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 Squigsquasher wrote:
Also, Japan having the worst robot? Seriously?

The Japs have the worst Jaeger because theirs (and i think the Russians) were the first gen. America and China had theirs next and the Aussies got theirs lucky last. Hence the best stat line and most Kaiju kills.

 Snrub wrote:

 Squigsquasher wrote:
Also, Japan having the worst robot? Seriously?

The Japs have the worst Jaeger because theirs (and i think the Russians) were the first gen. America and China had theirs next and the Aussies got theirs lucky last. Hence the best stat line and most Kaiju kills.

I can't wait for the pilots to be like 'let's throw another shrimp on the barbie' before they go hunting another monster. It'll make my viewing experience (especially since we don't say shrimp). Bonus points for one last 'crikey' before the head gets smashed and the robot destroyed.

edit: let's play a game. Best one liner for each of the countries' Jaeger pilots to say prior to a smackdown/death.

I'm waiting to see if the rumours about weapon load outs are true. From what i've heard/seen the Striker Eureka has a chest full of rockets, punch dagger type things and BRASS KNUCKLES.

My day would be made if it has brass knuckles. All it would need then is an Akubra with dangly corks and it would be set for life.


Edit: It also has some blade/wing looking things folded up on it's back. No idea what they are for but.

One of the earliest trailers had a Jaeger firing a rocket powered punch, so that's in...

Yeah if memory serves Gipsy Danger has the rocket propelled punch seen in the first trailer.


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 motyak wrote:
Bonus points for one last 'crikey' before the head gets smashed and the robot destroyed.

I can see Striker Euraka dragging a Prawn like Jaiju across the outback towards Uluru. They then proceed to Barbeque it using Uluru as a giant hotplate. Barbequed Jaiju for all. Along with a giant can of Fosters just for good measure.

edit: let's play a game. Best one liner for each of the countries' Jaeger pilots to say prior to a smackdown/death.

Hmm... There'd have to be a "in soviet Russia" joke in there somewhere.

looks better than the trailer I saw many moons ago. Actually want to see it.

Only gripe with it is, helmets look stupid and the strange fascination with the color white with scifi films. I swear everything was made by apple in the movie Oblivion.

Piston Honda wrote:looks better than the trailer I saw many moons ago. Actually want to see it.

Only gripe with it is, helmets look stupid and the strange fascination with the color white with scifi films. I swear everything was made by apple in the movie Oblivion.

Blame THX1138.

Or 2001, lot of white in there too as I recall. THX1138 is honestly one of George's best films IMHO.

Personally I think the Japanesse being the worst and Australians being the best makes perfect sense to me. Japanese are used to their fanciful scifi designs with made up power sources and ignoring typical engineering with the gundam stuff and what not, so of course they suck when they have to make a Real robot. Australians on the other hand are used to everything wanting to kill them and they are fully prepared to deal with it being the tough sons of Bs that they are down there in Narnia.

I think Japan having the worst is supposed to be a joke. Everyone knows they love giant robots, so turn it on their heels and make them have th worst.

The Aussies were probably just disappointed they had to build a giant robot and had to stop taking down the kaiju mano a mano.

You know, thos huge cannons on the Coyote Tango's shoulders should have been able to kill more than two Kaiju's contrary to what the stat card says.

I suppose the only explanation is that these Kaiju aren't all that interested in Japan

Also, I love the Russian Jaeger's big hat.

Thesneakycyberman wrote:Where are these robots that you people speak of? I only see mecha...

Jokes aside, those huge cannons on the Coyote Tango's shoulders should have been able to kill more than two Kaiju's contrary to what the stat card says.

I suppose the only explanation is that these Kaiju aren't all that interested in Japan

Also, I love the Russian Jaeger's big hat.

it's basically a nuclear-powered warjack

 AduroT wrote:
Personally I think the Japanesse being the worst and Australians being the best makes perfect sense to me. Japanese are used to their fanciful scifi designs with made up power sources and ignoring typical engineering with the gundam stuff and what not, so of course they suck when they have to make a Real robot. Australians on the other hand are used to everything wanting to kill them and they are fully prepared to deal with it being the tough sons of Bs that they are down there in Narnia.

If the Australian Jaeger does not fight a spider, shark or drop bear kaiju, I'll be very disappointed.

Drop bear is Australian for Kaiju. They are usually fought with knives by the local populace.

I live there. I'm quite aware.

 AduroT wrote:
Personally I think the Japanesse being the worst and Australians being the best makes perfect sense to me. Japanese are used to their fanciful scifi designs with made up power sources and ignoring typical engineering with the gundam stuff and what not, so of course they suck when they have to make a Real robot. Australians on the other hand are used to everything wanting to kill them and they are fully prepared to deal with it being the tough sons of Bs that they are down there in Narnia.

Aussies just need to make a giant robot version of a drop bear and they are set. Or maybe a Robo drop bear/crocodile/great white shark/Aussie redneck and the evil aliens don't stand a chance. The American robot needs a brace of giant six shooters and a cowboy hat.

 motyak wrote:

 Snrub wrote:

 Squigsquasher wrote:
Also, Japan having the worst robot? Seriously?

