Tag: pacific rim

pacific rim commentary

flaminghobgoblins:

i took a few notes from guillermo del toro’s commentary on pacific rim:

  • gypsy danger was designed to look like a machine from ww2 and to have the gait of a “gunslinger” 
  • he talks a lot about how in movies “form is content” and that he designs not for “eye candy, but for eye protein”; narrative is submerged in the audiovisual details and the details are everywhere in pacific rim
  • he is constantly juxtaposing massive elements w small details for scale; like a giant battle and a little red shoe, to contribute to the sense of “awe and majesty” 
  • the movie deals w types “the pilot…the scientist” so the characters had to be textured w minimal gestures; mako and raleigh (two of the main characters) have some of the fewest lines in the film 
  • ww2 aesthetics; bomb refuge, overalls, working for rations were all incorporated
  • not a movie about one hero but a composite of humanity; the world saving the world; a movie about togetherness, connecting, and trust
  • Mako is coded blue bc of her origins in the kaiju; blue stains her heart and her hair
  • every character has to learn to trust all the others 
  • all the characters get a Hero Moment
  • re: the fighting stick scene; “if this was a 19th century movie they would be dancing the waltz” 
  • the little red shoe is the absolute heart of the movie 
  • quiet power is still power; mako as a strong character w quiet determination 
  • the Russian jaeger team are so hard-core they have no escape pod
  • some of the Battle of Hong Kong was done in miniatures and models not just cgi 
  • “This film is the most controlled joyful exercise in image creation of my life” 
  • one of guillermo’s fave moments is when newt and hermann drift 
  • “No one carries the suit like idris elba” 
  • “No matter how many times you drift with someone you still have to say I love you”
  • structured the three fights for raleigh as; losing a partner; gaining a partner; saving a partner (”it won’t happen to [him] again”) 
  • it was important to guillermo that the humans saved the world, not machines or ballistic power; humanity.

clarkent:

“Unlike Godzilla, Pacific Rim doesn’t try to be serious even when it’s being serious. Characters have names like Stacker Pentecost and Hercules Hansen. The film requires you to believe that the best way to battle a giant monster is to build an even larger robot to fight that monster. Much of the Act 2 drama derives from inter-pilot tension airlifted from the Val Kilmer scenes in Top Gun. It’s the polar opposite of the Godzilla school of drama, where everyone is a total professional who has absolutely no personal goal besides Saving The World. In Pacific Rim, Idris Elba is Rinko Kikuchi’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, and two of the last Giant Robot-pilots in the world frequently get into sneering fights over who’s the bigger badass, and Charlie Day is a scientist. So, for all these reasons, Pacific Rim is a movie that I’ve heard perfectly smart people describe as “stupid” or “silly.” The problem with this line of thinking is that, really, that every blockbuster is pretty “silly,” in the context of Things Adults Should Care About. Godzilla is not less stupid than Pacific Rim just because people frown more. […] The difference, I think, is that Pacific Rim glories in its own silliness. There’s a flashback scene where Idris Elba rescues a little girl, and when he emerges from his giant robot, the sun shines upon him like he’s the catharsis in a biblical epic. There’s a moment when one giant robot swings an oil tanker like a sword. Then it grows a sword out of its wrist. Then it falls from space to earth. There are real complaints to make about Pacific Rim, I guess, all of them fair and most of them pedantic. I know a lot of people who have issues with the story. (“Why didn’t they use the wrist-sword earlier?” is a popular one.) Conversely, I don’t really know anyone who minds the story in Godzilla, possibly because everything stupid that happens is prefaced by Frowning Watanabe saying “This is why the stupid thing that’s about to happen makes sense.” Godzilla wants so badly to make sense. Pacific Rim wants so badly for Ron Perlman to wear golden shoes.”

— Darren Franich, “Entertainment Geekly: A call for an end to serious blockbusters” (via rahleighs)