Del Toro's Pacific Rim

It is worth pointing out the sequel retains this relationship by having the drone Jaegers (with kaiju brains) going wrong while the manual dual-piloted Jaegers save the day. Once again depicting: human drifting with human = good, human drifting with kaiju = bad.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Aug 17th 2018 at 9:27:16 AM

If they hadn't drifted with the kaiju, they would have wasted the bomb because they wouldn't have known to do it again and thus would not have known that the original plan wouldn't have worked in the first place because you need to detonate the bomb while inside the portal chute, not just outside it.

Thus, any damage during the Battle of Hong Kong falls squarely under necessary losses. If you're trying to take a hill, of course some people are going to die. That doesn't mean taking the hill was a bad thing, especially not when taking the hill means your guys are now in position to enable you to win the rest of the battle and potentially the rest of the war.

Look, if it wasn't clear before, my point was that a movie can have the exact same plot points, and still be good or bad depending on whether it's a sequel or not. Hence, Soylent Green analogy. Standalone Soylent Green is a workable story. Soylent Green as the sequel to a previous work where its development was pretty unambiguously good without any moral quandary, doesn't work.

Alternately, Lord of the Rings, if after Fellowship, we meet Yandalf who tells us that actually, anyone who's of strong enough will can use the One Ring for good, and the rest of the story was Frodo learning to master his will enough to defeat Sauron by using his own ring against him. As a standalone work, this can be fine. Plenty of other stories follow this kind of plot. It just doesn't work if you've already set up this world with the sensibility that using force against force is what the bad guy does, and using his methods will turn you into him no matter how noble your intentions are.

Alternately, Star Wars, if after Empire, it is decided that because Vader and Palpatine are too strong, we're just going to put together a team of badasses to assassinate them, and the third film is your standard 3-act plot where they recruit the badasses, plan the heist, maybe some interpersonal relationship drama in the middle of it, and then resolve everyone's daddy issues so that they can come together in the end to decapitate the Empire once and for all. Again, no problem with this kind of plot. Happens all the time. Only problem comes with it as a resolution to Star Wars, which was already setting up a family based redemption story.

Uprising, by basing its ultimate big bad twist on "oh yeah, drifting with a kaiju brain is also how they get you", is just as big of a contrast as Yandalf or the Alliance to Restore the Republic by Assassination.

As for exploration of drifting with an asshole, I mean simply that perhaps they can show, either in the film proper or by way of EU tie-in media, what happens to people who tested drift-compatible based on preliminary testing but then they actually try it and it turns out other factors cause them to be incompatible, and the effects of dealing with this other personality. Doesn't have to be big or world changing. Something as simple as drift partners, both of whom have significant others, but they resolve their issues in different ways (like, one couple likes to take an hour or so to process their feelings and lay out the facts, the other likes to have it out right this instant and blow out their emotions) which causes problems when the whole personality meld thing causes them to not do the same things.

But you cannot change the sensibility of "we win by always acquiring knowledge about the enemy, and anything that helps us in this might be risky, but it's a risk we must take".

If anything, you would expect that the new PPDC would be continually having a group of people whose jobs it was to drift with any remaining kaiju brains in an attempt to learn more about them so they can build Jaegers to counter whatever new kaiju evolutions pop up, and potentially negotiate some kind of truce with the Precursors, as opposed to just let only one guy do it under their noses. That fits the sensibilities of the first film.

Edited by PRC4Eva on Aug 20th 2018 at 9:42:24 AM

That case was depicted as heroic because Newt was drifting with Herman and overcoming their former rivalry in the process. Drifting alone with a Kaiju to indulge yourself = bad. Drifting with a human partner for a shared heroic cause = good.

Taking a hill in war is done with soldiers who are voluntarily putting their lives on the line. “Necessary losses” is not putting the lives of civilians, one of the biggest cities in the world full of them, on the line against their knowledge and will.

1. I was talking about the first instance. You don't see anyone else offering to drift with a kaiju brain. Is there a part of Newt that wanted to do it because he thinks it would be cool? Sure. Does that invalidate the part that does it because it is a way to gather intelligence on their enemies? Of course not. Does that fit a "drifting with a kaiju for your own indulgence = bad" theme? No.

2. The denizens of Hong Kong were already at risk by the very nature of the kaiju threat, regardless of anything the main characters were doing. The precursors were always going to send kaiju at that time. The precursors were always going to send two as soon as the portal got big enough. Even if Newt hadn't drifted with the kaiju brain, the attack was still going to happen, it's just a matter of which city gets hit. This is an existential threat, doing anything at all that's not blatantly counterproductive is a good idea compared to not doing it.

