Stompy Robot Time: Pacific Rim

[Stark]

I'm more worried about the actual combat looking really boring and bland than who's in it. Having seen actual exciting robit combat, its a bit sad that the trailer suggests they are aiming at a 'man in cardboard suit punches another man in cardboard suit' level of thrills. With any luck the clunky robits and staid combat will be a sideline to the thrilling and powerful plot about dehumanisation and desperation rather than centerstage snooze fuel.

[Alkaloid]

I'm not too concerned about them being dull, on thing del Toro has always done well is spectacular visuals, and his comments about perspective and scale means he has at least put a bit of thought into it. My experience with stompy robot shows is limited, but they do have a tendency to smother the plot with pointless fighting, I'll grant you I've noticed that.

[Stark]

Right... and the combat is ugly brown robots slowly punching dark green blobs.

That's uh... its not very interesting. I mean obviously there's some powerful thematic elements at play and that's fine (and possibly great), but if it's a spectacular FX event of a movie and its brown robots slowly left hooking cloverfield... they might as well just have saved all that money and stuck with the personal stuff.

The west can't make robit shit to save its fucking life, and focusing too much on the robits (which are generally tragically ugly and uninteresting and supposed to capture the imagination simply by being 'big robots' which sadly hasn't been interesting in itself for 30 years) and having flat characters with no drives in events that aren't powerful. If this movie succeeds at having a strong and mature story with exciting robit business, it will be pretty fucking special. I'll probably watch it even if I have to replace the robot combat scenes with better scenes from a TV show. :V

[Vendetta]

I'm not sure about how the giant robit fighting will work out. I've a feeling that our expectations for what a thing should look and move like, and therefore how our suspension of disbelief is going to act on any given portrayal of it, is going to be seriously affected by whether we see it in a live action or animated context.

I don't think you even could have these giant robits act and move like, for instance, Evas (which are about the same size) in the context of a live action movie where everything else is recognisably real and conforms to our expectations for actions*, it would trip over too many expectations in the audience of how a "real" looking thing should move.

What they look like is a different matter, though again I reckon what they were going for is more "if our current militaries really built giant robits, what would they build" (not sure as they were super successful on that count, but whatevs), which is a concept which has rarely troubled Japanese robits.



* Special effects notwithstanding, even in SFX bonanzafests the bodies of people largely act like people, if you made a live action movie and CGd all the actors so that their limbs worked like the jellyfish people in Code Geass people would think it was immensely silly and possibly rather disturbing.

[Stark]

I dunno, I think it'd just the focus of CG FX EXTRAVAGNZAS, where the emphasis is often on the fine detail to trick you into thinking it is real, rather than what is being rendered actually being interesting to look at or dynamic. I will state with confidence I expect more processor time will be given to clumps of dirt falling from foot actuators, rivet reflection plotting, and crumbling masonry (JUST LIKE ON CNN) than kung fu or direction or choreography.

I think the expectation you talk about has been created by previous movies (especially in the last five years of absurdly high quality but visually uninteresting scifi stuff) and could be easily changed. I mean seriously, people react to rocket assisted punching, last seen in 1976. :V Needs more verniers! Its a bit sad that science fiction has been so captured by 'must look like Fox News'.

[LadyTevar]

Actually, the anime Big O was the last one I saw with assisted punches. Now, I admit that it was massive pneumonic drive, but it was still what I thought of when I saw the rocket-assist on the trailer.

[Stark]

Using high energy thrust to assist melee is integral to almost all but the lowest end robit combat. And yet it's impressive and interesting when it's something brown doing it really slowly?

[Vendetta]

The point is that I don't think you can do it anything but slowly in a live action context and have the audience buy into it. Even in stuff like Super Sentai the suit actors tend to use deliberate movements to try and simulate the fact that they're a giant robit and/or monster (and because of the restrictiveness of a rubber suit), when they're not standing still shooting CGI pew pews at each other. Which, yes, makes them slower than their animated counterparts would be. You have to simulate the inertia of something that big trying to move, and that means it has to react slowly.

I don't think you could have the kind of fast moving dynamic mecha combat you see in stuff like modern Gundam shows in a live action context, you can't sell that type of movement as happening in the same context as real actors the way you can when it's all animated and the suspension of disbelief is already more forgiving.

