hainThis video was brought
to you by my Patrons. Thanks! Content warning for graphic
imagery and some body horror. Also Pacific Rim and it's sequel, both chose to use a Romani slur in the
name of the main Jaeger for both films? Yes. Even though it's spelled with an I, it's still based on a word that is
considered a slur to Romani people. I'm going to avoid saying it
and instead we'll be referring to those Jaegers as Lady Danger and Lady Avenger, which were common fan
substitutions for those who were more aware than me at the time of the
original film's release and it's sequel. The actual names might still show up on
screen or in dialogue from time to time. Just be prepared for that and
spoiler alert for Pacific Rim, Pacific Rim: Uprising and Pacific Rim: The Black. And here's your regular
reminder that art is subjective, so please be chill kids. Pacific Rim is the strangest
franchise that your weird friend wouldn't shut up about from 2013
to 2014 and then again in 2018. Now, in the year of our Lord 2021, I won't shut up about it. It's had a strange regenerating half-life
from a love letter to Japanese media by a Mexican director to a highly
controversial sequel that still managed to do better with
John Boyega than Star Wars did. And now, an animated series produced for
Netflix by some Marvel comics writers. And that's not even getting into
the fan base for this franchise, which was so committed, they even spawned a real
band based on a fanfiction. And aside from Rogue One, this is probably one of the pieces of media
I have spent the most time hyper fixating on. So let's talk about that. [Newton] "Let's take care
of drones right? alright. The first Pacific Rim had a somewhat
interesting development process. It actually began when writer Chavis
Beacham and director Guillermo Del Toro, were developing a project called
'Killing On Carnival Row' in 2006. It never got off the ground in that iteration, but it eventually became the Amazon series 'Carnival Row' starring Cara
Delevingne and Orlando Bloom. Now, the concept for Pacific
Rim began with Beacham. He says the idea hit him one day in 2007, walking down the Santa Monica Pier. He looked up and pictured a fight between
a giant monster and a giant robot. In 2010, Legendary Pictures
purchased the rights based on an 18 page illustrated treatment
and the project was titled Pacific Rim at the time Del
Toro was working on producing his HP Lovecraft adaptation of
'In The Mountains of Madness.' Unfortunately, that was another project that
would never end up seeing the light of day. But during meetings with Legendary Pictures, he saw Beacham's treatment
and found it intriguing. Now, Travis Beacham filmography is a bit small; Pacific Rim, 'The Clash of the Titans,' the aforementioned 'Carnival Row'
and one episode of that Amazon series, 'Electric Dreams,' and that's about it. On the other hand, we have
director Guillermo Del Toro. I'll get to him in a minute. Also, I should mention the
music for the film is done by the absolute legend, Ramin Djawadi. If you don't know his name, I promise you know his music. He composed for 'Game of Thrones,' 'Westworld,' the first 'Iron Man,' and the main theme from Pacific Rim is so cool, it makes me want to go punch cars! Now, let's do the rundown. Our two leads in the movie are Charlie
Hunnam playing Raleigh Beckett, and Rinko Kikuchi playing Mako Mori. Hunnam's probably best known for
his role on 'Sons of Anarchy,' although apparently it was a part in 'Nicholas Nickleby' that brought
him to Guillermo's attention. And Rinko Kikuchi is just fucking phenomenal. If you aren't familiar with her other work, I beg you to brush up. No matter what the project is, she is always turning up and delivering
exactly what is asked of her. In season 2 of 'Westworld,' she had a two episode run as the character Akane. And she did a dance to an instrumental
cover of a Wu-Tang Clan song and then sawed a man's head in half and it RULED! She was heartbreaking in the 2006 film 'Babel,' and she was hilarious in the 2008
classic, 'The Brothers Bloom.' She's great in 'Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter,' and one of her most recent roles
at the time of writing this is a small part in the 2019 Makoto Nagahisa film, 'We Are Little Zombies' which Yhara Zayd covered
recently on her channel and it was lovely. Go watch her video. Now, when we want to describe
the characters these two play, I would describe Mako Mori as perfect
and one of my favorite characters and Raleigh Beckett as a
golden retriever with trauma. After our two leads, we've got Idris Elba as Stacker Pentecost being just the coolest and saying
really rad shit like this. [Stacker] "Today we are
cancelling the apocalypse!" I'm assuming we all know who Idris
Elba is from the likes of 'The Wire,' 'Luther' and 'Beasts of No Nation.' But because I am a monster, I want to remind you that he also did this. [Macavity] "Macavityyyyyyyyyy!" Pentecost runs the Hong Kong Shatterdome
where most of the film takes place, and is just generally badass
who says shit like this. [Stacker] "One, don't you ever touch me again." "Two, don't you ever touch me again." Then we've got my two favorite
science dorks, Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, played by Burn Gorman, and Dr. Newton Geiszler played by Charlie Day. Burn Gorman you might know
as Owen from 'Torchwood' or a lot of villains in a lot of TV shows. While I will say I absolutely
love his performance as Hermann and it's his role in the series that really
made me fall in love with Burn as an actor, it is a damn shame that they didn't hire an
actual disabled actor to play this character. It's not my place to weigh in on whether
Hermann is good or bad disability rep, and if people want to have that
discussion in the comments, I'm happy to read it. Basically, I've got a lot of ground to cover
so I can't really dwell on this for too long, but I know this casting might
be disappointing to some people. His character, Hermann Gottlieb, is an extremely extra mathematician. [Hermann] "Numbers are as close as we
get to the handwriting of God." [Newton] "What?!" According to co-writer Travis Beacham, Hermann is also Jewish, which yes, 10/10. Thank you! Basically, he's socially awkward to the point of barely functioning when he
isn't being extremely uptight. Charlie Day is probably best known for his role as Charlie on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But aside from his work in Pacific Rim, my favorite thing he's ever done is this. [Benny] "SPACESHIP! SPACESHIP! SPACESHIP!" "SPACESHIP! SPACESHIP!" Also, his sense of humor can
be unnecessarily edgy at times. In one interview for the first film, this is how he jokingly pitched the sequel. [Charlie Day] "Get rid of the handsome dudes," "uhh, get rid of the Asian
girl, come on, just the nerds." But in the film, his character Newton Geiszler is a quixotic biologist who is, in Hermann's words. [Hermann] "A Kaiju groupie." His life's work is obsessing about the
monsters that could kill them all and he's tattooed them on his literal skin!
You know, like normal people do. Also, Ron Perlman plays Hannibal Chau, who is absolutely buck wild. [Hannibal] "Where is my god damn shoe?" Now, this is a huge cast, so I'm not going to run down everybody, but I will shout out my favorite minor character, Tendo Choi, played by Clifton Collins Jr. [With great affection]
Just look at that bagel-loving motherfucker! Clifton Collins Junior was also on
'Westworld' where he played Lawrence, and he was this guy in the 2009 'Star Trek,' and he was in 'Capote' with
Philip Seymour Hoffman. This man's filmography is nuts! Also, Ellen McLain voiced all the Jaeger AIs and you might know
her as the voice of GLaDOS from 'Portal.' [GLaDOS] "Look, we both said a lot of
things that you're going to regret." Apparently, Del Toro replayed Portal 2
co-op with his daughter and liked her voice, so he cast her in this. Now, what's the plot? Well, a Rift opened in the Pacific Ocean
and monsters started climbing out of it, and so 21 countries got together to solve the problem and their solution was giant robots. I'm going to give you a minute to let that sink in because I will be the first
to admit it's very funny. I mean, first off, multiple countries actually working together to deal with a global crisis. [Manic laughter] Then the fact that their solution to giant
monsters was so prohibitively expensive. Like...not only do you have to pay to
design and build these giant robots, which involves paying a lot
of engineers and technicians, then you've got to pay and train the pilots. It probably costs a lot of money. These are things I think about. We also learn Jaegers are so big it's too
much for one human brain to pilot them, so they created Drift technology. Two people who are Drift compatible basically
have to mind melt to pilot a Jaeger, and what makes you Drift compatible? A strong bond. Many of the Jaeger pilots we meet are
either married or related to each other or friends because those are strong bonds. In other words, a better title
for this movie would have been 'Pacific Rim: Friendship is Magic' because
these robots are powered by friendship. And with that, let's talk some
cool behind-the-scenes stuff. [Ron Perlman] "That Kaiju
made land two years ago." [Del Toro] "The Kaiju's on the left." [Perlman] "...That Kaiju." Okay so, while a lot of the
core concepts of Pacific Rim, including the concept of the two pilot Drift, begin with Travis Beacham. I think it's fair to say the success of a
Pacific Rim piece comes down to execution. We got to talk about Guillermo Del Toro, who has a co-writing credit
on the film, by the way. Guillermo Del Toro Gómez was
born in 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, to Guadalupe Gómez
and Frederico Del Toro Torres. By age seven, he taught himself English from
reading Mad Magazine and Famous Monsters. His two main literary
inspirations were Juan Rulfo, a Mexican author who is said to be important to