Addendum: if anything, "scientific research involving kaiju is bad" isn't even supported by the first film. The simple fact that we have to research them to know how to kill them notwithstanding, there's plenty of applications for kaiju body parts. The blood's toxic, sure, but as Hannibal notes, the poop's a natural super-fertilizer. If we want to bring in EU, the novelization also adds many additional applications of kaiju parts.

Edited by PRC4Eva on Aug 22nd 2018 at 4:40:18 AM

Know what would be really embarassing? If the humans do breach the Precursors' universe only to find the Precursors were completely prepared for them because Jake went and blabbed it to them.

Suddenly an anime series!

Context: Netflix has recently revealed that a Pacific Rim anime series by themselves and Legendary Entertainment is coming!

Synopsis:

Wait “hostile landscape”?

Are they stuck on the other side of the Breach?

I figured the Pacific Rim franchise was dead once Legendary announced a live action Mobile Suit Gundam (which if it ever gets made, is probably gonna be a film adaptation of The Origin manga) and the poor box office Uprising had. The franchise still living is a surprise.

I gotta say, I was left completely speechless at just how bad Uprising was. Like, it felt as if the filmmakers were almost trying to destroy everything that the original set up and the like. It's probably on par with The Predator in terms of sci-fi films released this year that utterly crap on an entire franchise.

OK, finally watched Uprising on the plane.

Surprisingly, the worst part of this trainwreck for me was not the stupid sequel milking bullshit swerve that was "drifting with kaiju is baaaaaad now, kids!"

No, it was Amara Marani, the useless kid-appeal character with even less reason to exist than movie!Ron.

Second worst is the mecha designs. Compared to the designs from 1, I cannot tell what the hell these new Jaegers are supposed to actually fight with. 1's Jaegers had a utilitarian sensibility around them, they're meant to engage in fisticuffs, and their weaponry is meant to either end the fight or at least deal significant amounts of damage. With the exception of that spiky flail thing and maybe Saber Athena's swords, what exactly was crap like the energy whip or the gravity beam or the pea-shooter machine guns supposed to do other than run through special effects budget?

So, congratulations, Newt-is-brainwashed-and-crazy-now subplot, you are not the worst thing about this film!

I must say, I'm not sure whether this, Independence Day: Resurgence, or The Predator was the most insulting sci-fi sequel that I've seen. Heck, all three not only share the same problems, they all even end in a similar manner.

I'd say Uprising is the most insukting to fans, Predator is most insulting to the public.

How do they all suck & end similarly?

Man if that TV show really does come out, hopefully it’s better than Uprising.

I mean, for starters all the motivations of the aliens are changed to something stupider. Pacific Rim made it so they were always targeting one location despite the first film having them going everywhere else, The Predator with the assimilating DNA, Independence Day with the digging into the planet's core which makes fighting humans kind of superfluous.

I would say Uprising is leagues ahead of all those examples. At least there's some good fight scenes in Uprising.

Yeah, I hate Uprising, but it at least has something going on compared to the other two in my book.

The three movies are nontheless cut from the same cloth, and their attempts to sequel bait are pathetic given everything that preceeds.

I'd say that Uprising gets a knock against it that those other two don't because it killed off the main hero of the last movie and wasted a potentially interesting dynamic between her and the new hero in a really lame way.

And it doesn't have the excuse that the lead refused to come back (whereas Arnold Schwarzenegger and Will Smith both declined to return to their respective franchise, and in the former case it's still not confirmed what happened to his character anyway). Uprising had this vibe of "well gotta get the old stuff out of here as soon as possible because we have shiny new things that we want to play with."

Again, I can't really decide whether Uprising, Resurgence, or The Predator was worse. All three seem to, listing the flaws:

• Go out of their way to retroactively ruin the original film and its premise with incredibly stupid retcons.

• Focus too much on crappy special effects and empty spectacle.

• Replace beloved characters with dull uninteresting and poorly acted replacements.

• Are filled with hokey plot twists and cringeworthy dialogue.

• Concerned more on establishing a franchise over making a good stand alone film.

• Overall just add way too much unnecessary fluff and elements that bog down what should be a simple story.

• Not to mention that they all even share the same sort of Stinger, which is humans gain the ability to give the aliens A Taste of Their Own Medicine.

