Finally got around to watching Hellboy II, and damn. Just damn. The way Del Toro builds a world that was, a world of great works and great things gone away... I want to be able to write something half as compelling

We saw it in Pacific Rim, with its Shatterdome and its mythic Jagers and monsters, and the implications of a massive war full of epic stories and great events without ever having to show them...

I remember reading the Pacific Rim tie-in comic about the first jager, and it was intensely underwhelming when compared to everything I imagined between Pacific Rim's preamble bit and the events of the film itself

Same feeling in one shot from Hellboy II, when some old goblin leads them into a tunnel in rural ireland and it turns out we're in what was once a megastructure, a vast world full of life, now reduced to dust.

I don't think I've seen many other examples of a director who builds something absolutely, ridiculously, unfeasibly huge and makes it feel like something that's entirely normal in the world it's shown in and makes perfect sense.

That bit in Pacific Rim (which yeah I'm watching right now) where the head cockpit thing is dropped down what must be a kilometre deep shaft onto the top of a 700m robot which is then dropped *down* into the sea... and yet none of that seems excessive in the moment

It could get away with 'it's a giant robot movie, fuck physics', and to a degree it does (how deep is the ocean anyway? This movie isn't sure), but it also doesn't, because Del Toro masterfully builds a world that just is this scale

I mean shit, Evangelion never managed to make giant robots this convincing, and it went for the 'such things would be hellish abominations that break physics over their knee'

And while I haven't seen Pacific Rim 2 yet, and I know it can't possibly live up to 1 (and by all accounts it doesn't), I would love to see a Del Toro-directed Pacific Rim prequel. Even though I know it wouldn't be as good

Also gods DAMN every moment of Idris Elba in this film is goddamn glorious

(this may be a Pacific Rim livetweet now, fuck you, I'm not doing much else right now)

I love the way the scenes building The Wall manage to make it look flimsy and hollow even before the news report about the kaiju getting through it comes up

I love the way the Jager programme has a corps of dudes with machine guns - obviously there's weird kaiju cults and people trying to sabotage the machines, but the film never needs to justify it or even acknowledge it, they're just there, implying. Show, don't tell

Also it's always raining, or snowing, or night, bar the flashback at the start. The first time it isn't, it's the end and they've won. This film is not subtle, but it's not subtle by design

I liked Moviebob's appraisal - all the character conflicts and worldbuilding and small-scale stuff is all about making the robots better at punching the monsters

OH SHIT THAT GUY FROM ALWAYS SUNNY IS IN IT I FORGOT NEWT AND GOTTLEIB

Also Netflix whai no japanese subtitles when they're speaking japanese? It's important to the plot

Also damn the soundtrack... there's a reason I listened to it on loop for months

'that tank? Cherno Alpha', the amount of stylisation on those pilots, because of course the Russians look like that

Bonus cherno

Also they just casually got Pentecost a nuke because of course they did, because of course they can

It's what I like about Warhammer writing at its best - the sense that every single player, every story element, is the product of tremendous, epoch-defining effort, of entire societies and civilisations putting everything into tiny elements of the story we're seeing onscreen

That Operation Yashima bit in Evangelion where basically all of Japan's infrastructure goes into powering two shots of the laser rifle thing is one of my favourites, even if it's basically a sideshow to the actual thematic core of the story

It's the same here - there's an entire novel's worth of potential backstory in basically every single one-screen element, in every character, in every metre of every giant robot, and all of it feeds into a simple but powerful core

It's notable that Pacific Rim is stupidly dense with jargon and made-up terms about robots, especially early on, all of which just sounds impressive and portentous and never needs to be explained

We don't need to know where or how or why the Russians got a nuke. We don't need to know about the herculean Apollo 13-style effort some poor sods went to to make it into a box they could mount on their giant robot... but there's the sense that if we did -

-it would be a great story all by itself

Also 'how did the jager programme come to choose stick fighting to choose pilots?'

there's a story there, but you can just accept it because the film doesn't need you to have an explanation

I feel like all of this leads onto the Tragedy of George Lucas The Wise

Like honestly thank fuck Pacific Rim didn't go the way Star Wars did. A billion Expanded Universe wanks explaining every single throwaway line, clogging up imagination with wiki entries

Also daaamn all the bits through the drift - exactly the sort of thing I NEVER want explained, because it'd ruin it

But at the same time, the desire to explain and wikify it is understandable- it's the same impulse that compels me to learn the language of strategic nuclear weapons- a desire to at least have the names and information of something as a way to control it, at least symbolically

The magic of True Names, except said names are all in a wiki

Uuuh anyway I would watch a whole film of Idris Elba wrangling the scientists

'YOU. SHUDDUP.'

Also the environmentalist message that's... also in the film...

Apparently if we release carbon dioxide into the air it terraforms the planet for kaiju

Oh shit son we're getting to The Ron Pearlman Bit

Also WHY ARE YOU TESTING THE ROBOT INSIDE

But the whole flashback with Mako is also a way of establishing Mako and Pentecost's relationship, his backstory, her backstory and so much more...

Much as I said the stuff about physics and thematics earlier, this film thinking that like 10 chinooks can lift a giant robot between them and that that would look good onscreen is a bit of a step too far

You could have got away with some kind of giant dieselpunk airship with huge rocket engines, or the Jagers having jetpacks, but them being lifted by like 10 normal helicopters doesn't quite work

I mean, something like the Torumekian ships in Nausicaa (alsp a story like this) would have worked

Also Hannibal Chau's henchmen are a whole gang of one-scene wonders and that's before we get to Ron Pearlman

He's playing exactly the kind of massive poser you'd expect to be in charge of a gang of monster harvesters.