the development of the magical realism style, and Ray Bradbury. His first feature was the 1993 drama 'Cronos,' a playfully dark take on the vampire myth that is more in common with Nosferatu than Anne Rice. Del Toro remortgaged his house, took out a loan, and sold his van
to pay for what was, at the time, one of the most expensive Mexican films
ever made with a budget of two million. It only made about $600,000
at the American Box Office, but it did win an award at the Cannes Film
Festival and introduced him to the likes of director James Cameron and got him
his second directorial gig, 'Mimic.' According to Del Toro, he had two of the worst experiences
of his life during that time period. One was the kidnapping of his
father in Guadalajara in 1998. His father was held captive for
72 days and James Cameron ended up giving Del Toro over $1
million to help pay the ransom. Afterwards, Del Toro moved his
family to America for safety reasons. The other terrible experience was working with Harvey Weinstein and Miramax on the movie 'Mimic.' He's quoted in an IndieWire article as saying, Damn Guillermo. After 'Mimic,' he co-wrote the script and
then directed 'The Devil's Backbone' in 2001. The movie is set during the Spanish Civil
War and follows a young boy named Carlos, who just arrived at an orphanage that has
been attacked by Francisco Franco's troops. There's an unexploded bomb in the
courtyard and a shithead named Jacinto, the movie is incredible,
haunting, and heartbreaking. He then directed 'Blade 2' and wrote
and directed the 2004 'Hellboy.' In 2006, he returned to the history surrounding the Spanish Civil War
with everybody's favorite movie, 'Pan's Labyrinth,' another tale of childhood
set against the backdrop of tumultuous times. It's really good and if you somehow missed it, you should go watch it. Then he directed 'Hellboy II: The
Golden Army' in 2008 and would not direct another film for five
years until Pacific Rim in 2013. It wasn't due to the lack of trying, he was heavily involved with the pre-production of The Hobbit films and he was set to direct them, but he had to leave the project for Reasons. He had been working on producing that HP Lovecraft adaptation of 'In The
Mountains of Madness' before Pacific Rim, but that too was eventually shelved. Del Toro has admitted quite
publicly that the list of films he didn't get to make is longer than
the list of films he has made. After Pacific Rim, he made 'Crimson Peak' in 2015 and the Oscar-winning 'Shape of Water' in 2017. He's got a film called 'Nightmare
Alley' coming out sometime this year, and a stop motion 'Pinocchio '
movie in the works as well. And because I don't have another spot for this, I need you all to know that Guillermo Del
Toro apparently just hates horses and cows. [Del Toro] "I never liked horses." "But after this scene, I hate them." "I hate them, they're nasty
animals and I hate cows." "Cows are evil. Cows are absolutely evil." "I tell you, they look like...inoffensive um...they are perverted creatures
and--and so are horses." "They are absolutely nasty motherfuckers." If I were to describe Del Toro style in a word, the word would be meticulous. If you watch one of his commentaries, it feels like sitting in a classroom
with Del Toro as your professor. He goes on lengthy talks about
color theory and frame composition. One of my favorite little
details is in 'Pan's Labyrinth,' Del Toro wanted it to be very clear
who the real monster was in this film. So, Captain Vidal is deliberately
meant to be a mirror of one of the scarier creatures
Ophelia meets, the Pale Man. There's actually a visual parallel
between Captain Vidal and the Pale Man, with them both seated at the head of a
table full of food in front of a fireplace. But the fireplace behind Vidal is square
and the Pale Man's fireplace is round. Just to make it clear that this is
the other side of the looking glass. And that level of thought can be seen
in every frame of Del Toro's work. He is precise to the point of obsession. He returned half his salary for
Hellboy and his entire salary for Pan's Labyrinth in order to pay for the creature effects that the
studio thought were too expensive. The man is obsessively detailed about every element of every scene
in a movie he's directing. The production design of his
movies is always beautiful, whether it's the ethereal labyrinth
of the faun in 'Pan's Labyrinth' or what Del Toro described as the
'Goth-Tech' aesthetic of Pacific Rim. And of course, his creature design
is immaculate and fantastical. Del Toro is an admitted lover of the monstrous. And all of his films are dedicated to
those that society would consider outcast, whether it's a vampire or fishman. In one Indiewire interview, he said, He goes on to say, There is a lot of love for Del Toro's
monsters in every one of his films, even in a movie like Pacific Rim where the
bulk of the runtime is spent punching them, which brings us to some fun facts
about the making of Pacific Rim. According to the commentary, Del Toro actually managed to
bring this film in under budget. The way he did that was by carefully crafting practical elements to ground a lot of the CG work, little bits of real set and set dressing that allow the CGI surrounding them to feel more real. A lot of the sets for Tokyo or Hong Kong had practical effects for scenes
of kaijus rampaging around, which is really cool, just like cars being thrown and
dumpsters being crushed which allows the CGI monsters being created to have
more tactile interaction with the set. I love this little bit in one
of the feature edits where some designer is saying that
the jeager design might make more practical sense if
the two pilots were sort of placed vertically inside the robot
instead of next to each other. Guillermo responded. [Del Toro] "Your gaining logic
when you're losing grammar." "I mean, the fact that these guys are going
to be able to see each other, you need that." "You don't want an intercom." "I really literally want the representation
of they're both in the head." The way every inch of this movie
was planned and thought over to tell this story is just really impressive. [Del Toro] "Not just eye
candy one but eye protein." One of my personal favorite details
is the fact that the Conn-Pod, the room inside each jeager where
the pilots make the giant robots go. Well, there were two practical Conn-Pod sets. One set dubbed the 'Shake N Bake' was the
one used by the actors most of the time. They wore these harnesses that were weighted. So there could be real heft to their
movements piloting a giant robot instead of trying to mime it and a crew member
would operate the set by remote control. The set would move and tilt in
accordance with the actors movements. The other Conn-Pod set, dubbed the Mighty Moe, was used more by the stunt actors and was capable of more violent
movements and 45-degree tilts. All of the actors hated working in the Conn-Pod sets because it
was physically exhausting. [Charlie Hunnam] "It's always a real test
of ones sanity and physical ability." [Robert Kazinsky] "It's the
most painful, exhausting, excruciating thing I've ever done in my life." "But it does look cool." But by all accounts Rinko
Kikuchi never complained once. Del Toro also didn't want this movie to
be some recruitment ad for the military, which I think is cool. I didn't want to make an interesting movie, I wanted to make a humanistic movie. He wanted this to be a story about a
diverse group of people saving the world. In a way, although this movie depicts
events on an apocalyptic scale, this is actually a deeply optimistic film. I wanted this movie to not be
about a country saving the world. I wanted it to be the world saving the world. There's other cool facts like when he spoke with Charlie Day about
casting him in the film, he asked to have a ridiculous cameo on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Charlie Day obliged him. He was cast as Pappy McPoyle, this um...troll man? Charlie Day said somewhere that Guillermo
brought in a glass eye for this, like unprompted? which is amazing. When it comes to the monster design or Del Toro's influences from mecha Anime and kaiju movies, I recommend Filmjoy's video on Pacific Rim
since it goes into a bit more detail there. But what I find fascinating
about Del Toro's work is that even on a film as objectively
silly as Pacific Rim, this guy's got influences from Francisco Goya's
painting, the Colossus, to Mexican wrestling, to the Chernabog scene from 'Fantasia.' Del Toro said this movie came at a
crucial time in his life and saved it. He spent five years trying
unsuccessfully to get a movie made. When he finally got that opportunity again, it created this infectious glee that
permeates every frame of the film. It's unironic, joyful, childlike glee. He described it as a movie from 'the
youngest, freshest part of his heart.' [Del Toro] "What you see is an exercise in faith," "and an exercise in love and
I deliver myself completely" "to every movie I do without
a single shred of irony." "And I wanted my cast to feel that way." And with that, let's talk about the actual movie. Pacific Rim is delightfully
earnest from start to finish, and I must recap it so this video doesn't just become a list of
scenes that make me feel things. Also, this movie came out eight years ago
and maybe some people could use a refresher. So it starts with an earnest prologue
explaining the situation with the Kaiju emerging from a Rift in
the Pacific Ocean called The Breach. The country's banding together and... [Raleigh] "We created monsters of our own." And after all of that, this movie introduces
us to Raleigh Beckett and his brother Yancey. They're established pilots in the
Jaeger program and...you know... [Raleigh] "Hey come on! we're being deployed." They're sweet. They're about to go out on another
run-of-the-mill mission to go punch Kaiju in their Mark-3 Jaeger Lady Danger and...