The Japs have the worst Jaeger because theirs (and i think the Russians) were the first gen. America and China had theirs next and the Aussies got theirs lucky last. Hence the best stat line and most Kaiju kills.

I can't wait for the pilots to be like 'let's throw another shrimp on the barbie' before they go hunting another monster. It'll make my viewing experience (especially since we don't say shrimp). Bonus points for one last 'crikey' before the head gets smashed and the robot destroyed.

edit: let's play a game. Best one liner for each of the countries' Jaeger pilots to say prior to a smackdown/death.

American: You are one UGLY mother fu- *Smash*

I wasn't too interested in this, but this trailer is kinda cool, and hey, it's only two hours right?

What does Kaiju mean, anyway?

Kaiju is a Japanese term usually used to refer to giant monsters. Kaijueiga, which this film would technically count as, or giant monster movies, are classics of the nerd world, Godzilla is probably the most famous Kaiju.

There's plenty of industry speculation about when Hollywood's geek bubble will burst. The mistake I think most of them are making is with trying to blame the eventual collapse on studio interference, which led to many of them declaring The Hobbit as the film that burst the bubble (as studio demands drove them to bloat that into two and later three movies) or with the film by management board that is the DC suite of new superhero films.

But looking at movie trends in the past, it wasn't studio interference that popped the bubble, but good old fashioned diminishing returns - more and more investment needed to access a shrinking market.

The film that really started the geek movie trend was X-Men, which cost $75 million, making it on higher end of the mid-tier budgets. It was a speculative entry it to what was at the time untested waters, a superhero property that wasn't Batman or Superman. A decade later and The Avengers was a $220 million mega-production. Now, that was slickly made movie that made perfect financial success - Iron Man had made its character and Robert Downey Jr an A-list star*, and it was bringing to the screen for the first time one of the classic superhero stories that for some strange reason we hadn't seen before in movies- the team up story.

But there's only so many great properties out there, and so what we're seeing it more sequels and more sequels, and new films about more marginal characters, and more team up stories (DC is planning to do a bunch of solo movies and a team up movie in exactly the same pattern as Marvel delivered with Avengers).

So where does that leave Pacific Rim? It isn't a superhero movie, but it is chasing the nerd dollar in exactly the same way as the superhero movies, and the LotR. Investors have pumped $180 million into this thing, and exactly what is it? Basically a new franchise with a loose relationship to a very silly series of cult films about giant stuff fighting other giant stuff. If that isn't a marginal property** I don't know what is.

I know this has got a director with a load of goodwill behind him, but previous bubbles have claimed the likes of Coppola and to a lesser extent Kubrik, it's no stretch to think it might claim del Toro.


Not that I'm saying this film will be the disaster that'll end the superhero craze. It might be good, and given the reasonable internet buzz it might get enough people in to watch it to justify the massive cost of production. But with every new film there's a trend to more marginal properties while at the same time the budgets keep getting bigger. The end is inevitable, it could just be in 20 years people are talking about this as the film that killed it. If it isn't, well there's Guardians of the Galaxy.





*and also Scarlett Johanssen in a body suit. Basically everything makes great financial sense when its got Scarlett Johanssen in a body suit.

**I'm not saying anything about whether any of you individually, might be really excited about this movie. Just that, well, Godzilla is famous but the number of people who've actually seen one of those films from start t finish is not that high, even among geek circles. Throw out the people that were stoned while they watched it and the number gets much, much smaller.

And LotR and the Marvel franchise have an advantage, people WILL pay to see the movie. You have a guaranteed audience.

I would personally argue that Battleship was terrible because it took a board game of two navies pew pewing eachother and turned it into History Channels' favorite meme.


Aliens.

 Slarg232 wrote:
I would personally argue that Battleship was terrible because it took a board game of two navies pew pewing eachother and turned it into History Channels' favorite meme.


Aliens.

Sure, but 'why was it terrible?' and 'why did it lose money?' are very different questions, and the studios are only really concerned with the latter. The Transformers sequels were, afterall, staggeringly bad but made loads of money. In fact they were the whole reason Hasbro and Hollywood got all excited about Battleship in the first place - taking old children's stuff and making big budget special effects movies out of it suddenly seemed a license to print money.

Of course, what studios missed was that just because a thing has brand recognition doesn't mean it has actual interest. Transformers remained a much loved property, while Battleship was that game you played when it was raining outside and Mum was making you take a break from the Nintendo. And so they pumped a hundred million into a really, really stupid idea for a movie. That it also happened to suck is kind of besides the point, there have been plenty of actually good movies that failed because they were too much money spent on something that didn't have enough of an audience (like Scott Pilgrim for instance).

Whether or not Pacific Rim will be any good I couldn't tell you. With del Toro at the helm it has a fair chance of being silly, but will almost certainly be well made, it's just a question of whether the idea is just too silly even for him to overcome. But I do know that even among geeks there's a burn out, most said Iron Man 3 was good, but it was said without any of the enthusiasm that had been there years before - the film was well made but it wasn't anything new anymore.

