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I'm honestly really impressed with how colorful it looked. I know GDT makes colorful movies, but I wasn't expecting this movie to look that pretty, drat. The ending cargo ship shots are beautiful. Day one. I will camp outside the theater for this if I have to.
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Apr 29, 2013 21:02
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bullet3 posted:I dunno, I have faith in Del Toro, but I gotta admit I'm not entirely feeling this movie. It's a movie about giant robots rocket punching giant godzilla monsters from another dimension. A few weak moments of CGI isn't going to ruin your immersion because so much suspension of disbelief is already being done, BECAUSE YOU ARE WATCHING A MOVIE WHERE GIANT ROBOTS ROCKET PUNCH GODZILLAS. Who cares if it's cartoony? It's a cartoony rear end premise to begin with.
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Apr 30, 2013 05:03
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Synonamess Botch posted:Am I the only one worried that it's just going to be a bunch of robots punching monsters for two hours? Maybe if it was a different director. I think this movie would be viewed a lot less highly if GDT wasn't at the helm. But GDT seems to know what he's doing so I bet we will get plenty of human element. Depending on how good the acting is, it might even be good. But if the acting is lame, I hope it's just robots punching monsters for 2 hours.
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Apr 30, 2013 17:44
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So I can identify most of the Jaegers in the trailer, but there is one near the end that does the "Chest turns into a whole bunch of cannons" thing and I don't recognize it. Maybe that's the older model the movie synopsis talks about?
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May 1, 2013 19:19
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Wax Dynasty posted:That's actually Striker Eureka, the Australian mech. Ah so it is, there just aren't any arm blades visible for some reason.
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May 1, 2013 19:22
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PriorMarcus posted:Gypsy Danger is the least interesting design wise by far. It's also the most human resembling out of all of them, because it's the protagonist vehicle that we have to connect with. It's less interesting but it makes perfect sense design wise. Now we can look at all the other ones and remark about how foreign and weird/awesome they are.
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May 18, 2013 06:45
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Saw it last night, had a goddamn blast. I wish Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon didn't go down in like, 2 minutes. Neither of them got nearly enough screentime before getting obliterated. I also wish the "Stacker can't pilot a Jaeger without dying now" thread actually ended up mattering more than it did in the end. We have a scene of Stacker going "I fried myself, I can't step into a Jaeger or I'll die" then 5 minutes later he steps into a Jaeger and kicks rear end with no signs of having trouble. It would have been cool if he started having nosebleeds in the cockpit, then his partner also started having nosebleeds, or something. They kept building his nosebleed thing and it ended up not mattering. But outside that and a couple other minor gripes, movie completely delivered. Theater turnout was modest though, I hope it takes off today. I was at a smaller 2D screening however so maybe everyone went big. I never liked 3D nor does my wallet, so I stayed smaller.
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Jul 12, 2013 16:29
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Man, I can't stop thinking about this movie. It has some flaws and it certainly wasn't perfect, but it was just so drat fun I didn't care. I actually really liked the over the top goofier stuff. I expected to be really annoyed with the two scientists after they get introduced as super cartoony but as the movie went on I stopped caring and just enjoyed how goofy they were. But I just really loved all the moments that remind you of what kind of film you are watching. The scene when Otachi goes into Hong Kong looking for Charlie Day and we get about a minute of Otachi just wreaking havoc on the city was such a glorious call back to Kajiu destruction sequences and I loved it The shot of Gipsy Danger's fist going through the office building was so drat hilarious and I was not expecting it, with it being right in the middle of a big fight, and it really reminds you "don't take things so seriously". Cherno Alpha's piston punch owned so hard, man I wish those two had lasted longer. They really deserved a longer fight scene or at least more highlights from others. The scene with Stacker climbing out of the jesus figure Coyote Tango and smiling with the sun behind him was corny as hell and it was great The quick cut to STROIKAH UREEKAH beating the poo poo out of the one that breaks through the wall owned, it really showed how much faster Eureka was compared to the other Jaegers. I could go on but I just loving loved this movie goddamn. I also really liked that the film had a recognizable theme to the soundtrack that god played at various moments. I wasn't expecting the soundtrack to be anything special, and it wasn't deep or anything but it fit the tone of the movie extremely well.