it goes extremely poorly for them. First, Lady Danger gets an arm
ripped off which is a thing the pilots get to feel because a
sadist built these robots apparently, then Raleigh's brother is ripped out of
the Jaeger while the two of them are still mentally connected which means
Raleigh gets to feel his brother die. Then Raleigh somehow solo pilots the robot to
the shore which is, as previously mentioned, mostly unheard of and then he stumbles
out of the Jaeger and collapses. And in things that make me sad, the novelization includes this line. Anyway, we're here for a fun monster movie right? ARE WE HAVING FUN YET? From there, we jump ahead five years and the Jaeger program is on its last
legs, with the politicians of the Pan Pacific Defense CORP
pulling funding and putting it towards building a giant wall which
is quickly shown to be ineffective. So things aren't going great. Then the Marshal of the Hong Kong Shatterdome, Stacker Pentecost tracks down
Raleigh who is currently working on a construction team building
said ineffective wall in Alaska. Pentecost asks him to come
back and pilot a Jaeger, the last of the Mark-3s and Raleigh
initially turns him down because. [Raleigh] "I can't have
anyone else in my head again." And Pentecost brings up the salient point that
the world might be ending soon so...you know... [Stacker] "Where would you
rather die? Here or in a Jaeger?" The pair go to the Hong Kong
Shatterdome where we meet Mako Mori and this clip is very cute by the way. [Raleigh] "Hey," These two kind of instantly hit it
off but she's not on the list of potential co-pilots even
though there are Serious Vibes. We're also introduced to a
bunch of other characters like the Wei Triplets who pilot
the Jaeger, Crimson Typhoon, the Kaidanovsky's who pilot Cherno Alpha and probably have my favorite
Jaeger suit design by the way. And we have Hercules Hansen and his son Chuck. They're Australian and pilot the
Jaeger called Striker Eureka. Also, Chuck is a bit of an angry little
shit so him and Raleigh have some tension. [Chuck] "Here's the thing RAHLEE." Raleigh also learns that once he has his co-pilot, he's going to be piloting Lady Danger again and Mako was the one who oversaw
her fixes and upgrades. There's this great scene where the pair talk about Raleigh's potential co-pilot candidates and Mako admits that she very much
wants to be a Jaeger pilot and has some impressive stats in simulation tests. Raleigh asks why she isn't one of the
candidates for the co-pilot trials and... [Mako] "The Marshal has his reasons." [Raleigh] "With 51 kills I cant
imagine what they could be." I just love that they've known each other for like 10 minutes and Raleigh
is already like team Mako, Mako Mori's #1 fan! It's just delightful. Mako also says that his piloting style is unpredictable and dangerous and
Raleigh says that out in the field. [Raleigh] "We make decisions. We
have to live with the consequences." And hey I'm sad again! In the middle of all of that, we
also get to spend more time with my two favorite science idiots
who I cannot stress enough, bicker like an old married couple. [Newton] "Hermann, these are human
beings. Why don't you say hello?" [Hermann] "I've asked you not to
refer to me to by my first name in front of others because I am a doctor of..." [Newton impersonating Hermann] "Oh, oh yes I am a doctor of--"
[Hermann] "Ten years--" [Newton] "TEN YEARS OF EXPERIENCE!" I love Hermann and Newt. I think they're ridiculous and they bring me joy. Also I must tell you, although this isn't anywhere in the movie itself, according to the Blu-ray
special feature Drift Space, Hermann and Newt actually wrote to each other for four years from 2013 to 2017
after the Kaiju attacks began. This correspondence was
'passionate' and 'fascinating.' Then the pair met in person in 2017
and instantly hated each other. Their working relationship is
described as 'tempestuous.' They come into the movie to provide comedic relief and basically
info dump a bunch of stuff about how they're hoping to blow up The
Breach and Hermann's calculations that the Kaiju were coming faster and
there should be a double event in a week. Meanwhile, Newton thinks
they should try Drifting with the Kaiju brain to get more
information and everybody is like, No. Don't do that! [Hermann] "You'll kill yourself!" [Newton] "Or I'd be a rock star!" Meanwhile, Raleigh basically
goes through a series of candidate tryouts to try and find
a new Drift compatible co-pilot. It involves the form of staff
fighting martial arts and more or less amounts to Raleigh fighting a bunch
of dudes and it's just not clicking. So Raleigh, Mako Mori's number one fan and
cheerleader asks if he can try out with her. Pentecost says no, but like. [Raleigh] "What's the matter Marshall? Don't
think your brightest can cut in the ring with me?" I mean, really [Raleigh] "But I'm not going
to dial down my moves." [Mako] "Than neither will I." Del Toro in the commentary
called the scene a courtship. He even compared it to a waltz. It's these two finally having
this moment of connection, a spark, a compatibility, wouldn't you say? [Canned Laughter] It's great and also gives me major bi panic.
[Me chuckling] So afterwards Raleigh is like, 'She's my copilot, right?' RIGHT?' Stacker says maybe and there's another great scene with Mako and Raleigh where
Raleigh doesn't really understand the relationship between Mako
and Pentecost so he's just going on about how you don't have to
blindly obey him and Mako says. [Mako] "It's not obedience
Mr. Beckett, it's respect." In the meantime, Newt constructs a Drift interface out of garbage
and Drifts with that Kaiju brain and Hermann finds him having
a seizure on the floor and in the things that will make
me bitter until the day I DIE, it would seem this scene went on a little
longer because this shot exists in the behind the scenes and uh...I
would like more of that please. But while that's going on, it's time for Raleigh's first
Drift with his new co-pilot. Stacker comes to Mako and presents her a child's red shoe and tells
her he made her a promise once. So Mako is going to be Raleigh's copilot.
And that first Drift goes uuh...Badly. Although Raleigh admits that
he's the one who fucked up first, getting briefly stuck in a
memory of his brother's death, Mako gets really stuck in a flashback
of the day her parents died. So here's a bit of color theory stuff. Del Toro had a whole thing about how Mako's color in the film is blue and Raleigh's is yellow. Mako has the blue in her hair, her introduction scene is
all in blue and you know... Blue is the sad color. But she's carrying a red shoe. Red symbolizes love and passion and life. And there's a little more detail
in some of the special features but basically minutes before we meet little Mako, her parents were violently ripped away from her and she is left carrying this little red shoe. It's like her heart was just ripped out of her body and she's just carrying it in her hands. [Del Toro] "It was very important for me the symbol of the little girl with
her broken heart in her hand." For the rest of the movie, red will come to symbolize
passion, purpose, and drive. The whole end of the movie is
bathed in red and we'll get to that. But in this scene, we just see baby Mako scared and alone running from a giant monster with her
heart in her hands and Raleigh is there trying to snap her out of the memory because
in real-life, she's almost activating Lady Danger's weapons that could
do some real damage in here! Eventually everyone manages
to cut power to the Jaeger and Raleigh's first instinct is to make sure Mako is okay because we've got some
platonic soul mate energy at this point. It's very good. And meanwhile, the K-science
team is having a time and a half. After finding Newton in that state, Hermann gets Pentecost and Newt tries to the best of his ability to explain what he learned. [Hermann] "Because--"
[Newton] "You know what? WHY DON'T YOU DRIFT WITH A KAIJU--" [Stacker] "You, SHUT UP!" "You...keep talking." We learn the Kaiju are a hive mind and that the ones they've been fighting are just clones built clear out humanity to make way for the
Precursors who are the Real concern here. Also Newton really is just a big hot mess. Drifting solo with a piece of Kaiju brain was not really good for his brain? and Stacker is like, 'Cool, would love more info. Can you do it again?'
[Me chuckling] So Newt gets sent on a solo mission
to get a new Kaiju brain from resident criminal and seller
of Kaiju parts, Hannibal Chau. [Knife swishy sounds] [Newton] "Ah! AH! Stacker Pentecost sent me!" [Newton grunts in pain]
[More knife swishy sounds] As previously stated, this character is wild but hang on to that because
on the other half of the plot, Mako and Raleigh get in a fight
with Chuck after the Drift goes bad. Chuck's all like, 'You suck and
you're going to get us all killed.' So Mako defends Raleigh and Raleigh is like, 'no, no, don't waste your
breath' until Chuck says: [Chuck] "One of you bitches need a leash." And after one insult to Mako this boy
decides it's time to get into a fist fight. [Punching sound] [Raleigh] "Apologize to her." Herc and Pentecost break up
the fight pretty quickly. But there's a deleted scene here that makes me sad where Herc and Chuck
get in a fight because well. [Herc] "I don't recognize you mate, who are you?"
[Chuck] "Who am I?" These two don't exactly have a great relationship. [Chuck] "What more do you want me to be?"
[Herc] "A better person!" And it's actually really sad as we
realize from Chuck's perspective, his dad was pretty absent for most
of his life after his mom died. [Chuck] "The only reason you and I even speak
anymore old man, is cause we're Drift compatible." And uh...apparently these two don't have much of
a relationship at all and...that'll be sad later. But Raleigh and Mako get a
talking too from Pentecost. The big headline here is that Mako's
number one fan stresses to Pentecost that he was the one who messed up there
Drift but Pentecost still benches Mako. Raleigh tries to change his mind because
through the Drift he saw that whole memory, we only saw a piece of. Raleigh saw that Pentecost was
the one who saved Mako as a child. He now shares Mako's memories and understands that Pentecost raised her
and was like a father to her. And he has this very good and salient point. [Raleigh] "You are holding her back." Afterwards, Raleigh and Mako have this really sweet scene where
they both talk about like, 'Hey, we shared each others trauma today.' Mako got to experience Raleigh losing
his brother and Yancey's death and Raleigh experienced Mako's heartbreak
and terror at the loss of her family. They talk about how the Drift
works when there's trust and... [Raleigh] "Today the Drift was strong." So when two Kaiju named Otachi
and Leatherback show up, Striker Eureka, Cherno Alpha, and Crimson Typhoon all get
sent out to the fight while Lady Danger and her pilots stay on the bench. And then...that fight goes really badly. Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon get decimated. The Wei Triplets and the Kaidonovsky's all die and Striker Eureka is immobilized
with some electromagnetic pulse. Herc breaks his arm and also this happens. [Herc] "Now, we have a choice here." "We either sit and wait or we take these
flare guns and do something really stupid." Which is a very funny line, and they go shooting flares at the Kaiju until Lady Danger shows up in the
nick of time to save the day. We get an extended very fun and
silly fight scene where they like use a boat as a bat and shipping containers
like brass knuckles or something. It's a good time. Meanwhile, Newton was trying to
bargain with Hannibal Chau to get a Kaiju brain or secondary brain
or whatever, and eventually, he reveals he Drifted with a Kaiju brain already, and apparently Hannibal Chau
tried it one time and knows it's a terrible idea and that
the Kaiju are looking for Newt. So when the alarms go off, he's like, 'Get out.' Newt ends up in a public
shelter which Otachi rips into, and yeah, it turns out they were looking for him. That's probably bad. It's fine, Lady Danger gets there
