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Xenomrph posted:The more I think about it, wouldn't Pacific Rim's point be more communist anyway? What with the whole "we have learned to trust in each other"/"hive mind"/"neural link"/sharing unequivocally stuff?
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Jul 20, 2013 08:14
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Stick Figure Mafia posted:I haven't kept up with this thread but is it safe to say Supermechagodzilla had a hand in this? Yeah. One post and the dominoes fell.
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Jul 20, 2013 08:18
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Ferrinus posted:And the Kaiju are, in fact, textually female - they're all clones, and one is pregnant. That's not even getting into the actual imagery used. You actually just made up the "animalistic/thoughtless = female" thing. Alternately, you have some weird ideas about gender? Taking humans as an example, the difference between a man and a woman is the activation of a single gene. A civilisation that's capable of assembling monsters from scratch should have no problems switching gender, shouldn't it? It's, well, technologically not extremely complicated. E: What I'm saying is - there are tons of possibilities. If the Kaiju were all female, I'm sure Newt would have mentioned it on screen, being the groupie that he is. meristem fucked around with this message at 08:54 on Jul 20, 2013 |
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Jul 20, 2013 08:51
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Ferrinus posted:Uh, there's also the dearth of female characters with speaking parts and the almost complete subordination of the one important female character we do get to the world's most boring man. The 'female' kaiju thing has been addressed, it's never been made clear that even the kaiju carrying it was what we'd refer to as 'female'. Even if they were, I'm pretty sure neither Jurassic Park nor Godzilla 1998 were anti-women texts either. (Have we given up on the sword being phallic yet? Not only is it established within the film that her character is an expert with a (wooden) sword, but it's also a specialist skill of her actress apparently. It's completely patronising to suggest she's having to act out of gender to use it.)
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Jul 20, 2013 09:56
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What troubles me is that people are quibbling over the definition of 'fascism' when the primary issue is that a fat, grotesque, female nonperson is punched in the belly until it explodes with blood and viscera, and the hero continues punching the wound with a piston-like repetition until nothing is left but a steaming paste, while he smiles and celebrates the overkill. This message is directed at small children, while ostensible adults exult the lack of 'moral complexity' - as if it's complex to stop and say this is WRONG. When you break it down, people are more concerned with being called 'bad', than with honestly taking steps actually stop doing bad things. It's ok to desecrate a corpse do long as I don't do so 'fascistly'. "I desecrated this corpse as part of a technically-multinational and arguably-stateless operation, so it's ok." That's not the issue. The yonic imagery associated with the kaiju monsters has been outlined in detail and is blatant anyways. The dilating rift, Ron Perlman crawling from a knife wound, the literal childbirth scene. Anyone seen that movie Inside? It's the same stuff. This takes on interesting connotations when we consider that the monsters are implicitly Japanese ("kaiju", modeled primarily after characters like Guiron (i.e Knifehead)) and explicitly female - like our co-lead, right? But even on a more basic level, who wants to see a movie where King Kong is lynched by the heroes and graphically disemboweled?
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Jul 20, 2013 11:12
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:What troubles me is that people are quibbling over the definition of 'fascism' when the primary issue is that a fat, grotesque, female nonperson is punched in the belly until it explodes with blood and viscera, and the hero continues punching the wound with a piston-like repetition until nothing is left but a steaming paste, while he smiles and celebrates the overkill. ...? I think you're referring to the 'no pulse' scene but, honestly, I'm not sure. SMG, this has got to be your weakest attempt at a critical reading yet.
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Jul 20, 2013 11:16
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Milky Moor posted:I think you're referring to the 'no pulse' scene but, honestly, I'm not sure. Are we now going to quibble over whether shooting someone with a fist-gun at close range constitutes a 'punch', and thereby continue to evade the obvious point?
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Jul 20, 2013 11:26
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The "no pulse" scene works because its cathartic - after watching 2 Jaeger teams get wiped out and a third disabled, it's a release to shoot up the unambiguously evil monster's corpse because it "deserves it". The Kaiju show up unannounced and wreck our poo poo, and continue to do so for a decade with no end in sight and neither rhyme nor reason behind it (so far as the characters or audience know at that point). It's just like the "don't shoot; let 'em burn!" line in Saving Private Ryan. It might seem barbaric, but given that it happens in the midst of the Omaha Beach landing where hundreds of soldiers are being mercilessly mowed down like ripe wheat, you can't say that the desire for some "payback" doesn't make sense.
