Years before, you wouldn’t have picked my brother, Yancy, and I for heroes. No chance. We were never star athletes, never at the head of the class, but we could hold our own in a fight. And it turned out, we had a unique skill; we were drift compatible.
Tag: pacific rim
Something else I’ve been thinking about, wrt Pacific Rim and its resonance with millennials.
It’s a disaster movie, an apocalypse movie, that’s not afraid of technology. Machines, computers, the work of human hands–they’re going to save us all.
This isn’t a story about robots turning on their creators. This is a story where the most intimate connection you can experience with another person, the Drift, exists because somebody built a machine to make it happen.
You get so many apocalypse movies that are a little bit afraid of technology, of robots, of science. Where the too-proud scientists went too far and called disaster down upon us, or humanity tried to play god and created a plague/a weapon/woke something bigger and greater than us.
This is an apocalypse movie where (besides one throwaway line about the atmosphere) the end of the world isn’t our fault. Where the things that humanity strives for, to gain more knowledge, to make us greater, don’t all backfire on us due to hubris, they actually make us greater.
And maybe previous generations are used to being told that the end of the world isn’t their fault, but for us? It’s all cell phones, iPods, computer games, bloggers, they’re ripping society apart at its seams. Movies give us zombie viruses and Skynet and Cylons and culture tells us convenience is bad, it’s greedy, it’s wrong even as we’re inundated with new technology on every side.
This is a movie where humanity didn’t accidentally destroy the world by wanting more. Where technology, the sort of thing our generation grew up loving and using and surrounding ourselves with, the sort of thing that older generations are still a little afraid of, isn’t evil.
We’re not evil, as humans, as people who are curious, who want to invent, who like gadgets and wires and talk to each other through machines. Curiosity-technology-innovation may be dangerous, drifting with a Kaiju may be dangerous, but it saves the world. Giant robots save the world.
Score one for the generation that grew up on the internet.
i liked it when the robot punched the monster really hard
I love this post.
“Both. Both is good.”
no but people who don’t like pacific rim because it wasn’t logical or scientifically accurate like
yes
we know
we don’t care
it is an homage to that genre. the original godzilla was a dude clearly in a rubber suit stomping cardboard tokyo and we were supposed to just accept that. pacific rim is a movie where a government council sat around like “what are we gonna do about these giant aliens coming from the ocean?”
“let’s build equally giant robots to punch them in the face”
“yes perfect” and like, that was of course the logical response because it’s friggin cool
mako didn’t use the sword because she had to wait until the perfect cinematic moment to do so
this movie is a love letter to painfully dumb action movies, but it is also one of the smartest movies i’ve ever seen. it’s just telling a story in a different way. instead of having audience vehicle main character explain everything to us, the movie shows you a world and asks you to accept its premise, and then lets you discover the story yourself.
this movie glorifies platonic love and familial bonds, this movie is about how we as people are stronger together, that it’s not one lone hero guy who can save the world, but the unity of all of us. it’s about the sheer unmitigated gall of humanity- “fuck this noise, we’re canceling the apocalypse!” it’s about the stupid dumb loud optimism that looks at the world and wants it to better, demands it be better, and does so with fists of steel.
it’s bombast and noise and i love it to bits so shut up and sit down and let me enjoy my giant robots punching giant monsters in the face okay?
this is such a good post…..such a good post….pacific rim stayed truer to the kaiju movie genre than 2014 godzilla did
Becket, this is Mako Mori.
#I AM GONNA FUCKING DIE #THEIR FIRST MEETING MADE INTO THIS SWEEPING ENCOMPASSING THING IN THEIR SHARED MEMORIES #drifting in2 each other’s hearts
But look how they perceived each other too. This memory isn’t an exact one (memories rarely are). Raleigh’s perception of Mako was very close up and she’s this stunning, slightly sad, closed off thing framed by her umbrella like a halo. She looks exquisite and unapproachable in a way. Mako’s perception of Raleigh has him looking far more serious and sad than he actually looked when they met. The camera angle zooms in like she was suddenly really taking in who this guy was and he looks forbidding and far more warrior like than he ever does in real life. If you notice, that one frame makes him look more like Stacker than any other moment in that movie. If that was her perception, something about Raleigh ALREADY reminded her of the level of command her father had and not only is she the only one in the movie who sees that, but we realize it’s an internal thing on Raleigh’s part because he doesn’t ACT like Stacker, but he sure has the same grit.