in time to beat Otachi's ass. There's a fun bit where they go on a little fly in the sky and we learn Lady Danger has a sword now. Good shit! Newt goes back to Hannibal
Chau looking like a mess and saying, [Newt] "You owe me Kaiju brain." And at the Shatterdome, Mako and
Raleigh are the heroes of the day. Even Chuck seems to have
forgiven them now, which is nice, and Stacker actually says
something encouraging for once! And then just for Mako, we get this little line, [Stacker] "I'm proud of you." Which is super sweet, but there's no time to
rest because the day hasn't been saved yet. [Stacker] "Reset that clock." I really like that bit. Also, Stacker keeps getting these
nosebleeds and it turns out he's dying. The early Jaegers were built in a hurry
and didn't have enough radiation shielding. Also, he piloted one solo for a while and
the novelization goes into a bit more detail, but he's not doing well. But we've got no time to dwell on
that because two new Kaiju have appeared and Herc can't pilot
Striker with a broken arm. Meanwhile, there's a whole
really silly sequence with Newt and Hannibal Chau trying
to get the brain out of Otachi. Turns out Otachi was pregnant and the
half-formed baby Otachi literally rips out of the stomach of Mama Otachi and goes
rampaging around and EATS HANNIBAL CHAU! BYE BYE, RON PERLMAN, I guess, but the baby has a brain that Newt
can Drift with and Hermann gets sent out to help him and we get one of
my favorite scenes in the movie. So Newt explains he's busy
and going to Drift again and the two bicker a bunch until
Hermann finally just says, 'Fuck it. I guess I'm going to do this with you.' [Hermann] "That's what the Jaegers
pilots do...sh-share the neural load." But honestly, this bit when Newton's says, [Newt] "You would do that for me
or you would do that with me?" It's so awkward and sincere as Hermann fucking short-circuits and suddenly doesn't understand how to do a handshake or a
high-five or God knows what. [Hermann] "By Jove, we are going
to own this thing for sure!!" Fucking fantastic. At the Shatterdome, the plan
is for Pentecost to pilot Striker Eureka with Chuck because he's so
much of a badass, he can Drift with anybody. Only Mako, Raleigh, and maybe Herc understand
that this might be a suicide mission. And q get another really sweet
father-daughter moment here. [Stacker] "I'm so lucky to have seen you grow." "If I'm going to do this
I need you to protect me." Then Stacker gives the cool speech. [Stacker] "Today we are
cancelling the apocalypse!" And as he heads out with Chuck, Herc tries to say goodbye to his son. [Chuck] "You don't need to...I
know 'em all. I always have." And he tells Stacker. [Herc] "That's my son you got there...My son." Anyway, I'm sad. So the plan is they're going
to throw a nuke in The Breach, but Hermann and Newt realize thanks
to that second Drift that like... the bomb needs to go down with a Kaiju
otherwise The Breach will just shut it out. So we get another long monster
robot fight, underwater this time. A third Kaiju shows up, which Hermann had predicted, by the way, and like, [Hermann] "Oh god, I was right." Poor boy did not want to be right today. Oh, man! Anyway, this fight is really
long and at some point, we realize Stacker and Chuck
aren't going to make it. [Stacker] "We could clear a path for the lady." So Chuck and Stacker die, and hey, I'm sad again. [Stacker] "You can always find me in a Drift." Lady Danger is also really
messed up from the fight. Mako's not getting enough oxygen or something, so basically as Lady Danger bear hugs this last Kaiju to death and
rides her down The Breach, Raleigh jettisons Mako in an escape pod. [Raleigh] "All I have to do is fall." "Anyone can fall." I know I didn't mention this earlier, but Lady Danger runs on nuclear power
and can be a makeshift explosive, so they're just going to
blow her up in The Breach. This takes a while and
Raleigh's got to do it manually and he's running out of
oxygen and it's a whole thing. Eventually, he does manage to set Lady Danger self-destruct and
get into the last escape pod. [Explosion] From here we get this final
scene of Mako waking up in her escape pod alone in the
ocean and looking for Raleigh. Initially, it looks like he might not have
made it and Mako hugs him and cries, and then, [Raleigh] "You're squeezing me too tight." They hug it out and it's great. Back at the Shatterdome, everybody celebrates not dying. [Herc] "The Breach is sealed. Stop the clock." [Cheering] Newt and Hermann get this really cute moment
and Hercules Hansen makes me really sad. The movie ends on this gorgeous shot, and that's the film. Also, if you sit there some of the credits, Del Toro fully admits that
they just couldn't bear to kill off Hannibal Chau because
they liked him too much. So in a mid credit scene, he cuts his way out of Baby
Otachi's stomach and yells. [Hannibal] "Where's my God damn shoe?" We will never get an answer to that. So let's talk about what happened between
Pacific Rim and Pacific Rim Uprising. So a lot Happened between the release of the first Pacific Rim in 2013
and the sequel, Uprising in 2018. First, we have to talk Box office numbers. The first movie costs around $190 million dollars And while it did make back more
than twice the budget globally with a Box office gross of $411 million dollars, only about $100 million was
made domestically in America. It also performed well in China, making $111 million there. But even though it made back
twice its budget in total, Legendary Pictures was not
particularly pleased with the returns. But Del Toro was not in the least but deterred. In July of 2013 when the movie was just released, he spoke with MTV and talked
about his ideas for sequel, where we would see a new iteration of
Lady Danger and Kaiju Jaeger hybrid's. Also Charlie Day said in an interview in August of 2013 that there were plans
for Newton to turn evil in the sequel. But he also said maybe Del
Toro had changed his mind, so have that knowledge. In June of 2014, Del Toro announced he was working
hard on developing the sequel, which he was co-writing with
screenwriters Zak Penn and Travis Beacham. And Legendary announced on social media
that it would be released April 7th, 2017. He also spoke about an animated series based in the Pacific Rim
universe that he was developing. He was looking for writers, talking to Animation Studios, the works. He said it was going to be about
new, mostly younger characters. It was going to be some link between the
events of the first film and his planed Sequel. By October of 2014, he was talking about hopes
for a third film as well. We were getting a lot of news and
Del Toro had a lot of big plans. We also got a poster for that
planned sequel around then. In November of 2014, he said in an interview while
promoting FX's The Strain, that the sequel would take place a few years
after the first in a world free from Kaiju. And he said, He previously stated he had plans
for Raleigh and Mako as well. Also, at some point this movie
got the title 'Maelstrom.' I can't seem to source when
we got that information, I can only tell you when it changed, but we're not there yet. Because in 2015, the problem started. First, there's this Entertainment Weekly
interview with Charlie Hunnam in June of 2015, when he expressed some disappointment with the first film being so
technical and effects heavy. I will say, Hunnam clearly
didn't have major hard feelings. He was in Del Toro's 2017 film, 'Crimson Peak,' but this might be a contributing factor to Stuff. But the real trouble came in
September of 2015 when rumors began to circulate that Pacific
Rim 2 was halted indefinitely. Although Del Toro was adamant in
an Entertainment Weekly interview. He said the delay was only temporary, but he might do another movie in the middle. In October, he was tweeting about wanting to cast Maisie Williams in the sequel
and posting concept art. Now, here's where it gets a little unclear. Steven S. DeKnight, who is probably best known as the creator and show runner for
the star series 'Spartacus,' and the show runner for the first season
of the Netflix 'Daredevil' series, was brought into work on Pacific Rim
2 by Legendary Pictures, I THINK. It sounds like he met with the head of
Legendary before he spoke with Del Toro, but he did speak with Del Toro and
get his blessing on the project. The part that's unclear is how
much of Del Toro, Beacham, and Penn's work was even
seen by DeKnight and his team. It sounds like he brought his own pitch
and ideas to Del Toro and Legendary. Beacham does get a screenwriting credit, but it's a 'based on characters
created by Travis Beacham". So I would guess that the points where the
two concepts crossover is mostly coincidence. What Guillermo said in 2017 on the
subject in an interview with Collider was: He went on to say, So by all accounts, he made his peace with
the franchise moving in a different direction. He gave his blessing and a few
suggestions and went on his merry way. In 2016, we started getting the casting news. John Boyega was cast as Stacker Pentecost's son and also came on to produce the
film which allowed him more creative control, which honestly good for him. Boyega is such an incredible actor. He's got such presence in every film
and he's always delivering 100 percent. His character would eventually be so
shafted in the Star Wars franchise. I genuinely think it's great that he used his financial success to create
better career opportunities. But unfortunately, Charlie Hunnam was busy filming 'Papillon' and
wouldn't return for the sequel. Again, it's possible he just
wasn't that interested in being in another big-budget sci-fi thing
but that is speculation on my part. Now, the movie did bring
back Rinko Kikuchi along with Charlie Day and Burn Gorman and added
new cast members like Scott Eastwood, Adria Arjona, Jing Tian and Cailee Spaeny. But it's clear the script changed
quite a lot in this period of time and the title changed
from Maelstrom to Uprising. At one point, there were scheduling
concerns with Charlie Day and it sounds like they were coming up with some buck
wild ideas to try and make that work. Although DeKnight was adamant about
wanting Newt and Hermann in the sequel. Basically, with the change in Director, the change-ups in casting and so
on, Uprising had a lot of rewrites. DeKnight is one of four credited writers on
the screenplay along with Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder, and T.S Nowlin. But before we can delve further into all of that, I got to talk about some fanfiction. Look. Listen. Okay, LISTEN. I wasn't going to make
a video about Pacific Rim for a really long time. I was just going to reference it
constantly and annoy my friends and family while I never move on from
a stupid robot monster franchise. But I referenced it enough times in videos that people recognized me for the Kaiju
groupie I am and asked for this video and that means you have to listen to
me talk about fanfiction. I'm sorry. This is where we are now. Please go with me on this. It is inextricably tied to my
experience of this franchise. First for some background, 'Designations
Congruent with Things' was a 253,887 word fanfiction written by an
author under the username Cleanwhiteroom. I am going to be using they/them
pronouns for Cleanwhiteroom colloquially known as CWR because in retrospect, I don't recall a clear statement
that the author was a woman. But I will refer to their
cohort Elementals as she/her since I'm pretty sure that's
how she referred to herself? This might be wrong, but I'm doing my best. Most of their stuff is now deleted and only mildly accessible through
internet archives. So...I tried. But anyways, 'Designations Congruent
with Things' had its first chapter published on the Archive Of Our Own in August of 2013 with the final 28th chapter
being published in April of 2014. This was not Cleanwhiteroom's first magnum opus, they had another lengthy 70
plus chapter fanfic called 'Force Over Distance' based on Stargate Universe. I did read it. It was pretty wild. It touched on similar themes of struggles
with identity and personhood and science. It focused on the romantic and
extremely troubled relationship between Colonel Everett Young and Dr.
