Pacific Rim

[Margalis]

Edit: Too off topic.

[calapine]

No more stagnant than Human earth development since the fall of the roman empire of the Renaissance.

Educate yourself.

Well, he is still right, it was a pathetic time.

When Claudius first invaded Britain he fielded 4 legions (II, IX, XIV and XX, around 20,000 men) plus another 20,000 in auxillieries.

One thousand years pass: William the Conquer and King Harold face off at the Battle of Hastings, each bringing about 7,000 people to the fight.

Total Roman troop strength under Diocletian was said to be approximately 400,000...

[MahrinSkel]

I think it's more that the "Dark Ages" were only a period of stagnation for Europe.  Asia barely noticed them (the Eastern Empire eventually was conquered, but the Caliphate were not primitive barbarians).  The "Renaissance" was as much a product of the Reconquista bringing Arabic scientific advances to Western Europe as anything else.

--Dave

[Khaldun]

The "Dark Ages" are to a very significant degree a branding idea created by Renaissance Europeans, much as "the Enlightenment" was by their successors. It's like any other political catchphrase meant to compliment the party or group crafting the phrase while casting aspersions on the people they're replacing.

[lamaros]

However, the notion that a civilization can regress, or fail to progress, over a period of time is not necessarily a false one.

[Khaldun]

Depends. That requires believing that there's such a thing as progress as opposed to just something like 'change'. Technology's the easiest domain to make that claim but even there it's not always clear what the difference between "a different technology" and "a better technology" is.

[Hoax]

How is more resources enabling more humans to be alive at one time and said humans live longer because they don't die of simple stupid shit not progress? Not to mention having real knowledge versus superstition about our environment.

[Khaldun]

This is becoming a big derail, but there is at least some argument that the original example of technological progress in those terms was the Neolithic Revolution, which certainly allowed for larger populations and *maybe* for longer-lived ones (though this isn't yet certain) but which also probably made life on balance much harder and more unpleasant for many of those people (e.g., having to farm all the time just to get enough to feed one's own family and pay off the king, priests and landowner). I think the people who think life was better for hunter-gatherers are kind of full of shit but there is at least enough to this argument to be worth knocking around some. Plus the Malthusian stakes are raised with farming too--e.g., one famine and most of those people die, and at least some human agricultural societies formed in places where famines weren't just possible but nearly inevitable due to long-term climate cycles. Pastoralists and gatherers can move a lot faster and adapt much better when there are short and long-term changes in environments.

[schild]

I'm watching Jurassic Park 1 and 3 again while working tonight and uh

Pacific Rim was shit.

We had sweet fucking dinosaurs that look great today fighting and shit in full daylight and they couldn't show a daylight fight with non-biological robots vs bullshit monsters.

Bleh.

[Khaldun]

I'd agree that after all the hype about how cool the monsters were, only a couple actually got a chance to be visible long enough and in good enough light to have any chance of even registering--most of them just blurred for me into a kind of generic haze.

[Mattemeo]

I think both of you are just being wilfully obtuse at this stage. The Kaiju are beautifully realised; they all have fantastic silhouettes and each one is easily recognizable. Even more importantly for me is that they're animated, not mo-capped.

[SurfD]

I agree.  The only point where I had trouble telling the kaiju appart / not easily recognising one was in the last fight scene, which was acceptable to me since it was supposed to be takeing place on the bottom of the ocean with very crap visibility.

[Hoax]

I agree.  The only point where I had trouble telling the kaiju appart / not easily recognising one was in the last fight scene, which was acceptable to me since it was supposed to be takeing place on the bottom of the ocean with very crap visibility.

That did kind of suck though. My dad couldn't see them that well not enough to tell them apart though I could. It was a real shame that final fight was by far the worst of all of them. Overall though I could see them all fine and I think the whole its raining and dark all movie whine is pretty much looking for things to bitch about.

[schild]

Overall though I could see them all fine and I think the whole its raining and dark all movie whine is pretty much looking for things to bitch about.

Yes, complaining about the cinematography is really REACHING when it comes to complaining about a god damned action movie.

[Father mike]

So the DVD is out today ... Round 2 ... FIGHT !!!!

In watching the production shorts, I was amazed at how much of the movie was in camera and not effects.

[Margalis]

Just finished watching it.

I have to say that it was pretty terrible on every level beyond "robots punch monsters." It was full of nonsense - I don't care too much about scientific nonsense but there was also character motivation nonsense, script and pacing nonsense, etc. Almost nothing that happened in the movie made sense on any level.

Let me use as an example the bit with the monster crashing through the wall. So humanity is on the verge of being destroyed but is unwilling to fund the giant robot program, the only program that has been at all effective. World leaders would rather just not spend the money, because apparently ALL OF THE WORLD'S RESOURCES are being funneled into A FUCKING WALL? This wall doesn't appear to have any cannons on it, there doesn't seem to be any reason a monster couldn't just climb or fly over it. Meanwhile this Australian robot has awesome missile launchers that can take down a monster - how about you build those into the wall? (or into a fucking tank?)