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Jul 20, 2013 11:37
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Are we now going to quibble over whether shooting someone with a fist-gun at close range constitutes a 'punch', and thereby continue to evade the obvious point? I just wonder why you don't say 'shoot'. Maybe it's because you're trying to make the act seem worse than it was? Of course, anyone who actually watched the film would know that Raleigh doesn't smile and celebrate the overkill either.
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Jul 20, 2013 11:42
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The 'no pulse' scene came across a little weird to me, but the last time Raleigh fought a kaiju and assumed it was dead it got back up and killed his brother.
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Jul 20, 2013 11:44
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It also shows that Raleigh has matured and grown some sense. He lost his brother because they casually assumed Knifehead was a chump that would go down in one blow, but the increasing toughness of the Kaiju meant their cowboy attitude was borderline suicidal. Years later with a new partner, he takes down an even tougher, meaner beastie and was about to turn his back on it. He's even in the same harness as his brother, and then he has a moment of paranoia or premonition and pre-emptively re-kills it, just to make absolutely sure it's actually dead and won't jump on his back. It can also be seen as teaching moment to Mako, to practically demonstrate that Kaiju are insanely resilient and should absolutely not be taken lightly. No rock star swaggering or lazy "Nothing could survive that!", just get the job done right. Also, there is no indication that Leatherback was female.
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Jul 20, 2013 11:46
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Xenomrph posted:The "no pulse" scene works because its cathartic - [...] you can't say that the desire for some "payback" doesn't make sense. Punching an inanimate object such as a pillow - or, in this case, a woman's corpse - to 'let the anger out' is actually shown to have no therapeutic effect, and likely just makes things worse. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Jul 20, 2013 |
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Jul 20, 2013 11:54
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Jesus Christ, where has this thread gone to.
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Jul 20, 2013 11:54
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Nor that it wasn't, in fairness. But, no, obviously the depiction as exciting and positive of the defeat of of an imminently threatening enemy is an endorsement of violence against women, or, more accurately, against minorities (who are weak and therefore woman-like).
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Jul 20, 2013 11:59
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Bongo Bill posted:But, no, obviously the depiction as exciting and positive of the defeat of of [sic] an imminently threatening enemy is an endorsement of violence against women, or, more accurately, against minorities (who are weak and therefore woman-like). In this context, yes. Exactly!
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Jul 20, 2013 12:02
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Bongo Bill posted:Nor that it wasn't, in fairness. But what does that mean in real world terms? When is this kind of overkill ever "okay"? If Seal Team 6 had executed Bin Laden in an violent Inglorious Basterds type blood orgy, would you have been okay with that? Would you be fine with our soldiers in Iraq showed this behaviour? So what the hell is this doing in a movie marketed at kids? What about a little restraint or melancholy from Leading Man, a little compassion? But no, of course, this movie is saying that this kind of display is okay against an unambiguously evil enemy like the Kaiju, but uh hey don't try this at home, kids!
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Jul 20, 2013 12:04
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Milky Moor posted:I just wonder why you don't say 'shoot'. Maybe it's because you're trying to make the act seem worse than it was? Of course, anyone who actually watched the film would know that Raleigh doesn't smile and celebrate the overkill either. After the statement that arguing over definitions is pointless when it's quite clear what was intended and doesn't make the context of what happens any less troubling, you want to resume arguing over definitions. Xenomrph posted:The "no pulse" scene works because its cathartic - after watching 2 Jaeger teams get wiped out and a third disabled, it's a release to shoot up the unambiguously evil monster's corpse because it "deserves it". The Kaiju show up unannounced and wreck our poo poo, and continue to do so for a decade with no end in sight and neither rhyme nor reason behind it (so far as the characters or audience know at that point). It's just like the "don't shoot; let 'em burn!" line in Saving Private Ryan. It might seem barbaric, but given that it happens in the midst of the Omaha Beach landing where hundreds of soldiers are being mercilessly mowed down like ripe wheat, you can't say that the desire for some "payback" doesn't make sense. The idea that the Kaiju are 'unambiguously evil' isn't even supported in the context of a basic reading of the film. They are painfully subjugated into carrying out the will of the 'masters' and once crossed over into our world they encounter war machines designed specifically to kill them, since it appears they carry some sort of genetic memory it's no surprise they lash out violently. Again it's worth noting that they had been slaughtering Kaiju leading up to the start of the film, the introduction makes note of how trivial the threat became and yet it didn't stop the disproportionate response to it. The film doesn't show the direct threat Kaiju show to human's, their reaction to Newt in the bunker is in stark contrast to how they react to Jagers.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:11
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Punching an inanimate object such as a pillow - or, on this case, a woman's corpse - to 'let the anger out' is actually shown to have no therapeutic effect, and likely just makes things worse. Good thing that wasn't what happened in Pacific Rim then. I've asked you before and I'll ask again, If you're going to critique and analyze the film, analyze THE FILM, not things you've made up.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:14
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We need 2 threads for this "discussion."
