Author Topic: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)  (Read 8204 times)

Battlechimp

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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #20 on: July 19, 2013, 10:44:03 PM »
What ticks me off is there should be toys in the stores.  Kaiju and Jaeger alike.  Not the inevitable $350 Sideshow Collectables, toys, for kids.  Already in the stores now that the movie is out, not the holiday season, NOW.  I should be able to watch kids have Kaiju/Jaeger battles in sandboxes and playgrounds.

The toys are out there... well wave one any ways.  Gipsy Danger, Crimson Typhoon and I think Knife head.  But from what I've seen only in comic stores or specialty toy stores.  Which sucks as they should be out there in every Target, Walmart or similar.  If any recent sci fi movie screamed toy line, this was it.  And a second wave with battle damage GipsyDanger.. and can't remember the name of the Kaiju. The gorilla looking one that was killed in the city fight.

And from comments here, I'm glad I'm not the only one who went hey, those Russians have the COH Cyclops tech head piece!' :-)
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Aggelakis

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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #21 on: July 20, 2013, 03:47:24 AM »
Funny seeing Perlman cut his way out at the end, yelling for his shoe. I would have sworn that wasn't survivable, but hey, it's Ron Perlman, so that's different. If anybody could make it, he could.
Hey, if Tommy Lee Jones can do it with a giant cucaracha, Perlman can do it with a baby kaiju.
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batqueen

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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #22 on: July 21, 2013, 10:33:13 PM »
 ;D

Magus Prime

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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #23 on: July 22, 2013, 10:56:38 PM »
Could these be Jaeger pilots in training?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lLkEH7vuK0

ag88t88

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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #24 on: July 23, 2013, 10:56:32 AM »
I've never been of the mentality that just because a movie is an action movie or special effects movie or meant to be some sort of visual spectacle, that it makes it okay for movies to be dumb, have horrible writing or really stupid plots.  (Seriously, in GI Joe: RoC, the under water station was destroyed by rapidly sinking Ice.  No one but me has a problem with that?  I digress.)

That said, I really enjoyed Pacific Rim.  The writing and dialogue were atrocious in some places, seriously horrendously bad and I laughed out loud at it.  The thing was, I felt like in many places in the movie, I was kind of supposed to. The Movie never took itself too seriously, the dialogue, bad as it was in some places, never seemed forced or like it was intended to be profound.  It felt to me like they knew it was cheesy, they played into it a bit and they showed a lot of Robots fighting Monsters.   

That's the other thing, I feel like so many action movies that end up dumb with bad lines and what not, still don't do a great job at showing me the action, or the visual spectacle. And this movie not only understood it was cheesy and did okay with that aspect, they nailed the Giant Monsters V Giant Robots thing, seriously jaw dropping spectacle in a way that honestly felt too big even for the massive I-max screen.

So I'd recommend it to anyone who likes sci-fi, fun flick and as there were some big plot holes and horrible lines in some places, none of it was completely stupid, too serious or really all that bad, and the action sequences and breath taking scale of it makes everything else completely moot.






--- SPOILERS?----

I did have one major nitpick though.  Why on earth would you not build more ranged weapons onto the Jaegers?  What you can build giant effing robots with whip swords but you can put a big rail gun or machine gun on there? Make those things like mechs with shoulder mounted missles everywhere and lasers and the whole bit.

And the ranged weapons they did have, they never wanted to use them until after they had punched the monster a few times and got in close. Is there no targeting system on those things? I mean it's a giant freaking monster, you can't hit that from more than a half block away?   Wouldn't it be smarter to weaken the things with the plasma guns or chest missles BEFORE they got in close enough to get their damn dirty paws all over the mech?   


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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #25 on: July 23, 2013, 07:19:39 PM »
I did have one major nitpick though.  Why on earth would you not build more ranged weapons onto the Jaegers?  What you can build giant effing robots with whip swords but you can put a big rail gun or machine gun on there? Make those things like mechs with shoulder mounted missles everywhere and lasers and the whole bit.

Because Kaiju are surprisingly nimble for their size?  They may be cold blooded so you would need either radar or laser targeting to maintain lock, neither work so well in cities.  It's also possible that it was tried early on and proved less effective than close combat pummeling.  Maybe those weapon systems are to easily destroyed and too costly to fix/replace.  Once you've exhausted it's ammo they're deadweight. 

