Jack Does Jihad posted:I think it's just that mech warriors look loving badass, and Pacific Rim is full of designs that seem mildly derivative/inspired by other mechs, most of which the average person wouldn't know about. Striker Eureka looks familiar to me, but I can't tell you exactly what mech he seems to be based on. It's an easy, mainstream way to see cool looking robots without having a huge amount of embarrassing anime knowledge. Striker Eureka really reminded me of Jazz or from the new Transformers films.
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Jul 21, 2013 00:17
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The parallels between the treatment of 'kaiju' in this film and the treatment of the 'bugs' in such politically-charged fictional films as District 9, Starship Troopers, and 300 have already been outlined. The problem being there is no parallel (besides being not-human). As has been pointed out to you numerous times the kaiju are akin to natural disasters or war machines and are not thinking beings as in the other films.
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Jul 21, 2013 00:28
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As hilariously off base and completely out of touch the accusations of fascism are, they can make for a pretty fun afternoon warm-up.
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Jul 21, 2013 00:30
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Milky Moor posted:Striker Eureka really reminded me of Jazz or from the new Transformers films. It always reminded me of something from Armored Core.
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Jul 21, 2013 00:31
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gently caress This Puzzle posted:The problem being there is no parallel (besides being not-human). As has been pointed out to you numerous times the kaiju are akin to natural disasters or war machines and are not thinking beings as in the other films. There are multiple scenes of characters trying to find out what the kaiju think by entering their minds and literally viewing their thoughts. Textual evidence suggests they are intelligent enough to understand such abstract concepts as 'colonialism' - not to mention their knowledge of the gene-scanning security mechanism that blocks access to the rift. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Jul 21, 2013 |
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Jul 21, 2013 01:04
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Except the thoughts are those of the alien overlords who control the kaiju with their minds. This is explicitly told to the viewer. It's the equivalent of remote controlling a machine. And like I said before maybe you should start with understanding the text before delving into any subtext.
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Jul 21, 2013 01:17
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It came from Deviant Art. Good job Striker... 
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Jul 21, 2013 01:17
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gently caress This Puzzle posted:Except the thoughts are those of the alien overlords who control the kaiju with their thoughts. This is explicitly told to the viewer. It's the equivalent of remote controlling a machine. Newt obviously links minds with the kaiju, not the master aliens, and experiences such kaiju-specific memories as their painful creation/birth.
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Jul 21, 2013 01:22
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Newt obviously links minds with the kaiju, not the master aliens, and experiences such kaiju-specific memories as their painful creation/birth. No, he rather obviously links with the master aliens. You can't actually say he doesn't because one of the critical plot points is that they read his mind in the same way that he reads theirs and use that information against humanity. They're very explicit that he is binding with hivemind that controls the Kaiju, not the Kaiju itself, and that the images of creation and birth are those of the master's viewing it.
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Jul 21, 2013 01:25
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:By this standard it is theoretically impossible for any film to mean anything, since even the most stringent documentary is not, itself, reality. This seems like an appeal to extremes: Are you saying that all films have the same amount of meaning to them? If so, that is an extremely lazy way of applying critical theory to media. Alternatively, it's equally lazy to refuse to make a distinction between Pacific Rim and say, Triumph of the Will (to use a previous example in this thread) in terms of the film's depiction of itself as reality. SuperMechagodzilla posted:You can appeal to the film's ridiculousness, but then the same can be said of the ridiculously fascist protagonists of Starship Troopers. This is a muddled statement. Are you arguing that the protagonists of Starship Troopers are not, in fact ridiculous, or that the ridiculousness of their portrayal does not diminish from the fact that they're portrayed as fascists? I find it odd that you are trying to make a comparison between a movie that is an almost explicit satire of a fascistic book and one that has no greater explicit political message then 'working together is good.' Much like the other arguments in this thread that Pacific Rim is fascist, you're trying apply a deep meaning to a superficial similarity. SuperMechagodzilla posted:The parallels between the treatment of 'kaiju' in this film and the treatment of the 'bugs' in such politically-charged fictional films as District 9, Starship Troopers, and 300 have already been outlined. I think it's funny that you refer to the Persian soldiers in 300 as 'bugs'. Now who is the dehumanizing one? Joking aside, while you have drawn connections (again, on a superficial level) between those disparate depictions of 'others,' it is only by dint of purposely ignoring how different those others are depicted even within their own films, and how the monsters are depicted in Pacific Rim. SuperMechagodzilla posted:What is your precedent for reading a film of this sort as 'apolitical'? And, to repeat: if the resistance is not fascist, what is it? I am not reading this film as apolitical. I think it has an extremely basic and contrived political message about unity and 'the human spirit' much like the 1980s anime it is based on and derives all of it's tropes and archetypes from. I believe this movie to be stupid, not messageless. And the resistance? That's an easy answer: It is a populist revolutionary organization that is more in line with the Soviets then the Nazis. It draws it's crew and major combatants from almost entirely the lower class (The crews of pretty much all the Jeagers are either explicitly lower class or appropriate working class aesthetics). Their greatest weapons are reminiscent of mass Soviet engineering projects, and they live in a giant rusty commune. The wall-building 'elites' are more representative of the middle class, purportedly being on the same side as the workers but willing to sell them out for their own protection regardless of it's actual effectiveness as long as they aren't the first to collapse and die. The Makers and their kaiju are the upper class, constantly and thoughtlessly devastating urban areas and leaving huge piles of pollution wherever they travel. They are desperately greedy for the planet's resources and treat the other sentient species that live in the place they're invading with so much contempt that they don't even bother to communicate with them. Technologically they are leagues beyond everyone else in the film (While the Jeager's are aesthetically mechanical and futuristic, the kaiju, being biologically designed weapons, are the apex technology in the film. This is demonstrated when one of them unleashes an electro-magnetic pulse from itself, a distinctly non-natural phenomenon). They also refuse to dirty their own hands in conflict, instead sending out autonomous drones to destroy, much like the elites of a certain contemporary hegemonic power. Of course, it can also be read your way too, it only depends on who you actually identify with. If you are coming from a revolutionary perspective, it's a revolutionary movie. If you are coming from a fascist perspective, it's fascist. It is easy to posit it as pretty much any dualistic conflict because it's a simplistic film about a good and an evil, and any side can really be the good or the evil with enough justification. For the record, I feel like the essential point here is that action films have fascistic tendencies, as do fairy tales and myths. I agree with that, but only in the sense that fascism tries to transform the world into art, an act of reduction, and myths, fairy tales, and action movies are all also reductionist as a core of their genre. Also for the record, I think you are a very clever person who understands a lot about critical theory and enjoys applying that knowledge to popular films. I respect that, but I also think that at this point in the argument you (and Ferrinus) are just trying to get a lot of nerds angry on the internet.
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Jul 21, 2013 01:26
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Newt obviously links minds with the kaiju, not the master aliens, and experiences such kaiju-specific memories as their painful creation/birth. Except it's shown from the outside and is thus the aliens constructing them. None of the kaiju has a specific, individual memory. The words "hive mind" are used (it is the hivemind of the colonial aliens). They're upgraded like equipment to better fight against the jaegars. They are machines. This really is not difficult to understand.
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Jul 21, 2013 01:26
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Wasn't sure if it was mentioned, but the first Kaiju scream heard is Godzilla's right? If not it sounds awfully similar.
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Jul 21, 2013 01:37
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gently caress This Puzzle posted:Except it's shown from the outside and is thus the aliens constructing them. None of the kaiju has a specific, individual memory. The words "hive mind" are used (it is the hivemind of the colonial aliens). They're upgraded like equipment to better fight against the jaegars. They are machines. Drifting humans also remember themselves and each-other in third person. Is Mako also nonthinking? We are shown a kaiju's specific individual memory of being born, unless you're arguing that the specific shot of a specific creature being created is some sort of archetypal concept and not a memory (even though it is shot in the exact same way as the humans' memories)?
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Jul 21, 2013 01:37
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Can't it just be a movie about robots punching monsters in the loving face?
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Jul 21, 2013 01:42
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Can you not read? The perspective is from the outside of the creature - from the perspective of the creators. They're not born they are constructed. Even if we're gonna argue it's just cinematic shorthand (which it probably is) all the evidence points away from your reading and to mine. Every bit of evidence is that these are biological machines and not thinking individuals. It's getting tiring having to repeat facts to the brick wall that is you over and over again so I won't list the evidence again. It must be fairly easy to write walls of text when you can ignore the text you're writing about.
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Jul 21, 2013 01:42
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gently caress This Puzzle posted:Can you not read? The perspective is from the outside of the creature - from the perspective of the creators. They're not born they are constructed. I'm not entirely sure about the hive mind the Kaiju have being an absolute and there being no individuality. During the final battle, the Cat V let out a powerful roar whose purpose seemed to be to summon its escorts to its aid. If they were truly a complete hive mind, I don't think such a summons would be necessary.
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Jul 21, 2013 01:48
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Considering the single-booster pack is supposed to be a whopping  before shipping, getting a single figurine for a third of that price isn't too bad.Though this reminds me why I never picked up the WizKids Mechwarrior clix game.
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Jul 21, 2013 01:49
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Artless Meat posted:It always reminded me of something from Armored Core. This movie made me want to play Armored Core so baldly, while watching Big O, and building models of the jagers.
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Jul 21, 2013 01:52
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gently caress This Puzzle posted:Can you not read? The perspective is from the outside of the creature - from the perspective of the creators. Again, we see Mako's memory of raking the sand in a zen garden 'from the outside' - via a top-down 'god's eye' perspective, even. Did you conclude from this that Mako is the empty meat-puppet of an invisible god in the sky? Can we kill Mako without worry because she is therefore an object? If not, why do you draw an opposite conclusion about the kaiju's intelligence from identical textual evidence?
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Jul 21, 2013 01:55
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The movie explicitly said there was a hive-mind and that the master aliens were controlling the kaiju and were a part of it (and their plans were found out through that, along with how they tried before with dinosaurs). That was one of the biggest plot points of the movie, why is anyone arguing that?
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Jul 21, 2013 01:57
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Again, we see Mako's memory of raking the sand in a zen garden 'from the outside' - via a top-down 'god's eye' perspective, even. Oh you can't read. Thanks for the confirmation. "Even if we're gonna argue it's just cinematic shorthand (which it probably is)" Also you can't remember your birth (or in this case, construction). I guess this little tidbit is beyond your powers of reasoning. RBA Starblade posted:The movie explicitly said there was a hive-mind and that the master aliens were controlling the kaiju and were a part of it (and their plans were found out through that, along with how they tried before with dinosaurs). That was one of the biggest plot points of the movie, why is anyone arguing that? Who the hell knows.
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Jul 21, 2013 01:57
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PSWII60 posted:This movie made me want to play Armored Core so baldly, while watching Big O, and building models of the jagers. This movie made me want to continue playing Carnage Heart EXA. The bipedal frames for the OKEs look suitably Jaeger-like, but OKEs are fully automated, so no piloting really involved. It's still a fun game for programmers and mecha enthusiasts.
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Jul 21, 2013 01:59
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I find it extremely interesting that the immediate conclusion drawn from the 'hive mind' line is that the monsters are rocklike objects. Why not conclude that they are hyperintelligent and empathetic - millions of giant interconnected brains, when one is hurt the whole group feels it, etc.?
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Jul 21, 2013 02:10
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I love that people are misspelling Raleigh's name as "Rayleigh" in a thread where people talk about why something is blue.SuperMechagodzilla posted:Drifting humans also remember themselves and each-other in third person. This always bothers me in movies but I can understand why filmmakers do it. Arrowsmith fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Jul 21, 2013 |
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Jul 21, 2013 02:12
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I find it extremely interesting that the immediate conclusion drawn from the 'hive mind' line is that the monsters are rocklike objects. Because punching one godzilla does not effect any of the other godzillas.
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Jul 21, 2013 02:14
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I find it extremely interesting that the immediate conclusion drawn from the 'hive mind' line is that the monsters are rocklike objects. Because this is not only stated to not be the case, but the kaiju are constructed with upgrades as the movie goes on. It really isn't a difficult strand to follow. You don't get to just invent what occurred in the movie. poo poo are you just missing the fact the kaiju are the aliens' Jaegers? This is real basic. SuperMechagodzilla posted:True point - in which case, the fact that the kaiju's individual pain is not shared with the rest of the species shows that they are not merely puppet-objects. They are machines. The people at command don't feel when a Jaeger gets injured. Fuck This Puzzle fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Jul 21, 2013 |
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Jul 21, 2013 02:18
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Augustin Iturbide posted:Because punching one godzilla does not effect any of the other godzillas. True point - in which case, the fact that the kaiju's individual pain is not shared with the rest of the species shows that they are not merely puppet-objects.