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Jul 12, 2013 19:12
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This movie made me so happy I made a thing
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Jul 13, 2013 06:45
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JackDarko posted:I was the only person laughing during Idris Elba's scene with the sun shining perfectly behind his back. Naw, I laughed my rear end off at that scene too. That scene is so incredibly over the top in presentation, one of the best moments of the film.
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Jul 15, 2013 06:22
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Boris Galerkin posted:Also the black guy's name is Stacker Pentecost? What the hell I missed that one completely. There was one scene where one of the Australian guys called him Stacker but I assumed it was a typo for Striker or something which I assumed was some kind of Australian slang. Honestly if you didn't follow the lead up marketing to the movie I can understand missing his first name. They usually seem to refer to him as Marshall or Marshall Pentecost. I think I only heard Stacker once, maybe twice, and it wasn't at the forefront. Honestly I just kept calling him Idris Elba anyway. Stacker Pentecost is a sweet name, but it's no Idris Elba.
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Jul 15, 2013 20:23
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bushisms.txt posted:The movie is about working together because you have a common purpose, not because you're related. Drift compatibility was about understanding what the other has gone through. Of course it comes off forced, did you listen to any of the movie's dialogue? This is a movie that goes "Gipsy is analog", right to your face, without irony. The script isn't nearly as deep as you are trying to make it. Everything indicates father and son, nothing otherwise, and blood relationships clearly make for good drift compatibility. The Chinese guys are brothers, the first two gipsy pilots are brothers, Striker's are father and son, and the Russians are married. Part of Mako being a good drift partner seems to be that she's been through a family trauma like Raleigh did. Some dude being given a "father" role by Pentecost to make them compatible is waaaaaaaay too complicated and doesn't make sense for this movie and makes the whole thing really loving weird. The movie is not trying to create deep characters, it's about giving you enough to care then doing fun poo poo. textbook Daddy issues are usually "Son wants to impress father, make the father proud, but father has difficulty communicating his pride in his son." That premise has been done so many times that the movie literally only needs one scene to communicate it. "When you're in the drift I never felt like saying anything had a point, but now I regret all the things I never said" "I know them, you don't have to say them" *manly tears* Bam. There it is. The entire father son relationship defined, right there. They are father and son. Stop over thinking it. The movie is great but the characters are extremely broadly drawn, because you don't need anymore than that to understand. Febreeze fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Jul 15, 2013 |
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Jul 15, 2013 21:33
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Wait someone liked The Core? Like, not ironically? That was like the dumbest film I have ever seen in my life.
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Jul 16, 2013 07:58
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Why didn't they just build a perimeter of plasma cannons around the breach, then unload every time a Kaiju pops through? Or build plasma cannons on the barrier wall? Hell, big ol turrets everywhere on the rim? Or try and dome off the breach? Maybe electrify it? Why didn't Leatherback just EMP everyone before the fights started? How did venting all the coolant not gently caress up Gipsy's internal systems? Why wasn't the swinging ball thing already moving before Gipsy's fist brushed it? Robots are smashing around outside, you'd think there would be earth shaking events already causing them to move, not to mention the shockwave of a fist going through the building would probably generate movement as well Why didn't the boat snap in half when Gipsy swung it around? PHYSICS, MAN. You could nitpick this movie to pieces on nerdy bullshit but all of it ignores the fact that it would rob us of giant robots punching monsters in the goddamn face. The movie clearly knows how silly it is, and it asks you to set aside those stupid questions and just enjoy watching giant robots punching monsters in the goddamn face. This is not a movie designed for overthinking, it is a movie designed to make you enjoy giant robots punching monsters in the goddamn face. It had enough internal logic working that nothing felt off, this is a universe where Giant Robots is a valid idea for defense instead of being laughed at. When you keep that in mind, everything else doesn't feel quite as dumb. Febreeze fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jul 16, 2013 |
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Jul 16, 2013 18:25
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Seriously, the point I want to reiterate is that this movie takes place in a universe where Giant Robots are considered a valid line of defense against big sea monsters. Not only that, but basically our main defense. If we had a portal open up with big monsters popping out, does anyone think that we'd be making Giant Robots to counter it? gently caress no. The very idea is laughable. The movie takes place in a universe where it is not laughable, but valid, and celebrated. If you can't accept that, you aren't going to enjoy the movie. Once you accept that, nothing else really matters. Sounds to me like you were just never on board with the idea in the first place, which is a perfectly valid opinion to have, but pointing out tiny physics issues and whatnot is just kind of petty when the entire movie is based off a ridiculous premise. Febreeze fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Jul 16, 2013 |
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Jul 16, 2013 18:47
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Did anyone else come out of this really wanting a TV series that covered the inbetween years of Kaiju wars? Maybe like a saturday morning cartoon? Obviously full on movies with the same budget would be the best, but I really wanted to see past battles and key moments in the war.