It's not about the fiddling detail, as obsessive as some people will be over it, it's about the way the robits move. If you're going to pretend that they are in the same context as real people you need them to be pretty slow and deliberate because you have to make people believe that this is a real 80m tall robit really moving because Idris Elba says so.

[Stark]

But see as a person who isn't robit ignorant, it just looks slow and boring to me. It doesn't look 'realistic' or 'high impact' or whatever, it looks like they're asleep or (as you say) swinging arms really slowly in a rubber suit. You might as well say you can't have fast moving tanks in a movie (which ironically you seldom see) because the audience is too stupid... but you're still left with slow and boring things happening onscreen.

Its particularly sad that we can talk about how real/not real or acceptable/not acceptable the combat looks in a movie with Yet More F22s Firing Cannon At Five Meters. Dumb audience doesn't 'expect' 2000lb bombs from 50km so we get utterly retarded use of aircraft that doesn't sell the enemy as a threat at all.

Its just a shame that CG is expensive and thus there's no real desire to challenge expectations. Lets just hope the actual content of the movie is good (or that they just decided to show the most boring part of the actual robit activities).

I mean... punching? At least build them a fucking sword for crying out loud. :V

[Grumman]

I mean... punching? At least build them a fucking sword for crying out loud. :V

Even a pair of integrated knuckledusters would be an improvement, so you aren't smashing your delicate robot finger joints into things.

[Kuja]

But see as a person who isn't robit ignorant, it just looks slow and boring to me. It doesn't look 'realistic' or 'high impact' or whatever, it looks like they're asleep or (as you say) swinging arms really slowly in a rubber suit. You might as well say you can't have fast moving tanks in a movie (which ironically you seldom see) because the audience is too stupid... but you're still left with slow and boring things happening onscreen.

Its particularly sad that we can talk about how real/not real or acceptable/not acceptable the combat looks in a movie with Yet More F22s Firing Cannon At Five Meters. Dumb audience doesn't 'expect' 2000lb bombs from 50km so we get utterly retarded use of aircraft that doesn't sell the enemy as a threat at all.

For all the flack it got, I thought the first Transformers movie did a good job of getting its robots to be huge and heavy and yet still dynamic. Like Megatron stalking the kid through the building and Starscream doing his little transform-flip, or the helicoptorbot creeping up behind Optimus to try and shank him.

[Alkaloid]

The slow moving inertia look will only work if your robots actually feel like they are 80m talk though. Wind turbines and that sort of thing only lol slow moving from a distance, so you can play with camera angles and the like to make the whole thing more interesting. But following it from close range should give the audience vertigo.

[Stark]

It's pretty dumb to judge a two hour movie about punching robots based on a fractional-second clip of a single punch.

But I mean jesus people they could have shown something not awful in that fraction of a second. :V

[Cykeisme]

No, the pilots are in the head. You can see the layouts with them included, Also here.

Guh, I noticed that in the picture of the first robit actually has a blurb about how its soft scifi plasma gun cauterizes "kaiju anatomy". So they're really referring to those monstars as kaiju. And for some inexplicable reason I think this is a good thing.

[Stark]

'Soft scifi plasma gun'? Are you listening to yourself? It's a movie about punching Godzilla.

[Cykeisme]

B-b-b-but that's with a realistic giant metal fist..

[Cykeisme]

Also, this:
++http://www.geekosystem.com/pacific-rim-power-rangers/

[jollyreaper]

Jesus. It's got fucking GlaDOS as the computer voice, giant robots that look like WH40K Space Marines, and monsters from the sea. It's like 95% purity Geek-Crack, which means it could do very well, or flop like Dragon Wars or Suckerpunch.

I was warned against Suckerpunch by many friends. The consensus was that they took an idea that should have been silly, goofy fun and sucked all the life from it by playing it straight. It should have been a movie that was deliberately over the top, doubling down on every absurdity and daring you not to laugh like Shoot-Em Up which I consider to be one of the best action-comedies of the last decade. Or, you know, like Kill Bill 1. Instead it came across with all the dire, ponderous seriousness of Kill Bill 2. Ugh. Kick Ass mixed serious with comedy and was a great movie. Watchmen did straight serious with hardly any comedy and was a great movie.

Usually these sorts of films fall apart because they try to be serious instead of fun while maintaining enormous plot holes. Then when you mention those holes the defense is "C'mon, it's a movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters. It's not supposed to be serious." Yeah, except for the part about them trying to play it straight.