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Jul 20, 2013 12:16
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Shanty posted:But what does that mean in real world terms? When is this kind of overkill ever "okay"? If Seal Team 6 had executed Bin Laden in an violent Inglorious Basterds type blood orgy, would you have been okay with that? Would you be fine with our soldiers in Iraq showed this behaviour? So what the hell is this doing in a movie marketed at kids? What about a little restraint or melancholy from Leading Man, a little compassion? This, of course, being the reason that violent video games like Grand Theft Auto should not be made either right? Because people have no ability to discern the difference between the fantasy and reality.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:16
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It's also important to keep in mind that this particular monster was specifically sent after the doctor performing medical experiments on her maimed but still-living sisters. We're shown Newt disheveled and bleeding after the drift. Implicitly, the kaiju brain in the jar felt a similar pain. It's basically torture to extract information. Yeah, the masters calling the shots are neoliberals - but that's not the monsters' fault.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:19
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brawleh posted:The idea that the Kaiju are 'unambiguously evil' isn't even supported in the context of a basic reading of the film. They are painfully subjugated into carrying out the will of the 'masters'- Citation needed.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:21
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brawleh posted:The idea that the Kaiju are 'unambiguously evil' isn't even supported in the context of a basic reading of the film. They are painfully subjugated into carrying out the will of the 'masters' and once crossed over into our world they encounter war machines designed specifically to kill them, since it appears they carry some sort of genetic memory it's no surprise they lash out violently. Again it's worth noting that they had been slaughtering Kaiju leading up to the start of the film, the introduction makes note of how trivial the threat became and yet it didn't stop the disproportionate response to it. The film doesn't show the direct threat Kaiju show to human's, their reaction to Newt in the bunker is in stark contrast to how they react to Jagers. Well, they're not shown as painfully subjugated beings, unfortunately. They're designed and purposed of extruded sinew and bone, possibly in a callback to R.U.R. but certainly as a direct comparison to more conventionally industrial construction of the Jaegers. They have as much autonomy as, funnily enough, an actual Jaeger. You are also forgetting that there wasn't a squadron of Jaegers loitering out near the Breach when Trespasser emerged, forcing the innocent, primal beast into a confused battle of survival against the brutal machines of man. It stomped up and proceeded to eat most of San Francisco, and the next few dozen attempted to do the same with varying degrees of success. The film does address the belief that the Kaiju are random, innocent beasts migrating into our territory, then demonstrates that they are essentially fleshy T.O.W. missiles pointed at Earth.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:23
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Milky Moor posted:Citation needed. One of Newt's drifts shows a Kaiju being created/assembled while it roars in what really appeared to me to be extreme pain. No way to tell how they're treated past that, but there's some textual backing for them suffering quite a bit when they're brought into being.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:28
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Every melding scene with the Kaiju showed them packed together limbless but you can see their bodies writhing around, they appear to be screaming and the it's quick cuts to limbs and appendages being stitched onto them and another quick cut into pushing through the gateway. They are used by the masters in a very callous and careless way, evidenced by the fact that for so long they keep sending them to certain death, which the Kaiju are painfully aware of.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:29
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However, if you ignore the 'fleshiness' - the eyes, brains, wombs, etc. - the monsters do indeed look like mere objects to be destroyed without reflection or remorse.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:33
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The Kaiju are aware and very upset over the fact that they're being used as fodder by uncaring masters who have designed them to die, so they never once act against their makers or do anything other than beeline to population centers and eat humans?
