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djones520 wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
I sure hope Day After Tomorrow is a low score on the explosion porn scale, considering it's complete lack of explosions.

It gets mega bonus points for Emmy Rossum though.

Never watch that movie with a weather forecaster. It puts us into into a screaming rage frenzy, and your safety may not be gauranteed.

Heh, I understand completely. I absolutely cannot watch any TV show about the "crime scientist" genre without the strong desire to go all Elvis on the TV set.

Gitzbitah wrote:That will really be the crux of this movies technological verisimilitude- the quality of the explanation for why two pilots is better than one.

I suspect that the answer is going to be something along the lines of lone humans have a tendency to panic- which may be what will happen to the Japanese Jaeger, the only solo model we know of so far. Imagine someone freaking out at the helm of a device like that, and trying to get back to the safety of the colony. It would be like Zim in Operation Impending Doom.

If so, then the paired pilots would function much like the old nuclear silo crews- it takes one pilot to fight the monster, and one pilot is there to take out the other if they lose it. We've been very fond of redundant safeties to prevent accidental weapons release for years. By that logic, the tri-pilot set-up in the Crimson Typhoon might even allow for a dedicated Commissar. That being said, if they actually play to that, or show a Jaeger on Jaeger fight or a pilot fight in the cockpit, it will suddenly turn Pacific Rim into a much darker film. With humanity in the balance, would you break and run with the only hope your city has? And if that ever happened- would you ever trust a lone person with your other cities last hope?

I am so, so excited to see this movie and more of this world.

I agree. Honestly, though, my biggest fear is that the tandem operating dynamic is just a weak plot device for when one half of the team inevitably is killed, and then it'll require a long training montage to show the remaining pilot overcoming his feelings of inadequacy in order order to fly solo and save the day.

So long a that doesn't actually happen, I'll be pretty happy.

Andrew1975 wrote:

Both Independence Day and War of the Worlds are both about an alien invasion that kicks our ass and is eventually defeated by a virus.

Yeah, a computer virus. I mean, how the hell does that even work, infecting an advanced alien computer system. So implausible.

It's a movie about psychic aliens, big explosions with impossible weaponry and a ragtag band of survivors mounting a counterattack against a foe so vastly superior that it dominated the entire planet in less than a day.

And you find the computer virus (which is obviously an "update" on the original War of the Worlds idea) to be the implausible part? There is a requirement for at least some suspension of disbelief; and it's not like the movie in any way pretended to be something that it wasn't.

It's a movie about psychic aliens, big explosions with impossible weaponry and a ragtag band of survivors mounting a counterattack against a foe so vastly superior that it dominated the entire planet in less than a day.

And you find the computer virus (which is obviously an "update" on the original War of the Worlds idea) to be the implausible part? There is a requirement for at least some suspension of disbelief; and it's not like the movie in any way pretended to be something that it wasn't.

Yes but it could have been a good movie about psychic aliens, big explosions with impossible weaponry and a ragtag band of survivors mounting a counterattack against a foe so vastly superior that it dominated the entire planet in less than a day with just a little more effort.

The computer issue is far from the only issue as I've said, but it's one of the most glaring. I can suspend disbelief, but it has its limits. It couldn't have been more unbelievable if they unlocked the hanger to the alien ship with some old skeleton key the guy just happens to wear around his neck that his great grandfather George Custer found one day wondering in the dessert on a vision quest after taking peyote from an Indian whose people were wiped out by the white man FROM OUTER SPACE!

The only similarities to War of the Worlds and Independence day is an alien invasion and the word Virus. Its not even the same kind of virus and is completely man made. War of the worlds was about humans being screwed and in the end nature, which humans abuse and neglect is what saves them in the end. That and the rest of the War of the Worlds is not filled with completely unbelievable Hokum. Suspension of disbelief if fine and usually makes sense given the setting of the story, forced awful plot archs and story lines are not part of suspension of disbelief, that's just laziness.

Even War of the Worlds has some Hokum, like aliens succumbing to earth germs. Even humans don't go into space without biological protection. But that is one instance and completely forgivable considering when the story was written, versus Independence Days complete assault on logic, plot, and well everything.

Andrew1975 wrote:

It's a movie about psychic aliens, big explosions with impossible weaponry and a ragtag band of survivors mounting a counterattack against a foe so vastly superior that it dominated the entire planet in less than a day.

And you find the computer virus (which is obviously an "update" on the original War of the Worlds idea) to be the implausible part? There is a requirement for at least some suspension of disbelief; and it's not like the movie in any way pretended to be something that it wasn't.

