Pacific Rim!
It was exactly what I was told it would be: a blockbuster about people in giant mechs bashing the crap out of giant aliens trying to destroy the world. There wasn't a whole heap to it beyond that. What there was was pretty progressive/interesting for a robots vs aliens movie but it was still basically the story of a thinly sketched white American guy saving the world.
I've seen a bunch of people compare it to Neon Genesis Evangelion, but as expected it had a lot of similarities to the start of Evangelion (a battered world has had decades to get used to the possible extermination of the human race, giant mecha in bloody battles with massive creepy alien things etc) and very little to the end of Evangelion ("robots" turn out to be shells containing massive humanoids budded from the million year old body of the Angel Lillith and controlled by the souls of the dead pilots' mothers, everyone turns into orange goop as they become one with the universal consciousness etc) I AM DISAPPOINT.
I liked that it felt like all the characters were real people, including the women/POC/non Americans/disabled characters etc. But like Inception this is not a movie that cared much about illuminating characters, and the few characters it chose to illuminate were mostly some combination of white/male/Westerner/etc. Despite being set in Hong Kong with a whole team of Chinese pilots not one Chinese character got a single real line.
The science was...not worth thinking about, but the scientists were great, overall it did avoid the "YAY MILITARY AND THE ONE EXCEPTIONAL DUDE" obnoxiousness of most action movies, instead emphasising connectedness and teamwork.
There's a disabled character, who is played by an able bodied actor (hmmph) but is otherwise just there being his character, his disability is never mentioned and has zero effect on the plot, and he gets to be pretty cool. It did feel like his disability was there to make him more "kooky", but since it never made him EVIL and/or SUPERPOWERED it's still a step up from EVERY OTHER DISABLED CHARACTER IN AN ACTION FILM EVER.
I've seen people praise the character of Mako Mori for not being a ""Strong"" female character, and I see what they mean: instead of being all loud and sassy at the start and then turning into a useless damsel in distress at the end, she starts out quietly confident and stays that way, and she has her own motivations that have nothing to do with romance or her gender.
Anyway. There are lots of cool fight scenes which are quite well executed (as long as you don't think too hard about the fact they're using giant robots and not, like, wall mounted cannons or any other more sensible option), likeable characters with the faintest hint of characterisation, and not too much in the way of skeevy subtext. If you're going to see it I recommend doing so in the cinema for maximum enjoyment of all the explosions :D
Ok now to read more of other people's meta and see if I agree or not! EDIT: Lots of crunchy meta at No Award, just as I was expecting.
This entry was originally posted at http://alias-sqbr.dreamwidth.org/507785.html. There are
comments.
I've seen a bunch of people compare it to Neon Genesis Evangelion, but as expected it had a lot of similarities to the start of Evangelion (a battered world has had decades to get used to the possible extermination of the human race, giant mecha in bloody battles with massive creepy alien things etc) and very little to the end of Evangelion ("robots" turn out to be shells containing massive humanoids budded from the million year old body of the Angel Lillith and controlled by the souls of the dead pilots' mothers, everyone turns into orange goop as they become one with the universal consciousness etc) I AM DISAPPOINT.
I liked that it felt like all the characters were real people, including the women/POC/non Americans/disabled characters etc. But like Inception this is not a movie that cared much about illuminating characters, and the few characters it chose to illuminate were mostly some combination of white/male/Westerner/etc. Despite being set in Hong Kong with a whole team of Chinese pilots not one Chinese character got a single real line.
The science was...not worth thinking about, but the scientists were great, overall it did avoid the "YAY MILITARY AND THE ONE EXCEPTIONAL DUDE" obnoxiousness of most action movies, instead emphasising connectedness and teamwork.
There's a disabled character, who is played by an able bodied actor (hmmph) but is otherwise just there being his character, his disability is never mentioned and has zero effect on the plot, and he gets to be pretty cool. It did feel like his disability was there to make him more "kooky", but since it never made him EVIL and/or SUPERPOWERED it's still a step up from EVERY OTHER DISABLED CHARACTER IN AN ACTION FILM EVER.
I've seen people praise the character of Mako Mori for not being a ""Strong"" female character, and I see what they mean: instead of being all loud and sassy at the start and then turning into a useless damsel in distress at the end, she starts out quietly confident and stays that way, and she has her own motivations that have nothing to do with romance or her gender.
Anyway. There are lots of cool fight scenes which are quite well executed (as long as you don't think too hard about the fact they're using giant robots and not, like, wall mounted cannons or any other more sensible option), likeable characters with the faintest hint of characterisation, and not too much in the way of skeevy subtext. If you're going to see it I recommend doing so in the cinema for maximum enjoyment of all the explosions :D
Ok now to read more of other people's meta and see if I agree or not! EDIT: Lots of crunchy meta at No Award, just as I was expecting.
This entry was originally posted at http://alias-sqbr.dreamwidth.org/507785.html. There are
comments.