31 Days: Twenty-Six

[zubeneschamali]

Something you read online. Leave a link and discuss, if you'd like.



These are a number of the best metas I've read about Pacific Rim and why it's resonating with so many people I know, even if it was supposedly a box office flop (like, whatever):

http://brigantes.tumblr.com/post/56623389899 (on the millennial generation and saving the world)
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2013/08/01/mako-mori-is-a-badass/ (why Mako Mori is a bad-ass)
http://bookshop.tumblr.com/post/58642188963 (the Mako Mori test as an alternative to the Bechdel test)

Also, William Gibson, almost my favorite author of all time, could not stop tweeting about Pacific Rim for at least two weeks.
"Keenly anticipating today's matinee of Pacific Rim. Big-ass monsters! Big-ass robots! They fight! POW! BLANG! #innerchildtotallyupforthat"
"People who "have trouble accepting the premise" are looking for a very different kind of movie."
Someone else: "Pacific Rim was oddly satisfying. Difficult to explain why." WG: "All the dick moves it refused to do. Their absences."

I think that last line of Gibson's sums it up for me. I kept holding my breath, waiting for the movie to disappoint me with the standard action movie tropes, and it didn't. OK, it did a couple of times, like how the only Chinese characters were literally interchangeable, and how the Russians seemed to have stepped right out of Rocky IV. But Mako. And Newt. And Raleigh. Characters without being stereotypes, and so many hints at world-building that I could read encylclopedias about, and, yeah. And Mako. :D

What are your thoughts on the resonance of this movie with so many of us, even if you haven't seen it (yet)?

Comments

[harrigan.livejournal.com]

I went to see the movie so that I'd have the background when fanfic starts being written. And it was worth the price of admission!

[zubeneschamali.livejournal.com]

That's definitely a good reason!

[darkershadeof.livejournal.com]

For me it was definitely the world-building. I wanted to see it because of the aliens and robots, but when I left, I felt like there was so much more to that world that could be explored, it felt so rich. Like, especially with regards to the ordinary people living in that world. There should be more fic dealing with that. *g* But the monsters and robots were pretty dang awesome as well. ;)

[zubeneschamali.livejournal.com]

I was so bummed when I read that the first cut of the movie was half an hour longer, but Del Toro took out a lot of the world-building. Little things like the "NEVER" hand-scrawled over the "To Be Completed" part of the Kaiju Wall sign really got me.