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>I was really bored through all the character arcs, internal drama and relationship building stuff.
I thought the characters were functional. What I liked was that they took the standard action movie characters, stories and cliches and added reasons for them. Some of it dragged, but I think for me that's 'cos I wanted more monster fighting scenes.
>So maybe I was just thrown off early expecting the heroes to have something else to them, but instead they were humourless to me, and I just didn't find myself rooting for them.
That's an interesting point. I think what happened was that they primed you for typical, over the top characters and then went and made 'em more down to earth. So you're waiting for stuff that never comes. Like the end, when our two heroes DON'T kiss. Or a big scene with our hero where he grapples with the death of his brother.... which he'd alrady come to terms with before the real movie starts.
I think there was a lot of odd, almost subliminal twists that didn't quite register with the audience, which took away from the viceral effect of the film. Like the Maverick character not being the protagonist, and from that; the protagonist noit being the most macho, boisterous character. Things like that lend to an unfulfilled sense of expectation for an audience; they require the learning of a new template, and there wasn't a lot of buildup for them. So watching the movie is kind of like taking a test that you didn't study for.
....and I KNOW right now someone's preparing to write "yeah; and I don't want my movie to be a test! I just wanna turn my brain off and watch!" (Or something to that effect.) Which is half of a good idea. Anything new and/or different requires some effort from the audience. You've got to meet them half way. I think in this case they didn't. There was a lot of things.... small things, but LOTS of them.... that required the viewer to adopt a slightly different frame of refrence to the action film template, and I think they dropped the ball by not quite giving the viewer enough to go on to make the neccessary connections without some conscious effort. Like I said; the characters LOOKED like the standard action movie ones, but they were just different enough that the old expectations didn't quite apply.
I think this sums up how I felt about it; especially the conclusions:
....although I think a lot of the flaws they mention aren't. Stuff like the horribly slow plasma cannon. It is; but that's a flaw with the cannon. It's a legitimate story element: the technology just didn't exist to build a better one.
>What's the deal with the sword?! Why didn't they use that thing the whole time?
I don't think they had it at the beginning of the film; it was an add-on 6 years later when they rebuilt the Jaeger. As to why they saved it? That's a giant robot-ism: you only whip out the Blazing Sword at the end of the fight. 'Cos. Same reason the Hulk's pants stretch, (and turn into purpule corduroy) nobody ever removes Spiderman's mask, recognizes Superman out of costume, or sues Batman for property damage. It makes sense within the genre, but not anywhere else.
>why didn't they set up their defences around that stupid hole?
They were; but it's hard to build a stable barrier in the ocean. Surrounding the continents was the best they could come up with. It gave them a lot of warning in case of an attack, it'd be cheaper than a deep-sea operation, (which would have to build a barrier from the bottom of the ocean to the top to block a monster) and from the discussions at the beginning I got the impression that the Jaeger project had used up a LOT of cash. So the people needed a lower tech solution 'cos they didn't have the resources to develop anything new and high tech. There also seemed the be a growing sense of isolationism among the nations. The wall would make countries have to deal with the problem on their own.
>dinosaurs DO NOT have a second brain!
Not exactly. Some had an extra ganglion body (is that the right term?) that probably had some capacity for reflexual activity, but it's not really a brain. But the kaijyu weren't exactly dinosaurs (unless someone recently dug up a "holycrapasaurus") so it's possible that vestigial system had been adapted into something more functional by the alien monster guys.
Don C.
I thought the characters were functional. What I liked was that they took the standard action movie characters, stories and cliches and added reasons for them. Some of it dragged, but I think for me that's 'cos I wanted more monster fighting scenes.
>So maybe I was just thrown off early expecting the heroes to have something else to them, but instead they were humourless to me, and I just didn't find myself rooting for them.
That's an interesting point. I think what happened was that they primed you for typical, over the top characters and then went and made 'em more down to earth. So you're waiting for stuff that never comes. Like the end, when our two heroes DON'T kiss. Or a big scene with our hero where he grapples with the death of his brother.... which he'd alrady come to terms with before the real movie starts.
I think there was a lot of odd, almost subliminal twists that didn't quite register with the audience, which took away from the viceral effect of the film. Like the Maverick character not being the protagonist, and from that; the protagonist noit being the most macho, boisterous character. Things like that lend to an unfulfilled sense of expectation for an audience; they require the learning of a new template, and there wasn't a lot of buildup for them. So watching the movie is kind of like taking a test that you didn't study for.
....and I KNOW right now someone's preparing to write "yeah; and I don't want my movie to be a test! I just wanna turn my brain off and watch!" (Or something to that effect.) Which is half of a good idea. Anything new and/or different requires some effort from the audience. You've got to meet them half way. I think in this case they didn't. There was a lot of things.... small things, but LOTS of them.... that required the viewer to adopt a slightly different frame of refrence to the action film template, and I think they dropped the ball by not quite giving the viewer enough to go on to make the neccessary connections without some conscious effort. Like I said; the characters LOOKED like the standard action movie ones, but they were just different enough that the old expectations didn't quite apply.
I think this sums up how I felt about it; especially the conclusions:
....although I think a lot of the flaws they mention aren't. Stuff like the horribly slow plasma cannon. It is; but that's a flaw with the cannon. It's a legitimate story element: the technology just didn't exist to build a better one.
>What's the deal with the sword?! Why didn't they use that thing the whole time?
I don't think they had it at the beginning of the film; it was an add-on 6 years later when they rebuilt the Jaeger. As to why they saved it? That's a giant robot-ism: you only whip out the Blazing Sword at the end of the fight. 'Cos. Same reason the Hulk's pants stretch, (and turn into purpule corduroy) nobody ever removes Spiderman's mask, recognizes Superman out of costume, or sues Batman for property damage. It makes sense within the genre, but not anywhere else.
>why didn't they set up their defences around that stupid hole?
They were; but it's hard to build a stable barrier in the ocean. Surrounding the continents was the best they could come up with. It gave them a lot of warning in case of an attack, it'd be cheaper than a deep-sea operation, (which would have to build a barrier from the bottom of the ocean to the top to block a monster) and from the discussions at the beginning I got the impression that the Jaeger project had used up a LOT of cash. So the people needed a lower tech solution 'cos they didn't have the resources to develop anything new and high tech. There also seemed the be a growing sense of isolationism among the nations. The wall would make countries have to deal with the problem on their own.
>dinosaurs DO NOT have a second brain!
Not exactly. Some had an extra ganglion body (is that the right term?) that probably had some capacity for reflexual activity, but it's not really a brain. But the kaijyu weren't exactly dinosaurs (unless someone recently dug up a "holycrapasaurus") so it's possible that vestigial system had been adapted into something more functional by the alien monster guys.
Don C.
(Side note: We should really try to meet up and see a movie some time - I think it will either drive us to insanity or be the most fun ever.)
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