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Jul 21, 2013 02:21
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gently caress This Puzzle posted:poo poo are you just missing the fact the kaiju are the aliens' Jaegers? This is real basic. When the jaegers are damaged, the pilots feel pain and are even physically injured. The 'pilots' of the kaiju are their twin brains, given orders over long distance (analogous to the jaegers' radio communication back to base). The kaiju's brains feel pain. Therefore, the kaiju feel pain.
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Jul 21, 2013 02:28
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My 24-pack arrived today, and like everyone else, it was 23 short. I'm a little curious about what figure I received, but I think the smart thing is not to open it just yet.
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Jul 21, 2013 02:28
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We have reached peak SMG and crossed over into the valley of utter insanity. The kaiju are bio-engineered WMDs who kill humans because their masters are going for a genocide on the human race. This is a stated fact. Unlike the Cloverfield monster, the kaiju are not scared babbies who are trying to survive.
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Jul 21, 2013 02:28
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Even if the Kaiju are somehow truly innocent and peaceful creatures deep deep down (which I highly doubt), we still have to punch our way through them to get at their masters. There's no way around that. I'm just trying to figure out if and why SMG is advocating that the Kaiju should not be harmed under any circumstances.
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Jul 21, 2013 02:34
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The kaiju are slaves. The kaiju should be allied with.
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Jul 21, 2013 02:35
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The kaiju are slaves. The kaiju should be allied with. How?
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Jul 21, 2013 02:38
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The Kaiju are capable of receiving and interpreting various senses such as touch and sight, this puts them on the same level of agency as a car GPS or weather barometer. Where's the justice for the enslaved Jaeger subsystems? Who can they ally with?
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Jul 21, 2013 02:40
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Super.Jesus posted:How? The way they do it in Terminator 2: free them from the system that controls them. Then, befriend them with drifting.
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Jul 21, 2013 02:42
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You see we should negotiate with the extradimensional aliens's pets who, by their own mental admission, want to genocide the entirety of humanity because
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Jul 21, 2013 02:42
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I finally watched this movie in IMAX 3D in Melbourne. About halfway through the movie, a guy snored so loud I can hear it over the movie. Poor guy must be so tired, already asleep at about 7 PM. I have few questions about the movie. I apologize if they seem basic, I haven't really followed the development for this movie besides knowing it's about 'giant robots fighting giant monsters'. 1. So there really isn't alternate versions of the movie depending on which continent it was released? I thought because I watched it in Melbourne, the Australian robot is shown successfully kicking rear end once (destroying the monster just before it steps on the glorious Sidney Opera House, too  ) and survives the onslaught in Hong Kong. I thought the audience in European countries would see the Russian robot survive and those in Asian countries would see the Chinese robot survive. I mean, the Chinese Jaeger pilots are triplets and they play basketball. With that focus on them dunking the ball, I expect there'd be some future scenes where Raleigh bonds with them over a game of basketball.〢. Wasn't there other robots? I think I glimpsed upon a promotional poster of robots from other countries. What happened? Г. Do frost really gathers on beards if there's enough hair and it's cold enough? 四. Does 3D do anything for this movie? I haven't watched a 3D movie since Ice Age 3 3D, so maybe there's an improvement on that front. The criticisms I have with the movie is that there isn't enough Jaeger fighting and isn't enough unique attacks by the kaijus. I suppose I'm expecting too much action for a 2 hour movie.
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Jul 21, 2013 02:45
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Super.Jesus posted:You see we should negotiate with the extradimensional aliens's pets who, by their own mental admission, want to genocide the entirety of humanity because Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The Terminator would never stop. It would never leave him. It would never hurt him, never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine was the only one that measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.
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Jul 21, 2013 02:48
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I'm still wondering, are you trolling or are your truly desperately grasping for a deeper meaning in a remarkably straightforward movie about robots punching aliens?
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Jul 21, 2013 02:50
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SMG advocates forcibly enslaving minorities (and fat, pregnant women) from one master to another to serve as soldiers for eternal war, 10/10 would read again.
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Jul 21, 2013 02:51
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