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sassassin posted:Space robots quotin' meself: Captain Invictus posted:No...The first film will be fighting the Kaiju on Earth, but then they will realize that these are merely vermin, the mice, the cockroaches, the flies, the rats of the Monster Race, and will discover that the TRUE threat comes from deep within the Milky Way. And they're way, way bigger. So they need to make way, way bigger robots.
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Jan 28, 2014 03:35
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Shadeoses posted:I don't think the baby Kaiju was an act of rebellion to save humanity because the Kaiju are manually constructed on assembly lines as weapons. That implies a disgruntled alien factory floor worker somehow hiding a viable truck-sized fetus inside Otachi, or perhaps a conspiracy reaching deep into the upper echelons of the alien leadership to smuggle information to their enemies. What's unfathomable is that the Baby Kaiju's birth was a miracle.
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Jan 28, 2014 06:15
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I think you have things completely backwards. The parts of the movie that aren't lifted wholesale from Independence Day come straight from Revelations starring Raleigh as Jesus. The Kaiju are literal horned demons from the sea and the war is won when Robo-Jesus pitches the big one back into the lake of fire. The miracle birth of the baby Kaiju should only be viewed as another trick of the devil to try to fool people that his anti-christ is the real deal. When he two scientists drift with the dead baby they are finally able to see the true nature of the creatures and the mistake of their own heretical beliefs.
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Jan 30, 2014 23:48
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How convenient, the alien other was also the devil. No need to look for a better solution than genocide, then!!!
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Jan 31, 2014 00:05
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Unless all the aliens were in there and not their universe I don't think blowing up the breach counts as genocide like trying to kill all humans counts as genocide. It'd be like saying blowing up a military base is genocide.
RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 00:28
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The Aliens were indeed assholes. They deserved a good rear end whoopin!
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Jan 31, 2014 00:36
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Listening now to the director commentary, Del Toro's love for the genre and its history is admirable but doesn't really seem apparent in lots of the film he ended up making. The movie tonally seems as if it's trying to compromise between anime/mecha/toku and a more complex, Hollywood/'traditional' exploration of the same themes, and I don't really like the way it mixes. Things come off as cartoonish while also being serious when I would have found one or the other more entertaining. The film is far from bad and lots of it is fun but it could be so much better. He explicitly describes the Hannibal Chau / Charlie Day scenes as an attempt to directly appropriate anime aesthetics, and they're the best scenes in the film by far. I wish he'd extended that sort of design to the rest of the film instead of mixing in all the 'realistic' stuff in the fights and making the central story like a sports movie. Did anyone else get a similar feel like this?
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Jan 31, 2014 01:51
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Hbomberguy posted:... I'm sorry.. what? Hbomberguy posted:...and making the central story like a sports movie. That is extremely reductive. It is as similar to the archetype of a fighting / martial arts movie as it is to a sports movie.
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Jan 31, 2014 01:56
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Snak posted:(emphasis mine) Snak posted:(emphasis mine) Again, Del Toro talks extensively in the commentary about how the scenes at HQ are meant to be akin to the sports movie, with Raleigh as the rookie / returning veteran who is no longer what he used to be and the younger Striker as the up-and-coming quarterback and so on, Stacker as coach. That isn't me being reductive, there are obviously a lot more elements at play - which was my actual point, I feel that there are too many and it muddies the waters. I'm just paraphrasing the words that came out of the director's mouth.
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Jan 31, 2014 02:32
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Hbomberguy posted:That's literally how Del Toro put it in the commentary. The 'realism' aspect comes from adding 'mistakes' to the CGI shots, getting water on the lens etc. - stuff I thought really muddied up the view and made it less fun and visually interesting in my opinion. Oh that all makes sense in context. carry on...
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Jan 31, 2014 03:56
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Hbomberguy posted:How convenient, the alien other was also the devil. No need to look for a better solution than genocide, then!!! I'm not sure what that is in response to? I was pointing out that in order for the baby Kaiju as baby Jesus interpretation to work you would have to ignore some fairly explicit references to Christian theology in the movie. I mean Newt is able to deal with Chau because he carries the mark of the beast. How does that fit into an interpretation where the Kaiju are anything but agents of the Devil? If you reject the Christ analogue all together, that's one thing. But if you are going to make the argument, Jesus in the movie most certainly isn't a 120 foot sea monster from another dimension.
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Jan 31, 2014 10:14
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Simplex posted:I think you have things completely backwards. The parts of the movie that aren't lifted wholesale from Independence Day come straight from Revelations starring Raleigh as Jesus. That's a valid interpretation if you think the real jesus is the celebrity warrior-god, while the antichrist is the homeless slave-baby.