Nicholas Rush from Stargate Universe. They had other works related
to 'Force Over Distance' like the Stargate fanfic 'Mathématique' which was
never finished and other assorted one shots. 'Designations' was it's own thing though. And well, there was nothing quite like it. This 253,887 word fanfic was dense in a way that at times verge on either post-modern
or unreadable depending on your mileage. With paragraphs that could run over a page long, it's been backed up in
various places online and it's probably not something I can freely
recommend for reasons I'll get into. But it did 100 percent influence me as a writer and definitely taught me a
lot of words I didn't know before. There was a lot of Googling involved when reading this fic because I am not an academic and I don't know words like Lambent,
Vasovagal, Asymptote, Chiral, Eigenstates, Catenaries, Teleology,
Epexegesis, Recondite, Idiolect, Perspicacious, Ischemia, Heterochthonous,
Philippic, Onanistic, or Epistaxis. Just to name a few. Here is an actual piece of dialogue delivered
by Newton Geiszler in this fanfiction. And you have to trust me, that was pretty standard. It was 28 chapters of two dudes with massive vocabularies who are
very bad at communicating, dealing with psychological trauma, they're as yet unsaid feelings for one another and a lot of disassociation,
hallucinations, panic attacks, and some instances of what might be considered
self-harm and other altered mental states. Also, I need you to understand
that at several points, Newton asks Hermann to be his life
partner because he's worried about becoming a mad scientist of the Spiderman
variety without Hermann in his life, just like log that knowledge away for later. While CWR was by all accounts, a fairly big name and fandom at the time with quite a lot of people obsessed over their work. It gets weirder when we remember
they basically had a PR person? Yes, I'm serious. Elementals labeled herself a fandom assistant
and was often the person one contacted if, for instance, you had
feedback on the fic or wanted to post a piece of fan art
to Cleanwhiteroom's website. I know that sounds weird, but it was 2014 and we didn't question it. At one point Elementals was pestering
other popular fanfic authors in the Pacific Rim fandom on CWRs behalf for Reasons? A lot of this has been chronicled at
length by tumblr user Irisbleufic. I have the link to their post in the description. But basically when some people tried to bring up some critiques with designations
in the comment section on AO3, it was often Elementals who
would respond and there were reasonable critiques to be heard
because as previously mentioned, there were some very intense
descriptions of altered mental states. In Chapter 17, the opening authors note says, "I'd like to warn for psychological tough times. In my opinion, there's nothing worse than
this chapter than in the rest of the fic." Chapter 17 features Newton on day 4 of an insomnia bout, hallucinating with
voices in his head, disassociating, having panic attacks, and a very
intense conversation with Hermann where Hermann accidentally mentally
goes kaiju for a second? I don't know how to describe it, but I think psychological tough
times might be under-selling this. I'm saying there were problems and
if you're unfamiliar with fanfiction, it's generally considered good form
to at least try to be clear and specific if you need to put content
warnings on specific chapters, or if somebody goes, 'Hey, I think you
should put content warnings for this thing,' you go, 'Okay,' and add those content warnings. It's very easy to do. From what I can gather, there are people who found
this fanfiction genuinely traumatizing to read for all
the previously stated reasons. When said reasonable criticisms were brought up, it SOUNDS LIKE the responses
from CWR or Elementals ranged from weird and unhelpful at best
to outright root and dismissive at worst. Again, I'm mostly going off secondary accounts since these comments sections
are now erased from the Internet. But while the atmosphere was by no means a utopia, the fans of Designations trucked along
creating stunning amounts of fan works for it, including a literal band based on the
band Newton Geiszler had in the fanfic. It was called The Superconducting Supercolliders. In real life the band was a collaboration
between CWR who wrote lyrics, Elementals did some sound mixing, and Allison Stock along with
Tumblr user Friend King Music, wrote melodies and performed the songs. They created four album's worth of
work and it's genuinely good stuff. The song that's playing, --I'm going to butcher this, I'm so sorry-- 'En Regle and out,' is a particular favorite. Elementals also recorded all
the fanfics in audio book form, otherwise known as the podfic. I believe she was the one who collated
a lot of people's fanworks onto a single website for all of Cleanwhiteroom's stuff. In December of 2014, they created a prequel
radio play called 'The Blue Guitar,' which made me cry about Caitlin Lightcap, a minor character in the Pacific Rim mythos. And then around November of 2015, Cleanwhiteroom and Elementals deleted everything, all the fanfiction, the entire
website, with all the fanworks, gone. Several of the artists who had closely collaborated with them were left
in the lurch with no explanation. In retrospect, it's such a
strange chapter in fandom history, and yet I still enjoy reading Designations. I still enjoy a lot of the beautiful fanart people created and I still like the
Superconducting Supercolliders music. And to be clear, this was just the
corner of the Internet I was in. There were loads of other
fan fictions and other artists and fans who were creating
beautiful art with minimal drama. I read loads of other wonderful fanfiction like
Bluestar's 'From Out of the Ocean Risen' series and most of my experiences
in the fandom were positive. I just find this to be a curious chapter with a particularly salient detail
that I will bring up in a bit. And that was going to be the end of this chapter, but then THE STRANGEST THING HAPPENED. While I was editing this
video and just screencapping some websites so you-all had something
to look at while I talked about this, I discovered Cleanwhiteroom's 2021 finale for 'Designations Congruent with Things,'
'Aftermath.' Yeah, I wasn't expecting that either. As far as I can tell, these websites are still a work in progress. I have no idea if they intend to fully revive their Internet presence or just put this up on their website and let the
world find it organically. But I read the follow-up and I liked it? It has a lot of the same stylistic
tendencies as Designations although now CWR has discovered the
miracle that is paragraph breaks. I'm not a fan of how everybody seems to worship Newt as some kind
of miracle tortured genius. Also, Newt has lung problems now, which is new, and one of his main grad students is named Jake, which does seem like a very purposeful
fuck you to Uprising that gave me pause. I don't really know what else to say about it. If you liked Designations, go read it and if you hated Designations or anything about
my description has put you off, then don't read it. But that happened and I had to tell
you that happened because it's WILD. And now...with all of that said, let's talk about Pacific Rim Uprising. As I go into discussing the sequel, let me make a few things clear. I actually like this movie. I've willingly re-watched it, but I
think it has some pacing problems, some tone problems, and one major story
decision that I just think was really bad. But at the same time, how can I say this in a way so that it'll
be taken in the spirit it was intended? If 'Jupiter Ascending' is
a queer camp masterpiece, then Pacific Rim Uprising is the
gayest straight film I've ever seen. I will now make my case with
the following bullet points: Jake in a bathrobe making an ice cream
Sunday in the middle of the night. This line: [Jake] "You remember our old move?"
[Nate] "Hell yeah." This line from the deleted scenes. [Nate] "I stayed, you left, remember?" [Jake] "It's not that simple. Liwen Shao wearing a power suit, this scene. [Vik] "Bigger is better." The fact that Nate automatically knows Jake's looking for ice cream
in the middle of the night. [Nate] "Ice-cream's up-top. Yes. This scene. [Hermann] "I'd hug you if I didn't have a
rule about public displays of affection." [Newt] "It's fine." [Hermann] "Oh just--"
[Newt] "Okay!" "Alright, are you done groping me? Let's
take care of the drones right? Right." Charlie Day's entire press tour
for this movie where he took every available opportunity to tell
people that Newt and Hermann are in love. [Charlie Day singing] "Herman and Neeeewt" "They're such a hooot" "They don't like each other
but they love each otheeeer..." "And uh...he misses the man
that he's in love with." "They have a real love for each other." "Our intense sexual chemistry." [Burn Gorman] "It's unbridled." [Charlie Day] "Then they have sex by the way."
[Burn laughing] Liwen Shao, covered in grease, piloting Scrapper. All the times Jake called Nate
pretty, handsome, and sexy. [Jake] "It was between your
pretty face and prison," "I choose your pretty face." [Jake doing an American accent to imitate Nate]
"Get out of my Jaeger. I'm handsome and sexy." "He is handsome, he is sexy." And to my immense surprise, Steven S. DeKnight's entire
Twitter feed after the release of this movie and also this bit in
the behind-the-scenes featurette. [Steven DeKnight] "It is a love story.
You two used to be really close," "you've come apart, and now you're trying
to figure out how to come back together." I don't know how to make this any clearer. This movie is extremely gay and I love it. I can't make the argument
that it's a perfect movie but I can say it's a movie that I deeply enjoy. Also, THIS BOUNCY ROBOT GO
BOING BOING AND I LOVE HER. So...with all that in mind, let's get into it. Uprising begins in a way that I can
only describe as a bit of a tone salad. We get flashbacks from the first film while
John Boyega's character, Jake Pentecost, gives us a refresher on the whole war with
the Kaiju and we built giant robots, etc. Then we learn Jake is actually
not in the Jaeger program anymore. He's living on the outskirts, making his way in the criminal underworld
and there's like...weird product placemen? [Jake] "You have to hustle. Somebody else might eat your breakfast,
and your cookies, and your damn hot sauce." It's really wild. But the movie gets underway after
a deal for old Jaeger parts goes sideways and Jake meets the young
Amara Namani played by Cailee Spaeny. [Jake] "How old are you?" [Amara] "Old enough to kick your ass."
[Jake] "Ah-ah-ah." And he meets Scrapper, the
robot she built from junk who, I cannot emphasize this enough, makes me very happy in every scene she's in. Scrapper is the best robot. I love the way they pilot her. Just a big fan of this bouncy gal. We get a very fun scene of Jake and Amara
trying to evade the authorities in Scrapper. [Amara] "Hang on."
