Tall, human like robots that can trip, stumble fall down with a very high center of gravity. So silly and inefficient. Huge, low to the ground, wheeled/tracked fighting machines would be the only way to go. Sure it looked neat for the film but....really?
shareYep, coz it looked good for the film. Imagine being a little kid in the cinema in 1980 and seeing the AT-AT for the first time!
shareThere are some movies that are kinda bullet-proof to plot holes based around practicality. Pacific Rim knew what it wanted to be from the word "Go": mecha vs. monsters; it never loses sight of that goal and it never lets up.
It's impractical, yes. It probably wouldn't be as cost-effective as a bunch of other kaiju countermeasures the military could cook up, but for the movie's purposes, that's all irrelevant. The movie gives you the premise. Don't buy it? Don't watch it.
Back in 1983, I was once stuck listening to a physicist rant about how impractical the AT-ATs were, and what a buzzkill that was! Some movies are there to give us a chance to turn off our brains, and just enjoy ourselves, like this one.
Look, this is a stupid, clumsy, and ultra-cheesy movie by any rational standard, but it's hella fun and I need to sit down and watch it again.
This movie went all in and embraced the genre and that is why it was entertaining.
shareI totally agree. It wasn't meant to be taken seriously, it said right out front "HEY, you think Japanese monsters are cool AND Transformers are cool? GET READY!!!".
It is absolutely a film that succeeded on its own modest terms, it appealed to both my adult side, which liked seeing a romance grow out of mutual respect between two grownups, and the inner child that use to sneak out of bed to watch Godzilla stomp his way through Tokyo. I enjoyed every cheesy minute.
My relationship to this movie experience was similiar to when I was a really young kid and watched "Jason and the Argonauts" and the 1953 version of "War of The Worlds" on "Creature Features" on TV (WGN).
I was enthralled. When I saw them both years later that same level of joy, fear, excitement remained.
Cheesy was never a term that I used then and don't now for those types of movies.
They still delivered that sense of wonderment, human frailty, excitement, and escape.
Pacific Rim (along with that driving score) was great! I just saw parts this morning and it holds up well after 10 years.
That is the reason that I popped over to this board because it has been 10 years!!!
I do use "cheesy" for this sort of bad-but-good movie, I don't insist that you do the same. And yeah, I think I'll rewatch it tonight, what's the point of being home sick if not to watch monster movies?
And hell yeah, I grew up on "Creature Features", and "Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster" was my favorite movie for about a decade, and consider that imaginative entertainment was one of the few things keeping me from going completely off the rails through a seriously horrible childhood. For a long time the world of the imagination was my only solace, and I think it did far more good than harm - by watching and reading sci-fi and Fantasy I learned to respect things like justice, courage, science, and ethics, and to value the marvels of both rationality and fantasy. Considering that kids as troubled as I was routinely get involved in drugs, gangs, crime, and self-destruction, I think I did pretty well to space out on nothing more harmful than monster movies.
Watched it again tonight as planned, and damn! This is a GOOD cheesy monster movie!
I'd remembered that I really liked how the main characters formed relationships based on mutual understanding and respect - my adult self still loves it. And I definitely remembered how much I loved the monster fights - my inner child still loves that shit*! But I hadn't remembered quite how colorful and awesome the action sequences were, the whole thing was great fun from beginning to end! Highly recommended!!
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* My inner child found a new version of "Creature Features" on youtube, it's on a nearby local channel I don't have access to. It's still great fun!
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