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Jan 31, 2014 12:03
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Simplex posted:I'm not sure what that is in response to? I was pointing out that in order for the baby Kaiju as baby Jesus interpretation to work you would have to ignore some fairly explicit references to Christian theology in the movie. I mean Newt is able to deal with Chau because he carries the mark of the beast. How does that fit into an interpretation where the Kaiju are anything but agents of the Devil? How is it that you can recognise an entirely-symbolic mark of the beast, but take the giant fuckoff sea monsters literally?
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Jan 31, 2014 13:51
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What I want to really know is; which side were the Muslims?
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Jan 31, 2014 14:55
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:That's a valid interpretation if you think the real jesus is the celebrity warrior-god, while the antichrist is the homeless slave-baby. Celebrity warrior-god is a pretty apt description of the second coming.
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Jan 31, 2014 15:29
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RBA Starblade posted:Unless all the aliens were in there and not their universe I don't think blowing up the breach counts as genocide like trying to kill all humans counts as genocide. It'd be like saying blowing up a military base is genocide. They should have tossed across some salted cobalt devices, you know, just to be sure.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:51
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Even though it would never happen, I'd like to see an alternate movie that is the aliens side of the story. Wanderers, desperate to find a new home. The overlord confident earth is the key to their salvation. The skeptic alien warning of the dangers of trying to invade earth (maybe we were the most advanced society they tried to conquer?). Some analogue for the Kaiju cultists, aliens believing Earth is cursed and warning they will be punished for their evil ways. Tendo Choi's alien counterpart who designs and pilots the Kaiju. Fight scenes involving the aliens drifting to control the Kaiju remotely. To them, the battle against Crimson Typhoon and Cherno Alpha is a great Victory.
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Jan 31, 2014 23:25
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Now I remember that in Independence Day, the roving planet-eating aliens were puny little guys who used bioengineered organisms as combat suits. I guess since Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum didn't unite with the suits in a Christlike, communistic revolution against both the alien and Earth forces, the movie is fascist.
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Feb 1, 2014 10:54
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Panfilo posted:Even though it would never happen, I'd like to see an alternate movie that is the aliens side of the story. This is Elysium - with Matt Damon in the role of the Baby Otachi, and Sharlto Copley in the role of Gipsy Danger. Shadeoses posted:I guess since Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum didn't unite with the suits in a Christlike, communistic revolution against both the alien and Earth forces, the movie is fascist. What makes you think they didn't? What is your actual opinion?
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Feb 1, 2014 13:04
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"Debate my gibberish! You don't want to? I win!"
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Feb 1, 2014 17:04
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Bongo Bill posted:Pacific Rim is obviously not about nothing. I only think that "fascist" is an inaccurate description of the answer to its moral riddle.
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Feb 1, 2014 17:51
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Again, the film's main characters aren't literally fascist. The point, at least as far as I can see, is that the narrative is the same as a fascist one, AKA the world really literally is under attack from outsiders who it's best for us to unite gloriously and kill, thus making the world a better place. A reminder: There are some people in the world today, and historically many many more, who literally believe in the situation Pacific Rim offers but they substitute Kaiju for different ethnicities of human beings. Some people find that narrative, even when it's 'justified' by being 'real' or by turning the inhuman other into actual non-human monsters, a little problematic. I don't even think I am one of those people, but I can understand that point of view. "Hitler would have been right if he was talking about the Kaijus" is a tacit statement the film is making. Whether you agree with it or not is up to you. I do. It is not completely coincidental that the main alliance is between a blond blue-eyed Aryan and a highly talented member of another Tripartite Pact country. They should have had an italian pilot in the mix too to make it extra obvious. I view this imagery as a symbolic redemption of those countries, where instead of remaining old enemies at arms' length in the crisis, they are equally as important to the final plan as the ones that 'deserve' it. Del Toro has in a sense managed to "Organize a fake train with Nazi guards, board it and, of course, instead of the camp, take the ride to freedom" (Zizek) by having Russians, Japanese people and Commie Chinese people helping the cause. He should have gone the whole hog and made one of the jaegers (german name!) a giant luftwaffe or something made of swastikas. Or alternatively have a relatively normal-looking German person just to reiterate that yes, the Germans have been finally forgiven for that thing they did. They could have had a joke where the robot on the right side is a way worse pilot than the other. Hbomberguy fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Feb 1, 2014 |
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Feb 1, 2014 18:10
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Hbomberguy posted:It is not completely coincidental that the main alliance is between a blond blue-eyed Aryan The American character is now German, got it.
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Feb 1, 2014 18:33
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Tezcatlipoca posted:The American character is now German, got it. That's not what that word means, in either the Nazi or the actual historical sense.