Seriously, how is it possible to ruin premises that are as awesome as the ones the original three films set up as bad as this? Is Hollywood really that devoid of talent?

Edited by LDragon2 on Jan 3rd 2019 at 11:31:53 AM

I just think you're overreacting. Pacific Rim: Uprising is a mediocre, but fun, blockbuster that was a sequel to a excellent fun blockbuster by a master of his craft.

The original PR is way better because Del Toro is a notch above everyone else in this industry as a filmmaker, let alone the director of Uprising, but the purpose was always to make a campy Genre Throwback to relatively mindless and lovably hokey stories about people in giant robots fighting giant monsters. I'd venture to say Pacific Rim ranks as one of Del Toro's weakest films. It's just some good ol' fun.

The greatest thing about Pacific Rim has always been about having some cheesy fun. I think the second film still manages this through fun fight scenes and some solid character work (namely from Jake and Gottlieb), even with some truly baffling creative decisions (e.g Mako).

The Predator is a barely coherent mess of a film that follows a completely different and much more cerebral film that was the original, Independence Day was never good. None of the comparisons particularly seem fitting to me.

The better comparison for me might be Deadpool 2 in comparison to the first.

I just really hope the anime is good. I mean, Netflix loves them some giant robots and I would hope after Uprising Del Toro is at least a consultant.

Of course, Uprising being So Okay, It's Average is probably why they’re going this route (and Legendary is instead making a live action Gundam)

Edited by Beatman1 on Jan 4th 2019 at 9:31:56 AM

I agree. PR was made to function in anime form, at any rate.

Uprising's problem is that the majority of the film was basically a greatest hits collection of reaching for mainstream appeal. A new lead actor riding the hype of another franchise, dropping less popular characters, shorter runtime, shorter action sequences but more overall, more sex appeal, brighter color palette, sleeker production design (lots of digital displays, holograms, less esoteric Jaegers). As a result the movie just becomes all about the robot fighting, when these genres are always fighting to be seen as something more.

The one sequence that actually stood out as pretty good is when the Kaiju Hybrid drones attack the Shatterdome. Suddenly the cinematography jumps up in quality, the atmosphere is a nighttime warzone and it was kind of satisfying to have the heroes survive by sheer luck rather than managing to jump in a Jaeger to fight back.

A collection reaching for mainstream appeal, yes.

I would hardly call it a "greatest hits" collection, since that would imply it actually did the things that PR 1 did good.

Of all the in-flight movies, it bears the most resemblance to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, wherein it's an extremely mediocre film reaching for a grab bag of nostalgia invoking tricks (hey guys, remember the brachiosaurus? Now watch it burn to death!) to get you to ignore its flaws.

This movie is also hardly "all about robot fighting", given that it spends so much time meandering about "look at this child appeal character and how delightfully precocious she is" and "look, we're talking about drones, and China, drones and China are a thing that's important now, we have Serious Themes in our movie" and "look, plot twist completely unforeshadowed in the previous film that runs counter to the themes of the previous film" and "look, that character you liked in the first movie JUST DIED" and "look, our robot did a thing that looks like the thing the robot did in the previous movie".

And of course, a sequel milking stinger.

A big dumb movie about robots punching giant monsters would be a vast improvement.

Yeah, like if all you care about is seeing generic robots whaling one another, Uprising is up your alley. However, what made the original good in my opinion was that it was much more than that. Not just content to borrow the visuals of anime, the original also took many of the character types and plot elements of anime, and Del Toro fully embraced them and added a unique spin on them. Uprising is just content to only use the most superficial elements of a stock standard shonen anime without any of the depth or heart.

Like, when the fights occurred in the original, there was a real sense of weight and majesty in them, even when things where blowing up and being smashed to smithereens. Uprising just feels like any other CGI-filled blockbuster. Not to mention that without any real interesting characters like the original, even ruining several of the original characters to make way for new cardboard cutouts, there is nothing that really separates it from being a Transformers knock-off. Heck, as flawed as those films were, I'd take the first and third TF film over Uprising anyday, as they at least contained memorable setpieces and creative action involving the robots. Though Uprising is at least still better than the second, fourth, and fifth TF films, not that that's saying much.

Like Resurgence and Predator, it ups the cheesiness and spectacle, but loses the heart and humanity, and chases after franchise dollars over good storytelling and respectfulness of what came before, even retroactively cheapening the originals to force the new elements.

Edited by LDragon2 on Jan 4th 2019 at 4:55:51 AM

So anyone watched Pacific Rim: The Black?