And if you want to play Monday morning quarterback why weren't their off shore mine fields?  Mining of the breach?  On shore artillery/missile batteries?   Seems like they put their money into a Jaeger or two per major coastal city.

Plus that goes against genre.  You must have seen at least some of Toho Studio's Kaiju films.  Missiles from planes, shells from ships, ground masers, even super anti-kaiju weapons are mostly ineffective.  It's only when it's Kaiju Vs Kaiju or mecha-Kaiju that any progress is made.
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Aggelakis

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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #26 on: July 23, 2013, 07:35:03 PM »
Plus that goes against genre.  You must have seen at least some of Toho Studio's Kaiju films.  Missiles from planes, shells from ships, ground masers, even super anti-kaiju weapons are mostly ineffective.  It's only when it's Kaiju Vs Kaiju or mecha-Kaiju that any progress is made.
They even mentioned it in the movie. The first kaiju, before jaegers were 'born', took 35 days and destroyed 3 cities before it could be brought down with tanks, jets, everything short of nuclear warfare.

Did you (ag88) not see the flashback? A fighter jet ran into the kaiju's (arm? tail?) and exploded along with its whole payload and the thing didn't even twitch a muscle. Looked back at the impact like a mosquito bite.
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ag88t88

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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #27 on: July 23, 2013, 10:53:44 PM »
They even mentioned it in the movie. The first kaiju, before jaegers were 'born', took 35 days and destroyed 3 cities before it could be brought down with tanks, jets, everything short of nuclear warfare.

Did you (ag88) not see the flashback? A fighter jet ran into the kaiju's (arm? tail?) and exploded along with its whole payload and the thing didn't even twitch a muscle. Looked back at the impact like a mosquito bite.

Sure, when they are using 50 cal machine guns and missles that fit on planes.  However at the point that they have Giant Jaegers running around, they obviously could (and did) attach giant more effective ranged weapons to them.  One of the Jaegers had missles in it's chest, but waited until after melee striking and such to use them. The Gypsy had the plasma cannons, but again waited until point blank to use them.  Which begs the question to me,  why not have more ranged weapons mounted on the Jaegers, giant missles, plasma what ever, lasers etc and just blast the shit out of the things, and when they get in close they are already hurt, making them weaker to grapple against. And at the point you have ranged weapons, have more, use them at range then scrapper lock.

A scrapper could take on lots of Bosses or EBs or AVS on it's own, but isn't it a little easier if there is a blaster behind the scrapper hitting from range before the scrapper goes in for scrapper lock? 


And Father Xmas, I haven't seen Kaiju films before, so I had no idea what cannon they were pulling from.  All good suppositions, hadn't thought about the cold blooded thing, on the other hand I think manual aiming should work for something the size of a sky scraper but even still I could see it being problematic, especially the dead weight once it's unloaded thing.

I hadn't thought about off shore mines, like really huge ones, I like that idea. I did kind of wonder why they had no giant weapons or artillery on or behind the wall though.  Seriously I was just kind of thinking during the whole wall segment.. "So they think these giant monsters can't destroy the wall? If they don't kill the things won't the monsters just beat on the wall until it breaks?"  The walls didn't seem to be a very well thought through plan, obviously the Kaiju weren't going to just mope around outside the wall.. "Aww, they didn't build a door, they won't let me in to their party. Shux.   I'll just mope around in the water..." 

Mines would have worked, artillery, all of it, put it all on the wall with some giant plasma cannons and missles.  Or make it electrified and see if you can convince the monster to try and wizz on it. 

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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #28 on: July 24, 2013, 12:15:51 AM »
Which all goes back to the history.  The 15 years between first Kaiju and this movie.  I'm sure they did try a number of these ideas and they learned it wasn't all that effective, non even softening them up for the one on one battle.  That's why I wish they would do a long animated series about the history from first contact to this movie.  All the Kaiju attacks, all the Jaegers and their pilots, all the attempts tried to stop the Kaiju, etc.

