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Gatts posted:Wouldn't be Pyramid Head from the Silent Hill games would it? It's not quite what you describe though. Nah it's not him. I keep thinking it was a Zelda squid or something, maybe an old pulp magazine alien?
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Jul 19, 2013 04:55
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This thread was fun for a while.
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Jul 19, 2013 04:58
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ImpAtom posted:Oh, that's easy. They already made a Macross movie  Raserys posted:This thread was fun for a while. Then the monsters came in and wrecked everything! Oh poo poo, the circle is complete!
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Jul 19, 2013 04:59
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quick someone build some Fascist robots!
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Jul 19, 2013 05:01
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Bad Moon posted:Then the monsters came in and wrecked everything! Oh poo poo, the circle is complete! We've got to build giant robots to fight these monsters! Let us set aside our differences and band together as brothers and sisters -- as goons!
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Jul 19, 2013 05:01
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Raserys posted:This thread was fun for a while. Eh, the best way to handle SMG is to understand that he doesn't really care to make arguments, he just wants to present a film reading intentionally against the wave of the thread's tone as a thought experiment. It only gets to be a problem when people argue with him nonstop instead instead of just having fun with the thought experiment but not taking it too seriously.
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Jul 19, 2013 05:02
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Jefferoo posted:It's exhausting because I've stated this is a film I enjoy and that it is not fascist and when you keep saying that this film I enjoy I have generated a fascist reading of, you are directly inferring that I am fascist. This is an intellectually dishonest road not worth going down. What? Why? I mostly liked the Batman movies but I don't consider myself a liberal, for instance. My actual complaints about Pacific Rim have to do with the lovely protagonist and the constantly-obscured action - I liked plenty of the movie otherwise and I don't like it any less for all the stuff you've pointed out about it. Now, the thing is, you've definitely and absolutely produced a fascist reading of the film because you're saying it's all about discarding thought in favor of violent, unified action and endlessly-increasing size and strength against hated outsiders that must be destroyed because no other reconciliation is possible or conceivable. That's what that word is for. On top of that, you've correctly identified that the film buys into a hip, contemporary, technocratic mindset that glorifies hackers and technologists in specific and identifies technological power - not policy change - that will save humanity from external (more properly, externalized - the Kaiju are our fault, but we're absolutely not going to stop doing the stuff that brought them to earth. Now that they're distinct entities, we're going to punch them until they die!) threats. I mean, the futurist manifesto wasn't being quoted as a humorous non sequitur, it lines up perfectly with what you're saying.
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Jul 19, 2013 05:02
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I know there was sequel-chat earlier, but I think we can all put that behind us know because we've just seen Pacific Rim 2 in psuedo-intellectual thread form.Kannen posted:quick someone build some Fascist robots! Don't forget the dicks!
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Jul 19, 2013 05:03
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Superstring posted:Don't forget the dicks! I believe you mean phallus, good sir. We aren't talking about penises after all.
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Jul 19, 2013 05:06
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teagone posted:Aww yeah. My second box shipped. So I'm getting 48 figurines for $16. Amazing! My godson and I are going to be going nuts when they arrive
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Jul 19, 2013 05:07
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Kannen posted:quick someone build some Fascist robots! Nazi robots vs USA/Britain Robots...who do I have to throw money at to fund this???
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Jul 19, 2013 05:12
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Kannen posted:quick someone build some Fascist robots! Pfft, need some John Galt clean-energy ones made out of blue-green alloy and copper, with stream-powered transports.  My box shipped as well. I adore a good deal; admist all the serious-chat the irony isn't lost on me. vvv Haha! My mistake! SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Jul 19, 2013 |
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Jul 19, 2013 05:13
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:Pfft, need some John Galt clean-energy ones made out of blue-green alloy and copper, with stream-powered transports. Rand sucks, but don't bring steampunk robots into this. Steampunk robots are far too good for us. Edit: Oh, *stream* powered. Sorry, my mistake.
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Jul 19, 2013 05:19
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Don't listen to them! The Posting Wall will save us from this argument,
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Jul 19, 2013 05:33
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I got good news and bad news, people. Bad news is three more goons got banned in the thread. Good news is there are three new platinum accounts available!