I so love when people see things I miss! When I saw these gifs together, my jaw dropped. They actually took the time to refilm their first meeting. Blows my mind how much thought they put into the drift sequences. I wish we could get a point by point explanation of each drift cause there is a lot in there we don’t understand.
#imagine your brothers death being burned into your side for the rest of your life #yeah id wear sweaters all the time too (x)
Okay, but this movie wins the award for Best Use of Manpain, tho.
In any other movie, Raleigh would’ve spent 90 minutes being like MY PAIN IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR STUPID WAR, and instead, he snaps back into action as soon as he meets Mako. That’s awesome. But what floors me is that he uses his own grief to help Mako survive hers. He knows how awful it is to lose your family. He knows what she’s going through. And instead of whining or thinking his pain makes him entitled to opt out of his responsibilities, he empathizes with Mako, supports her, and encourages her.
Raleigh’s greatest strength is his compassion. And that’s the kind of male hero I’d like to see on my screen, please.
Plus, like, a bazillion more movies about Mako Mori.
I have a friend who thinks Pacific Rim is the best expression of true, non-toxic, GOOD masculinity in recent times.
All agreement.
Let’s talk about Stacker Pentecost in light of this, though. Because we learn, towards the end of the movie, that the day he met Mako is the day he lost his partner. He gets out of that jaeger after having piloted it alone, after having his body burned for hours by toxic radiation, after losing the person he was mentally linked to (family? partner? friend?) and what does he do? He adopts a young girl, and more than that, he promises her her right to revenge if that’s what she wants. Tries his best to keep her safe but gives her the tools and skills and support and eventually permission to fight. Respects her enough to rely on her. Gives her a home and family and meaningful, important vocation during the goddamn apocalypse. Let’s talk about the kind of masculinity that uplifts others that completely. That takes all kinds of pain and stands up in the face of it because of the people who need to see him still standing. That has purpose and drive and passion but above all understands other people and believes in them.
Stacker fucking Pentecost everybody.
I have a friend who thinks Pacific Rim is the best expression of true, non-toxic, GOOD masculinity in recent times.
^ THIS.
HOPE IS A MISTAKE and they call her foolish for bringing an ex-cop back to the ‘dome. What do they know about him?
What does he know about piloting a jaeger?
But she’s not concerned with his past. It only took a few minutes fighting a group of assholes in an ally by this stranger’s side to know: THEY’RE DRIFT COMPATIBLE. Something Furiosa hadn’t felt since the day her mother was ripped from the hull of their jaeger along with her left arm. It was a battle that earned her a hushed sort of fame and a spot heading a jaeger repair team of her own. Still doing what she could, battling her losses day by day.
With millions of lives at stake, the cost of drifting with someone as filled with dangerous memories and rage as she is seems small enough in her eyes. And if they could harness that rage, there’d be no telling what they could do.
TOGETHER—- maybe they could find a bit of REDEMPTION.
aka the pacific rim au we all saw coming, with max rockatansky as left hemisphere and furiosa jabassa as right, the pair of them kicking kaiju ass.
#AT LAST #i have been waiting what feels like half my life for pacific rim AU graphics YOU’RE DOING GOOD WORK OP #bless you and those you hold dear #these two have a kwwon fight scene but their ‘dialogue’ is old school dirty streetfight boxing #left-right-uppercut bloody lips and connecting blows #(it’s still a dialogue – it’s just very abrasive dialogue) #in the canteen they’re not talkers #they’ll sit with you and all but really you’ll get one word answers #or nods of agreement or grunts of disapproval #with each other she’ll call him Fool (which he’ll acknowledge with the smallest of lightened expressions) #and he’ll call her by just saying ‘Hey’ very softly (which is a word and tone combo no one else will ever hear from him ever) (via harrietvane)
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