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Jul 16, 2013 19:27
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I'm not totally sure how much I want a sequel as it is. I'm sure they could do some neat poo poo, but it felt like things wrapped up pretty well at the end of this one and the only thing I really wanted to see was all the past Jaegers and their stories. Then again, I guess they could just re-open a portal. Then maybe we could be the monsters, and send a bunch of super Jaegers into the breach 2.0 and gently caress up the alien planet then be all WHAT HAVE WE DONE, WHAT HAVE WE BECOME. I'd watch that movie. I wish Cherno and Typhoon had indeed gotten the stock footage kickass shots, I think the best moment in the movie was when Striker beat the poo poo out of the Sydney Kaiju, because it's the only time the fights aren't evenly matched or lopsided in the Kaiju's favor, so it's the only real moment of a Jaeger totally whooping rear end. I was personally more interested in the robots than the Kaiju.
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Jul 16, 2013 22:09
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Xenophon posted:Some people earlier were talking about how annoying Newton and Gottlieb are. But that kind of overacting is exactly the point! This is a big, fun, over-the-top movie and things like the characterizations of and interactions between Newton and Gottlieb (the man uses a chalkboard covered in equations!), or everything about Hannibal Chau, just serve to emphasize that. I mean, when Hannibal Chau pulls down his sunglasses and says "ONCE!", you know that the director and actors know just as well as you how ridiculous this all is (or consider the Newton's Cradle shot! or every other shot!). Something like Transformers begs me to laugh at the movie, particularly how stupid the dialogue and plot devices are, since it expects you to treat it seriously. Pacific Rim really wants me to laugh with it, not at it, because everyone involved clearly knows this is just ridiculous fun too. I really agree with this paragraph. Also, I don't understand the goofy scientist hate. I could have watched a whole side movie of those two bickering at each other and being forced to work together. Alone, they were a touch excessive, but when they were in the same room together the goofy tension was wonderful. It's just a shame their B-Plot didn't mean a whole lot in the end, outside once piece of important info the characters probably could have figured out a different way.
