Pacific Rim (Post-release)

[Rodann]

Funny, how you always hear "Why didn't they just use the sword FIRST?", and not "Why the hell did they spend so much money and resources to build giant 'homosapiens' with two wobbly legs, two arms, a TURNING head, and fists! With FINGERS!" :lol And it has a sword. A metal machine with a sword.

Why not just build giant serrated spiders? Bigger missiles? A huge, spring-loaded atomic mouse trap? Because it's a big live action cartoon, and the robots just look cool. Trying to make sense of a giant ridiculous machine shaped like a person that has to be controlled by smaller people, but somehow is able to keep pace with a giant creature that lives in its own skin............it will drive you bonkers.:lol

 

[EyeofSauron]

i still cant understand why pacific rim is not nominated for an oscar in special effects, but the lone ranger is.

 

[Solo4114]

Funny, how you always hear "Why didn't they just use the sword FIRST?", and not "Why the hell did they spend so much money and resources to build giant 'homosapiens' with two wobbly legs, two arms, a TURNING head, and fists! With FINGERS!" :lol And it has a sword. A metal machine with a sword.

Why not just build giant serrated spiders? Bigger missiles? A huge, spring-loaded atomic mouse trap? Because it's a big live action cartoon, and the robots just look cool. Trying to make sense of a giant ridiculous machine shaped like a person that has to be controlled by smaller people, but somehow is able to keep pace with a giant creature that lives in its own skin............it will drive you bonkers.:lol

Well, in fairness, a human-like design might still make sense for purposes of creating effective fighting techniques against largely bipedal or quadrupedal monsters, since you could probably come up with tactics more naturally that are based on hand-to-hand combat. This would also explain away why it makes sense to give the thing a sword.

What DOESN'T make sense is why, assuming you have the capabilities to create machines of that size and with those power requirements...you don't just make a big-ass cannon.


The thing is, I get the "it just looks cool" aspect in most cases, but there are points where that stretches too far for me. Like, when you save the sword for last. It also seems relatively simple to explain these kinds of things away.

"We can't use the sword yet. It's a one-use weapon that burns itself out and it's insanely destructive. We can only use it as a last resort, or in open areas where we know we have a clean line of attack. Remember the Kowloon assault six years ago? The Jaeger team there tried using their blade weapon in an urban center and ended up missing the swing, but took out a block of flats that killed 300 people who hadn't been able to get to a shelter. No swords in combat. Not unless it's absolutely necessary."

Or, hell, you come up with some other explanation. There's plenty of ways to do it. I just think it's irritating when they literally NEVER explain it. It bugged me as a 5-year-old watching Voltron, and it still bugs me today. If the sword is always the guaranteed kill, USE THE SWORD FIRST, *******. :lol

i still cant understand why pacific rim is not nominated for an oscar in special effects, but the lone ranger is.

Bah. That's just the Oscars being a bunch of bull****, really. They regularly fail to nominate or give the award to films that really didn't deserve it, or didn't deserve it as much as some other film.

 

[ghostryder]

 

[Riceball]

A film that did a much, MUCH better job at showing why melee combat was needed even though the characters had access to powerful ranged weapons was ALIENS. Throughout the first three acts of the film, our characters have been using ranged weaponry with a certain degree of success and failure. They couldn't resort to melee combat because that would have been suicide since the Xenos were all about melee. It's not till the end when the Queen Alien is on the Sulaco that Ripley has to resort to melee combat because simply blowing up the Queen would no doubt kill everyone in the hanger. If a small cut of a face hugger's finger was enough to eat through two whole decks of a spaceship, imagine what explosive tipped ammunition would do to a full sized queen in a hanger where there are no below decks. It makes sense.

Ripley only resorted to melee against the queen with the powerloader because that was all that was available to her, she had already ditched her pulse rifle-flamer combo and she didn't have time to go find the armory to look for more weapons so she had to resort to what was readily available to her, the powerloader.

 

[Jeyl]

Ripley only resorted to melee against the queen with the powerloader because that was all that was available to her, she had already ditched her pulse rifle-flamer combo and she didn't have time to go find the armory to look for more weapons so she had to resort to what was readily available to her, the powerloader.

You honestly believe that if Ripley had access to a projectile weapon that she would go storming back into the hanger firing everything she had at the Queen... when they're on the bottom most deck of the ship in outer space? I think Ripley is smart enough to know that using guns on the Queen while onboard the Sulaco is a very bad idea.

 

[Riceball]

You honestly believe that if Ripley had access to a projectile weapon that she would go storming back into the hanger firing everything she had at the Queen... when they're on the bottom most deck of the ship in outer space? I think Ripley is smart enough to know that using guns on the Queen while onboard the Sulaco is a very bad idea.

I think that she might have but regardless, I personally believe that the powerloader was a choice of convenience in that it was the only thing conveniently available to her to use as a weapon and not a weapon of choice because she thought that what's essentially walking forklift was the best thing to fight the Queen with.

