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General Discussion => The Speakeasy: OOG/Off-topic Discussion => Topic started by: Silas Vitalia on 09 Jul 2013, 12:08
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I got into an advanced IMAX 3D screening of PACIFIC RIM tonight. Will report on the level of awesome.
As someone of an age who grew up seeing many saturday matinee monster movies and generous portions of Voltron, etc, this will hopefully be what I wanted to see in a movie as a ten year old :)
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I want to like it, but some of the concepts seem a little silly, even for a "B-monster" movie.
e.g., "We have a problem with giant monsters. We shall build a giant mecha to fight it!"
"And put lasers and naval cannons and missiles with armor piercing warheads on it?"
"No... it shall punch the monsters."
or
"This mecha needs two people operating in a delicate and synchronized mindlink to make it work correctly."
*Other mecha runs just fine on one pilot.*
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IMAX = awesomesauce
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e.g., "We have a problem with giant monsters. We shall build a giant mecha to fight it!"
"And put lasers and naval cannons and missiles with armor piercing warheads on it?"
"No... it shall punch the monsters."
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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e.g., "We have a problem with giant monsters. We shall build a giant mecha to fight it!"
"And put lasers and naval cannons and missiles with armor piercing warheads on it?"
"No... it shall punch the monsters."
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
This reminds me of a discussion we've had about "badass" capsuleers who insist on physical hand-to-hand combat to settle every disagreement. :P
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Turn off the critical part of your brain, pay to see it in IMAX in 3D.
Absolutely worth your money, but only in a large-screen spectacle of entertainment sort of way. Will be decidedly less interesting on a small screen.
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I want to like it, but some of the concepts seem a little silly, even for a "B-monster" movie.
e.g., "We have a problem with giant monsters. We shall build a giant mecha to fight it!"
"And put lasers and naval cannons and missiles with armor piercing warheads on it?"
"No... it shall punch the monsters."
or
"This mecha needs two people operating in a delicate and synchronized mindlink to make it work correctly."
*Other mecha runs just fine on one pilot.*
All of my this tbh.
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Like I said, you have to turn off critical / rational part of your brain or you won't make it 5 minutes into the movie. Once you let yourself be a kid you will be more than excited about giant robots physically bashing in giant lizards, instead of the more 'realistic' concept of them being blasted from a safe distance.
Seriously though, on a giant ten-story screen, the monsters, robots, and spectacle of $100 million of CGI budget are extremely impressive and absolutely worth your time. Watching it at home on your big tv will be decidedly 'meh'.
Despite thoroughly enjoying the monster bashing here are the spoiler criticisms:
I think I would have appreciated some alterations to keep the 'world' of the movie self consistent. Movies like this quickly set up their own 'rules' for how the world works, and you get on board and as long as it stays consistent then you can roll with most anything.
If I'm going to build giant robots to physically punch and kick giant monsters, give me an explanation of why this is necessary and why shooting them doesn't work too well (Their hides are too thick for our conventional weapons! We have to bash their brains in its the only way! Sure, ok, I'll go with it).
If that's the case that you build giant punching robots to do this, then don't give the damned robots ranged weapons that they use on the monsters. In some of the fights there were 'finishing move' sorts of things with missiles or giant plasma arm cannons, etc. You better believe if I have a giant plasma cannon I'm going to park the thing a mile away from the kaiju and blast his brains out from a distance, etc.
Sometimes there were giant robot sized special cutting blades (swords, etc), ok sure! That looked neat as hell, I'll roll with it....... althoug I'm still going to opt to build one of these giant cutting weapons and put the thing on a catapult and fling it at a monster instead of attaching it to something that is going to get munched on.
I think what I've often preferred in many of the Japanese versions of these things is that the giant human mecha have an awesome array of crazy weaponry; lasers, guns, missiles, who knows what. The hand-to-hand stuff sometimes happens as a last resort, but in like Robotech most of the time its flying around and blasting people.
I would have preferred a little more 'assists' during the Kaiju fights - lots of little planes and tanks and missiles and I don't know, creative ways to show it's more of a military team effort. maybe we get to see the kaiju being blasted a bit before the mecha come in to 'finish it' who knows.
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If that's the case that you build giant punching robots to do this, then don't give the damned robots ranged weapons that they use on the monsters. In some of the fights there were 'finishing move' sorts of things with missiles or giant plasma arm cannons, etc. You better believe if I have a giant plasma cannon I'm going to park the thing a mile away from the kaiju and blast his brains out from a distance, etc.
Incoming semi-realistic-technobabble.
About those ranged plasma cannons... from more than 10m away (we are talking about giant robots and monsters) they become ineffective due to tracking issues. At over 1 km away, the plasma dissipates to much to be effective even against tank armor. See, we have to get up close to the giant alien to even effectively use the finishing plasma cannon.