Dark Knight Rises was a massive fail because they went for earnest serious with a comic book movie while letting the plot get in the way of the story. I say this as a big fan of the first film and an even bigger fan of the second. It was a ridiculous, sloppy mess.

The way I see it, there's a kind of movie he's promising and the question is on whether he can deliver it. You promise an action movie, it had better have some action. You promise a comedy, it had better be funny. And if you're promising giant robots fighting giant monsters, we'd better not be looking at our watches wondering why we're 30 minutes in without some action. A bad special effects movie basically makes you feel like there's enough budget for about 10 minutes of spectacle, most of which you've already seen in the trailer, and the talky bits with characters in it (normally called a movie) are just a way of padding out those set pieces until they hit feature length. Now if he actually sticks a movie in there with characters we come to care about before the set pieces start, I will be a very happy clam.

[Stark]

For me the problem will be that unlike those other films, this has to exist in a space already full of amazing, thoughtful and exciting robit movies. If its yet another Boring As Fuck Western Robit Experience, it'll be crap.

[Cykeisme]

For me the problem will be that unlike those other films, this has to exist in a space already full of amazing, thoughtful and exciting robit movies.

What are your favourite robit movies, Stark?

And yes, that is in fact me trying to tactlessly solicit a To-Watch list of movies that I might have missed.

..they went for earnest serious with a comic book movie while letting the plot get in the way of the story.

I agree with just about everything you said in that post, but in particular I haven't heard that phrase before. Those words describe it perfectly.

[Stark]

Its probably unfair to expect something of the calibre of Patlabor 2 from this movie: it wouldn't surprise me if it had a similar mix of robits vs plot (ie fuck all robits) but despite Idris Elba I doubt it will be so topical or relevant. Similarly, trying for an existential jeopardy expressed through human relationships (plz note mysterious sexy lady in trailer) probably wouldn't succeed as well as Macross Plus. Since it's Del Toro, it probably won't be as straightfoward and charming as Iron Giant.

Based on pretty much nothing, at this point I think it'll be more Reign of Fire than War in the Pocket.

[Grumman]

(plz note mysterious sexy lady in trailer)

According to Wikipedia, Spoiler

the stars of the show are a male former pilot, a female untested trainee and an old Jaeger. So we might have a two tier Worfing - first of the conventional military to sell the mechs, and then of the rest of the mechs to sell the underdog.

[SAMAS]

The point is that I don't think you can do it anything but slowly in a live action context and have the audience buy into it. Even in stuff like Super Sentai the suit actors tend to use deliberate movements to try and simulate the fact that they're a giant robit and/or monster (and because of the restrictiveness of a rubber suit), when they're not standing still shooting CGI pew pews at each other. Which, yes, makes them slower than their animated counterparts would be. You have to simulate the inertia of something that big trying to move, and that means it has to react slowly.

Like this?

I don't think you could have the kind of fast moving dynamic mecha combat you see in stuff like modern Gundam shows in a live action context, you can't sell that type of movement as happening in the same context as real actors the way you can when it's all animated and the suspension of disbelief is already more forgiving.

Well, they've been trying that recently with a lot of games, so let's find out how they're doing so far:













Maybe not Realistic, but certainly Live-Action Cinematic.

[Vendetta]

Maybe not Realistic, but certainly Live-Action Cinematic.

I don't think you understand what "live action" means.

It means filmed with real people on camera, and using real filmed backdrops, not composed of 100% really fucking obvious CG.

I think the point stands that if you CGd in a giant robot the size of an Eva, that moves like the Evas move, and tried to make it look like it was a real thing moving against a real background with real actors, people would reject it because its movements were wrong for something of that size, whereas if they can tell that the whole scene is animated or CG they will accept it because it's obviously animated and therefore not sharing space with something real which operates according to real limitations.


And what Stark says may be true, that the restrictions this necessarily places on what you can do with your robit might mean that you actually can't do interesting robit fights in a live action presentation.

[Stark]

There's a big difference between robit fans watching animation accepting something, and regular people watching special effects designed to seamlessly fit into live action accepting something. It might not make sense, but I think people have been trained by movies and CG styles to expect things to look a certain way.

I mean, skating Doms would be pretty sweet in this movie, but odds are people would feel that it looked 'wrong'.