 

[Tvayumat]

Lots of back and forth in here on the melee vs ranged bit...

The movie actually explains this, albeit not very clearly, in the first minute of screentime.

You may have noticed several visuals of decomposing Kaiju, a blue oil-slick like substance on a beach ("...factor of the Kaiju blood creates a toxic phenomenon known as 'Kaiju Blue'..."), and a huge pile of Kaiju feces that the news says "Contaminated" an entire city.

The Kaiju are huge, walking sacks of highly toxic and corrosive chemicals.

Beating them to death without cutting them open was the entire purpose of building Jaegers in the first place, and the method they used to kill them for nearly 15 years. By the time we see Gipsy fight they've upgraded to using plasma cannons which appear to do a decent job of wound cauterization (When we see Leatherback shot up with the cannon it pretty much "cooks" everything it touches).

We only see blades on Jaegers after a 10-15 year period in which punching worked 100% of the time, and then Gipsy goes down, then a five year period in which they lose 30+ Jaegers to bigger, meaner, faster, tougher Kaiju.

Humanity *thought* we were winning, and winning hard. "We started winning. We got really good at it: winning", this line says to me that they didn't get better at fighting, they just got so arrogant that they didn't believe they could lose. This is particularly apparent in Raleigh's attitude during the opening sequence. Jaeger pilots were rockstars who socked Kaiju right in their faces and then "everything changed".

Cutting a 300-foot tall bag of toxic goop wide open in the middle of a city is generally frowned upon.

As for ranged weapons in general, they obviously had them, the problem was that missiles big enough to kill a Kaiju are apparently as large as many of our flying delivery systems by themselves. The other issue is that the Kaiju stay below the waterline unless they find a target or are forced to surface by, say, a Jaeger.

We are forced to consider that the only time a long range weapon could be brought to bear is when the Kaiju is already in a city, which makes actually *hitting* them a challenge since they have both cover and speed.

Instead, the theory seems to be:
- Mount weapon system on huge, bipedal weapon frame
- Engage Kaiju, stop Kaiju from advancing
- Stun Kaiju (Striker stunned both Mutavore and Otachi before attempting missile strike)
- Fire when absolutely certain to hit

RE: Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon

They didn't go down easy at all.

They were fighting multiple enemies of unprecedented size with weapons they didn't even think the Kaiju had access to. Up until now they thought these things were dumb animals, but what they faced were coordinated, engineered weapon systems.

Leatherback and Otachi were the biggest Kaiju on record thus far in size and weight, and in addition to that they were the first Kaiju ever seen with integrated weapons like the acid sprayer, EMP and claw tail. It's also been mentioned that the Kaiju likely had no idea where the pilots of the Jaegers even were until Knifehead figured it out.

Add to that fact that there had *NEVER* been a double-event prior to that and the situation becomes more clear.

It was an unfamiliar circumstance against enemies with unknown capabilities.

Gipsy won because Gipsy knew about their weapons and engaged them one at a time. (Evidenced by the fact that Gipsy went after the EMP generator and acid-sprayer specifically, where the other Jaegers didn't know about them until it was too late)

 

[Jeyl]

The Kaiju are huge, walking sacks of highly toxic and corrosive chemicals.

I think If people can literally walk right next to a dead Keiju and touch it with their bare hands, how bad can their dead bodies really be? I mean, we witness a character literally get swallowed whole and cut his way out through the creatures insides and having no sign of any ill effects.

 

[Clutch]

Just accept the fact that this is not a very good movie.

 

[Tvayumat]

I think If people can literally walk right next to a dead Keiju and touch it with their bare hands, how bad can their dead bodies really be? I mean, we witness a character literally get swallowed whole and cut his way out through the creatures insides and having no sign of any ill effects.

That *entire scene* existed because the Kaiju are toxic. Hannibal Chau's team specialized in neutralizing the toxicity and acidity of the Kaiju and cleaning them up without leaving a natural disaster in their wake. (And, of course, pulling a profit from whatever parts could be made safe for consumption, apparently)

They clearly show a city, with a pile of Kaiju crap, and the words "City Contaminated by Kaiju Excrement" in the opening monologue, along with shots of beaches covered in a tar-like blue substance and people in hazmat suits cleaning it up.

Hannibal Chau is... most likely dead. Who's to say he doesn't make it ten steps then fall over convulsing and die shortly thereafter? Him cutting his way out was obviously meant to be a funny, hell it was a post-credits scene. It does nothing for the continuity, but this film doesn't exactly take *itself* very seriously, so why should this be an issue?

We've already accepted that giant humanoid mechs exist, which is absurd on it's face, so what exactly is so difficult about the interdimensional warbeasts being poisonous? It's a fairly loose but plausible enough explanation for why we aren't building something more like... I don't know... giant armor piercing bombs.

Again, perhaps they didn't illustrate it clearly, but the Kaiju were meant to be toxic. (It's mentioned at least three times in the movie)

Just accept the fact that this is not a very good movie.

Funny thing about film, everybody seems to come away with something different.