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Jul 17, 2013 18:12
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concerned mom posted:I won't be the first person to mention this but didn't the film technically end with a jaegerbomb Any excuse to post my picture again. Also you just blew my mind. It fits on multiple levels too With the Jaeger being "dropped in" to the breach like a shot glass into a beer glass
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Jul 17, 2013 23:56
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This movie ain't about all that penis swords and kaiju are characters or needed to be some or whatever, ya'll missing the point. This movie is about addiction and what it can do to you. It's Requiem for a Dream for the newest generation. Our main character starts as a party guy. He's a big time party guy. he loves being a party guy. His best friend is his wingman and also a big ol' party guy. They always hang out at Stacker's house, as he always throws the best goddamn parties. Nobody can touch their good times, hey, it's college bro! KEGSTAND, I CAN DRINK A WHOLE FISHING BOAT'S WORTH OF BOOZE. Then tragedy strikes. DUI, drunk bro wingman hits another car on a icy day after a kicking stacker party. The knifehead kaiju that represents the other car and his problem in general tears him out of the windshield and he dies on the side of the road. Maybe if they hadn't drank that final shot, he would have been coherent enough. Party Bro Raleigh is able to function enough to get the car to the side lane, but the moment severely affects him. He graduates, and puts it behind him as best he can. He tries to create and hide behind a wall, to keep out the force of who he was, of what hurt his pal. But that force only needs a little bit of give, and it pushes it straight through. After it breaks through, a drug or two can knock it out fast and with chest missles, but the problem only seems to be getting bigger. the drugs are becoming less effective as the body resists. He meets a young girl with stars in her eyes and starts a relationship. But it's her doom. She wants to be cool, she wants to impress him and her adoptive dad figure, Stacker "The Booze marshall" Pentecost. The Stack is an elite man, top of his game, and he hits the hard poo poo on the side. He doesn't want anyone to know about it though, so he plays off his nosebleeds. Mako knows though. But she sees it the wrong way. She thinks it's what he has to do to succeed at being so awesome. Together, Beckett and Mako begin a downward journey into addiction. Two nerdy guys who want to fit in end up addicted to Blue, a very potent form of meth. Their dealer of the meth is undone by his own cowardice and inability to take his own product seriously. The booze and drugs take Mako and Beckett to dizzying heights before dropping them. From then on all they do is descend. Deeper. Deeper. The Stack reveals his problem will likely kill him. The punk guy who bullies Beckett gives up on his dad, who after injury gets out of the way. he saw the bottom coming up. But Mako, Stacker, Chuck and Beckett can't. They just go deeper. Then all at once they get hit harder than ever before, and everyone loving dies. But did they? Maybe she and Beckett lived, waking up in the hospital. Maybe the positive feeling at the end is genuine. Maybe, even when you are that gone, you have hope to live on. Maybe Beckett saw in Mako what the impact of everything was, and he got her out in time, saved her, possibly sacrificing himself. He was going to just die down there, at the bottom of the bottle, but he saw Mako, he saw her lose everything and he didn't want to be the last thing she lost. He found his way too the top after that final Jaegerbomb. Maybe now, he found a reason to live. I mean seriously it's like blatantly onscreen, I can't believe anyone missed it. Each punch is a shot. Each drift is a snort, I mean look at how the imagery resembled the quick drug edits of Requiem for a dream. Each chest missile shot an upper. Each Plasma cannon shot a painkiller. Each Giant Sword is a needle. It all makes you feel so awesome, so good. Hits you so hard. The bigger the dosage (Imax? 3D? 2D?) the harder it hits, AND WE LOVE IT. We are Raleigh Beckett. He is not a blank, lame character. He is us. We are him. We are the addicted.
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Jul 18, 2013 20:33
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Pope Mobile posted:I know we all heard the Godzilla roar when they did the snippet of the second Kaiju attack, but I swear I heard JP dinosaur sounds more than once. Only if you're looking for a big hit how deep into the poo poo are you, man
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Jul 18, 2013 20:47
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Pope Mobile posted:How much is Too Much? Some people only find out when it's too late.