[Jake] "I am hanging on." [Amara] "Hang tighter." [Robot whooshy sounds] [November Ajax] "Seriously?" And by the way, Scrapper can
be solo piloted because she's very small and the whole scene is fun and, dare I say it, scrappy? [Canned Laughter] But the pair eventually get caught and
thrown in jail and John Boyega was given several opportunities to
improvise a little bit like this argument with Amara and I
think he's really funny here. [Jake] "Your top lip and your bottom lip," "they need to meet and become friends."
[Amara] "Smart." We also learn that Amara built Scrapper because she believes the Kaiju are
going to come back and... [Amara] "When they do, I'm not going to be stuck
waiting for someone else to come save my ass." "Not like before." Then Jake gets a call from his adopted big
sister Mako and I will pause and state here, yes, the conceit that Stacker had an entire son we never heard
about is silly like this scene. [Stacker] "You can always find me in the Drift." It's very funny in retrospect because
not a word about his son, not one? You have to roll with this. It's Tuesday, don't worry about it.
[Ding] But I actually really like
Mako and Jake's dynamic. [Mako] "This is serious." [Jake] "Okay. That's why I need my big
sis, to help me get the hell out of here." Basically, Jake is hoping she
can get him out of trouble, which I guess she's been doing for some time. She says the only way out is to reenlist in the Jaeger Program
to teach some new recruits, including the kid he just 'recruited,' Amara. They end up at the Moyulan Shatterdome in China, where we meet Jake's ex-boyfriend, Nate. [Jake] "How're you doing, Nate?" [Nate] "It's Ranger Lambert." [Jake] "Are you having a laugh?" And Amara learns that Jake is
the son of Stacker Pentecost. [Amara] "Did that haircut
just call you Pentecost?" "Pilot of Coyote Tango," "hero of basically the whole world?" [Jake] "It's just a name." [Amara] "Yeah, a really cool name." Also, if Newton Geiszler was a
Kaiju groupie in the first movie, Amara is apparently a Jaeger groupie. [Amara] "Oh, my God. That is Valor Omega." "That's Titan Redeemer and Bracer Phoenix." "Saber Athena? I love Saber Athena!" It's cute, I like that she's nerdy. So Amara gets put with the
other Jaeger cadets in training. There's a few notable characters like
Ivanna Sakhno's Viktoriya Malikova, the Russian cadet known as Vik who failed the entrance exam three
times and doesn't like Amara. [Vik] "Moyulan is for pilots." [Amara] "Yeah, what's her problem?" And Jinhai Ou-Yang, played by Wesley Wong who welcomes Amara and offers
to teach her some Russian. I'll teach you some. It calms her down. FASCINATING And I'm just going to say here, while I like the cadets, there's so many of them and they're all
wearing blue, black, and gray clothing, mostly military-looking stuff or they
all wear these green Jaeger pilot suits. In the first movie, they did a lot with the visuals to
make sure their big cast was memorable. But here, everybody matches and we don't get enough time with them to even learn their names. And this is terrible but if you go read the ridiculous fanfic I wrote to feel
better about the end of this movie, I legit forgot that a bunch of them
survived to the end of the movie. I just think the cadets
needed more screen time and maybe they could not be wearing
these matching uniforms. In a TV show, you could get away with this because there would be more time to
get to know this big cast, but in a movie, you've got to be careful
about how you use that limited real estate. I remember Vik, Jinhai, and Suresh; I had to look up all the other
character's names while writing this. And then, we get a scene where Jake Pentecost is roaming around the kitchen
late at night in a bathrobe, making an ice cream sundae, and drinking a beer with Nate. They really do read like ex-boyfriends
and neither of them are over it. [Nate] "How many damn toppings do you need?" [Jake] "Leave my toppings be, man." "Don't mess with my damn toppings." But the big headline is Liwen Shao from Shao Industries is coming tomorrow
to show off her new drone Jaegers, which could shut down the
Jaeger Program as they know it. Jake says that it sounds cool because
he doesn't want to be here anyway. [Nate] "You and I both know
you could have been great." So then, we get to meet
resident bad-ass Liwen Shao. She's a businesswoman who's
made it her life's work to build these Drone Jaegers to reduce the
loss of life in piloting the Jaegers. She's also a stern and arrogant, and a great character. I love this running gag where Newton is bad at speaking Mandarin and
she's just, like, 'fuck you.' She is intended to be a minor
antagonist and I like her! So Liwen makes her pitch for the
Jaeger Drones and it's down to Mako Mori to approve them because
she's a general now or something. Jake and Mako get this great
scene where Jake is just reiterating that he doesn't really care
about the fate of the Jaeger Program, but he wants to be there
to back up his big sister. [Jake] "I tell you what, I'm going
to go with you for moral support." It's great. I'm a fan. Mako says he can co-pilot Lady Avenger with Nate. Jake says this line, [Jake] ''He is handsome. He is sexy''. Also, we get this little
scene with Hermann and Newt, where Hermann is really
excited to see his boyfriend, but it's clear they're estranged. Newt is weird and distant with him, but he does invite Hermann
over for dinner to meet Alice. Hermann says he still has nightmares
from what they saw when they Drifted with that Kaiju and Newt is
just, like, 'Yeah, but...' [Newt] "It was a hell of a rush, wasn't it?" So everybody goes to this
PPDC council event in Sydney, Australia and this rogue Jaeger
strolls out of the ocean and causes absolute havoc and Mako Mori dies because she just happened to be
in a helicopter at a bad time. So uuuh...let's talk about that. So I like Pacific Rim Uprising. It's a movie that I have fun watching, but there is one Huge
Mako Mori-sized problem with the movie, and that is her death. I cannot stress this enough. Mako Mori deserved better. When I wrote fan fiction after seeing this movie, I wrote an entire chapter
of Mako Mori's ghost being, like, 'I did not deserve this
shit,' because she doesn't! On Twitter, Steven DeKnight had this to say. "No matter what the gender,
race, sexual orientation, etc." "Killing a main character must be
approached with careful consideration." "In regards to Mako, the concept of how her
story unfolds was purely my suggestion." "I own that completely. To
me at the end of the day," "all other concerns must be set
aside in service of the story." "For example, at one point," "Mako wasn't even in the movie." "Instead, Herc was the one in the
helicopter playing the Mako role and his fate was exactly the same." "Now that's not to say I'm happy
with the way everything turned out." "The original concept was much
more involved and emotional." "There were more scenes with Mako and
much, much more was made of her death." "For example, there was a piece on
the catwalk with Jake where Mako" "explains what happened to Raleigh
and why she couldn't pilot anymore," "that's the reason you don't see her in a Jaeger," "but this was cut out of the
movie, so it's not clear." Now, there's a lot to unpack here
because it does sound like they were better choices for handling Mako that
were lost like talking about Raleigh, and why she doesn't pilot a Jaeger anymore, but those scenes were cut. Those scenes shouldn't have been cut, but okay. There was once some more justification for
the way Mako was portrayed in the film. In the commentary, DeKnight said that
in an early version of the script, Mako was just in a coma, and Jake was going to Drift with her while she was comatose to learn the next
thing they needed to learn, which I don't love that either, but okay. The point that I think DeKnight
missed really hard on is he says the fate of the character was always
going to be like this regardless of her race, gender, etc., but the problem is
that those things do in fact matter. They really, really matter. How many big-budget mainstream Hollywood projects have a lead character who's a Japanese woman? It's Pacific Rim and I hear
there's Kumiko in 'The Boys.' I haven't watched 'The Boys,' but I've heard about her from friends
and like maybe Katana in 'Suicide Squad.' Although, I think she only
has lines in the extended cut? I mean, we could have had a Japanese woman be the lead on 'Ghost in the Shell'
instead of Scarlett Johansson, but Hollywood likes making stupid choices. Mako Mori was beloved because
she was a well-written, three-dimensional character whose
story could stand on its own, separate from her male co-star. She was so beloved that
people literally came up with a new Bechdel test variant called
the Mako Mori test for her. Now, for some background, the Bechdel test was created as a joke by cartoonist Alison Bechdel with regards
to the treatment of women in media. It was meant to be the lowest possible bar, not the end-all, be-all of feminist critique. The rules are: Again, a low bar, but one that many films don't pass, but there are also films that can be feminist and still not pass the Bechdel test, like Pacific Rim. There are other variants
like 'The Sexy Lamp Test,' or the 'Aila Test' for Indigenous representation, the list goes on. And one test that
sprung up was the Mako Mori test. The rules are: You see, there were a lot of people
around the first Pacific Rim who said it failed as a feminist film because
there was only one woman character, but East Asian women were quick to point
out that Mako gets to be a Japanese woman whose character isn't based in stereotypes and she is one of the main anchors of the film. The Amazing Spider-Xan on Tumblr said, In a conversation with YouTuber Lady Jenevia, she said that she hated how a Japanese
woman was treated as disposable and how the relationship between Mako and Raleigh was a big part of what made the first film sing.