That is far from the only issue as I've said, but it's one of the most glaring. I can suspend disbelief, but it has its limits. It couldn't have been more unbelievable if they unlocked the hanger to the alien ship with some old skeleton key the guy just happens to wear around his neck that his great grandfather George Custer found one day wondering in the dessert on a vision quest after taking peyote from an Indian whose people were wiped out by the white man FROM OUTER SPACE!

The only similarities to War of the Worlds and Independence day is an alien invasion and the word Virus. Its not even the same kind of virus and is completely man made. War of the worlds was about humans being screwed and in the end nature, which humans abuse and neglect is what saves them in the end. That and the rest of the War of the Worlds is not filled with completely unbelievable Hokum.

Even War of the Worlds has some Hokum, like aliens succumbing to earth germs. Even humans don't go into space without biological protection. But that is one instance and completely forgivable considering when the story was written, versus Independence Days complete assault on logic, plot, and well everything.

Again, I think you're expecting something out of ID that it never had a chance to do. It's a July explosion movie. That means it must appeal to LCD. Which places it on a different shelf, than, say, No Country For Old Men. So did ID ask you to suspend your disbelief any more than, say, any other disasterporn film (like Knowing, The Core, 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, Armageddon, Deep Impact, or Skyline, just to name a few)?

 Andrew1975 wrote:

versus Independence Days complete assault on logic, plot, and well everything.

But if you take that away, you take away what makes it so marvelous!

Have you no soul?

Again, I think you're expecting something out of ID that it never had a chance to do. It's a July explosion movie. That means it must appeal to LCD. Which places it on a different shelf, than, say, No Country For Old Men. So did ID ask you to suspend your disbelief any more than, say, any other disasterporn film (like Knowing, The Core, 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, Armageddon, Deep Impact, or Skyline, just to name a few)?

Here is the issue. I thing I had less WTF instances watching all those movies combined, than I had with a single viewing of ID. It just takes a little more effort to take a concept like ID and make a good movie out of it. Which is why I was happy to see that Del Toro is part of this, he's got a pretty good track record of making me smile in my seat, while taking the implausible and making it not only beautiful but also interesting.

Anyway, I'll stop here. This is supposed to be about Pacific Rim not ID.

Bets on how long it takes the Porn industry to make a movie called Specific Rim!

This is serious work we do! We need more talk about what things we'd like to see the Jaegers hit the Kaiju with.

I , for one, will be somewhat disappointed if at least one kaiju is not doused in gas and set alight.

The boat bludgeoning (even if structurally unsound) is absolutely awesome.

I would love to see them make a katana for the Gypsy Danger, and hope that the Kendo duel between its pilots is foreshadowing of that event. Such a weapon could produce even more 'strategic dismemberment' than Dead Space.

I can't wait for this movie...

Why are ya'll dinging ID? That movie was awesome...

As to the virus idea... why not? If you remember, the Aliens had to use the Earth's Satellites to synchronize their attacks... therefore, the Aliens needed to interface with Earth Satellites... it stands to reason that the puny 'umies could reverse engineer that interface to attack the alien's own network.

*shrug*

I was a great, campy popcorn flick... can't we just enjoy it as such? I'm sure Pacific Rim will be in the same ballpark as ID.

I'm just not seeing a giant monster movie doing well. Frankly I liked everything but the two guys doing the disco dance routine as a way of controlling the warbot. Thats been done before and it was DUMB.

Maybe its good enough to overcome that though.

Guys, you realize that in the independance day universe, we reverse engineered the crashed ship to create all of our own computer technology. That is literally stated in the movie. We both use unix because we stole it from them in the first place.

And in transformers all our modern electronics and lasers are from studying Megatron.

Can't wait for this movie, looks like your favorite junk food of movie fun!

It's better than junk food. It's more like having a really good chef doing an homage to junk food.

agreed

The problem w/ independence day is this.
40 years and the aliens dont think that one of their old ships coming back is odd? It would be like if an old ship that was lost at sea suddenly communicating with the shore.
You are not going to let that ship dock w/o an inspection first. And the fact that Will smith thinks he can fly it just because he can a fighter jet. The aliens might have a totally different sense of spacial awareness then us.
It would be like me learning to drive a car really well, like the best. Then the army think it would make me perfect to drive a new tank that has six pedels, nine joysticks.

Well they are aliens after all. We can't ascribe or assume they have any of the same thought processes or logic patterns.

Correct, But that doesnt excuse many other problems.
Such as a dog fight in a canyon. May look cool, but no if any pilot will think that is a good idea. Or the aliens letting the presidents transports get away. What did they think the helicopters where full off? The Janitors of the white house?

