") runs to her side to make the world safe and comprehensible again. Phallic readings of Coyote Tango's shoulder-gun are welcome. As someone else pointed out, it's interesting how chaste the relationship between Mako and Raleigh actually is. At the end, when most movies would feature a kiss, they just coyly hug. The extent of their sexual interest is her spying his shirtless torso. Their relationship is effectively her first relationship, where she struggles to understand what a boyfriend is. If you picture them as 12-year-olds, the relatively awkward and asexual dynamic makes a lot more sense.
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Jul 18, 2013 08:14
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Chronojam posted:Doesn't SMG believe that 3D movies deny the moviegoer agency and therefore are the worst thing to ever happen to cinema? I can't remember if it was he who had that long speech in the old Avatar thread, but it sounds like the sort of angle he'd take. What if I don't want to focus on the foreground? WHAT THEN??? Xealot posted:it's like she walked in on daddy loving mommy and felt confused and unsafe by the experience 
Renaissance Robot fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 08:19
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If they were actually 12, this would have pretty much made Pacific Rim a total anime. Even more than it already is.
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Jul 18, 2013 08:33
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Ferrinus posted:What do you think I was laughing at? Do you think it was the movie? No, you're laughing at me because I'm "not on your level," this Tumblr-esque rapidly accelerated mindset where everything must be perfect yesterday, or it is evil and awful, in a collective childlike avoidance of the work necessary to undo thousands upon thousands of years in systemic bigotry across all forms of society. quote:The giant monster hunting the scientist down does not represent a corporate CEO, because the Kaiju are not analogous in the movie to corporations. I can tell you're sweating about your inability to sustain this by how wordy you just got there. Again the masturbatory talking down to and direct avoiding of the very words I spoke. Did you learn to argue from Reddit or Tumblr or something? quote:Well, no, you see, that's wrong. In fact, this is total nonsense. I realize that you just called what I said nonsense so it kind of looks like we're just calling each other names at random here, but what you're saying there is actually nonsense in light of our discussion because Wrong, because I am not claiming Pacific Rim a step towards revolution, but instead towards the world a supposed socialist revolution seeks to bring about. So your premise is fundamentally flawed here, as you continue to attempt to talk down to me. This forum is the PPDC, we are all equals with different talents coming together with one goal in mind - better understanding of the films we watch. There will be no hierarchy of arguing here. quote:The swords-as-phallic-imagery thing has always narked me off a bit; the one doesn't come from the other, they share a common source (i.e. there's basically only one good basic shape for a penetrator to be). The problem isn't that swords are masculine because IT LOOKS LIKE A PENIS , the problem is that swords are masculine because women never loving use them, or at least are not portrayed as doing so (or being fighters in general) frequently enough to neutralise the idea that fighting (and swords) are a man's game. This is a fantastic post. You see, as much as we love and worship SMG here, what he does is not special or unique - any fool can do it, even me with my red text and numerous bans. It's a twisting of language and connecting ideals to scenes and dialogue, one that can be twisted to forward sexist ideologies as legitimate ones. It's like working a callbox, connecting the wires between ideals and media, you just gotta sit and work out how to put what with what. I mean, really, SMG's focus on demanding more character from the Kaiju, regardless of their lack of it being relevant to the narrative and the themes of the film, is analgous to demanding that a unmanned aerial drone shoot off flares and do barrel rolls after every successful kill - he can't accept the horror of the monster and their lack of humanity, much like the lack of humanity we show in battle to one another. In this aspect, Pacific Rim is once again a reminder that humanity is the real monsters, as we strike out at one another across distant lands, separated by a massive barrier that only one of us can safely traverse, while the other requires shadowly cloak and dagger techniques to commit to an attack of destruction ever so minimal in comparison.