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Jul 18, 2013 20:53
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Ugh. I knew the thread was in for it when SMG found it. As cool as his posts can be, every thread ends up being "SMG posts his reading, presents it like it's the only reading, several posters disagree, multiple pages of what looks like discussion but is actually just people not budging on opinions" Lets talk about the Kaiju. Specifically the designs. What did everyone think of how they looked? And not their subtext but how they looked. I came away liking what they did but thought they all felt sort of samey. On one hand, it makes sense that they all sort of have a consistent Reptile sort of look to them, but on the other hand, I wish there had been a touch more variation. Since they are all from the same source and treated as a force of nature and not individuals, this makes sense, and I'm okay with it. But I still felt underwhelmed by some of the beasts. I loved Leatherback, Otachi was alright. I loved how Leatherback looked and moved like a giant gorilla, and had a softer flabby body. Otachi's body was a little too cloverfield, but I loved the way her head looked with the dual horns and big jaw. The ones I was disappointed with was the Final 3. Especially Slattern. The two Category 4's swimming around the breach were kind of dull (The one with the inward horns was alright, but the one Gypsy fights near the lava vent was boring. But when Slattern shows up it's supposed to be this big thing that they've never seen before, and it while it's big and menacing and whatnot, at that point nothing about it feels terribly unique. We've seen the wide shark head look before (Knifehead and the two swimming with it) we've seen deadly tails (Otachi), it just didn't feel different enough. Which isn't so bad since it's not onscreen much, but it still left me wishing it looked more defined, like the aliens decided this was the moneymaker, this is the head honcho we are sending with two bodyguards. But he just looked the same as all of them. Again, since they are treated as forces of nature, it doesn't bother me too much (hurricanes all look the same) but it was still a touch underwhelming, and a big reason why was Onibaba. The Crabju that attacked Tokyo in Mako's flashback was easily the coolest kaiju to me. It had a very distinct look. It was blue, crustacean like, it just felt more inspired than the other Kaiju, especially the final 3. I really, really liked the way Onibaba looked and I wish we had seen more of it as it got it's rear end kicked by Coyote Tango. Maybe that's why that scene is so effective and SMG likes it as well, Onibaba felt the closest to an actual monster movie beast instead of a force of nature. Maybe a little more personality would have helped. But again, I'm just nitpicking and trying to drag conversation away from bitchslapping and literature quoting.
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Jul 19, 2013 16:40
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Omnicarus posted:I just finished my second time through with this movie. It's definitely one of the better movie experiences I've had and I'd put it side by side with Dredd for best action/adventure movie I've seen in recent years. Everyone is enjoyable to watch even if it is hammy, with the exception of Charlie Day who continues to suck. Should've combined the two scientists into one scientist played by Burn Gorman. The Sequel writes itself! Some rogue scientists, possibly led by Charlie Day, find a way to reopen the breach but from our end!. We send A giant Jaeger shaped like Idris Elba, piloted by a Stacker Pentecost clone, through the breach, and discover the Alien world is full of wonderful natural resources. We send multiple Jaegers through to gather the resources, but some of the pilots are vengeful and attack the aliens when they are trying to be peaceful. They attempt to build more Kaiju to stop us, and we realize WE ARE THE MONSTERS NOW
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Jul 20, 2013 06:16
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Saw this again last night in IMAX 3D, ( I saw 2d normal the first go round) and loved it just as much. Arguably more, the fights were far better in 3D Imax, and I'm not that high on 3D. The opening battle was cool but nothing special my first go round, the IMAX made it loving amazing. There was like 10 people total in the theater  My girlfriend also came up with a theory as to why Mako and Beckett are able to pass through the breach at the end. Slattern was still in the throat, they disengage from him but you never see his carcass float down with Gipsy. So he's still technically there. I also noticed this go round that the reason Mako loses her oxygen was because she was the holding the sword in Slattern and it tired her out. I feel dumb not catching that the first time, and it made me hate her ending a little less, because now the reason she needed rescue made slightly more sense, and it made her less useless. It still could have been handled far more effectively though. I also came away liking the main character a lot more. He's too monotone at times, but the dialouge and script felt like the problem this time around, not him. Some of the dialouge is godawful and the actors did their best, from what I can tell. Outside the "lunch in front of Gipsy" scene between Mako and Raleigh. That scene is so, so bad. The writing in this film is cheesy bad, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a really bad way. I still wish Slattern had been a little bigger. You can't get a good sense of scale in the murky depths of that scene. Typhoon still deserved better. Cherno still deserved better. We needed a scene of how badass those two were, maybe stock footage, before they get knocked up. Also, if we got treated to a short scene of them kicking rear end a la Striker's Sydney beatdown, it would make how quickly they get annihilated that much more effective at establishing how dangerous Otachi and Leatherback were. Alas.