Faced with more and more geek movies saturating the market, everyone of them costing more and more, and geeks maybe getting something of a burn out, well that's a market where the end will come. Maybe it will come because of a $180 million film about robots punching space dinosaurs.

sebster wrote:Faced with more and more geek movies saturating the market, everyone of them costing more and more, and geeks maybe getting something of a burn out, well that's a market where the end will come. Maybe it will come because of a $180 million film about robots punching space dinosaurs.

Honestly, you're absolutely correct, but not about Pacific Rim. The harbinger of the burn out will be Guardians of the Galaxy.

 sebster wrote:
Whether or not Pacific Rim will be any good I couldn't tell you. With del Toro at the helm it has a fair chance of being silly, but will almost certainly be well made, it's just a question of whether the idea is just too silly even for him to overcome. But I do know that even among geeks there's a burn out, most said Iron Man 3 was good, but it was said without any of the enthusiasm that had been there years before - the film was well made but it wasn't anything new anymore.

I think this is a hole in your argument. People didn't have the enthusiasm for Iron Man 3 because it's not new. We've now seen an antire trilogy of Iron Man movies, plus a spin off super hero team up what was basically another Iron Man movie anyway - he certainly had the most screen time.

As you accurately pointed out, this all started with the X-Men, after that, we basically got a super hero movie every year, either Marvel, DC or some relatively unknown product (like Bulletproof Monk) - and some years all three, and in recent years, multiple Marvel properties per year. Some were terrible, some were good, some were fantastic. But yeah, we've been burned out on superheroes.

I can honestly say, after my tepid reaction to Iron man 3, this is probably exactly why I wasn't that thrilled when the credits rolled.

Pacific Rim might be nerd porn, but it's different. While yes, most nerds know what Godzilla is, again, as you pointed out not as many have actually sat through one. While people have seen the likes of Evangelion, the general public definitely hasn't outside of Japan. It's not new territory, but it's territory that hasn't had any significant movement in decades on the big screen (Cloverfield and Godzilla 99 definitely weren't significant movement). It's different enough that, while still nerd porn, is not the type of nerd porn we've seen in abundance in a long, long time.

It's different enough that, even if it doesn't get the sales expected to justify the price, I don't think it'll be what killed the nerd bubble with movies. That's going to be right down to DC and Marvel.

I certainly hope this kick starts the kaiju revolution. I want some more good kaiju films.

 azazel the cat wrote:
Honestly, you're absolutely correct, but not about Pacific Rim. The harbinger of the burn out will be Guardians of the Galaxy.

Yeah, I mentioned Guardians of the Galaxy.

Point is, no-one knows exactly what the tipping point will be. That's why bubbles keep happening. It might be Pacific Rim, or it might be something else. Guardians of the Galaxy is a really high chance.


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 -Loki- wrote:
Pacific Rim might be nerd porn, but it's different. While yes, most nerds know what Godzilla is, again, as you pointed out not as many have actually sat through one. While people have seen the likes of Evangelion, the general public definitely hasn't outside of Japan. It's not new territory, but it's territory that hasn't had any significant movement in decades on the big screen (Cloverfield and Godzilla 99 definitely weren't significant movement). It's different enough that, while still nerd porn, is not the type of nerd porn we've seen in abundance in a long, long time.

Sure, and you make a fair point that it's pretty different to superhero movies. But the point is we're seeing a AAA budget thrown behind a really marginal property. I mean, everyone knows Godzilla and most people under 30 know Evangelion, but it just doesn't exist in the public's mind in the way that superheroes or Transformers or even GI Joe* does. Not that that's an automatically fatal thing. Iron Man wasn't an A-list superhero until he was put in a really well made AAA movie, now he's a safe Hollywood bet.

But it is still reaching for a less reliable property, and having to throw more money behind it just to keep up with the increasing budgets of all these movies, and that means it, like everything else that's slated to come along, is a chance of being the tipping point. It makes this more of a gamble than Iron Man was. As in turn Guardians of the Galaxy wll be an even bigger gamble.

I certainly hope this kick starts the kaiju revolution. I want some more good kaiju films.

Fair enough. I've got no stake in the game either way. Personally I think the odds of seeing more films like this is pretty unlikely, but then I thought Transformers 3 box office would decline sharply as a response to the awfulness of the second movie, and I was completely wrong about that.


*my biggest disappointment of the whole nerd movie thing is that my favourite property, GI Joe, was handed over in the old studio style - given over to director for hire and made with little love for the source material... if only it got an Avengers style treatment.

Ah man, I totally missed that you already mentioned it. I must've been caught up in my inability to understand why people are so smitten by the overrated chubby gal in the Black Widow costume.*



Honestly, I kinda thought that Fantastic Four 2 was going to be the tipping point, just because of how cheap and crappy it was; I figured it'd be the moment where we realized that we'd already seen the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.


* Yeah, I think she's kinda on the "plus" side for the role, and that dress in the film seemed very ill-fitting and emphasizing that point. Just opinion, mind you.

If Scarlett Johansson is a fatty I'm officially a chubby chaser.

Yeah, if Scarlett is a chubby woman, I'm manning the harpoon guns, spearing the next whale her size, and dragging her home with me.

How did a thread about a movie trailer turn into this?