So, as everybody already knows, Pacific Rim is awesome. If you haven't seen it, you should go and do so.
Seriously, guys, this movie is like the good twin to Avatar's evil twin. WhereasDances With Pocahontas Smurfs in Space Avatar was composed entirely of clichés and sucked so badly that my family came thiiis close to walking out of the theater*, Pacific Rim is composed at least 50% of clichés as a loving homage to action/monster movies, and is fun and entertaining.
Okay, I admit, I did give in to the impulse to nitpick details in a couple places ("Why is there ambient light in this scene - this is supposed to be a mid-oceanic ridge, which means that it's over two miles underwater!" and "What do you mean, that [spoiler] is falling from 50,000 feet up? You can see the curve of the earth and the sky overhead is black - that doesn't happen until at least 80,000 to 90,000 feet! 50,000 isn't even above the Armstrong line!" and "Why is [spoiler] cradling [spoiler]'s body to their chest instead of performing CPR? CPR would be a lot more useful in this situation.") but high altitude flight and the deep-ocean abyss are two specific topics I have a ridiculous amount of fangirl knowledge of. Really, though, when giant robots are fighting Godzilla-monsters, do tiny geeky details like that even matter?
Giant robots were fighting Godzilla-monsters. I submit that no, they do not.
I only have one actual real complaint: Where was my goddamn same-gender-but-not-blood-relatives Jaeger team? The other fan we saw the movie with had been spoiled by fandom-at-large and swore (in response to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seanchai's "I heard that the soulbonds aren't worth getting excited about because all the robot teams are relatives or het couples") that we'd get a non-heteronormative drift couple eventually, and I mistakenly assumed that meant a Jaeger team I would be able to pretend to myself was a slash or femslash pairing (not even one that was actually a queer couple - just one that was two non-related people of the same gender that audience members would presumably be intended to see as platonic friends and that I could pretend to myself were a same-sex couple), and there was none - and I'm actually kind of surprised to find myself still resenting that, when I otherwise enjoyed the movie so much. I kind of wish I'd been told, "No, sorry. seanchai sadly heard right. Heteronormative Jaeger teams only," because I went in expecting to get fighter-pilot-equivalents to identify with and then was angrily disappointed at the lack-thereof. The scientists were cute, and I totally shipped them and squeed when they drifted, but they don't at any point pilot a giant robot together, so they couldn't really satisfy me. I liked all the background-character teams that showed up, especially the Russian het couple with the hilarious bleach jobs, whose Jaeger I have mentally dubbed "Titanium Dynamo" because I can't remember its actual name. But I would have liked even more to have at least one Jaeger pilot team that I could pretend was gay/lesbian and imagine myself in. (I know it makes me the bad kind of fangirl, but as awesome as it was to have a female action hero lead, a female pilot in an opposite-sex drift team doesn't provide that for me the way a same-sex-and-not-relatives Jaeger team of either gender showing up would have).
Time to go read Hamletmachine's Starfighter again even though I kind of hate the way the lead characters' relationship starts.
*Only Ace Ventura: Pet Detective II has ever actually achieved "and then we all literally got up and left", but if we hadn't paid expensive non-matinee prices to see "the military is evil, evil I tell you, eeeeeeeevil, and what these blue people need is a white dude," Avatar would have become the second movie to be awarded that dubious honor.
Seriously, guys, this movie is like the good twin to Avatar's evil twin. Whereas
Okay, I admit, I did give in to the impulse to nitpick details in a couple places ("Why is there ambient light in this scene - this is supposed to be a mid-oceanic ridge, which means that it's over two miles underwater!" and "What do you mean, that [spoiler] is falling from 50,000 feet up? You can see the curve of the earth and the sky overhead is black - that doesn't happen until at least 80,000 to 90,000 feet! 50,000 isn't even above the Armstrong line!" and "Why is [spoiler] cradling [spoiler]'s body to their chest instead of performing CPR? CPR would be a lot more useful in this situation.") but high altitude flight and the deep-ocean abyss are two specific topics I have a ridiculous amount of fangirl knowledge of. Really, though, when giant robots are fighting Godzilla-monsters, do tiny geeky details like that even matter?
Giant robots were fighting Godzilla-monsters. I submit that no, they do not.