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Feb 1, 2014 19:10
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Tezcatlipoca posted:The American character is now German, got it. You are either making a hilarious joke at the expense of stupid people, or incredibly ignorant of what words mean, or that people can represent things without being them. There are no Germans whatsoever in Pacific Rim, as far as I could tell. In a seemingly unifying conflict. One where the main weapon of defense is literally a German name. So Raleigh could be seen as a stand-in for concepts like the Aryan, redeeming them by being actually genuinely heroic and standing for unity against an alien other that is actually trying to destroy the world. It sort of highlights a lot of current attitudes in film that a main character who exemplifies a (stereotypically-)german ideal can be an acceptable protagonist while the entire country itself is not yet acceptable 'enough' to be allowed to appear in a global conflict. Either that or the film is incredibly racist for leaving one of the world's biggest current economic superpowers out of a film about unity because we still give Germany the baggage of fascism. We can all stand together! Except for those people. They know what they did. An alternative is that everyone in the film 'is German', by standing together and working with others to pilot the Jaegers, that culture and humanity have so unified that asking where a specific country is represented is folly because we are all one country now. I guess what I'm trying to say is, there are lots of ways to interpret the film, but that would require interpreting it so for some people it's 'just' about robots. Hbomberguy fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Feb 1, 2014 |
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Feb 1, 2014 19:26
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The world-famous Pacific coastline of Germany.
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Feb 1, 2014 19:50
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Everything we see in the entire film implies a world in crisis, collapsing under the weight of the Kaiju. Germany is still paradise. It is not affected by effects on the Pacific Rim at all. Hbomberguy fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Feb 1, 2014 |
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Feb 1, 2014 19:53
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Hbomberguy posted:I guess what I'm trying to say is, there are lots of ways to interpret the film, but that would require interpreting it so for some people it's 'just' about robots.
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Feb 1, 2014 20:11
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Mustach posted:Yes, but "one is white, the other is Japanese" does not provide particularly satisfying evidence for a WWII Axis redemption theory (regardless of the rest of your points). Also, you said "member of another Tripartite Pact country", implying that Raleigh represents one of the remaining two, and then state that it isn't Italy; no need to call Tezcatlipoca stupid. That wasn't my evidence for anything, though. I just mentioned that it's probably not coincidental that almost every old totalitarian concept has been co-opted into the Jaeger program, from Japan to the ex-communists China and Russia. I don't mind people disagreeing with this analysis in favor of their own, I do however find it insufferable when people refuse to analyse anything for themselves at all because being about giant robots gives a film thought-armor or something. Tezcatlipoca wasn't doing this specifically of course, but when someone conflates what I am saying so badly that they think I'm claiming a main character is literally German they are doing something very very wrong with the way they process information, or are trying really badly to assassinate my theory.
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Feb 1, 2014 20:40
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Hbomberguy posted:
"Empire is emerging today as the center that supports the globalization of productive networks and casts its widely inclusive net to try to envelop all power relations within its world order — and yet at the same time it deploys a powerful police function against the new barbarians and the rebellious slaves who threaten its order." -Hardt & Negri, Empire
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Feb 1, 2014 21:25
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Hbomberguy posted:Tezcatlipoca wasn't doing this specifically of course, but when someone conflates what I am saying so badly that they think I'm claiming a main character is literally German they are doing something very very wrong with the way they process information, or are trying really badly to assassinate my theory.
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Feb 2, 2014 00:13
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Hbomberguy posted:That wasn't my evidence for anything, though. I just mentioned that it's probably not coincidental that almost every old totalitarian concept has been co-opted into the Jaeger program, from Japan to the ex-communists China and Russia. That the crux of my problem with the movie is fascist argument. Some of those unite against an outside threat concepts are central tenets of non-fascist ideology. I think pro-totalitarian would be a better way to phrase it.
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Feb 2, 2014 01:28
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DeathChicken posted:"Debate my gibberish! You don't want to? I win!" ID4 has very similar imagery to Pacific Rim. Although not a character, the captured ship fills the same role as Megatron in Transformers and the Terminator whose parts are stolen and researched by Cyberdyne. The ship is being researched by the military so that they, obviously, can use the tech to become like the aliens. That's implicit even without the cut scene where they say this outright. Pacific Rim is the same, with its countless scenes of alien autopsy and experimentation. This is the true meaning of "to fight monsters, we created monsters." The kaiju are a byproduct of the attempt to fight the kaiju. It's a spiral. The monster-inspired robots are just part of the process of Earth becoming the kaiju homeworld. ID4 is far more Transformers than it is T2, though. Note the key detail that the ship survives, where Arnold had to sacrifice himself. ID4 is not very fascist though; it's straightforwardly liberal. Recall how, in Pacific Rim, President Romney is told to gently caress off. That obviously doesn't happen in ID4; there's no resistance movement. Issues like poverty aren't really acknowledged at all, except with Randy Quaid's tolerably eccentric Jar Jar character. ID4's big concerns are standard feel-good environmentalism and multiculturalism. Quaid is not taken seriously, even in his death scene. These are the politics satirized in The Phantom Menace.