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Jul 22, 2013 04:27
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I just realized another reason why the Marketing had issues. None of the characters in the movie get very sexualized. Raleigh doesn't have a shirt for a couple scenes but they don't dwell on it to hard for very long. One of the scenes is also about Mako looking at his scars as much as it might be female gaze. But Mako herself never gets "sexy" at all. The closest she gets is the training fight, but even then she's wearing baggy pants and a conservative tank top. Honestly, I love that about the film, but it might have caused some marketing issues. The marketers had no sex appeal to market at the masses. Megan Fox bending over the car in Transformers probably sold a lot of people on that movie. Scar-Jo in spandex was a noticeable marketed part of the Avengers. Hell even Man of Steel has a shot in the trailer of his big muscled chest lifting some heavy poo poo. The only boners this movie popped was Robot Boners. Roboners. Also Battle boners. Monster boners. And some nostalgia boners. But no boner boners.
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Jul 22, 2013 06:48
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Pope Mobile posted:Found the co-worker who got it and she said they had a bunch at our local Regal Cinemas. She asked for one and they gave it to her. Might be worth a shot. Yeah, I got one when I went to opening night at the downtown Regal. Also got a WWZ poster that they had extras of. They might still have some near you.
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Jul 24, 2013 19:44
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I watched Slither last night and found it had some interesting parallels with this film. I don't know if it means anything, but I'm going to state them anyway because someone with more time could probably make some interesting readings on it (SMG cough cough) Spoilers for Slither abound, by the way, so don't read if you haven't seen it. Which you should see it, Slither is an awesome genre movie that doesn't take itself too seriously, just like this one. -In Slither there is an alien being that hops from planet to planet, invading and consuming everything. -After it takes over the dude, it's revealed that everyone affected by the beast is of one single consciousness. They discover this because one of the little slug babies almost infects the girl, and she temporarily drifts with the thing -The one infected beast is pregnant -The ending has the cop attempt to use one bomb to destroy the bad guy (A grenade) only to eventually destroy him with another bomb that was originally intended as a fuel source (the propane tank) -There is a big battle near the middle where a bunch of good guys get taken out because the beast is stronger than expected Is Slither just Pac Rim on a smaller scale? A small town instead of the planet? I'm sure someone can find more to it.
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Jul 31, 2013 20:06
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Crunkjuice posted:My idea? Something like the old school Extra TERRORestrial Alien Encounter ride at disney. You're a jaeger pilot recruit, walk through some briefing poo poo with the Marshall, and you get to be in a "ride along" mission in a real jaeger to educate recruits in a stripped down training Gypsy Danger. drat, that ride was so awesome, but they got rid of it because it was too scary and turned it into some Lilo and stitch bullshit
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Aug 2, 2013 06:30
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I might get some flack for this in the Cherno Alpha circlejerk thread but I think Typhoon had the coolest looking head. Cherno was still the coolest robot though
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Aug 7, 2013 19:57
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Xealot posted:Here's a pretty awesome Guillermo del Toro interview, wherein he is asked about the morality of his films and fascism among other things. I might've missed if it was already posted. Gonna throw in a second vote for how good this is. It's long, but it's a great interview. Del Toro says he'd bring the shovel if Ron Pearlman ever killed a man.
