tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post2579044489905418992..comments2024-03-29T04:56:23.027-04:00Comments on Cockeyed Caravan: Two Rulebook Casefiles: The Villain Need a Goal and Clash of Personalities in Pacific RimMatt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-19793078054387540392013-12-12T12:46:17.841-05:002013-12-12T12:46:17.841-05:00I think the goal in this story is closer to "...I think the goal in this story is closer to "cooperating to stop the existential threat" - it's a really humanistic story through and through, and the drift deals directly with this sort of idea. It's what all the characters are struggling with. So the antagonistic force here does not necessarily need to be genius Kaiju tacticians or anything, it could and should be the internal and external conflicts that stand in the way of cooperation.<br /><br />The huge problem re: the goal is that that the humans don't actually struggle to cooperate to stop the monsters - they just cook up some nuke plan and execute it pretty easily (sure Stacker dies, and we feel it, but that's largely because of how strong the relationship is with him/Mako - almost completely built on the good will the movie earns with that heartbreaking flashback scene to her as a little girl)<br /><br />It all goes back to the problem with the execution of the drift concept. Imagine how much more satisfying the story would be if Mako and Raleigh struggle to connect the entire movie, only to finally get it together in the climactic battle to stop the kaiju? And how awesome could it have been if the human governments, who abandoned the Jaeger project, actually came together and supported that final assault on the breach (who knows, maybe China and Russia could have been holding back a few really cool Jaeger designs for the finale). <br /><br />There was just a lot of missed opportunity, and again, the original script did A LOT more to capitalize on the drift concept/metaphor. It seems like GDT really just wanted to focus on GIANT ROBOTS vs GIANT MONSTERS and thought that would be enough for box office success. I still love Pacific Rim for other reasons, but there's a lot of story potential left untapped. <br /><br />Speaking of existential threats, that new Godzilla trailer is great!Jay Rosenkrantzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15859473332293959695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-38076822293642649642013-12-12T11:10:44.446-05:002013-12-12T11:10:44.446-05:00In a "man v. nature" plot, the goal isn&...In a "man v. nature" plot, the goal isn't to "defeat" nature. The triumphant moment is not with victory over a foe (<i>"HA! TAKE THAT, <b>SNOW</b>!"</i>) but when it's clear Our Hero has survived beyond the threat that cannot be defeated (<i>"HA! FUCK YOU, <b>SNOW!</b> NOT TODAY, YOU COLD-ASS FUCKER!"</i>). Or, less often, when Our Hero dies but in a way that shows his spirit remains unbroken.<br /><br />The heroism of triumph over foes is different in flavor than the triumph of surviving under impossible circumstances. The former is about the joy of dominance and (often) revenge, while the latter is about the joy of raising a middle finger to death.<br /><br />Blending these isn't impossible, of course, and many stories do, but you gotta be careful. A plague of monsters standing in as "forces of nature" seems difficult to reconcile. Man Triumphing Over Nature is not a story we celebrate much anymore, unless Nature takes the form of a terrible disease. Harvey Jerkwaterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07118848012122050416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-5287477961380060182013-12-11T22:40:03.970-05:002013-12-11T22:40:03.970-05:00That's a stretch, though, even according to yo...That's a stretch, though, even according to your own formulations. We don't ever get to see global corporations thwarted in ALL IS LOST or the Russians thwarted in GRAVITY. <br /><br />I had thought you'd be arguing JAWS or more of a classic disaster film scenario like THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, where the Big Bad is still chaotic monstrous Nature, but both before and after Nature strikes one or more oppositional humans embody/exacerbate the worst effects.j.s.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-73678015231783866262013-12-11T20:50:54.744-05:002013-12-11T20:50:54.744-05:00The mosters are portrayed like forces of nature, b...The mosters are portrayed like forces of nature, but that's a problem. They keep saying that these things have brains, so let's see them use them. I've talked before about how every action scene should be a battle of wits, and I've said that the enemy can't merely be a force of nature, (which is why Jaws needed the mayor, at least for the first half.) <br /><br />As for All is Lost (SPOILERS), I would say that the movie gains a lot of value from the fact that his boat is struck by a discarded shipping container (and that the same shippers later fail to see him more than once.) It's not just nature that's screwing him over, it's corporations, which is wonderfully ironic because he probably thought he had abandoned the world of commerce altogether. <br /><br />(And likewise in Gravity, come to think of it, the disaster starts because the Russians were trying to secretly destroy a space weapon, iirc?)Matt Birdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-29509819372754062552013-12-11T20:15:18.530-05:002013-12-11T20:15:18.530-05:00But aren't the monsters in PACIFIC RIM more li...But aren't the monsters in PACIFIC RIM more like forces of Nature? What's Nature's goal in a survival thriller like ALL IS LOST, if it isn't just to deliver chaos as random as (and perhaps embodied by) the weather?j.s.noreply@blogger.com