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Jul 18, 2013 08:41
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Taffer posted:To throw that premise out the window and then use it as ammo to attack the movie.... doesn't make any sense. The premise of the film is that humanity is rallying together to prevent a decadent neoliberal 'end of history' situation that results in an apocalypse of biogenetic manipulation, ecological crisis, economic imbalance and 'terrorism' - basically the fate of Krypton in Man of Steel and ID4, except the aliens look different. Those four issues are all evoked by the film at one point or another, represented by the kaiju's masters. That's not really up for debate. Rather, the discussion is currently centered around what the film presents as a solution to this problem. In recent blockbuster cinema, we have Superman as an authentic christological figure, and World War Z's Brad Pitt as a decidedly inauthentic christological figure. Pacific Rim is not a dissimillar film, so comparison can be instructive. What are the jaegers doing to save the world? Are they more Brad Pitt or Superman? The most disturbing scene to me is the one where Bland Hero Guy triumphantly desecrates a kaiju's corpse, smirking as its innards bubble up. It recalls nothing as much as the scenes of insect torture in Starship Troopers. This is a sign that something's wrong because, where the ecological 'theme' is glossed over in a single throwaway line, most of the runtime is devoted to obliterating the kaijus, those vermin who disrupt our way of life and prevent us from having 'harmony' (the goal Maxwell Lord identified). The scenes of slum gangsters harvesting monster organs are reminiscent of District 9 - obviously the Kaiju are the same social abject. Slime, birth, viscera. They are 'undead' in many ways, hence the need for desecration. There are long scenes of their bodies being stripped, probed, exploited. Abjection is their keyword through and through. And the film sets it up so that they can never truly 'fit in' with society. It's impossible, right? They're not even human. Why would we give them rights? They are meteorological phenomena. The lesson of Christ would be to love the monsters - to completely rethink everything so that this impossible goal can be achieved. Isn't the proper ending, then, for Day to connect with the kaiju and unite them against both the evil alien masters and the corrupt politicians at home? This doesn't occur because the film is not a christian film. It's Jefferoo's film, where the young and vital crush the disruptive reptilians. It's World War Z, where Brad Pitt pretends to be a zombie, then leads them to a mass grave so that his comfortable home life won't be disrupted too much. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 08:44
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There's still the usual contingent of "just shut your brain off" arguments (as distinguished from shallow praise of the most superficial fun - that's declining to use the brain while posting, not declining to use it while viewing (nor must all posts be brainful)), but plenty of people here are acting like they're comfortable engaging with the film on a deeper level, like they can defend the themes they saw instead of just forcefully denying the ones they didn't. It helps that it's relatively transparent, an optimistic endorsement of the value of sharing in the lives of others and relating to the commonality of diverse experiences. I don't feel like I have a tall enough bibliography to step into this Mexican standoff, so instead I'll share a few more smaller observations. Stacker and Raleigh have a certain distinction in common - both of them were capable of piloting a jaeger alone when their co-pilot was suddenly incapacitated. Raleigh just had to limp to shore, but Stacker fought Onibaba alone (supplemental material depicts his co-pilot saying she blacked out and was unconscious for three hours while that was happening). Fighting in tandem is the strength of a jaeger and the strength of humanity - fighting alone is the sort of desperate and dangerous act which enables heroism but more often invites ruin. (Witness Newt nearly getting killed because he tried to be a hero and drift alone.) Likewise, Cherno and Crimson get taken out because they fight alone rather than in tandem, but Striker and Gypsy working together (via the mutual understanding gained by Raleigh and Chuck, and the very deep relationship between Mako and Stacker (it would not have made thematic sense for Herc to be co-piloting Striker in that scene, hence the need for him to break his arm)) manage to fight all the way to the breach. When Striker is disabled, however, Gypsy proves its own extraordinary heroism by limping on alone, as Raleigh had. All the technobabble in this film is wrong, yes, and nerds' instinct is to complain about it. It's wrong even in scenes where saying something that makes real-world sense would have taken just as many lines (they call it "coolant" rather than "refrigerant," they say Gypsy is "analog" instead of "hardened"), and in some cases it's the exact opposite of reality (the globe was warmer in the cretaceous). It's so consistent and universal in its wrongness that the only acceptable way to read it is intentional. The only purpose for technobabble is for there to be a digestible line that can be understood to mean "there is a reason for this and the characters know what it is," so why not get in on the joke? The regrettably underused crew of Crimson Typhoon nevertheless fulfill their most important role in the film merely by existing: the fact that there are three of them demonstrates that the strength of a jaeger ("invincibility," the strength to overcome adversity of any sort) comes from unity generally, not pairs specifically. This in turn underscores the notion that the jaeger program is the product of multiple nations collaborating. It's incredibly humanistic: if the kaiju are divine retribution as Hannibal suggests, then Pacific Rim says that humanity is not answerable to the gods; if the kaiju were invited by pollution as Newt speculates, then Pacific Rim says that it's better to clean up than never to do anything messy in the first place. (Everybody knows these are basically the same