I would love to see them try battleship size artillery and MOABs to limited effectiveness.  Problem is our current weapon systems are designed around the size and speed of it's target.  Fast things are small and don't need much while immobile targets require heavy ordinance.  So what do you do use you have something as tough as a bunker in a mountain but moves faster than a ship and doesn't explode because it's not full of fuel or ordinance?  Build a big ass maverick?  Remotely piloted drone bombs of absurd size?

And I thought it was only 6 days and 3 cities (San Francisco and likely Oakland and San Jose as oppose to LA and SD).
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Aggelakis

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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #29 on: July 24, 2013, 12:22:13 AM »
And I thought it was only 6 days and 3 cities (San Francisco and likely Oakland and San Jose as oppose to LA and SD).
Hmm. I was sure but now I'm not because six days is making brain twinges too. I guess I'll just have to go see it again ;)
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JanessaVR

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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #30 on: July 24, 2013, 01:34:49 AM »
As far as mecha design and combat goes, this is an interesting reference:

http://denbeste.nu/Chizumatic/tmw/mechas.shtml

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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #31 on: July 24, 2013, 06:13:36 AM »
I would love to see them try battleship size artillery and MOABs to limited effectiveness.

And don't forget the Masers. 
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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #32 on: August 17, 2013, 11:22:54 PM »
What ticks me off is there should be toys in the stores.  Kaiju and Jaeger alike.  Not the inevitable $350 Sideshow Collectables, toys, for kids.  Already in the stores now that the movie is out, not the holiday season, NOW.  I should be able to watch kids have Kaiju/Jaeger battles in sandboxes and playgrounds.
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Kaos Arcanna

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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #33 on: August 17, 2013, 11:33:19 PM »
You know, I did really enjoy this movie, but on reflection I wish they had made the Kajiu more colorful.


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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #34 on: August 18, 2013, 07:34:27 AM »
I don't. It's a nod to the granddaddy of all kaiju. Even Godzilla at his most colorful was green with some shiny bits on his spikes - or Mechagodzilla, who was all chrome-y.
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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #35 on: August 18, 2013, 04:33:20 PM »
They even mentioned it in the movie. The first kaiju, before jaegers were 'born', took 35 days and destroyed 3 cities before it could be brought down with tanks, jets, everything short of nuclear warfare.

Did you (ag88) not see the flashback? A fighter jet ran into the kaiju's (arm? tail?) and exploded along with its whole payload and the thing didn't even twitch a muscle. Looked back at the impact like a mosquito bite.

I looked at the novelization while at a bookstore the other day and it says 6 days and 35 miles later.  Guess we are going to have to wait for the DVD.
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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #36 on: August 18, 2013, 09:05:00 PM »

--- SPOILERS?----

I did have one major nitpick though.  Why on earth would you not build more ranged weapons onto the Jaegers?  What you can build giant effing robots with whip swords but you can put a big rail gun or machine gun on there? Make those things like mechs with shoulder mounted missles everywhere and lasers and the whole bit.

And the ranged weapons they did have, they never wanted to use them until after they had punched the monster a few times and got in close. Is there no targeting system on those things? I mean it's a giant freaking monster, you can't hit that from more than a half block away?   Wouldn't it be smarter to weaken the things with the plasma guns or chest missles BEFORE they got in close enough to get their damn dirty paws all over the mech?

My thought is the main reason (if we really must try to make up reasons for this) is probably because world economy is on a thread with pretty much all resources going into the Jaeger program.  Missiles are consumables, not to mention developing ones that are effective without being nuclear.  Which is also probably why they went with punching first.  Lasers and plasma weapons - development research got diverted into building the Jaeger's themselves.  All while being constantly attacked by the Kaiju.

Now the real question is - didn't these folks watch Voltron?  Just always go for the blazi....err whip sword first (it was great I had commented to my buddy, you know what the need - a blazing sword right before they pulled it out)

Quite honestly Pacific Rim is the most satisfying movie I've seen this year.

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Re: Pacific Rim Review (Spoilers)
« Reply #37 on: August 19, 2013, 12:06:38 AM »
You know I liked it as I watched it, but thinking back . . . I really wish we had seen them win some of the fights. Someone else said it, the period between the first Kaiju and the movie needs to be shown in an anime or something of that sort.
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