Pacific Rim

[Fireball]

Who watches Pacific Rim for the characters anyway.

[Bagheera]

Who watches Pacific Rim for the characters anyway.

But if the characters suck and the monsters are boring what's left? At least Godzilla gave me Brian Cranston and Ken Watanabe and Godzilla (complete with fuckin' awesome fire breath and THAT TAIL) and the Mutos, who had a motivation that was worth a shit. What does Pac Rim give me? Lol!aliens and jack shit. No thanks. If you can't make either your robots or your monsters interesting the movie's a no sell on my end.

Mileage varies, of course, but Godzilla did it right IMO. Pac Rim 2 needs monsters that matter to make it worthwhile.

[Fireball]

You watch it for the fucking robots punching the shit out of monsters.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

I think we went to see Pacific Rim for the robots, not the monsters. And let's be honest, they looked pretty sweet, even if they were a bit dorky at times.

Edit: Ninja'd.

[Bagheera]

But the robots sucked, and the cool ones jobbed for the lame ones. Fuck that.

Seriously, the Russians and the Chinese got a raw deal in that flick, and what was with Idris Elba getting totally fucked so that old white guy could survive? You don't even have to be SJW to be going "WTF?" at that point.

And if you're not watching a kaiju movie for the monsters you're doing it wrong.

[Fireball]

That's what happens when commies fight for FREEDOM.

[LegionWrex]

Ok, finally time to open up my opinion on Pacific Rim.

I LOVE this movie. Everything about it.

The action? Great.

The robot designs? Great.

The story? Predictable, yes, but still good enough for what the film was trying to do.

The characters? Overall great, even if stereotypical.

The universe? My favourite aspect of the film. I'm a huge advocate of world building in films, and if you can get into the film's universe in less then a minute like this film did, you've done something right.

If it wasn't for Gravity this would have been my favourite film of 2013.

As for the sequel? This picture sums everything for me.

[Ray]

I think its good. . . I've stated my opinion on it on the 'last movie you watched' thread. . .so I don't feel my need to bring it up in great detail here.

It's probably the closest we will ever get to a LAEM. . .Eva stripped of its angst.

[Chuckman]

Pacific Rim isn't like Eva at all. They differ on probably the most important thing: Aesthetics.

[Atropos]

They differ on probably the most important thing: Aesthetics.

Who are you, and what have you done with my Chuckman?

[Ray]

Pacific Rim isn't like Eva at all. They differ on probably the most important thing: Aesthetics.

Here's something someone said about Pacific Rim when I said it 'wasn't an Evangelion ripoff.

He was a total asshole about it by the way.

SPOILER: Show

RAY Wrote:

Do Idris Elba, Rinko, and Charlie Hunnam look like adolescents to you? Do any of the Jaegers in the trailer fight with teeny little knife things? Does the trailer contain a ton of weird religious symbolism? Any broody guys with glasses? Weird penguin things? Do the damaged robots seem to have a bunch of biological goo inside or do they seem like pretty straight up machines? Will the film likely have a downer mindscrew ending like Evangelion, or a positive ending considering its a tentpole summer blockbuster?

Giant Robots fighting monsters does NOT = Evangelion rip off.

“I felt there was a chance to do something fresh, something new that at the same time was conscious of the heritage, but not a pastiche or an homage or a greatest hits of everything. One of the first things I did is make it a point to not check any old movies or any other references. Like start from scratch.”

-Guillermo Del Toro.

The Jackass Wrote:

Does Rinko Kikuchi look like a scared adolescent to you?

Yes, Elba, Rinko and Hunnam are much older. You do know that equal opportunity extends to age as well, yes? Besides, Evangelion is kinda messed-up with under-aged nudity and groping and stuff, so unless you are into pedophilia, that crap has to go.

Do the Jaegers fight with knives and guns or built in weapons?

No Progressive Knife, but the retractable blades on the Striker Eureka Jaegar should serve the same function. The main thing is, an Eva or Jaegar has to resort to fight with melee weapons rather than ranged weapons, including tactical nuclear missiles.

I don't see any weird Crosses or Kabbalistc Technobabble

Evangelion heavily uses Christian references, which may not be appreciated outside Japan to put it mildly. So, I would change that and "preventing the Third Impact" to something more universally understood, like, I don't know, "cancelling the apocalypse"?