idea.) But there's more to it than that. The question of deserts is only even brought up by Newt (who is utterly in awe of kaiju - extreme weather/wrathful gods) and Hannibal (who profits from pollution and cares only about the bottom line). That Nemesis can be overcome by any means is a modern idea; that expressing this idea is itself an act of hubris is a postmodern one. Is this film resonating with audiences because they forgot the lessons of the twentieth century, or because they feel like they have mastered them? Ferrinus posted:Don't make me laugh. Pacific Rim's focus grouped generihero crowds out and marginalizes the woman of color who should've been the movie's main character. It takes two to pilot a jaeger - why not two to star in a movie? Every hero gets to save the day! Mako got her big heroic moment earlier than Raleigh did, so maybe not being at the climax makes it less important even though it's definitely cooler and she's the more complex character. Bongo Bill fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 08:55
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The most disturbing scene to me is the one where Bland Hero Guy triumphantly desecrates a kaiju's corpse, smirking as its innards bubble up. It recalls nothing as much as the scenes of insect torture in Starship Troopers. Yeah, this is blatantly wrong. "Bland Hero Guy" "triumphantly" desecrates a kaiju corpse out of fear for suffering the same problem he encountered in the beginning of the movie. His cocky demeanour is a coping mechanism for hiding the fear he holds of history repeating itself. This has nothing to do with insect torture but in fact a very personal, deeper scene of Raleigh's performative masculinity, his hiding in the hulking mass of a Jaeger to feel alive, where in the "real world" he is detached, dull, "generic." quote:This is a sign that something's wrong because, where the ecological 'theme' is glossed over in a single throwaway line, most of the runtime is devoted to obliterating the kaijus, those vermin who disrupt our way of life and prevent us from having 'harmony' (the goal Maxwell Lord identified). The scenes of slum gangsters harvesting monster organs are reminiscent of District 9 - obviously the Kaiju are the same social abject. Slime, birth, viscera. They are 'undead' in many ways, hence the need for desecration. There are long scenes of their bodies being stripped, probed, exploited. Abjection is their keyword through and through. And the film sets it up so that they can never truly 'fit in' with society. It's impossible, right? They're not even human. Why would we give them rights? They are meteorological phenomena. Actually, this is more in line with foreign cultures outside of SuperMechagodzilla's perspective - the fundamental ideal of "not wasting any piece of the animal," using every bit of it. It is a final commitment to this ideal, the preserving of the Kaiju brain, that saves the heroes in the end from a dastardly fate. They are more analogous to oil spills, hence the natural disaster theme - requiring the work of many humans working in unison to clean up the toxic waste that is desecrating the environment, relevant to the fact that they are constructed, autonomous machines of destruction, not living creatures with souls as much as SMG wishes to fetishize the concept. quote:The lesson of Christ would be to love the monsters - to completely rethink everything so that this impossible goal can be achieved. Actually the lesson of Christ would be that God is a loving unimaginative rear end in a top hat, and I, his only son, am going to sacrifice myself for humanity's sins to prevent the damnation of humanity because it's completely batshit to demand these things of them. quote:Isn't the proper ending, then, for Day to connect with the kaiju and unite them against both the evil alien masters and the corrupt politicians at home? Except in reality, corrupt politicans are a thing to work around, regardless of their cooperation or not, which is what Pacific Rim is saying. We work together towards one goal, constant vigilance, etc etc. quote:This doesn't occur because the film is not a christian film. It's Jefferoo's film, where the young and vital crush the disruptive reptilians. It's World War Z, where Brad Pitt pretends to be a zombie, then leads them to a mass grave so that his comfortable home life won't be disrupted too much. Except Pacific Rim takes place during a time where the reptilians have become expected - the status quo - and the Jaegers are disruptive. Nuking the rift is a disruptive concept that is iterated upon constantly until it achieves a successful solution to a problem - the constant, unyielding assault of the monsters from another dimension. Jefferoo fucked around with this message at 09:07 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 09:03
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Bongo Bill posted:All the technobabble in this film is wrong, yes, and nerds' instinct is to complain about it. It's wrong even in scenes where saying something that makes real-world sense would have taken just as many lines (they call it "coolant" rather than "refrigerant," they say Gypsy is "analog" instead of "hardened"), and in some cases it's the exact opposite of reality (the globe was warmer in the cretaceous). It's so consistent and universal in its wrongness that the only acceptable way to read it is intentional. The only purpose for technobabble is for there to be a digestible line that can be understood to mean "there is a reason for this and the characters know what it is," so why not get in on the joke? The joke is when they go out into combat for the first time, and Hero Guy says "this isn't a memory Mako, this is real" (paraphrased). On that line, they immediately cut to a blatant CG effects shot of the football robot and frog monster posing dramatically.
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Jul 18, 2013 09:04
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Crunkjuice posted:I swear to god if there is any MLP poo poo i might just murder someone. God I hate the internet sometimes.
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Jul 18, 2013 09:15
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Kaiju Blue is the black goo. What is the black goo?