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Jul 19, 2013 05:39
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ImpAtom posted:Eh, the best way to handle SMG is to understand that he doesn't really care to make arguments, he just wants to present a film reading intentionally against the wave of the thread's tone as a thought experiment. It only gets to be a problem when people argue with him nonstop instead instead of just having fun with the thought experiment but not taking it too seriously. Why would I pretend not to enjoy the film? I liked Man Of Steel and it's probably the highest-grossing film of the year.
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Jul 19, 2013 05:39
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Ferrinus posted:Now, the thing is, you've definitely and absolutely produced a fascist reading of the film because you're saying it's all about discarding thought in favor of violent, unified action and endlessly-increasing size and strength against hated outsiders that must be destroyed because no other reconciliation is possible or conceivable. It's not discarding "thought" - it's not even discarding philsophy, it's saying in the wake of this sort of problem, that SMG's sort of inaction doesn't accomplish anything. Reconciliation isn't possible because the Kaiju just show up and smash poo poo - it's what they're made for. Pakistanis don't walk into the streets and beg Predator drones to just go away. At that point what do you even do? Flash helicopter morse code and cross our fingers? Sadly at some times in history, violence is, unfortunately, necessary, a last resort, especially in the defense of the innocent. Sometimes yes, it is the only way. "Your mission is to protect the city of 2 million people." That's the mission. That's why they work, they research, they build. Not to dominate, genocide, or slaughter, but simply to protect the innocent from a colossal threat. That's not fascist and you are delusion to pervert the definition of fascism to such an extent that building a military organization as a last resort (after 3 events, mind you) to protect the innocent is now evil. quote:That's what that word is for. On top of that, you've correctly identified that the film buys into a hip, contemporary, technocratic mindset that glorifies hackers and technologists in specific and identifies technological power - not policy change - that will save humanity from external (more properly, externalized - the Kaiju are our fault, but we're absolutely not going to stop doing the stuff that brought them to earth. Now that they're distinct entities, we're going to punch them until they die!) threats. The policy change was to build a colossal wall and retreat 300 miles in-land in the hopes that they just go away. When in fact, we learn that this is not at all a part of their plans. quote:I mean, the futurist manifesto wasn't being quoted as a humorous non sequitur, it lines up perfectly with what you're saying. Sometimes situations get so bad and so desperate that drastic measures become necessary for survival. Sometimes people have to take a life to defend life. It sucks, but it's necessary. Pacific Rim creates such a situation that this is how desperate it is. Some could argue that our global warming situation has gotten this bad, I would say we're still safely enough in the time for bringing about policy change and spurring technological innovation in the places that need it most.
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Jul 19, 2013 05:39
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To be honest I like the idea of the monsters as representations of capitalistic shock doctrine in the flesh more than hurricanes.
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Jul 19, 2013 05:44
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euphronius posted:To be honest I like the idea of the monsters as representations of capitalistic shock doctrine in the flesh more than hurricanes. But if they are Hurricanes then Raleighs line at the beginning about fighting the hurricanes turns the story into a metaphor for man conquering the only form of nature we aren't able to beat: the weather. And after beating several hurricanes we fly into another realm and kill God, the creator of weather and being often associated with using weather as a weapon of revenge/punishment.
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Jul 19, 2013 05:49
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Bongo Bill posted:This film depicts a strong authoritarian leader, but it absolutely does not glorify the idea of following him. The movie is sort of weird here. Stacker Pentecost gets to give the big emotional speech, sacrifices himself to save the world, and is played by Idris Elba. He's glorified. But they also show him making mistakes and every time someone disagrees with him they're proven right. It combines a glorification of power with a glorification of a rebellious spirit that strikes me as fairly American. Bongo Bill posted:The imagery is linked, too, in the way kaiju travel with the waves rather than against them, and appear when it's raining. Yeah, this really gets at it. The movie shows us jaegers buffeted by waves and kaiju moving with them. Kramjacks posted:I never said anything about the Kaiju representing the poor. And if drifting is love then whats the deal with Stacker, who says that he brings literally nothing into the Drift? Is he devoid of love? Or is love actually not needed for the Drift to work? His love is universal but distant. Like, he loves Mako, but I never got the impression of him being deeply emotional about it, compared to the more overt expression from the Australians. Which is in line with him as a fascistic leader, who acts on behalf of all his people while also reducing them to their functional components: "All I need is your compliance and fighting skills."
