The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules
document is now in effect.
Pacific Rim Sequel: This March Holy Shit it Happened
Posts
Though, to be honest, I was also really hoping for a fastball special from the time it showed up in a trailer.
On the flip side I think the movie worked so well for me because the characters had relatable arcs and interplay.
I also thought Gottlieb and Geiszler were really well done. I felt bad watching Geiszler blow Gottlieb off. That feeling of watching your friends change as you grow apart while still caring for them was once again too real as I head towards 30.
The only thing that felt like a missed opportunity was Ilya not being more fucked up after Suresh died with how badly Raleigh was messed up by Yancy's death since both deaths happened while drifting.
Maybe I'm being too easy on the film because I can relate to a lot of the character development on screen. For reference The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in my favorite film because I saw it at a time in my life when everything in there was extremely the realest shit, and similarly my favorite Marvel films are Guardians of the Galaxy because mine and Star-Lord's parent issues are almost exactly the same.
Are you sure that was the immersion break? Are you sure it wasn't
xbl - HowYouGetAnts
steam - WeAreAllGeth
I can't imagine that would change just because your fight happens to include giant robots punching giant monsters.
And of all the ways they could have chosen to break the tension, that's far from the worst option available.
Internal consistency isn't a particularly good metric for script quality. You can make anything internally consistent.
And all that is a shame because the rest of the movie is basically a full season's worth of modern mecha anime condensed into an otherwise alright movie. It definitely lacks the heart of Pacific Rim 1, there's no question about it but Pacific Rim was del Toro's passion project. There's just no replicating that level of unabashed love being poured into a movie without having the man himself back at the helm but at least Pacific Rim: Uprising still understands what it is and celebrates it pretty openly instead of being ashamed of its influences. Overly brilliant young super engineer girl that designs crazy stuff? Check. A crew of teenage new recruits with differences rallying to save the world? Yup, check. A mysterious rogue unit fighting the Big God Damn Hero Mech and then vanishing leaving everyone to go BWUUHHH!?!?? Yup! A human betrays everyone due to slow burn alien mindfuckery? Oh yeah, super check. Those weird moments where an anime will stop with the normal regular animation for an exaggerated reaction or comment? In a way, yeah! Or at least I could feel that's what they were going for (Boyega is charismatic as fuck y'all).
If anything, the fact that it is only two hours is a problem because nothing is really given the room you'd get in an actual anime series to allow those things to build up and breath. In comparison, Pacific Rim 1 didn't really have that problem. It was careful about trying to shove too much in so while every second of that movie is built to be an homage to the things del Toro loved as a child, it never feels overstuffed. Pacific Rim Uprising is almost too eager to wear its influences on its sleeve, practically shouting HELLO FELLOW KIDS, WE LOVE THE ANIMES TOO! So while the ridiculousness of the movie is certainly all traceable back to the source genre it's almost too silly. If Pacific Rim 1 is a functioning adult that has a tasteful collection of toys from the shows they love in a dedicated nerd room but has basic enough social skills to not annoy everyone with their hobby all the time, then Pacific Rim: Uprising is that weeb with dyed hair that has mildly creepy anime school girl figures from kinda shit animes in the living room and won't shut up about which Gundam show is their favorite and why the others suck. The movie has some pacing issues is what I'm getting at.
Seeing the main event robot ass kickery on screen went better than I thought it would after the trailers. The trailers on the small screen made things seem too speedy but thankfully the big screen did resolve that issue for me. Things did still felt weighty, but the Jaegers being more agile will definitely throw people off which is understandable. Part of Pacific Rim 1's charm is that the Jaegers were big, kinda clunky, engines of ass whuppery. Pacific Rim Uprising's way more agile Jaegers make total sense in context, are still fun to watch, and feature some really badass designs but if you're hoping for more of Pacific Rim 1's style then you're gonna leave disappointed. Personally, I had a good time watching the fights and loved the designs of both the Jaegers and the Kaiju (moar figures for the collection for meeeeeee!!!!). I do wish we got to spend more time with each Kaiju and see just what all it could do, but as mentioned before, the movie is a bit overstuffed so eh. I got to see Gipsy Avenger put its fist straight through another Jaeger so I'm pretty satisfied on this front. I am kinda curious wtf was the point of Obsidian Fury's missiles though. They didn't seem to do dickall to anything that wasn't a building.
So yeah, is the movie good as a movie? Nah. Is the movie anime as fuck and revels in that fact? Yup! Was this movie needed at all? NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPEEEEE! Should you see it? Eh? It's an alright popcorn flick and I definitely enjoyed most of it for what it is, but it's not the movie Pacific Rim is. Not even close. Pacific Rim is a movie I love so much that someone not liking it is like them saying they voted for Trump. When I say I love Pacific Rim I don't mean it in the way someone says they love bacon or their morning cup of coffee. No. I love Pacific Rim. I own multiple copies of it. I have a travel copy on my work laptop. I own all of NECA's figures for it. I've seen it countless times. Pacific Rim Uprising is just kinda there and serviceable but honestly, that's all I was expecting from it. There was just no way it would hit the lofty heights of the original and wisely they didn't even try to. They just made a silly robots punching things, anime as fuck movie and I'm pretty ok with that.