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Jul 18, 2013 09:19
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Kaiju Blue is the black goo. Except as much as you love Prometheus for making nerds mad, the Kaiju Blue blood is not the black goo, it is a static element that only wreaks havoc upon the human world. It is literally an oil spill, a contaminant that makes the air unbreathable and is highly acidic. It is literally, and simply an ecological disaster that has to be cleaned up, the Jaeger weapons are developed with the goal of preventing unnecessary blood spill in mind, and the Kaiju evolve to spit the blood like an acid at humanity - making it a biological weapon to be cleaned up. It is lifeless in every sense of the world, which again ties in to the fact that the Kaiju are lifeless loving machines made to destroy humanity's mass population centers. The blood is blue! Blue is a cold color! They're cold, lifeless machines constructed to destroy us! There's a million pieces of evidence supporting this fact of the film! Jefferoo fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 09:32
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I'm almost certain SMG and Jeferoo conspired beforehand to make a meta-experience of two giants fighting while everyone else cowers and runs as if we were in a giant monster movie. Ferrinus can be the military jumping in to get ineffectual potshots Bongo Bill can be Raymond Burr
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Jul 18, 2013 09:58
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Fact: Kaiju parts enhance male potency. Fact: so does the black goo, canonically. (see: goochart.jpeg) Kaiju Blue is the black goo. What is the black goo? (They include a male potency line in the film to distinguish between mere viagra use and Mako's way of hardening her sword. Sorry it's not just a floppy cigar that gets hard and thrust into a vagina-monster.)
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Jul 18, 2013 10:14
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 Christ almighty. This movie is about humans that build giant robots to beat the poo poo out of Godzilla's and save the world. That's it. PERIOD. If you decide to over-analyze this movie, you do not get this movie. Why didn't they use the sword from the start? Because that's the Power Ranger rule, that's loving why. Why does the plasma cannon charge-up time vary so wildly? Because that's the Dragon Ball Z rule. Why are the Kaiju emotionless monsters? Because they're motherfucking Godzilla's that eat people. How can Jaegers be built? You're watching a movie about 100 meter tall robots.
Batham fucked around with this message at 10:18 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 10:14
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Fact: Kaiju parts enhance male potency. You know I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the guy might have been lying.
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Jul 18, 2013 10:15
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Lemming posted:You know I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the guy might have been lying. The shady front man for a criminal overlord would never lie about a product!
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Jul 18, 2013 10:16
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Lemming posted:You know I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the guy might have been lying. Doesn't matter. The entire film is lies, but the concept is the same. Batham posted:
What is Godzilla? What is Godzilla 'about'?
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Jul 18, 2013 10:19
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Eat'in people. 
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Jul 18, 2013 10:20
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Batham posted:
If you were replying to anybody else, I'd be right there with you. But this? This is performance art. This is a pair of rival Rumpelstiltskins having a contest to see who can spin the most gold from poo poo in the shortest time. This is a metal monstrosity and a colossal bioweapon beating each other up with fists and claws, built from gigantic posts and sharpened through unconventional interpretations and sheer cuss-mindedness. No matter who loses, we all win. Also Godzilla is notoriously filled with symbolism, social commentary, and endearingly cheap costumes.
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Jul 18, 2013 10:22
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Sexual repression of the Japanese businessman in 1950's post-war Japan See the spines? Pseudo-penises. Radioactive breath? Toxic rage-filled semen. Hell Godzilla even looks like a penis. Standing angrily over the destroyed skyline of Tokyo he represents the desire of the repressed businessman to destroy his cage and stand erect over the exploitation of his existence. To be noticed among society, not just to live his life in anonymity
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Jul 18, 2013 10:25
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For the record, I'm on the side of the monsters.
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Jul 18, 2013 10:25
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Lemming posted:You know I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the guy might have been lying. Come on, get real. You know that powdered kaiju bone is just as effective as rhino horn or bones. And kaiju bones are bigger than rhino bones, so therefore their impact is bigger.
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Jul 18, 2013 10:29
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:For the record, I'm on the side of the monsters. Your name left little doubt.
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Jul 18, 2013 10:29
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Lemming posted:You know I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the guy might have been lying. Whether or not his statement was true within the fiction matters less than the fact that, outside of the fiction, the decision was made that the character should bring it up in the first place.
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Jul 18, 2013 10:30
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My girlfriend's father is a civilian contractor working for the D.O.D. who helped develop some of systems in modern attack drones and reconnaissance vehicles and he said, after viewing the movie with us, that the giant robots were "pretty rad". There, scientific opinion. omg chael crash fucked around with this message at 10:43 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 10:36
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 15:13 |
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Fact: Kaiju parts enhance male potency. Not Fact, and this is again tied into the desperate capitalist greed of Hannibal Chau, even though he sees it as the end of the world, there is some small sense of Randian fetishism that his wealth will protect him - that he runs and hides in a "private Kaiju bunker" only plays into the fact that he profits from lies, not only monetarily in the lies he tells others, but emotionally from the lies he tells himself. SuperMechagodzilla posted:For the record, I'm on the side of the monsters. Because just like you, they too become irrelevant at the end of the film.
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Jul 18, 2013 10:42
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