Again, no giving the aliens human thought processes.

Or it could be that they are a martial honor type of society, they would never assume a leader would flee from a conflict.

How they act shows they do not have a martial honor culture. They are shown to be ruthless conquerers, as that one communicated. They lay waste to a planet again and again.
And if they knee what to strike(The white house) they knew the president would leave.
And giving aliens non-human thought processes in near impossible, because it would invariably be something we thought up.

Meh.

I doubt I'll watch it.

As a kid I loved Godzilla and Robot Jox. Both of those combined with today's computer graphics?

Sold.

You know I can't help but feel that allot of the hype around this trailer is based mainly on the fact that Del Toro's name is attached to it.

If an identical trailer came out but with Michael Bay's name in it instead of Del Toro's I'm fairly certain it would be getting nothing but scorn.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Rented Tritium wrote:
Guys, you realize that in the independance day universe, we reverse engineered the crashed ship to create all of our own computer technology. That is literally stated in the movie. We both use unix because we stole it from them in the first place.

I admit it’s been a while since I watched ID4 but I don’t recall them saying anything of the sort. I fact I’m 99% sure that the scientist guy (the one played by Data) say that the crashed ship only switched itself on when the main alien armada arrived. I don’t see how we could have reverse engineered a programming language from it if we hadn’t been able to activate it.

That also opens the plot hole that if the scout ship required proximity to the mothership to operate, how exactly did it get to earth in the first place? But that a matter for another thread.

 djones520 wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
I sure hope Day After Tomorrow is a low score on the explosion porn scale, considering it's complete lack of explosions.

It gets mega bonus points for Emmy Rossum though.

Never watch that movie with a weather forecaster. It puts us into into a screaming rage frenzy, and your safety may not be gauranteed.

Considering I don't know any, I'm fairly safe I think.

 LuciusAR wrote:
You know I can't help but feel that allot of the hype around this trailer is based mainly on the fact that Del Toro's name is attached to it.

You are welcome to feel that way, but it is sort of a silly thing to assume.

LuciusAR wrote:You know I can't help but feel that allot of the hype around this trailer is based mainly on the fact that Del Toro's name is attached to it.

If an identical trailer came out but with Michael Bay's name in it instead of Del Toro's I'm fairly certain it would be getting nothing but scorn.

Movie with totally sweet premise + director known to have seen his best days more than a decade ago and has openly explained that his movies are now "design by focus group" = meh

vs.

Movie with totally sweet premise + director whose worst movie was Blade II and has been known to have run out of feths to give for focus groups = amazeballs

Azazel's equations are excellent.

Looks like a colossal ripoff of Evangelion. If those robots turn out to be organic I will not be a happy bunny. I could have sworn the computer sounded an awful lot like GLaDOS too.

Also, Japan having the worst robot? Seriously?

This film has lost all credit.

The computer was Supposed to sound like GLADOS in the trailer as she's the same voice actor. I've heard she sounds different in the actual movie though.

Plus this looks nothing like Evangaleon, even If those robots are part biological, which I'm pretty sure they're not. It's just generic Kaiju.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and while Japan has the worst robot, it also had the first robot.

I think he means robots battling big monsters for the saving of earth, in that it is like evangelion. And I guess that the monsters are kind of fleshy and what not (some of the angels were, anyway). But there are a lot of things different.

I still can't wait.

motyak wrote:I think he means robots battling big monsters for the saving of earth, in that it is like evangelion. And I guess that the monsters are kind of fleshy and what not (some of the angels were, anyway). But there are a lot of things different.

I still can't wait.

In that case, then Evangelion is simply Godzilla vs. Mecha-Godzilla.

Anyway, just so long as it doesn't end like Evangelion did, all should be well.

EDIT: either ending.

From the trailers and spotty data we have so far, it appears Kaiju go after any major population center. I don't think they've explained why yet.

This immediately sets it up as much less morally ambiguous than Evangelion, where the Angels/Kaiju were only attempting to free one of their own imprisoned underneath the city. Which may have accidentally incinerated the planet, or rewritten reality as we know it, but there was no malice aimed at humans.

Pacific Rim is looking much more like a good old fashioned beat em up, with no clear cut winners. The Jaegers can't get into the depths of the ocean to stem the source of the Kaiju, and the Kaiju can't wipe out humanity until they destroy the Jaegers- so it will depend on what , if any, ultimate solution the scientist are plotting to unleash in order to come to any sort of conclusion.

Or, of course, it could always come down to the last Kaiju and the last Jaeger, facing off in downtown at high noon, as a tumbleweed the size of an office building blows across the road.