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Jul 19, 2013 05:50
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Man also hasn't defeated capitalism. The other realm was Wall Street.
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Jul 19, 2013 05:50
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Jefferoo posted:Sometimes people have to take a life to defend life. It sucks, but it's necessary. This 'doing what's necessary' is pragmatism. Pragmatism is a power-philosophy. "The reality of what is independent of my own will is embodied, for philosophy, in the conception of 'truth'. The truth of my beliefs, in the view of common sense, does not depend, in most cases, upon anything that I can do. It is true that if I believe I shall eat my breakfast tomorrow, my belief, if true, is so partly in virtue of my own future volitions; but if I believe that Caesar was murdered on the Ides of March, what makes my belief true lies wholly outside the power of my will. Philosophies inspired by love of power find this situation unpleasant, and therefore set to work, in various ways, to undermine the commonsense conception of facts as the sources of truth or falsehood in beliefs... This gives freedom to creative fancy, which it liberates from the shackles of the supposed 'real' world. Pragmatism, in some of its forms, is a power-philosophy. For pragmatism, a belief is 'true' if its consequences are pleasant. Now human beings can make the consequences of a belief pleasant or unpleasant. Belief in the moral superiority of a dictator has pleasanter consequences than disbelief, if you live under his government. Wherever there is effective persecution, the official creed is 'true' in the pragmatist sense. The pragmatist philosophy, therefore, gives to those in power a metaphysical omnipotence which a more pedestrian philosophy would deny to them. I do not suggest that most pragmatists admit the consequences of their philosophy; I say only that they are consequences, and that the pragmatist's attack on the common view of truth is an outcome of love of power, though perhaps more of power over inanimate nature than of power over human beings." -Bertrand Russell Starship Troopers is about pragmatism as well. The Michael Ironside character promotes fascism because it simply 'works best'.
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Jul 19, 2013 05:50
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:This 'doing what's necessary' is pragmatism. Pragmatism is a power-philosophy. Jesus, the idea of Fascism is about the supremacy of the State/Nation. It doesn't work in the context of a multinational effort about humanity coming together and overcoming differences. Also, I'm sick of see psychoanalytic, freudian "phallus" stuff presented as legit psychology, when Freud is regarded as starting psychology, but totally goddamn wrong. If anything, the Rift is more like untreated, rapid cycling Bipolar- bad, destructive, and getting more and more frequent, but that wouldn't really make too much sense.
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Jul 19, 2013 06:02
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euphronius posted:To be honest I like the idea of the monsters as representations of capitalistic shock doctrine in the flesh more than hurricanes. Raleigh's the everyman who wears plaid button downs, Mako is the persecuted hipster with blue hair who has to go above and beyond to prove herself, Pentecost is the by the books manager who has to get his hands dirty with code again, so on and so on - while Earth represents the good of tech/hacker culture, and the Kaiju are the monolithic "startups" seeking to swallow up and consume, their origins being constructed on the other side of the "rift" - wealth disparity - and dispatched to do nothing but destroy. Destroy all that was good of this place and turn it into another home for the flashy CEO to rule over. You see it today, with the OUYA and the nutzoid Uhrman from another world sucking up indies, wanting to do another Kickstarter to lock up platform exclusives. euphronius posted:Man also hasn't defeated capitalism. The other realm was Wall Street. This, to some extent.
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Jul 19, 2013 06:02
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Kannen posted:Who said that was a problem? Since this got made, I'm hoping we get a exhausting flood of giant robot movies, a non-fascistic Macross/Robotech being one of them! I don't know dude. Macross has techno-fetishization, a band of plucky soldiers led by a stern but warm military leader, and wins battles by ramming its giant metal Sounds kinda fascist.
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Jul 19, 2013 06:15
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Just checked the shipping on my two Heroclix boxes, and they're scheduled to arrive on Monday. 