So the dudes working in Alaska see a news report that a monster broke through the wall. Ok, the wall sucks, point made. But apparently the point isn't made, because some working offscreen yells "why are we even working on this thing?" Ok, so yeah, the wall sucks, point made? NOPE. Now there is a closeup of another worker who says "he busted through the wall like it was nothing."

I feel like the movie is trying to tell me something about the wall...but what?

Obviously the idea of the wall is fucking retarded and the movie is about robots fighting monsters and not about a wall successfully stopping a monster invasion, so it's pretty obvious the wall sucks. But the movie still has to tell us that three times in one scene.
---

Some other things that drove me insane:

1. When the Jaeger program was "an army" why was it presented to us as 2 pilots and then literally just 2 other guys in the base, yet when it is on the verge of being defunded and is now "the resistance" it has an awesome base with hundreds of people working at it? The movie never did anything to establish an army of Jaegers, despite having 20 minutes before the title card to do so.

2. If picking up a random piece of metal and bonking a monster on the head with it works better than punching why don't the Jaegers come equipped with pieces of metal? Like give them a giant metal crowbar at least. (Oh right, they had swords but chose not to use them)

3. Why is the commander constantly giving moronic orders to his pilots? He gets angry at the brothers for intercepting and fighting the monster to save the boat, but they were going to fight the monster anyway. When the Chinese and Russian robots are getting destroyed what purpose does it serve to have the third robot there but doing nothing? If it absolutely can't be destroyed or humanity is doomed why send it out at all? And if those two robots are destroyed doesn't that make the mission to deliver the bomb about a million times harder? And let's have the 4th robot just sit in the base and do nothing. You have 4 robots vs 2 monsters and your plan is to have only 2 of them fight.

4. Which brings me to characters acting for no reason other than that the script calls for it. The commander only tells the Australians to stay back to set up a fight scene and so that the Australians can eventually have a "screw orders we're going in!" moment. Why does the scientist who isn't Charlie Day keep getting on Charlie Day's case? Just to add unearned tension and so that there can be a moment where they set aside their differences and work together?

5. How is it possible to keep getting caught off guard by a giant monster? Don't you have fucking sonar or something? We see the guys in the base have a screen where they can track the positions of everyone, so yes, they do have fucking sonar or something. Why doesn't one of those guys ever say "uh, monster on your left"? The scenes of them getting surprised were staged like a horror movie but that just doesn't work if you have sensors and shit.

6. If the monsters are clones why do they all look different and have incredibly different physiologies? Why did the script call for them to be clones anyway? It adds nothing. They could be an engineered army without being clones.

7. The dialogue was almost universally terrible.

Many of these problems didn't need to exist, even in the context of a dumb robots vs monsters movie.

[Margalis]

Also about the idea that this movie tried to cover too much ground and perhaps should have been the first of two or been set earlier in the timeline - the movie wasted a ton of time and pointlessly introduced a lot of stuff that wasn't required.

Most of the stuff before the title card could have been cut. That sequence doesn't do much to establish the Jaeger program as large and successful (you see one Jaeger lose one fight, that's it), then as soon as it's over the Jaeger program is on the way out in favor of the wall, then 2 minutes later we learn that the wall sucks. It's double-reversal in the span of minutes. They could have just kept the one line that says "they're destroying the Jaegers faster than we can build new ones" and that would have been effectively the same setup, without any nonsense about how a fucking wall sounds like a better plan.

The same is true of the main character being a pilot, then not being one for maybe 5 minutes a screen time, then back to being one. The movie could have just opened in the Thunderdome and very little would have been lost. His brother was not established enough for his death to have an emotional impact, it could have been simply stated, alluded to, or shown in flashback. The main hero calling it quits may work as a plot point if it comes halfway through the movie but when it happens at the start it's not much different from starting the movie later and just saying that it happened.

[Lakov_Sanite]

 

[Sir T]

"Dear Lord, we are bieng attacked by Monsters that break the laws of physics by walking!!"

"So we must build a wall. Failing that, WE MUST BREAK THE LAWS OF PHYSICS TO BEAT THEM WITH THE POWER OF INTERNET NERD RAGE!! Also humans are dumb"

Great movie. Would watch again. 

[Teleku]

tldr

[Margalis]

"So we must build a wall. Failing that, WE MUST BREAK THE LAWS OF PHYSICS TO BEAT THEM WITH THE POWER OF INTERNET NERD RAGE!! Also humans are dumb"

It's not "nerd rage." These are basic storytelling issues, not tangential science nits.

I get that for some people robots punching monsters is enough to carry the movie, but everything outside of that was utterly retarded. (And that wasn't particularly well-shot)

[Ratman_tf]

Just finished watching it.

I have to say that it was pretty terrible on every level beyond "robots punch monsters." It was full of nonsense - I don't care too much about scientific nonsense but there was also character motivation nonsense, script and pacing nonsense, etc. Almost nothing that happened in the movie made sense on any level.