But seriously though, fuck all of them for what they did to Mako Mori.
EDIT: Holy shit I think I just had a revelation y'all.
The extra damage to Tokyo and the death of Mako Mori may be directly related to the fact that this movie was basically funded by and made for Chinese audiences. I fully admit this is some tin foil hat shit but still, you gotta wonder.
Remember that AMC s owned by a Chinese company as well. I think will see a lot more of stuff like this and that awful Great Wall of China monster movie coming out.
It's certainly a theory I hadn't thought of, which has merit. If so, that is depressing
There's a lot of other parts in the movie that you could read as being aimed at the Chinese audience.
But the company isn't subverted by subverting the Chinese employees but by the automation that's in place.
Tian Jing coming back at the end, more or less out of nowhere, just in time to save the day.
The Kaiju all heading for Mt. Fuji, something of a very well known Japanese landmark, with the intentions of using it to destroy the planet.
https://imgur.com/a/1ftwl
The first wave of figures to go out are the basic budget line and while they feel more toy like than NECA's old Pacific Rim figures the joints are just soooo much better. I could never pose the NECA figures like this without probably breaking something. The star of today's haul, though, is definitely the Soul of Chogokin Gipsy Danger. He's a die cast metal absolute tank of a model who has a ton of different accessories and while not super pose-able, he has so many small details (moving leg pistons!) that it makes up for the limited range of motion. This thing is just gorgeous and easily the centerpiece of my collection now. Coming up soon are the model kits for all the Jaegers and the Select Series of figures which are much more detailed. I may have been hard on the movie but my hype for the designs is still super real. Bracer Phoenix is basically tied with Cherno for my favorite Jaeger now
In all seriousness, how do you feel about some of the things mentioned in the thread?
I'd agree with many of them. It was very clearly pandering. Two things in particular stood out to me as unnecessary or perhaps even detrimental to the story:
Also, Marshal Quan would've been fine on his own. In fact, with a little bit of setup he could've easily taken the place of CEO Shao. But having both of them in the movie just felt like too much given Mako Mori was basically fridged, and all of the characters - including the main ones - felt underdeveloped throughout.
I'm all for representation, but this movie made its already-weak plot and characterization even weaker with some of these decisions, so it's hard for me to give them the benefit of the doubt. Mori should've lived and taken Quan's place. Amara Namani could've been Japanese-American. CEO Shao never should have been in the final climax battle at all. (She could've had her own subplot entirely that linked up with the final act, and that would've made for a better movie.) Marshal Quan, if he was going to be a character, should have had more to do than just bark orders and die.
It sounds like I'm nitpicking the movie, and in a way I am. Like, overall I thought it was a pretty average action movie. But if you're going to ask me if I thought there was pandering, then I think this kind of analysis is the only way for me to show my work.
I don't know whether it's true or not, but I will say your theory isn't unbelievable. Isn't the main reason we got a sequel was due to China's ticket sales in the first place? That would certainly motivate the movie studio to package the sequel to those expectations since it'd be a safe bet.
Kinda? It pulled in $90M in China, but all of $48M in the US. In total it's looking at $233M on a $150M budget. The first one pulled in $411M ($101M domestic) on a $190M budget. Its China numbers were $110M.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it tanked, but I'm pretty sure the studio is less than happy about the results so far.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
The trailers managed to wholly lose my interest despite being another Pacific Rim film. The only thing the studio should be unhappy with is itself, for blowing something so easy to make money with by just doing a decent job of it.
I wouldn't say it was that easy to make money on this. The original wasn't exactly blowing away box office records. I agree though that the trailers weren't that great, they were missing the gravitas (relatively speaking, for a robot vs. monster movie) of the original.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/pacific-rim-altered-carbon-anime-projects-netflixs-new-slate-asian-originals-1159238?utm_source=twitter
The fact that it's going to be the ultra-worn-out anime "teen pilot" trope crap already annoys me, though.
I can only hope that the first episode has them accidentally crush their parents so they can spend the rest of the season fighting monsters.
I wonder if this is it. If this is the thing that might force me to get a Netflix subscription get a new fake email account for another free month trial.
Am I missing a connection between Warframe loot on Twitch and Pacific Rim?
I honestly don't know, I never picked up Warframe.
No, I just got confused as to what happened due to losing track of what thread I was in, haha. I thought Forar meant that I should have posted the Pac Rim announcement in the Netflix thread because I'm a derpy doo.
Only if she's adopted.