'Today, we're cancelling the apocalypse'
Jul. 17th, 2013 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12We watched Pacific Rim last night. While in some ways it's a deeply, deeply silly film (with obvious plot twists and characters who are little more than collections of tropes), it's also an incredibly important one. If anything deserves to be a successful summer blockbuster, it's Pacific Rim.
1. Because the solution to a devastating, destructive alien invasion is international cooperation, pooling of resources, scientific and military collaboration and a general emphasis on our common humanity.
2. Operating the giant robots that fight the aliens is a task that can only be performed by two or more people, who need to be linked telepathically and work in complete harmony. That is, trust, empathy and genuine teamwork are made heroic, and ruggedly going it alone will quite literally kill you. I don't think I need to emphasise how unusual this is for disaster movies.
3. An international defence network means an international, representative cast. While there's still room for improvement (some of the casting choices were unfortunate, the guys playing Australians had atrocious accents, and none of the female characters interacted with one another at all), it was streets ahead of other films of its genre, where the USA tends to save the entire world.
4. 'The other sort of big summer movies often feel to me like it’s about one race, one credo and one country saving the world, and I wanted to make it about the world saving the world, no matter what skin color you have, what race you have, what belief you have – everybody in the movie saves the world, and we created a very equal structure where Charlie Day’s scientist has the same weight that Charlie Hunnam’s character has or Idris Elba’s or Rinko Kinkuchi, you know?'
5. In contrast to some superhero films, where whole cities are destroyed and people barely seem to notice (and they're rebuilt shiny and new in time to be destroyed all over again in the sequel), the stakes felt very real. Everything was very grimy and Blade Runner-esque, with people living in the ruined craters of former glorious metropolitan centres. And yet those ruins had a kind of vibrant energy, a nervous hustle and bustle, as if there was a deeply hidden spark of hope and humanity. The film celebrated urban life, and gave the anonymity of the city a sense of warmth and strength.
6. Seeing your home town destroyed by monsters, with recognisable building being smashed up in epic battles is actually deeply affecting, unsettling and upsetting. In order for the stakes to feel real, and for the world to save the world, the entire world had to be destroyed. I am unmoved when I see the New York skyline or the White House smashed, over and over again, or when the British Houses of Parliament and London Eye are toppled over yet again. But smash up Sydney, and I'm ready to run screaming at the movie screen and fight the monsters with my bare hands.
7. It just looks cool.
1. Because the solution to a devastating, destructive alien invasion is international cooperation, pooling of resources, scientific and military collaboration and a general emphasis on our common humanity.
2. Operating the giant robots that fight the aliens is a task that can only be performed by two or more people, who need to be linked telepathically and work in complete harmony. That is, trust, empathy and genuine teamwork are made heroic, and ruggedly going it alone will quite literally kill you. I don't think I need to emphasise how unusual this is for disaster movies.
3. An international defence network means an international, representative cast. While there's still room for improvement (some of the casting choices were unfortunate, the guys playing Australians had atrocious accents, and none of the female characters interacted with one another at all), it was streets ahead of other films of its genre, where the USA tends to save the entire world.
4. 'The other sort of big summer movies often feel to me like it’s about one race, one credo and one country saving the world, and I wanted to make it about the world saving the world, no matter what skin color you have, what race you have, what belief you have – everybody in the movie saves the world, and we created a very equal structure where Charlie Day’s scientist has the same weight that Charlie Hunnam’s character has or Idris Elba’s or Rinko Kinkuchi, you know?'
5. In contrast to some superhero films, where whole cities are destroyed and people barely seem to notice (and they're rebuilt shiny and new in time to be destroyed all over again in the sequel), the stakes felt very real. Everything was very grimy and Blade Runner-esque, with people living in the ruined craters of former glorious metropolitan centres. And yet those ruins had a kind of vibrant energy, a nervous hustle and bustle, as if there was a deeply hidden spark of hope and humanity. The film celebrated urban life, and gave the anonymity of the city a sense of warmth and strength.
6. Seeing your home town destroyed by monsters, with recognisable building being smashed up in epic battles is actually deeply affecting, unsettling and upsetting. In order for the stakes to feel real, and for the world to save the world, the entire world had to be destroyed. I am unmoved when I see the New York skyline or the White House smashed, over and over again, or when the British Houses of Parliament and London Eye are toppled over yet again. But smash up Sydney, and I'm ready to run screaming at the movie screen and fight the monsters with my bare hands.
7. It just looks cool.
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Date: 2013-07-18 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-18 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-18 02:35 pm (UTC)