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Aug 8, 2013 19:01
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Movies don't 'feature feelings'. They evoke concepts through their visual language. I love the hell out of the movie but I agree with this post. We get a lot of shots of the robots doing stuff cut frequently with shots of the pilots inside, and as a result the robots never feel like characters or extensions of the characters. At least, not to the extent I think Del Toro was aiming for. The best robot moments are the longer, lingering shots of them doing "character" type stuff from the outside. There is a part at the beginning of the fight where Otachi smacks Crimson to the ground, Crimson props itself up and shakes it's head. When you think about it, there is literally no reason for the robot to shake it's head like that, but it gives Crimson this little moment of character. You get the impression that the pilots weren't ready for this. It's a tiny, fleeting moment but it's great. We never get a moment with Crimson like that again, because Crimson gets it's rear end kicked. During the brief fight sequence though we get plenty of cuts into the cockpit of Crimson though, but like 90% of the interior edits, they just show us the pilots doing exactly what the robot is doing. Maybe Del Toro intended for that to be a way to connect the pilots and the robots visually, but he kind of overdoes it. It's not necessary. We get enough in the opening sequence to establish that's how it works. Cherno gets a nice character moment too: when it blows it's horns after Crimson bites it and beats it's fists together. That's the Cherno character, that shows us just how the pilots feel about this. We don't need cuts to the cockpit with the pilots being mad. When Cherno gets beaten up I think what we needed was less quick edits of the pilots getting thrown around, and more of the wide shots of Leatherback kicking its rear end. But it's like every punch gets a reaction shot inside the cockpit, and all it does is kind of cause this weird separation between the pilots and their vehicles, when it's probably intended to do the opposite. When Cherno goes down I think we needed maybe 3 cockpit shots. a couple at the beginning when the acid hits, and then at the very end, when the palm comes down and ends them both. The rest should just be the wide shots of Leatherback brutally beating it up. When we finally cut back to the cockpit, it's in far worse shape, the pilots are clearly hosed, and the hand represents the end, the final twist of the knife. We don't need a bunch of quick edits of them getting slammed around, we can just see the robot get slammed around in a longer shot instead, and we will get it. Especially if they play some audio of the pilots screaming as Cherno bites it. Striker's best character moment in the movie is the Sydney fight. We don't get a single cockpit shot in that bit. It's just striker kicking some loving rear end, and it tells us everything about the robot and pilots we need to know. It doesn't play defense, it goes straight for the jugular and just wrings the kaiju out to dry. Striker is a cocky rear end in a top hat. We meet the pilots, and guess what, one of them is a cocky rear end in a top hat. But we knew that, because we already saw Striker being a cocky rear end in a top hat. Gypsy gets way too many cockpit shots, but it also gets more character moments. There is the moment when it dodges the acid, and we see it look at the aftermath of the acid, like it's realizing what just happened. Then Gypsy goes and tears out the acid sac. Everytime the robot is doing something that isn't directly punching related, it acts like a human. It runs down a street, then stops and looks confused. Those are the moments we really needed more of, not edits of the pilots. We needed longer shots of the robots being their characters, without seeing the pilots, because the robots are the pilots. Seeing both do the same actions is needlessly redundant. In the end, Gypsy keeps getting played up as a character, but never actually feels like one. The ending shot of it looking at the aliens before jaegerbomb feels weird, because we aren't seeing a character die like we should be, just a big metal husk that looks sorta human floating there. In a better version of this movie, that moment would have meant a lot more, because it's literally the human race surrogate from our side staring down the enemies on the other side and going "Eat this motherfuckers". It should be the final defiant act of a character, not a big metal thing simply going boom. I got rather hyped up by this thread, and I still love the movie, but it definitely felt like it was really close to being something better then it came out to be. Febreeze fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 00:59
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enraged_camel posted:I think you missed the part where Slattern emerges from the breach and lands in front of Striker, and Striker kind of looks up at it. But they are just in a big underwater area which doesn't give the robots a sense of scale either. You "know" how big the robots are thanks to the rest of the film, but not really enough to give Slattern his due on size. In the opening sequence Gypsy is given scale against the boat and against the alaskan people. In the shatterdome they are given scale against the people. In the Hong Kong fight you get great scale when Gypsy fights the Kajiu on land in the city. In the final battle you don't get anything to compare the robots/monsters to. You have to rely on previous knowledge of the robots, but it doesn't really work and Slattern comes off as kind of underwhelming because we never get to compare to a "real" thing like a boat or a building, or even a person. The battle is still fun, but the scale is lost.