'You like the name? I took it from my favourite historical character and my second favourite szechuan restaurant in brooklyn'

This character is exactly as extra as he needs to be and that is *extremely*

And now the beefy men will fight

That said if any scene throws this film's claim to Feminism into doubt it's this one - Raleigh and the australian dude fight because he insulted mako (although he was just looking for an excuse but still) and she... doesn't fight alongside Raleigh, even though -

I reckon it'd work thematically - the film hinges on Raleigh and mako fighting *together* after all.

Also Idris Elba moment once again, and damn is he good at delivering a bollocking, such as we'd all be honoured to receive.

I've been justifiably bollocked a couple times in my life and Elba in this film feels like the embodiment of those moments

(for the avoidance of confusion, 'bollocked' is British slang for 'shouted at, because you've fucked up')

'One' don't you ever touch me again. Two, don't you *ever* touch me again'

That note of pure menace...

'You have no idea where I've come from and I'm not about to tell you my whole life story. All I need to be to you and anybody on this dome is a fixed point. The last man standing.'

I keep forgetting GLADOS is in this

The damn helicopters again!

Every shot of Hong Kong in this film is pure stylish cyberpunk.

Also the cinematography, also all of Newt's sub-plot, also Chau being way more keyed in than any other character...

Gonna be honest tho, if you were gonna make the Russian and Chinese jagers and pilots such stereotypes, maybe don't kill them off so immediately

MAINLY BECAUSE I WANT MORE CHERNO OK

Look I'm easily amused

It has special chest ports that open just so it can smack its fists together, and a giant cooling tower for no good goddamn reason, and it's a shame it dies instantly

Oh yeah apparently Gypsy Danger (why the FUCK is it called that?) is 'analog' so you can start it when everything else has been EMP'd

I mean this whole film runs on bullshit but at times it outdoes itself

WHY DO YOU NEED TO HIT IT WITH SHIPPING CONTAINERS YOU'RE IN A METAL ROBOT

OK the seagulls and the clicky toy bits in this fight scene are silly, but they're GLORIOUSLY silly

ditto 'Let's check for a pulse'

And the boat bit. And the wings. And the sword.

Also the way the fights are shot- largely from below, except in the really cool bits or when there are helicopters circling

Authenticity, not realism - just enough of a nod to shakycam reality that things feel so much BIGGER because of it

Especially with Newt's sub-plot going on literally at ground level

I mean yeah this film has too much CGI destruction but by gods is it well made and fun as fuck to watch

Also the scene with the sword is beautiful but makes absolutely no sense whatsoever in multiple ways

'We're coming in too fast-'

but yeah there's no consequences to coming in too fast so I guess it's fine? Also a bloody great kaiju is gonna fall out of the sky soon and it won't be aiming for a football stadium or slowing itself down

The scene with Pearlman and Newt at the Kaiju corpse is a bit slow and inconsequential but I like its conception of Kaiju harvesting as chaotic hell on earth

Sucks to be the guys in the suits, huh.

Also Ron Pearlman gets eaten because the baby kaiju has impeccable comic timing

Also I like the way this character is both full of bravado and full of shit at the same time

He earns his post-credits scene

I do like the way that Pentecost and Raleigh are both the Men Who Piloted Alone but at the same time the film's thematic core is about doing things Together so that dramatic bit... isn't gonna pay off?

The very next scene is the science buddies putting aside their differences to work together, and in the final battle we've got The Hero, The Heroine, the Jerk and the Boss together so none of them are gonna die alone

Oh shit son

CANCELLING THE APOCALPYSE

HERE IT COMES

'We have chosen not only to believe in ourselves but in each other. Today there's not one man or woman here that shall stand alone'

Even this film's doggo only gets like one scene but he is the best doggo in it

The fukken helicopters again

Also I like the way the scientists doing shenanigans happens at the same time as next morning onscreen because it's when the plot revelations happen.

Also for a film that fucks with physics this much the hydrodynamics of the final battle sure do work pretty well

Also Newt definitely called that guy a fascist

I mean, hydrodynamics work to a point, anyway. Jamming a kaiju's face in a thermal vent is... well they just fucked up a lot of ecosystems

'Chainsword deployed'

Also I dunno if nukes still work after being suplexed by as many as three godzillas

'we're a walking nuclear reactor... we can destroy the breach'

Sure you can buddy. Nuclesr reactors work that way

I guess maybe the ones on 700m giant robots do anyway

Holy shit the nuke scene

I mean IDK how the robot survives that either, but there we go.

I like the way Gypsy Danger (Seriously why is it called that?) has rocket jets and coolant gets and reactor vents wherever it needs to for the plot

All the stuff inside the Breach is pure psychedelic Hideki Anno science fiction 1970s wonder and I love it

That shot of Gypsy falling in front of the black sun...

and ooh look it's a sunny day all of a sudden! How thematic

Also serious props to the film for ending with the two pilots not snogging, and having the stones to not be a romance.

'STOP THE CLOCK!'

Even the *clock* looks like it weighs 18 tonnes and was built by elvish smiths in an underground forge, I love this movie

Oh shit I guess that was the entire film, I didn't mean to do that.

Hey, therapy tomorrow! This... this should be fun.

Fucking Charlie Day is in this basically playing Charlie except smart guy and that right there is this film in a microcosm.

'Let's make a billion dollar blockbuster and put that guy from Always Sunny in it playing basically the same character but more earnest'

'Where's my god-damn shoe?'

Bear in mind this was at a point when Marvel post-credits scenes were culturally becoming A Thing, so this movie has one to set up absolutely fucking nothing that it will never (or should never) have expanded on