Evangelion also uses German terms like "Nerv" (meaning "nerve" in English) and "Seele" (meaning "soul"). Did you know "Jaegar" means "Hunter" in German?

"Will it have a big mind screw ending or the more likely Box Office success of a Hollywood happy Ending?"

What ending? A lot of Eva fans hated the original mindscrew ending (Gainax ran out of budget) so they made another one, which is more action-packed but still blows. I am still waiting for a new ending in the Rebuild series, which hopefully does not involve Shinji choking poor Asuka who is semingly comatose on beach. Unless you are into S&M too.


"Do you see any weird Penguin things?

Why is the penguin stuff important? Pen Pen. . . barely shows up. If you are going to rip something off, you can get rid of that without too much fuss.

"Do the Jaegers appear to be filled with biological goo? Or do they appear to be more traditional straightforward robots?

Biological goo? You mean the LCL fluid that a pilot immersed into inside an Eva? Funny you should ask . . .

He also went on to insult my intelligence by comparing me to Shinji and saying Guillermo was involved with Peter Jacksons studio Weta Workshops and obviously drew inspiration from the LAEM that fell into development hell.

He's also the one person on the internet who liked M. Night Shyamalans Last Airbender. . .

He claims Del Toro lied about the whole 'not drawing from reference'. . . thing.

So yeah. . . in the end. . .pacific Rim? good movie? Yes. NGE ripoff? maybe?

But hey, if Hollywood was going to make all these changes anyway, at least they got a decent director behind it and released it under a completely different name and brand.

[Bagheera]

Pacific Rim isn't like Eva at all. They differ on probably the most important thing: Aesthetics.

Along with everything else. Seriously, every time people try to say the two have something in common I'm like "really? You're stretching pretty far there, dude." And that's with the "obvious" stuff. With everything else I can only lolololol.

[ElMariachi]

The only thing I could see similar is that the pilot has to mentally synchronize with the robot and that the shut-down command never works when it should.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

The biggest connection that I can make is the LCL. I mean, it's kind of hard to get around that one just from looking at it. Everything else is a stretch, I agree.

[Bagheera]

ElMariachi: They sync with the robot and another person. That last bit is far more important, and very not-Eva (well, not technically, but people making the comparison aren't thinking of Evas as people anyway).

Nuke: That's one of the stretch ones, yeah. The fluid's in their suits, not the cockpits, and as such it's about as much like Eva as The Abyss or Event Horizon. And if I remember right they're not even breathing it anyway.

[ElMariachi]

ElMariachi: They sync with the robot and another person. That last bit is far more important, and very not-Eva (well, not technically, but people making the comparison aren't thinking of Evas as people anyway).

And then EVA-13 and 8+2 comes and spins everything on its head!

More seriously, the similarity I was pointing was more the mental link and synchronization part than who or what they synchronize with. And as you noted, Evas are technically living beings.

[Bagheera]

And then EVA-13 and 8+2 comes and spins everything on its head!

More seriously, the similarity I was pointing was more the mental link and synchronization part than who or what they synchronize with. And as you noted, Evas are technically living beings.

But even so, it's handled very differently in PR. The notion that it's a ripoff doesn't make any sense.

[ElMariachi]

I never said that it was a direct connection or an obvious inspiration, just that it's the only point that I thought could eventually be compared with Eva.

By the way for the records, Del Toro said in twitter that he never saw Evangelion, but admitted that he should give it a try when he'll have time.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

By the way for the records, Del Toro said in twitter that he never saw Evangelion, but admitted that he should give it a try when he'll have time.

What rabid fanboy would ever believe that, though?

[Alaska Slim]

The only aesthetic connections I made to Eva were the metallic spines of their suits that reminded me of the Evas themselves, not the plug suits (although, maybe the screws...?), and the Japanese girl having a bob cut with blue hair-tips, which we of course now know was a complete coincidence with an in-universe explanation.

Maybe also when the characters happened to be standing on scaffolding in front of the robot, but hell, I can't think of a Giant Robot show where that doesn't happen at least once. If you have a giant robot, you want to show it off, even when it's just standing there. Same to the elevator.