Let me use as an example the bit with the monster crashing through the wall. So humanity is on the verge of being destroyed but is unwilling to fund the giant robot program, the only program that has been at all effective. World leaders would rather just not spend the money, because apparently ALL OF THE WORLD'S RESOURCES are being funneled into A FUCKING WALL? This wall doesn't appear to have any cannons on it, there doesn't seem to be any reason a monster couldn't just climb or fly over it. Meanwhile this Australian robot has awesome missile launchers that can take down a monster - how about you build those into the wall? (or into a fucking tank?)

So the dudes working in Alaska see a news report that a monster broke through the wall. Ok, the wall sucks, point made. But apparently the point isn't made, because some working offscreen yells "why are we even working on this thing?" Ok, so yeah, the wall sucks, point made? NOPE. Now there is a closeup of another worker who says "he busted through the wall like it was nothing."

I feel like the movie is trying to tell me something about the wall...but what?

The Jagers were failing. The whole intro sequence showed that. The wall was their fallback plan, and it wasn't going to work either. There was no official plan C. They were fucked.
How did you miss it? Were you watching the movie through the bottom of a bottle?

[Samwise]

I'm not sure which is more foolish, the fool trying to exhaustively nitpick the logical holes in a movie like this, or the fool trying to defend them. 

It's giant robots punching giant aliens, guys.

[Margalis]

The Jagers were failing. The whole intro sequence showed that. The wall was their fallback plan, and it wasn't going to work either. There was no official plan C. They were fucked.
How did you miss it? Were you watching the movie through the bottom of a bottle?

Are you really going to try to spin this as the movie flew over my head? I didn't miss anything.

The fate of the entire world is at stake - you'd think all of humanity could come up with the resources to both build a wall and do something else. If Jagers are losing 1 v 1 fights vs monsters send them in two at a fucking time. Even if Jagers aren't working well what's the harm in funding them given that they at least do something and you have no plausible alternative? Is fiscal responsibility an issue when the world is going to end?

Defunding the Jagers makes sense if you need that money for a more promising program. Sadly that was not the plot of this movie. The reason they were defunded in this movie was to make the heroes into scrappy underdogs and add some unearned emotional crap about loss of faith and redemption - like much of the movie it's pure contrivance to hit the right beats.

Why do the scientists argue? So that in the end they can work together in a feel-good moment. Why does Gypsy Danger stay in the base? So that it can dramatically save the day moments later. In a good script you hit the beats you want in a way that makes sense - this was completely artless.

I'm not sure which is more foolish, the fool trying to exhaustively nitpick the logical holes in a movie like this...

That the movie has an awful script, awful acting, irrelevant plot points introduced only to be undone seconds later, etc etc, is not "logical holes." I don't see why robots punching aliens has to be actively stupid - nothing about the genre demands it. Sure, it can't be scientifically plausible, but it doesn't have to be completely idiotic.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Delicious rage....

[Teleku]

Script was good, acting was fine, action was great, pacing was almost perfect, plot had some holes but you barely noticed them because the rest of the movie was put together so well.

[Paelos]

It made over $400M box office, so whatever it did, it worked from a financial standpoint.

[Ironwood]

We're still arguing here ?

It was ok if you like that kind of thing, but not very good.  I can see what Margalis is saying, I just don't see why anyone cares.

Also, lol at the idea of the wall being silly when your government's been shutdown over helping your citizens.  The wall looks positively sane if you think Ghomert was in charge...


Again, monsters and robots punching, utterly forgettable and silly everything else.  Who cares (tho it would have been really awesome to see MORE robots and monsters punching and maybe, just maybe, during the day.)

Godzilla might be good tho.

[Margalis]

Delicious rage....

Delicious inarticulate vapidity.

The "rage" here appears to be coming from dullards who bristle at the thought of cogent criticism.

[Lakov_Sanite]

This thread is a gift that keeps on giving.

[Margalis]

This thread is a gift that keeps on giving.

Say something not stupid, just to mix it up for once.

It made over $400M box office, so whatever it did, it worked from a financial standpoint.

I guess there's no debating that it made the amount of money it made, but if we're going to judge movies based on box office it did worse domestically than gems like GI Joe and We're the Millers. I don't think box office is relevant to the discussion, but given how much it cost to make vs. how much it made back and the fact that a sequel has not been greenlit it clearly wasn't a financial hit.

[HaemishM]

Delicious rage....

Delicious inarticulate vapidity.

The "rage" here appears to be coming from dullards who bristle at the thought of cogent criticism.

If it was valid criticism, they might not be raging.

[Margalis]

If it was valid criticism, they might not be raging.

If it's not valid say why.

That's how discussion works.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I hear it's cool to be angry on the internet, it makes people listen to you.

[Margalis]

I hear it's cool to be angry on the internet, it makes people listen to you.

I hear it's cool to discuss Pacific Rim in a thread about Pacific Rim, rather than repeatedly posting vapid one-liners because you're too dull to defend the movie.

I posted criticisms of the movie. Deal with it? Or you know, keep crying about it. So far you have four whine posts in a row.