I only have one actual real complaint: Where was my goddamn same-gender-but-not-blood-relatives Jaeger team? The other fan we saw the movie with had been spoiled by fandom-at-large and swore (in response to
seanchai's "I heard that the soulbonds aren't worth getting excited about because all the robot teams are relatives or het couples") that we'd get a non-heteronormative drift couple eventually, and I mistakenly assumed that meant a Jaeger team I would be able to pretend to myself was a slash or femslash pairing (not even one that was actually a queer couple - just one that was two non-related people of the same gender that audience members would presumably be intended to see as platonic friends and that I could pretend to myself were a same-sex couple), and there was none - and I'm actually kind of surprised to find myself still resenting that, when I otherwise enjoyed the movie so much. I kind of wish I'd been told, "No, sorry. seanchai sadly heard right. Heteronormative Jaeger teams only," because I went in expecting to get fighter-pilot-equivalents to identify with and then was angrily disappointed at the lack-thereof. The scientists were cute, and I totally shipped them and squeed when they drifted, but they don't at any point pilot a giant robot together, so they couldn't really satisfy me. I liked all the background-character teams that showed up, especially the Russian het couple with the hilarious bleach jobs, whose Jaeger I have mentally dubbed "Titanium Dynamo" because I can't remember its actual name. But I would have liked even more to have at least one Jaeger pilot team that I could pretend was gay/lesbian and imagine myself in. (I know it makes me the bad kind of fangirl, but as awesome as it was to have a female action hero lead, a female pilot in an opposite-sex drift team doesn't provide that for me the way a same-sex-and-not-relatives Jaeger team of either gender showing up would have).Time to go read Hamletmachine's Starfighter again even though I kind of hate the way the lead characters' relationship starts.
*Only Ace Ventura: Pet Detective II has ever actually achieved "and then we all literally got up and left", but if we hadn't paid expensive non-matinee prices to see "the military is evil, evil I tell you, eeeeeeeevil, and what these blue people need is a white dude," Avatar would have become the second movie to be awarded that dubious honor.
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I really wanted more scenes from earlier in the war with lots of robots fighting together.
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Well, Stacker does make that comment about Chuck's daddy issues.
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Yeah, also... the comic is so relentlessly heterocentric that just the fact that Tamsin is a fighter pilot with short hair and is not *canonically* in some kind of romantic drama with a dude, is enough for me to say "probably a lesbian."
Although, really, now that I think about it, we never get any canon (in the comic or the movie) on *Stacker's* sexuality either.
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Annoying that the comic is heteronormative, but still want to get it.
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(ETA: Also, Tendo mentioned dating a woman, so he's either straight or bi, and presumably also Herc had a relationship with Chuck's mom at some point, but you're right, everyone else is open.)
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Oh, right. Forgot about Tendo. I don't think, in this day and age, that having a kid indicates much one way or another for Herc, plus I ship him with Stacker.
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Who doesn't ship the hot dads :D
...although I just realized how INCREDIBLY SAD that makes it when Herc sends BOTH of them off on a suicide mission at the end of the movie... *bawww*
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THIS COMMENT WAS ALWAYS ON DW
The Russian Jaeger's name was CHERNO ALPHA which is an awesome name even if the Jaeger looked kind of silly (imo anyway).
I am hoping that in the sequel (CROSS FINGERS) we might get some more variety in Jaeger teams? I mean, I can meta away the relatives thing as having better physical and mental compatibility for the Drift but I can totally see what you mean about what you wanted.
Mostly I am just stupidly happy about PLATONIC LIFE BROS
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Re: THIS COMMENT WAS ALWAYS ON DW
Oh, the relatives-as-drift-teams didn't bother me (it does make sense that immediate family would have close compatibility, especially sets of identical twins or triplets like the three-man Jaeger team), and to be fair, there was already more variety than many action movies offer because you had Asian and black Jaeger pilots and not just white American guys. It was the fact that the only non-relative teams we saw were all opposite sex pairs and I really really wanted same-sex soulbonded fighter pilots (most of fandom seems to be perfectly happy with the soulbonded scientists, but I wanted a badass heroic robot team, and again to be fair, I've have been perfectly happy with one that only existed onscreen long enough to die in order to up the stakes for Our Heroes, the same way the other not-Gypsy-Dancer-and-Stryker teams did).
Cherno Alpha may have looked kind of silly, but it was silly in a way that reminded me of the silver age Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man armors, which is why "Titanium Dynamo" when I couldn't remember what it was called.