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Nov 30, 2013 08:05
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SMG wanted something more connected, a tighter bond shown between the pilots and their robots. I don't think that's a bad thing to complain about. More connection between the two gives the fights a little more gravity. It gives the Jaegers more character by tying them in closer to who pilots them. Part of me wonders if that's what GDT wanted. Occasionally those moments happen. At the end when Gypsy is staring down the aliens before detonation it feels like the movie wants us to see it as Gypsy the character staring it down, not as a robot just floating there. I initially and still partially agree with that. I would have loved the robots getting more character, so that when they get hit the impact means more. But I've thought about it, and maybe that was never the intention. The movie is essentially a series of space battles. The robots are treated in much the same manner as star trek treats the enterprise. The Jaegers are not extensions of the characters, the Jaegers are battleships. When the enterprise gets hit, the bridge shakes and sparks might fly and everyone falls over, but rarely do the characters fell that impacted personally. Then someone will go " damage report" and we'll hear that a bunch of people died, or that the engine is hosed, etc. But it doesn't really hurt the characters on the bridge. The enterprise is not a character. Its treated with fondness and love and hate, but the ship itself is just a big hunk of metal. Its what the ship represents and the people onboard that matter. The jaegers are enterprises. In a way the kaiju are as well, revealed as clones and puppets of an alien race. The kaiju are battleships, drones. This kind of hurts them as characters and lessens the impact of them as monsters in the vein of a mothra or whoever. The beasts look cool but never really feel different from each other in any real way. When you look at the movie like this, treat the battles as two capital ships with two captains trying to outsmart each other, it makes it not a kaiju flick but more a sci fi war movie. And a drat fun one at that. The pilots being literally connected to the ship actually does make things more visceral. Its like captain kirk strapping into his chair and controlling the ship himself. So while a gypsy that isn't a hunk of metal would be cool, I'm fine with how GDT used the robots and pilots. It doesn't feel like a kaiju movie at all anymore though. More like a naval warfare sci fi flick Febreeze fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Dec 22, 2013 |
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Dec 22, 2013 02:46
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James Hardon posted:Most of the time when people don't like a movie they say they didn't care for it and move on. It's really cool that you've made hundreds of posts explaining why the giant robot movie isn't good in order to justify your Media Studies degree from the University of Phoenix. It's Cinema Discusso, it's the forums MO. Also who cares if he makes a lot of posts about it, it's discussion. You don't have to agree with him, but telling him he talks too much in a thread about a movie already on Blu-ray is pointless. It's a fun but flawed movie and if people want to talk about it let them.
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Dec 23, 2013 18:40
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I hope the sequel is us finding a way to pass through the portal ourselves and going all kaiju on the master's homeworld and having the masters try and force us out and we realize we were the monsters all along. Actually, back when the movie was out, Del Toro mentioned something about Kaiju-Jaeger hybrids. Maybe that's how we'd get through the portal. In terms of cockpit talk I wasn't a fan of the dark jaeger suits they used in Gypsy 2.0. I preferred the white suits they wore in the beginning scene, it was easier to discern them from the background. But that was just a minor complaint, I could still easily tell what was happening. The whole movie could have used a little more light, I wanted a daytime battle and the best we got was Striker kicking the Sydney one's rear end in a short scene. But all the other major battles (Opener, Hong Kong, Underwater) were all dark and stormy. Would have liked a little more variation there.
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Jun 27, 2014 17:38
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 18:31 |
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Someone who isn't on their phone should post a few screenshots from the opening battle, when the pilots wore kickass white suits instead of the boring black ones. Everything in that scene was far easier to see. I didn't like Gypsy 2.0's cockpit visuals as much. It was too busy and too dark. I agree with SMG on that front. We should also post cockpit views of the other pilots for comparison because I don't remember them that well. I don't agree with the argument against the first screenshot posted though with Leatherback jumping onto Cherno. The whole point of that shot is "oh crap, Cherno is hosed. It feels fitting that Cherno is struggling with one massive water splash vaguely shaped like a monster and then gets enveloped by another and almost vanishes completely into the mist. Considering how the movie likes to present the Kaiju as forces of nature, it fits thematically with that idea. Cherno is a monster of completely human construct being enveloped by nature. During a storm, no less. That shot and that action were just fine to me.
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Jun 28, 2014 02:24
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