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Jul 20, 2013 12:34
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:However, if you ignore the 'fleshiness' - the eyes, brains, wombs, etc. - the monsters do indeed look like mere objects to be destroyed without reflection or remorse. To the best of the character's knowledge (specifically the jaegar pilots) the kaiju are similar to a rabid dog. Attacking and killing innocents, causing wanton destruction, and needing to be put down. Newt is the first one to realize they aren't mindless attackers, and he tells Stacker. Stacker is on record as only dispensing knowledge on a need-to-know basis however. So as far a Raleigh and Mako know, the Kaiju they double-tap to ensure its dead doesn't have any real agency of its own.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:37
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Shadeoses posted:The Kaiju are aware and very upset over the fact that they're being used as fodder by uncaring masters who have designed them to die, so they never once act against their makers or do anything other than beeline to population centers and eat humans? They are effectively neutered on the other side, they only appear to be 'armed' when being sent through the portal, The response to the very first Kaiju sent through showed them they are hated by both sides. Also the film doesn't support your idea that they want to eat humans in fact we know very little about them and that is the problem.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:45
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brawleh posted:They are effectively neutered on the other side, they only appear to be 'armed' when being sent through the portal, The response to the very first Kaiju sent through showed them they are hated by both sides. Also the film doesn't support your idea that they want to eat humans in fact we know very little about them and that is the problem. The first and second acts of a newborn Kaiju are 1) chase human, and 2) eat human. And the kaiju as a whole are attacking population centers. They may not be eating people specifically, but they pop out in the middle of the ocean and proceed to go to a population center and wreck stuff, generally with accompanied loss of life.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:48
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jivjov posted:To the best of the character's knowledge (specifically the jaegar pilots) the kaiju are similar to a rabid dog. Attacking and killing innocents, causing wanton destruction, and needing to be put down. Not quite. To use the rabid dog analogy, the initial assumption was that there was a natural occurrence of rabid dog attacks in the neighbourhood, caused by some unknown natural process. The discovery is that a rich land developer is driving a truck through town at night and releasing rabid dogs in a bid to lower property values so he can build a strip mall. The dogs are the same mindless forces of destruction as their wild cousins, they're just being used for a directed purpose. And in order to combat the proactive dog-hunters, he's started breeding rabid dogs that shoot acid or fly.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:48
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:This takes on interesting connotations when we consider that the monsters are implicitly Japanese ("kaiju", modeled primarily after characters like Guiron (i.e Knifehead)) and explicitly female - like our co-lead, right? quote:But even on a more basic level, who wants to see a movie where King Kong is lynched by the heroes and graphically disemboweled? SuperMechagodzilla posted:However, if you ignore the 'fleshiness' - the eyes, brains, wombs, etc. - the monsters do indeed look like mere objects to be destroyed without reflection or remorse.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:49
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Shadeoses posted:they never once act against their makers or do anything other than beeline to population centers and eat humans? We only see about 30 seconds of the alien world, who is to say they never once did? Maybe for the sequel.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:50
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Shadeoses posted:Not quite. To use the rabid dog analogy, the initial assumption was that there was a natural occurrence of rabid dog attacks in the neighbourhood, caused by some unknown natural process. The discovery is that a rich land developer is driving a truck through town at night and releasing rabid dogs in a bid to lower property values so he can build a strip mall. You kinda lost me there; but if I'm following you correctly, that doesn't matter to the two people piloting Gipsy Danger. Stacker hasn't clued anyone in that the Kaiju aren't just 'wild animals' and Newt doesn't talk to the pilots until the end when they're attacking the rift itself. To the best of Raleigh and Mako's knowledge, Otachi and Leatherback are animals causing mass devastation. Raleigh earlier compares Kaiju to hurricanes, a natural force. You can't rightly judge a character's actions based on knowledge that they do not possess.
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Jul 20, 2013 12:54
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(Sorry, phone posting. Typographical errors will undoubtedly ensue.) A problem is that "fascist," at least in colloquial use, is an insult: not just a description of a set of political values, not merely negatively-connotated, but a term of hostility and provocation. There isn't a need to be provoked by it, however. I admit I fell for it at first. It's a good trick. So the film's position is like fascism in that it posits that an absolute and unreasoning threat can exist, and that the appropriate response to one is to rise to meet it hot-bloodedly with the aid of technology, and that participating in such a resistance is heroic. I'd say that has more in common with the doctrine of total war, which is not specifically a fascist idea (it was in fact famously compatible with both of the positions to which fascism considered itself an alternative). The biggest hint is that the jaegers are all destroyed at the end, rather than being an endless struggle; the second biggest hint is that victory was only possible by empathizing with and respecting (drifting with) the enemy - less "Triumph of the Will," more "Why We Fight."