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Feb 2, 2014 04:54
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Edit: Nevermind.
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Feb 2, 2014 04:56
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Are you suggesting TPM was directly impugning the multicultural zeitgeist of the 90's and maybe that it (and the other Prequels) kicked off the current spate of "grimdark" ur-fascism in the Dark Knight films, Pacific Rim, Optimus Prime, the horrible death of that captured alien in Battlefield LA, etc? E: Now that I think about it there's meaty stuff in both ID4 and Battlefield LA featuring "alien autopsy" scenes (on a living alien) but only one of those feeling distinctly hosed up. Harime Nui fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Feb 2, 2014 |
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Feb 2, 2014 05:00
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quote:That obviously doesn't happen in ID4; there's no resistance movement. It's been a while since I've watched it, but the movie ends with a resistance movement fighting the aliens off from what I remember. It consists of the remnants of the militaries of the world and civilians who can fly whatever, as opposed to an international group that's allowed to operate until its remaining funds dwindle to nothing. RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Feb 2, 2014 |
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Feb 2, 2014 05:22
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Hate seeing reviews for this movie. Most of them are about their inability to suspend disbelief. Its a movie about rocket punching robots I would hope people would come into the theater with a little less nerve about the hard science and pragmatic applications of giant robots.
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Feb 2, 2014 07:16
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RBA Starblade posted:It's been a while since I've watched it, but the movie ends with a resistance movement fighting the aliens off from what I remember. To clarify, I mean that the dudes in ID4 don't splinter off from the existing power structure to form a new resistance group. Stacker very specifically condemns the 'suits' who've moved away from the coast. Will Smith in ID4 works with them. Piedmon Sama posted:Are you suggesting TPM was directly impugning the multicultural zeitgeist of the 90's and maybe that it (and the other Prequels) kicked off the current spate of "grimdark" ur-fascism in the Dark Knight films, Pacific Rim, Optimus Prime, the horrible death of that captured alien in Battlefield LA, etc? Definitely yes to the first part, but it gets tricky after that. Darth Vader in the prequels is an enormously flawed good guy more akin to Megatron in the first two Transformers than to Optimus. Meanwhile, The Dark Knight Rises quotes Darth Vader directly, with the character Bane. These characters are 'totalitarian', but not necessarily in a bad way. They are all highly ethical characters, leaving behind their human selves to identify with their revolutionary masks. Bane is a key character, as his failure is most closely associated with the breaking of his mask. As I like to point out, Bane's revolutionary mask is his true self - not his pathetically fascist 'human side'. When he takes off his mask, the film brushes him aside as worthless. The Star Wars prequels likewise 'retcon' the original trilogy by saying Vader, the mask, is the true hero, while Anakin the human was a whiny loser. Vader, not Anakin, should be considered Luke's true father. This is what Battle: Los Angeles is about as well. The film is kind of a special case, because the characters are conservative leftists. The film goes as controversial as possible by saying that even torture may be justified as a part of a radical emancipatory movement. Like Bane and the kids in Red Dawn, B:LA's marines stand for revolutionary terror. They are modeled after Lt. Ripley in Aliens, not Sgt. Apone.
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Feb 2, 2014 10:24
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Hbomberguy posted:Everything we see in the entire film implies a world in crisis, collapsing under the weight of the Kaiju. You are basing this on absolutely nothing in the movie. For all we know Germany has collapsed into crippling poverty.
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Feb 2, 2014 20:15
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I agree, 'for all we know.' The film highlights Germany by naming the central object of the film in German and then says nothing else about it whatsoever. Their absence is palpable. You can justify it by saying Germany's not on the pacific rim, but neither is the UK and Stacker is, like, the head of the entire PPDC.Simplex posted:That the crux of my problem with the movie is fascist argument. Some of those unite against an outside threat concepts are central tenets of non-fascist ideology. I think pro-totalitarian would be a better way to phrase it. Uniting against an outside threat is totally an aspect of fascism. It's just usually only the country that must unite, and the threat is some ethnic other possibly within the nation ('outside' in a more subtle sense). If Hitler won, a film about the victory of the united German people against their enemies would play out very similarly to Pacific Rim. A lot of Russian propoganda films from that era do just that with the germans, and a lot of british/american war movies do too. The point is the ideology, not that actual fascism.
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Feb 2, 2014 21:45
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