She added: Also, one of my best friends who is Japanese American would just
like everybody to know that, and I quote, You see from a storytelling perspective, I get why Mako's death happens. It makes Jake vulnerable and gives
us the next clue in their story, but that's just narrative utility and
does nothing for Mako's character, even the version where she's in a coma still treats her more like a plot point than a person. If I were to put on my script doctor hat, maybe we could have had a
version of this where Mako gets injured and it's touch and go for a minute, but in the end she just doesn't die. It gives us the vulnerability, but also she could still show up at the
end of the movie and have more scenes. I mean, that's just my take, but I do think this choice is the
weakest part of the entire film. I understand why any viewer was turned
off of Uprising because of Mako's death. Now, there is the caveat
that I accidentally got into a conversation with Steven DeKnight on
Twitter and he answered a few of my questions. If you're watching, thank you,
sir, that was cool of you. But DeKnight said that his plan
for Pacific Rim 3 always involved Mako Mori and it wouldn't be as a ghost or a zombie and she would have
been speaking Japanese. Not sure what that hint means since
she generally spoke Japanese, but okay. So like...it's hard to judge a movie
we may never get based on a few hints. What I will say is that it's very hard to kill
off a character and then walk it back in a way that honors the character and doesn't feel cheap. They have to spend an entire 'Star Trek' movie bringing Spock back that and Gandalf The White, are probably the two instances I
can think of where that worked, but often it just feels like wasted emotional real estate on a cheap
plot point that ends up not mattering, maybe DeKnight's idea would have been great. I can't say I haven't seen
it, but given everything, I still have some reservations and I
think killing off Mako was a bad move. So the rest of Uprising is mostly pretty good if you can get past the fact
that Mako deserved better. I really like John Boyega's performance
in the scenes after Mako's, death. I really like this line with a Amara. [Jake] "She was my sister, my family." But there are still a few issues with
pacing in this chunk of the movie. Like the scene where Newt Drifts with a Kaiju brain he has in a jar in
his home that he's named Alice, and 'I Want To Know What Love
Is' by Foreigner plays and it's tonally the wildest thing you've ever seen. [Newt] "You read my mind."
['I Wanna Know What Love Is' by Foreigner plays] According to the commentary, this scene was actually suggested by Del Toro and also they really debated
keeping it in the movie, and I think they should have kept
debating because I don't like this scene. It's really weird and one of two tonally bizarre moments that involves
a really strange needle drop. But in this bit of the movie, there's also a sweet scene where
Jake tries to give Amara some tips on Drifting and we end up seeing a
flashback of how she lost her parents. I will say I don't love the actual
flashback part of the scene. It's a little too on the nose and
far too similar to Mako's backstory, especially in how it's presented to us like... [Jake] "Amara you need to let it go." "Look, just listen to my voice." [Raleigh] "Mako listen to me." But again, I like Jake and Amara's
brother-sister dynamics. So this. [Jake] "Are you okay?" Is really sweet. After this, we find the McGuffin that Mako was
trying to send out as a helicopter crashed, which sends them to Siberia. I honestly think this section drags, although it does show us that Jake and
Nate are re-establishing their bond. [Jake] "You remember our old move?"
[Nate] "Hell yeah." They find the rogue Jaeger and
it has Kaiju bits inside it. Then Amara convinces a few
of the other cadets to go roaming around that Jaeger
innards which goes badly. Jinhai gets hurt and she gets
kicked out of the program. Again, this part of the movie
just goes on for too long, but Amara and Jake get a really nice scene here. [Jake] "Don't let what other people
think of you define who you are," "you won't like where that takes you." Also, John Boyega got another opportunity
to improvise and he has me in stitches. [Jake] "Seriously, this face...It's
set up well. Beauty is a burden." Once Amara reveals to Jake that the rogue Jaeger was made with
parts from Shao Industries, the movie picks up again. There's this nice scene of Amara
saying goodbye to the other cadets, and there's this line. [Vik] "The next Jaeger you
build, make it a big one." I JUST. [Billy Eichner] "Let's go lesbians,
let's go! Oh my God, lesbians!" "Let's go lesbians, let's go!" And then some of the Shao Industry Jaeger
drones show up at the Shatterdome and they mutate into these Jaeger Kaiju hybrid
things and everything goes to shit. Everybody is just running
around, shits getting blown up, and all of my children are just
out there in the middle of it!! Meanwhile, Hermann goes to
Shao Industries to talk to Newt because he assumes they can
figure out what's going on together. [Hermann] "Help me stop her Newton," "help me save the world like old times." [Newt] "Sorry technically,
you helping me last time?" [Hermann] "Fine, help me help you save the world." The five minutes of Hermann and Newt shenanigans
at Shao Industries is just delightful. The elevator scene? [Hermann] "Take that! You vile individual!"
[Newt laughing manically] Oh my God, I love these two idiots. Also this happens. [Hermann] "Oh just--"
[Newt] "Okay! Alright." It's adorable. I love them. Everything's going just great until Newt is like
hacking into the Jaeger drones and then uuuh [Newt] "I'm ending the world." UH OH SPAGHETTIOS, it was Newt all along!! But yeah, all the Jaeger drones start
like...opening riffs all over the Pacific, and it's like bad news bears. And Hermann tries to reason with Newt. [Hermann] "You are a good man."
[Newt] "No...Hermann." And we start to see that it's
not really Newt in control. [Newt] "Maybe that's why he
did it Hermann--I did it." DeKnight said on Twitter that most of what
we were watching throughout the film was the Precursors controlling Newton with only one or two moments where
the real Newt peeked out. And this scene is just really heartbreaking as Hermann tries to get through
to Newton, and Newt says. [Newt] "HE IS NOT STRONG ENOUGH!" "I'm sorry Hermann, they're in my head." Also DeKnight said in the
commentary that Charlie Day actually cried during the scene and
they CG'd out his tears. I'm going to be bitter about
this until my Dying Day!! He said it was for continuity, but I don't care! Just CG tears
on his face in the other shots!! Anyways, I'm sad forever, but Liwen comes and saves Hermann. She also tries to shoot Newton, but Hermann stops her saying. [Hermann] "It isn't him, it's the Precursors. They must have infected his mind
when we Drifted with the Kaiju--" [Liwen] "SHUT UP!" So Newt gets away and I'm sad, but Liwen and Hermann are working
together and they disable the drones. And I really like this turn from Liwen, she's shown to be extremely pragmatic
and driven when it comes to her business, which made her a good red herring
for the whole villain twist. But in actuality, this is just her
life's work and she cares a lot about it. I just think she's a really
interesting, morally gray character. I know she doesn't get a lot to do, and I know some people are frustrated that
Newt's villainy makes her look like a fool, but I don't know, I think it
all adds up to a cool character. Liwen Shao should be running the shatter
dome in Pacific Rim 3, just saying. So they shut down the drones
and all the Rifts close but whoops three Kaijus did get through. Unfortunately, the Shatterdome
has been pretty decimated, And so they need to scrape together what
they can into some functional Jaegers. So Jake asks Amara to help with the repairs. [Amara] "I thought I was kicked out." [Jake] "Kicking you back in. She's pretty good at
turning junk into Jaegers. You good with that?" [Nate] "Hell yeah." And also he calls her "Smallie", which is an adorable nickname. So we get a fun montage of
them fixing up the Jaegers. I'm not sure how much I love this effect, but we're having fun now. We even get a little bit of that good
ol' Pacific Rim theme and it's great. And since a lot of people got
killed in that last attack, it's up to the cadets to pilot all these Jaegers. We also learn that all the kaiju were
heading for Mount Fuji because, I don't know, something about interacting with rare earth
elements makes big world ending explosion. It doesn't really matter and it's a
little silly when you think that nobody noticed during all those previous Kaiju attacks that everybody was apparently
always going to Mount Fuji. But whatever, we are in deep Tuesday territory.
[Ding] So we've got our mission now. They're going to stop the Kaiju
before they reach Mount Fuji, Jake gives a great speech. [Jake] "This is our time! This is
our chance to make a difference!" And we're off to the races. Although we do on the way there get
the other weirdest needle drop ever. [The 'Trololo' Song plays] [Suresh] "What the hell?" [Ilya] "Keeps me calm." [Suresh] "What about me?" It's really weird and a tonal break at this point in the movie when we're more
supposed to be getting really amped up. But from there, it's just time
for the big monster robot fight. It's goofy and a pretty good time, although it is wild that this movie
is just about child soldiers and a couple of them die pretty
violently on screen, that's wild. Precursor Newt comes out like a mad scientist
conductor to further orchestrate the fight. [Newt] "Get up from that you pile of junk!" At one point, the three Kaiju mutate
together into one Mega Kaiju and Jake and Amara end up being the pair that pilots Lady Avenger to stop it
because Nate's too injured. There is a buck wild bit
where Scrapper, my best girl! comes back to like...solder
a rocket onto Lady Avenger's big robot hand!! so they can just like jet to
Mount Fuji in time to stop the mega Kaiju!! It's ridiculous and incredible. Liwen Shao is like remote piloting
Scrapper while covered in grease. I love this a lot. And in the midst of all this madness, where like Lady Avenger's going to take a big fall on the Mega Kaiju and probably
just explode on impact. But there's only one escape pod left in the robot. So Amara has to sort of...free
fall and trust Jake to catch her, then the escape pod won't work and they
just kinda hug each other and go like, Well, we had a good run. [Amara] "Your dad would be proud." Holy shit. Like I know everything around
this scene is ridiculous, but I teared up at this bit, then my best girl still
piloted by Liwen is able to cut them out of Lady Avenger and get far
enough away so they don't explode and it works! They live! The Kaiju gets
blown up enough that it DIES. They do trick you for a second into thinking
it's still kicking but nah it's dead! Then Amara and Jake, relieved to still be alive, just goof around and throw snowballs
and that's the end of the movie. [Amara] "Is this the part
where you're going to give me one of those big dumb speeches because I--" [Jake] "--Did everyone think it was
dumb or is that just your opinion." [Amara] "It was--just be honest. How many
times did you practice in front of the mirror?" [Jake] "It was more motivation."
[Amara] "Okay." There's one final stinger scene to set up
a third installment where Newt fully under Precursor control is like villain monologuing
in this dungeon and Jake shows up to say. [Jake] "Tell them next time, they won't
need to worry about coming for us because we're going to come for them." And uh...that's the end. And I walked out of the theater after seeing this movie and immediately
called my sister and screamed, CLEANWHITEROOM WAS RIGHT! Because you know without Hermann as his life partner Newt became an evil
mad scientist and like--- [Heavy Sigh] Okay let's talk about Pacific Rim: The Black. I'm going to spend the least amount of
time on the anime because I'll be honest, it did nothing for me. If you love the anime and hated Uprising, I'm very sorry, maybe skip ahead five-minutes. The most interesting element to the enemy
introduces is that the Jaegers now have individual AI's and names and personalities?