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Jul 20, 2013 12:59
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jivjov posted:The first and second acts of a newborn Kaiju are 1) chase human, and 2) eat human. And the kaiju as a whole are attacking population centers. They may not be eating people specifically, but they pop out in the middle of the ocean and proceed to go to a population center and wreck stuff, generally with accompanied loss of life. Here's a quote I posted earlier but got overlooked "Monsters are born too tall, too strong, too heavy—that is their tragedy," we really do not know what their intentions are in regards to human beings, they are giants and their attempted interactions with us should be viewed through this lens. Also I'm not convinced they even notice us until Newt attempts the meld.
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Jul 20, 2013 13:06
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jivjov posted:You kinda lost me there; but if I'm following you correctly, that doesn't matter to the two people piloting Gipsy Danger. Stacker hasn't clued anyone in that the Kaiju aren't just 'wild animals' and Newt doesn't talk to the pilots until the end when they're attacking the rift itself. Sure, but would Gipsy Danger respond to those two Kaiju differently, knowing that they're directed rather than random in the grand scheme of things? The double-checking of Leatherback's pulse isn't because Raleigh has a fetish that leads him to acts of unnecessary cruel violence against wild animals, it's because five years ago he and his brother turned their back on a dead Kaiju and paid dearly for it. That's how the end of the 'Golden Age' of Jaegers is represented - the human resistance get complacent, arrogant and trivialise the Kaiju, both in making them kid's toys, and assuming they're dead after one good hit. Taking an extra moment to check the pulse shows Raleigh's learned from his mistakes and has adapted to the new Kaiju, unlike the other Jaegers which are shown to have inflexible weaknesses which the Kaiju exploit.
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Jul 20, 2013 13:12
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Bongo Bill posted:So the film's position is like fascism in that it posits that an absolute and unreasoning threat can exist, and that the appropriate response to one is to rise to meet it hot-bloodedly with the aid of technology, and that participating in such a resistance is heroic. It's pretty clear that the film lacks a single authoritative government, any kind of militarised state hierarchy, or any use of violence as a means of social control/intimidation. So how is it 'fascist'? Also, let's apply a different methodology to your statement. Smallpox, caused by the Variola viruses, existed, and posed a direct threat to human lives. By utilising science and technology, humans created a vaccine which could be used to eradicate the disease. By taking this vaccine to human populations in dangerous parts of the world, the medics involved displayed great bravery in order to save lives. As this action was carried out against a direct threat, was it therefore a fascist act?
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Jul 20, 2013 13:13
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brawleh posted:Here's a quote I posted earlier but got overlooked "Monsters are born too tall, too strong, too heavy—that is their tragedy," we really do not know what their intentions are in regards to human beings, they are giants and their attempted interactions with us should be viewed through this lens. Also I'm not convinced they even notice us until Newt attempts the meld. I'm pretty sure their intention is to kill us, considering they seem to aim for pilots when they're aware of them and wreck cities for 6-days straight. I'm also pretty sure it was chasing Mako in her dream which could of been what actually happened.
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Jul 20, 2013 13:16
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Kegluneq posted:I'm going to ask this clearly now: What the sodding hell does this have to do with fascism? Is this all based on the extremely tenuous link that fascist states also glorify violence and those who carry it out? My argument all along has been that it isn't, at least not necessarily - that the reading of it as a fascist film is a weak (and probably motivated) reading. You should read past my first sentence. NoneSuch posted:I'm pretty sure their intention is to kill us, considering they seem to aim for pilots when they're aware of them and wreck cities for 6-days straight. I'm also pretty sure it was chasing Mako in her dream which could of been what actually happened. Knifehead visibly goes for Gypsy's "heart" to little effect, but Otachi breaches Cherno's cockpit and drowns it. The kaiju are constructed with more knowledge of the jaegers' weaknesses, possibly due to Newt drifting. Mako's dream was ambiguous precisely because it was a dream, but Leatherback was certainly aware of Herc and Chuck, and Otachi of Newt, but that's obviously a different scenario. We don't see much footage of Trespasser. Bongo Bill fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Jul 20, 2013 |
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Jul 20, 2013 13:17
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