The reason we can't fit the plasma cannon on missile is a power-plant problem and there are again some associated tracking issues.
But none of the above really matters, because it isn't meant to make you think.
Like I said, you have to turn off critical / rational part of your brain or you won't make it 5 minutes into the movie. Once you let yourself be a kid you will be more than excited about giant robots physically bashing in giant lizards, instead of the more 'realistic' concept of them being blasted from a safe distance.
I realized this after seeing a few trailers (I have not seen the movie). The kid in me was finally able to break through and scream at me "Dude! It is giant robots fighting giant aliens! Isn't that cool!?!??!"
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I watch anime, I probably don't have a rational part of my brain anymore. Thanks for the review.
:thinks about finding babysitter and dragging SO to see this:
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This movie was so much awesomesauce, I felt like a kid watching this. Saw it on firday in Cineplex UltraAVX ( imax 3d and assorted goodness ) in Winnipeg. So much echoes of Neon Genesis Evangelion in a good way. Loved it, loved it, loved it.
And yeah if you go see this, unleash the inner child and don't think - just enjoy. YOu can see and feel the 90s anime in this movie, right up with finishing moves and special weapons styles. It's not meant to make sense, it's live action anime.
PS. Where the hell is my goddamn shoe!?
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I want to like it, but some of the concepts seem a little silly, even for a "B-monster" movie.
e.g., "We have a problem with giant monsters. We shall build a giant mecha to fight it!"
"And put lasers and naval cannons and missiles with armor piercing warheads on it?"
"No... it shall punch the monsters."
or
"This mecha needs two people operating in a delicate and synchronized mindlink to make it work correctly."
*Other mecha runs just fine on one pilot.*
All of my this tbh.
Quoting to agree fully, but not to start an argument. Can have other treads for that.
Also Silas, you sure about that advice? My TV screen is pretty rad and I do enjoy all my movies on it.
Also:
<- Does not have any cinemas inside acceptable distances so can't see this in cinemas as it is. (Unless I want to spend an estimated 2 days walking to the nearest city that has a cinema I can see it on, and by then I'll be sleeping through the whole think most likely :lol:)
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(http://i.imgur.com/Uqmb7qQ.jpg)
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Pacific Rim is awesome. Saw it twice in IMAX 3d. If you see it don't expect anything but kaiju fighting mecha.
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This is a movie that makes a clear choice.
If there is ever a fork in the road, where the movie can either choose to be intelligent or awesome, this movie picks awesome every time.
Love it. Probably should be enjoyed as a drinking game.
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Saw it, liked it, only thing that was a bit 'wat' was the underwater fight at the end, which just seemed...wrong, for underwater. Overall though, if you love mindless explosions, running, screaming, giant robots, and giant monsters, this is definitely not a movie to miss. The part of me that can just sit and watch 2012 for all the scenery gorn was in love with this movie.
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good movie :eek: :D :) :cube:
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At least they explained why they do not use jets and tanks: They were ineffective and losses incurred are unacceptable. They could nuke the monsters (which they did) and it does work, but they aren't willing to fire nukes all the time. So they built giant robots. No mention why the giant robots do not have volcano cannons or wield skyscraper-sized chainsaws.
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Surprised myself by enjoying this. Genuinely thought I would pick holes in it per usual.
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Better than the trailers implied. About as good as I expected from the director. Not as good as I'd hoped. All it had going for it was above-average characters for the genre. Combat felt floaty to me. Not gonna praise a movie for good SFX, that's a requirement these days. :P
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Better than the trailers implied. About as good as I expected from the director. Not as good as I'd hoped. All it had going for it was above-average characters for the genre. Combat felt floaty to me. Not gonna praise a movie for good SFX, that's a requirement these days. :P
Gonna disagree. The things in there felt much more massive compared to what Transformers portrayed. And those punches and bashing actually felt painful in comparison to the aforementioned robot movie.
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Better than the trailers implied. About as good as I expected from the director. Not as good as I'd hoped. All it had going for it was above-average characters for the genre. Combat felt floaty to me. Not gonna praise a movie for good SFX, that's a requirement these days. :P
Gonna disagree. The things in there felt much more massive compared to what Transformers portrayed. And those punches and bashing actually felt painful in comparison to the aforementioned robot movie.
I'm not saying it didn't have weight, just that it didn't have enough weight. If we're going with these bastards weighing over two kilotonnes apiece... my internal physicist was grumpy.
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I finally got to see it on DVD!
I loved everything about the movie except for the bit where they decided to use Gipsy Danger's nuclear reactor as a bomb. The nuclear sciences fan inside me screeeaaaamed "IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT!!!" and my suspension of disbelief was thrown off the rocker for at least 5 minutes.
Also, Hannibal Chow Chau's shoes are amazing.