I can appreciate that you didn't enjoy it, but I'm not about to accept your opinion as anything but your opinion.

If you'd like to talk about *why* you don't think it's very good I'd be more than happy to have that conversation.

The biggest issues this movie seems to face is that so much of the exposition is left in the background, and most people went in with their mind already made up that it was "stupid" and paid no attention or thought to the set up.

It's a silly movie, sure. It's a shockingly optimistic movie, definitely. It's a love letter written to a childhood spent watching mecha vs kaiju, and it's a remarkably coherent piece given the genre that it's a part of.

It's not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination. It's a very ambitious film as far as the scope of the story they were trying to tell and the type of action sequences they wanted to make, and it was fairly successful at most of what it attempted.

It fell short in the exposition department for many, and the second act drags. I wouldn't say these flaws classify it as bad or even sub-par by any definition.

 

[Jeyl]

That *entire scene* existed because the Kaiju are toxic. Hannibal Chau's team specialized in neutralizing the toxicity and acidity of the Kaiju and cleaning them up without leaving a natural disaster in their wake. (And, of course, pulling a profit from whatever parts could be made safe for consumption, apparently)

Oh, so if technology exists that can contain and neutralize the hazardous material that make up the Kaiju, why should we worry about using ranged weapons?

 

[TheDodgeMan]

I really thought it was an amazing movie.

 

[Shadow345]

It was the best movie

 

[MFP 2020]

Oh, so if technology exists that can contain and neutralize the hazardous material that make up the Kaiju, why should we worry about using ranged weapons?

It's all about scale.

 

[Hammer3246]

It was the only movie.

 

[Tvayumat]

Oh, so if technology exists that can contain and neutralize the hazardous material that make up the Kaiju, why should we worry about using ranged weapons?

The technology exists to clean up oil spills and toxic waste.

Do you think it would be no biggie if we splattered the entirety of downtown Los Angeles with highly toxic waste?

We are shown shots of Kaiju corpses decomposing so quickly that their flesh liquefies and their organs spill out. I'm willing to bet the reason Hannibal can even do this is by getting there before they start to decompose and spread their toxicity to the surrounding area. He *did* make a big deal about getting to the corpses and harvesting them quickly.

If they waited for the thing to fall apart and ooze all over the place (or made a habit of blasting them apart) I'm sure the clean up would be significantly more difficult.

It's easier to clean up a leaky milk jug than one that has exploded, ya know?

As for the viability of long-ranged weapons, when would you shoot at them?

The Kaiju remain below the waterline until they either A.) Find a target or B.) Are forced to surface.

So again, you'd only get to take shots at them after they've already waded into a city, at which point you really can't afford to go blasting wildly.

I'm not sure why a Jaeger would stand off from a Kaiju and take pot shots ever, considering that just invites the opportunity for them to accidentally plasma-blast civilian targets and waste their somewhat limited ammunition. The Jaegers are *designed* to get up close and grapple with the Kaiju, so why not get in their face and THEN blast them? It worked for the Landsknecht, after all.

The Jaegers *did* use ranged weapons, but *only* when they had either grappled with or stunned the Kaiju, ensuring a 100% chance to actually strike their target. Considering that Jaegers routinely engage these monsters within eyeshot of civilian targets, this seems like a good policy.

Again, not perfect, but sensible enough for me at least. Obviously the true answer is that it wouldn't look as cool, but I appreciate that GDT put at least a little thought into making it plausible.

The Jaegers serve the same purpose as the defensive line in football. Kaiju are making a beeline for a population center and Jaegers are uniquely suited to get in their way, make them surface, and physically prevent them from advancing.

I can't think of any other weapon system that could manage such a feat without a nuclear detonation, and even that isn't guaranteed after we saw Slattern shrug one off.

ADDENDUM:

I watched it again today, and actually *NOBODY* touches any Kaiju or Kaiju body parts, organs, or fluid with their bare hands in the entire film with the exception of Hannibal Chau as he cuts his way out during the post credits scene.

 

[swgeek]

Just saw Pac Rim for the first time last week. I actually liked the film, but I don't think it's a film I'm going to watch multiple times. Thought this was funny.

 

[TheDodgeMan]

Yea its a bad ass movie with giant robots, and sweet bomber jackets,who doesn't like that!

 

[dascoyne]

I just rewatched Pacific Rim - this time seeing it through the eyes of my 6 and 8 year old daughters who saw it for the first time.

They were blown away - especially the 8 year old. I mean, a lot.

She seemed even more blown away with Pacific Rim than with all the Star Wars films, MCU movies, Disney and Ghibli films that come to mind. And when the Kaiju Leatherback jumped out of the water onto Cherno Alpha my 8 year old literally screamed out loud with her fists in the air "Whooooaaa!!!!!" Since then she's been talking incessantly about Jaegers and Kaijus and telling everyone she knows about them.

This is a great movie - and instant classic. And stands up to repeated viewing. A week later when I told her there was a part 2 her jaw dropped. Of course she loved it, too.