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Jul 19, 2013 06:16
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teagone posted:Just checked the shipping on my two Heroclix boxes, and they're scheduled to arrive on Monday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1Ib0-yKmoA Be surprised....
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Jul 19, 2013 06:21
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Jefferoo posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1Ib0-yKmoA I haven't been reading your posts, so I have no idea what you mean by this. 
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Jul 19, 2013 06:25
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I wonder if people would be more comfortable if we referred to the resistance as 'corporatist', the nicer way of saying fascist?
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Jul 19, 2013 06:25
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It doesn't work if you explain the euphemism right there. (Also, what corporation? The major faces of capitalism we see in the film are A) the wall-builders handing out jobs like it's Grapes of Wrath, and B) Hannibal Chau and his black market.)
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Jul 19, 2013 06:27
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I wonder if people would be more comfortable if we referred to the resistance as 'corporatist', the nicer way of saying fascist? Corporations exist solely to make money. Pacific Rim starts out with the PPDC losing their funding from their investors for failing to meet their goal, which is not making money. They proceed to triumph against impossible odds regardless of this fact through sheer force of people working together. In a more nonsensical world you could argue that this film is actually about Steve Jobs and it's only with Stacker Pentecost putting on his black work uniform and getting his hands dirty again that they succeed.
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Jul 19, 2013 06:30
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Xealot posted:I don't think this is entirely wrong, but you're ignoring how quintessentially Japanese Mako Mori's whole story actually is. To an American audience, the idea that Gipsy Danger's the best fighting robot, thus its victory is a victory for America, is going to be more appreciable. But while that aspect is unfolding, you're also following this story of a young girl coping with a strict paternal hierarchy, who seeks vengeance against sea monsters for the honor of her family. This is why I went in expecting Raliegh and Mako to make out by the end of the movie, because I felt it was an American love-letter to Japanese films.
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Jul 19, 2013 06:30
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Jefferoo posted:Corporations exist solely to make money. Pacific Rim starts out with the PPDC losing their funding from their investors for failing to meet their goal, which is not making money. They proceed to triumph against impossible odds regardless of this fact through sheer force of people working together. In a more nonsensical world you could argue that this film is actually about Steve Jobs and it's only with Stacker Pentecost putting on his black work uniform and getting his hands dirty again that they succeed. Corporatism =/= corporations.
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Jul 19, 2013 06:36
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Jesus, the idea of Fascism is about the supremacy of the State/Nation. It doesn't work in the context of a multinational effort about humanity coming together and overcoming differences. 
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Jul 19, 2013 06:42
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You know, subtext is interesting when somebody gets something batshit crazy out of it, like Febreeze's post. But when two equally unmovable objects fight over what can only be called subjective opinions it just gets boring after awhile. But to sidestep this derail; lets all talk about the single most important country in the pacific rim that has been ignored, Canada  . For example, what would it's Jaeger be called?My money's on Flying Wolf, and it uses Cirque du Soleil-esque acrobatic techniques to screw with the Kaiju.
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Jul 19, 2013 06:43
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SomeJazzyRat posted:You know, subtext is interesting when somebody gets something batshit crazy out of it, like Febreeze's post. But when two equally unmovable objects fight over what can only be called subjective opinions it just gets boring after awhile.
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Jul 19, 2013 06:45
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Corporatism =/= corporations. Even then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#cite_note-9 posted:Corporatist types of community and social interaction are common to many ideologies, including: absolutism, capitalism, conservatism, fascism, liberalism, progressivism, reactionism, socialism, and syndicalism. Yeah, I guess that's just the "nice word for fascist." Yuh-huh.
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Jul 19, 2013 06:47
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SomeJazzyRat posted:But to sidestep this derail; lets all talk about the single most important country in the pacific rim that has been ignored, Canada Chrome Brutus.
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Jul 19, 2013 06:48
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SMG, Jefferoo, can you just let it rest? You've made your points, the discussion has been had, and it is absolutely boring and tedious to see this discussion continue when it's not going anywhere.
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Jul 19, 2013 06:49
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I'm pretty much just scrolling by anything written by either of them, and checking up on my Heroclix bros. Monday will truly be a great day. 
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Jul 19, 2013 06:51
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