Loa the AI of the main jaeger, voiced by Erica Lundbeck, is the best character in the show. [Loa] "Of course." [Kaiju roaring] [Loa] "Babysitting is not
a programmable skill set." The two actual main characters, Hayley and Taylor, are pretty dull. The little boy they find intentionally has no personality because he's wrapped
up in some end season twists. I like Mei, played by Victoria Grace, who was Yara in 'The Last of Us Part 2.' But honestly, this series was
just so flawed in my opinion. So first I have to address the animation. Legendary Television hired Japanese studio
Polygon Pictures to animate it and...okay. First off, I'm not a huge fan
of this 2D/3D style at baseline, but 'Dragon Prince' is fine and
this style can be done well. But these shots where it looks like
the character animation is at like 5 frames per second while
the digitally animated Kaiju, move at a fully smooth 24 frames, or the terrible liquid animation. This shot in particular uhhh...sent me to hell. And let me be clear, I don't want to blame Polygon Pictures
for the quality of the animation based on Legendary's consistently trying to
cut costs when it comes to this franchise, I would be willing to bet they did not give the animation studio enough time, money, or both. I say this because I looked up a few
other projects the studio made and like, hey, these looked pretty
cool and not like total ass! In terms of the actual plot we
follow two teens Hayley and Tailor. Their parents were Jaeger pilots and they plop this bus full of children in this
little crop of wilderness they found, and then they left them there and never returned. Then one day, several years later, Hayley find some hidden training facility for jaeger pilots with a whole jaeger and
she's pumped to...turn it on and it sets off a siren which attracts a Kaiju
that shows up and massacres all of their friends and we
get to see their dead bodies! Are we having fun yet!? From there the two teens take this jaeger and go to try and find their parents or something. They spend a lot of the season
fighting this one, Kaiju, they meet Mei who has a dark and tragic
backstory and this asshole named Shane. Also, they meet a boy in
a tube. They call him Boy. [Hayley] "This is my brother." [Taylor] "Taylor." [Mei] "and him?" [Taylor with utmost confidence] "Boy." This is probably one of my favorite
details in the entire series. One of my biggest issues with the series in its first season is that Pacific Rim is edgy now? Remember when Idris Elba yelled? [Stacker] "Today we are
cancelling the apocalypse!" Well, I guess that didn't work out because
this series is set in the post apocalypse. Gone is the relentless optimism
of the world saving the world. Most characters are just out for their own ends. A lot of Season 1 revolves around Shane who
is just the worst and all of his people, aside from Mei and this guy, Joel, are all assholes. Pacific Rim and Uprising both at least managed to capture that this is a fun, silly concept. We're here to have fun. The Black did not get the memo. That dude, Joel, he gets his head
blown up by shithead Shane. Now it's possible this show could find its footing and it's been renewed
for a second season apparently. I don't want to disrespect the
people who worked on the show, but I feel like it completely misses the
spirit of what makes a Pacific Rim work. It reads like an attempt by Legendary Pictures to cheaply
profit on the IP they happen to own. I do find it fascinating to
look at these three pieces together because with every
iteration we've gotten further and further from that humanistic
and not militaristic love letter to Japanese media by a Mexican director. I'll be the first to say Uprising isn't perfect. It's got some tone problems
and the ending is a bit abrupt. And also Mako Mori deserved better. If I were to try and summarize the
difference in Del Toro and DeKnight's styles, I would point to this shot. Did you miss it? I'll roll it back.
[Rewinding sounds] So in the commentary, DeKnight
points out that in that scene, the character Kang says, "The building is secure" and they are extras just walking in and out the
front door of the building. [DeKnight] "I was so intent on the foreground, I didn't notice the background." "The building is perhaps a LITTLE less than secure." Del Toro's obsession with every element of a scene wouldn't have left
room for this kind of a gaffe. But it's a small thing that DeKnight
noticed after the fact and found humor in. His style is a lot looser, focusing on big, goofy action set pieces more than
like...symbolism and scene composition. But I think there's enough interesting stuff going on in Uprising that I still have fun watching it. And I do think a Pacific Rim should be fun. I think that's a lot of
worthy anime missed since I have a really hard time laughing
at these teenagers having a little dance party because
I'm still thinking about their friend who got his head
blown up like an episode ago. I think any piece of Pacific
Rim media should have a big, vibrant cast of characters. Did you notice, I didn't mention Andrea or
Jonas character Jules Reyes' once in my recap? That's because her entire personality is, she works at the PPDC, is hot, and keeps interacting and potentially
romantic ways with Jake and Nate. But come on, we all know
where the REAL romance is. [Jake] "...well that's confusing." This is not in any way the fault of the actress. I really liked Adria Arjona
as Anathema Device in 'Good Omens.' The character is just very underwritten. I personally ship her with
Liwen Shao because like...why not? But there are still a lot of new characters
in Uprising I liked! Jake, Amara, Vik, Jinhai, Liwen, and even Nathan Lambert
is interesting and makes an impact. I guess my biggest hot take on the differences
between the first Pacific Rim and Uprising is like...people have a lot of opinions about Uprising having a lot of
robot fights during the day. While other people think the
first movies robot fights were muddled and hard to follow because they
were largely at night and in the rain. But I think both films get a little
same-y in the look of their robot fights. The first Pacific Rim has a fight underwater, but the Jaegers move so laboriously after awhile, I forget this is underwater and Uprising tries with this fight set in Siberia or whatever. I think if by some miracle we get a third movie, it would behoove the director to mix it up. Try more different locations, try different times of day! Can you imagine a big Jaeger fight
set against a beautiful sunrise? Just make the individual fights
more visually distinctive. That's my hot take I guess, but I still want to see DeKnight's Pacific Rim 3! and he's made it
quite clear he's got a concept for it. Although Steven, if you're watching this video, please do not try to make this
a crossover with Godzilla. There's already a lot going
on in this potential sequel. Please throw that in the bin
and focus on character stuff, please. I'm begging you. Like I don't know if there's a
script but DeKnight's got those Mako Mori plans and also
said shit like this on Twitter. I don't care if it's perfect. I just want it! I know I'm a terrible Queer at this point, but DeKnight's made it pretty clear. He ships Newton Hermann and the
studio will not let him depict that, They'll blame China, But that's just lazy. Nobody wants to rock the boat
and the studios are cowards, so just like...just this once...queercode the
shit out of it. I don't care! Just let Hermann give Newt a little kiss
on the forehead. That's not gay right?? Bring Mako back from the dead. It turns out she was fireproof
the entire time. Fuck it! Bring back Charlie Hunnam so Raleigh and Mako can snuggle some more and let
Jake and Nate go on a DATE, a dinner date...between colleagues. There's actually so much in the behind
the scenes of Uprising that fascinates me. The amount actors were allowed to improvise, leading to some of my
favorite scenes in the movie, the amount of time the young cast spent together building up back stories for their
characters and genuinely bonding. Look at this clip of Cailee Spaeny, giving a speech at the end of filming. [Cailee Spaeny] "Thank you." The studios might be full of shit, but there was genuine investment
in trying to tell the story. It seems everybody was really here for it. But the reality is at this
stage, it's very unlikely. We'll get that third film. Not impossible, but unlikely. Pacific Rim Uprising costs
about 150 million to make, about 40 million less than the first film. Just like the first one, it made back roughly double its
budget with a total of $290 million. This one made about a-third of its money in China. But despite what is ostensibly
a financial success, this movie was labeled a box-office failure. You see in the minds of executives, any movie that isn't making billions of dollars is a financial failure because Hollywood
executives only care about money. They do not care about art. They do not care about the fans. All the people who feel the need to pit
Marvel and DC films against each other, don't seem to understand that Marvel and DC are a million dollar corporations
that don't give a shit about you. They give a shit about making money. Capitalism sucks and it's also the
reason we're going to be getting shitty live action Disney remakes until
the Earth crumbled into dust. With Pacific Rim, I'm assuming legendary didn't want to spend the money
to produce a decent third films. Instead, they just produced a cheaply
made anime and tried to profit further off this property with very
little investment on their part. When greedy studios do their usual thing, as is so often the case, we turn to fandom. I know I told that whole weird story earlier, but that was just one little piece
of something huge and sprawling. Like Phantom's weird. It's always been weird. It will always be weird. It's full of jaded 12-year-olds and painfully earnest 20 somethings and everything in-between. But Phantom is also full of so
much creativity and imagination. I've met so many wonderful
people through Pacific Rim. I spent time writing about it and drawing
the characters and crocheting them even. Look, life is hard sometimes, and Pacific Rim got me through
some tough times with it's goofy earnestness and with its story of
outcasts coming together to save the world. The world saving the world, as Guillermo once said. To fight monsters, they had to build monsters, and to move on from grief, they had to learn to trust as apocalyptic
and silly as the story looks on the outside. This is a story about persevering
in the face of incredible odds. It's a story about hope, as Tennyson wrote in his poem, Ulysses, At the end of the day, this is a story about people coming together in the face of impossible odds to
work towards a better future. and...in the end, isn't that what we all want? So if you want to do some world
saving the world type stuff, I have links in the description to a few
environmental causes that could use some support. In less serious things, if you know me or are familiar
with my poetry predilections, you'll know I've been obsessed with Ulysses in
relation to Pacific Rim since 2013 so like... Yeah. I have quoted it before, I will quote it again. Also thank you to all the fan artists who gave me permission to use their art in this video. I have links to all of their
info in the YouTube description, so please look them up. I think that's all for now. Thank you so much for watching
and I'll see you on the next one.
Cool! How long did it take to edit