Oh my God Pacific Rim!!!
There may be spoilers, but they will be minor.
I went to see Pacific Rim last night with my buddy The Ninja. My Sweetie is oncall for the next week and a half, but she said I could go without him, as long as I promised to go again with him, if the movie was good. Suffice to say, I'll be seeing it again in a week and a half.
I've been seeing the furor on Twitter ever since the film opened, of course. Statements like: "Dear Michael Bay, THIS is how you make a movie!" and lots of fanboyish squeeing. One friend was listening to the soundtrack with his young son, who decided he wanted to make some monster vs. robot comics, so Dad drew, and child coloured for an enjoyable afternoon. This, of course, led me to wonder if said child had actually seen the movie, or just heard Dad talk about it. There was a family with a small child sitting next to us in the theatre. I would guess the child was about 3 or 4 years old, and while I try not to judge other people's parenting in situations like that, and the child was awake and alert, as far as I could tell, throughout the movie, and only very minimally disruptive (had to ask what was going on ONE TIME, that I noticed) so I will just say that I sincerely hope that I do not have a child who can handle action and violence on that scale at that age without getting frightened.
Anyway, back to the movie itself. Because the reality of kaiju was part of the premise of the film, we saw our first one within about 15 seconds, and it was tearing the shit out of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was huge and loud, and cars were falling into the water like rain. It was the most epic thing I had ever seen. Then the giant kaiju-battling robots got involved, and it just got more epic!
The movie was well-written, the cast was superb, and the special effects were incredible. I will be very interested to see what My Sweetie makes of the sparring scene (because it looked good to me, but I don't actually know anything about martial arts....) and I fully agree with what at least one twitter user said which is that Idris Elba should definitely be in charge in the event of the apocalypse.
Now to my gripe, which actually has nothing to do with the movie, and everything to do with the theatre where we saw it. I feel very strongly about movie credits. I figure, hundreds, if not thousands, of people worked on this film, pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into the production, and the least I can do is sit there while all of their names flash past. Also, I wanted to know who sang the song at the beginning of the closing credits. Yes, I know that information is easy to find on the internet, but I wasn't on the internet at the time. I was sitting in a movie theatre, where that information should have been available. Right at the end of the credits. Why is music always last?
Anyway, they brought the lights up very early, and Ninja and I groused about it, because after all the movie wasn't actually over yet. Then they turned off the movie. I stared in disbelief at the projection window, and said something really eloquent like "You're kidding! SERIOUSLY???" and one of the cleanup staff (who clearly wanted me to go away so she could finish her shift and go home) said "There's no ending." by which I assume she meant there was no hidden scene at the end of the credits, because we were quite enjoying the epic soundtrack that went along with the ending of the credits.
It bears mentioning that we were not the only people still in the theatre at this point, and although the others seemed annoyed as well, they left quietly. Not so The Ninja and I. We were in no hurry, after all it was already after 1, so we waited around until we could speak to a manager. The manager was probably about 14. Yes, I'm exaggerating, but he was significantly younger than either The Ninja or I, and he seemed painfully aware of the fact, the whole time we were talking.
Now I'm going to go to The Ninja's account of things:
I went to see Pacific Rim last night with my buddy The Ninja. My Sweetie is oncall for the next week and a half, but she said I could go without him, as long as I promised to go again with him, if the movie was good. Suffice to say, I'll be seeing it again in a week and a half.
I've been seeing the furor on Twitter ever since the film opened, of course. Statements like: "Dear Michael Bay, THIS is how you make a movie!" and lots of fanboyish squeeing. One friend was listening to the soundtrack with his young son, who decided he wanted to make some monster vs. robot comics, so Dad drew, and child coloured for an enjoyable afternoon. This, of course, led me to wonder if said child had actually seen the movie, or just heard Dad talk about it. There was a family with a small child sitting next to us in the theatre. I would guess the child was about 3 or 4 years old, and while I try not to judge other people's parenting in situations like that, and the child was awake and alert, as far as I could tell, throughout the movie, and only very minimally disruptive (had to ask what was going on ONE TIME, that I noticed) so I will just say that I sincerely hope that I do not have a child who can handle action and violence on that scale at that age without getting frightened.
Anyway, back to the movie itself. Because the reality of kaiju was part of the premise of the film, we saw our first one within about 15 seconds, and it was tearing the shit out of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was huge and loud, and cars were falling into the water like rain. It was the most epic thing I had ever seen. Then the giant kaiju-battling robots got involved, and it just got more epic!
The movie was well-written, the cast was superb, and the special effects were incredible. I will be very interested to see what My Sweetie makes of the sparring scene (because it looked good to me, but I don't actually know anything about martial arts....) and I fully agree with what at least one twitter user said which is that Idris Elba should definitely be in charge in the event of the apocalypse.
Now to my gripe, which actually has nothing to do with the movie, and everything to do with the theatre where we saw it. I feel very strongly about movie credits. I figure, hundreds, if not thousands, of people worked on this film, pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into the production, and the least I can do is sit there while all of their names flash past. Also, I wanted to know who sang the song at the beginning of the closing credits. Yes, I know that information is easy to find on the internet, but I wasn't on the internet at the time. I was sitting in a movie theatre, where that information should have been available. Right at the end of the credits. Why is music always last?
Anyway, they brought the lights up very early, and Ninja and I groused about it, because after all the movie wasn't actually over yet. Then they turned off the movie. I stared in disbelief at the projection window, and said something really eloquent like "You're kidding! SERIOUSLY???" and one of the cleanup staff (who clearly wanted me to go away so she could finish her shift and go home) said "There's no ending." by which I assume she meant there was no hidden scene at the end of the credits, because we were quite enjoying the epic soundtrack that went along with the ending of the credits.
It bears mentioning that we were not the only people still in the theatre at this point, and although the others seemed annoyed as well, they left quietly. Not so The Ninja and I. We were in no hurry, after all it was already after 1, so we waited around until we could speak to a manager. The manager was probably about 14. Yes, I'm exaggerating, but he was significantly younger than either The Ninja or I, and he seemed painfully aware of the fact, the whole time we were talking.
Now I'm going to go to The Ninja's account of things: