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Destroy All Podcasts DX Episode 296 - Pacific Rim

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13 comments posted
this film was awesome. That

this film was awesome. That is all :D

mrtrainfreak12's picture
Posted by mrtrainfreak12 on 26 August, 2013 - 15:21
The racism conversation

You guys talked way too much about the racism aspect and not enough about all the good stuff. Come on, Charlie Day and Ron Pearlman were awesome!

theshadowboss's picture
Posted by theshadowboss on 26 August, 2013 - 18:58
You didn't tell me you were doing this!

>:(

RobotBastard's picture
Posted by RobotBastard on 26 August, 2013 - 19:06
We didn't really plan it.

We didn't really plan it. Jeremy and I were just like "We've both seen it, let's talk about it!" and then Betty and Rick arrived and were all, "WE'VE SEEN IT TOO!" and then it's a party.

YaBoyAK's picture
Posted by YaBoyAK on 26 August, 2013 - 23:29
Good show.I agreed with

Good show.

I agreed with pretty much everything you guys said- it doesn't try to be anything more than what it advertised it would be. It is mindless in some areas (portable analog nuclear reactors survive EMP???), but it is no less a love letter to daikaiju movies than what Peter Jackson did in his version of "King Kong" (though in the case if the latter, the love letter was about an hour too long even if still well done and entertaining... except for casting Jack Black, who can't act to save his life and has only two generic wooden expressions for every emotion he goes through).


Regarding drifting...

Jeremy [correctly] pointed out that some of the PR technology needs to be explained a bit more.

As I understand it, the pilots' controls exist on two levels- physically moving their bodies in the Conn-Pod, and mental connection. The mental connection exists not only to process all the information a Jaeger gathers about both itself and the environment around it, but also so that the pilots can literally feel what the Jaeger can feel. So, if a kaiju hits a Jaeger's left arm, the pilots also feel that same impact as if the kaiju had hit them directly (scale issues notwithstanding). (This is why Raleigh Beckett had those deep burns on his left arm after the Anchorage battle- when Gipsy Danger's left arm was torn off, the suit accordingly made him feel like his left arm had been torn off; those burns are the result of the suit impressing that upon him in the moment.)

As stated in the opening narration, a single human cannot interface with a Jaeger because of the amount of information being funneled from the Jaeger's computer into the small fleshy brain. To ease that input, two brains share the workload. However, due to how a Jaeger is controlled and processes information, you cannot have one pilot do all the moving and fighting, and the other just sit passively in a copilot seat simply taking their share of the load. Since half the workload goes to each brain, only half of the Jaeger would move. (Looking closely at display screens in the movie, you can clearly see labels like "Left Brain" and "Right Brain" regarding drifting and the neural connection with the Jaeger.) Now, if you have two people piloting one robot and they both have equal say in how to move it, then clearly both pilots would have DIFFERENT ideas in how to do such things, and as a result of this the Jaeger would not be able to move due to the differing commands it was getting; it would be impossible to even move the Conn-Pod [head] to one side.
As many martial arts' films like to say, in this case the pilots must literally move and think "as one", or else the Jaeger won't move. To accomplish this, "drifting" is the term for having two brains synchronized as one, using the Jaeger's computer(s) as the neutral medium. (Indeed, using the word "drifting" is quite appropriate for this connection, since their thoughts literally drift between each others' minds.) This way, if one has an idea to move the arm in a certain way, the other will react as if it had been their idea originally- the perfect synchronization between two brains to accomplish the same task in the same way. The reason pilots don't talk [much] out loud to each other is because they are already thinking exactly what the other person is thinking in that same moment, but their human bodies are still independently controlled by their unique minds for tasks like communications and talking to the Jaeger's A.I.

That's how drifting works in the movie.

IMO, though, it would be easier to simply render the human body inert, and devout the human consciousness exclusively to controlling the Jaeger; circumventing entirely the movable framework system of control, and relying exclusively on the mental connection- the drifting pilots think "move" and the Jaeger responds accordingly. The movable framework is actually redundant from my perspective, but necessary in "Pacific Rim" to make a Jaeger move.


BTW, the opening narration states in a roundabout way that Jaegers were created because conventional bombs and artillery from planes and tanks were too slow- essentially a kaiju would be killed eventually by a thousand cuts, but by then would have devastated its target city. And a nuclear bomb would have the obviously devastating effects if used, so they are not an option (although IIRC at least one nuke was used on a kaiju). Jaegers intercept and deal heavy damage on an UNconventional level because of the brute force they can bring to bear. Essentially the movie says that the only way we could compete with the kaiju was to play their own game at their level.

EDIT: Did anyone else feel that Marshal Pentecost's "Cancelling the Apocalypse!" speech was rather reminiscent of President Whitmore's rally speech in "Independence Day"?

EVA_Unit_4A's picture
Posted by EVA_Unit_4A on 26 August, 2013 - 23:39
we did notice it mate, and

we did notice it mate, and how about the fact that they are also both former pilots that was called back into action due to necessity of the situation?

and the alien race that wants to wipe humanity are creatures that wants to exhaust the planet's resources and move along.

or im just overthinking that. lol.

ou and one lst thing to add with what eva said about utilizing jaegers. remember when they were showing the news clips about manila, that the kaiju's excrementand blood contaminate the environment? the reason jaegers are used is not just because they are cool, but because they are the best means of minimizing the environmental damage. rather than just bombing the kaiju to bits and expose everything to it's toxic blood, it's better to punch it until it dies from internal hemmorage. blades, swords and others are just plan b.

kurochan_24's picture
Posted by kurochan_24 on 27 August, 2013 - 11:46
Agreed- Jaegers limit the

Agreed- Jaegers limit the damage a kaiju can inflict on many levels by intercepting them sooner. And, as was demonstrated in the movie, a passive anti-kaiju wall cannot match the strength of even a casual Category 3 kaiju. (This, of course, also speaks to the leaps in engineering required to conceive, design, build and operate a Jaeger... but then you're not supposed to ask that kind of question to begin with. ;P)

For example, the YouTube channel How it Should Have Ended, which parodies movies in a comedic fashion, suggested that Gipsy Danger should have waited underwater and decapitated kaiju with its chainsword just as they were emerging from the portal. While HISHE humorously (and correctly) pointed out that this form of fighting would be boring if effective, we know that Jaegers can operate underwater but not their endurance on the bottom of the ocean, nor how long two pilots can remain in drift. (The Cherno Alpha team was mentioned as having the record for the longest drift, but I don't remember if they mentioned how long they were connected.)
However, as we saw in the movie, while a Jaeger can operate underwater, they cannot respond as quickly. So a specific type of underwater Jaeger would need to be designed for endurance and speed at depth.

Using a lot of explosives and nuclear bombs is very messy, not just in spraying ammonium-saturated kaiju guts all over the place, but in the environmental impact afterwards. While the Generation 1-5 Jaegers may not be perfect counterparts to kaiju as far as brute strength, efficiency, maintenance costs, and safety for their crews, they are unfortunately the best we can do for now.

EVA_Unit_4A's picture
Posted by EVA_Unit_4A on 27 August, 2013 - 12:56
just my 2 cents, coming from

just my 2 cents, coming from a filipino's point of view, i don't think it's plausible to cast the nation to pilot a jaeger. notice that only the countries that can afford one have it in it's possession. US, japan, china, australia, russia all are powerful nations. i know the film is fiction but still they maintain a level of realism. unless if course, they would make this backstory, an old US or japanese jaeger was being donated and is now customised by filipino scientists.

by the way, i love that suggestion if having animated shorts to bridge some gaps or provide some deeper explanations for the tech involved.

here's hoping we also get an explanation how hannibal chau did not die while swallowed by a baby monster.

kurochan_24's picture
Posted by kurochan_24 on 27 August, 2013 - 11:35
Agreed- only the wealthy

Agreed- only the wealthy first-world countries developed Jaegers.

However, did you notice that the rift actually sat in the northwestern Pacific Ocean? Perhaps the kaiju didn't find much point in attacking South America initially because their populations were smaller and less influential economically than Australia, Asia, and North America?

EVA_Unit_4A's picture
Posted by EVA_Unit_4A on 27 August, 2013 - 13:19
i think i read it somewhere

i think i read it somewhere that the target was really the populous cities, i guess to get rid of more humans in shorter time.

kurochan_24's picture
Posted by kurochan_24 on 28 August, 2013 - 05:52
Yep, they said that in the

Yep, they said that in the movie.

EVA_Unit_4A's picture
Posted by EVA_Unit_4A on 28 August, 2013 - 10:43
Ken Ishikawa fanfic

As I've said elsewhere, this movie is basically a Ken Ishikawa fanfic. If you have seen any Getter Robo then you'll feel right at home with this movie.

Of *course* there's a scene where the hero pilot has a fistfight with the jerk pilot. Of *course* the Chief of the Robot Defense Corps is a total hard guy who dies at the end. Of *course* the non-hero robots go out like chumps. Of *course* the other pilots are total stereotypes of some ethnic identity (with "country of origin" treated as ethnicity by the story, so we can have Americans and Russians and Australians all seen as different races.)

And, unfortunately, of *course* there's a scene where the hero pilot ejects the girl pilot from the robot so he can go through the dimensional rift and suicide-bomb the enemy. It is unfortunate that del Toro did not choose to break with tradition here.

RobotBastard's picture
Posted by RobotBastard on 3 September, 2013 - 12:15
Hey! I liked the first two X-men movies...

Loved the movie despite it's dumb stuff, blah, blah, blah.

As far as Guillermo del Toro goes, he lists many anime he has seen and is inspired by, and they are all pre-Evangelion. In fact, he's never seen Evangelion. Someone could've suggested that visual allusion to Eva regarding the helmet fluid, but that's not Del Toro's nod.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c129/vichussmith/DelToroEvangelion_zps929f12fe.jpg

http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/jul/03/guillermo-del-toro-pacific-rim-webchat?commentpage=2

Del Toro also said elsewhere that his idea for a sequel involves a kaiju melded with Jager technology. Hell yeah! I'd take a sequel or prequel of this.

Yotaru's picture
Posted by Yotaru on 15 September, 2013 - 20:06