Spelly Goes to the Movies: PACIFIC RIM

In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Guillermo Del Toro said,

"If you see my movies, I celebrate imperfection. I celebrate us being incomplete. I celebrate the fact that if we want to be complete, we need each other. In every movie I make, that is the prevalent message; the message that fragility is good, imperfection is good. And I think that you learn very little from perfection in life, and you learn so much from imperfection. And monsters are the patron saints of imperfection."

Thirty seconds after watching Pacific Rim, Spelly Scribe* said (out loud, to no one in particular), "That was EXACTLY what I needed it to be. Perfect!"

If you haven't seen it yet, go. You owe it to yourself. Del Toro considers this film his baby. In the same Vanity Fair interview, he says it's a very young film. At 48, he wrote it for himself at 12 years old. He wrote it for young boys and girls, to give them role models who do great things together. That theme of incompletion and imperfection? It’s everywhere, and it’s absolutely beautiful.

Due to the neurological strain on the pilot, a Jaeger (one of the giant killer robots built to fight invading aliens, not a shot you may or may not drop in an energy drink on occasion**) needs two copilots. And not just any copilots. They have to be Drift compatible. They have to be able to coexist in each other’s thoughts, memories, and emotions, in order to drive the Jaeger. To cancel the apocalypse***, our heroes must trust each other implicitly. For Del Toro, there is no Right Man for the Job. There are the Right Men and Women Working Together.

Hey, Raleigh, Mako! Whatch'all doin'?
"Oh, y'know. Bein' besties, savin' the world. The usual."

The two science experts -- Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) and Newton (Charlie Day! Tell me you weren’t super stoked to see Charlie in this, and I’ll tell you you’re a liar) -- are constantly bickering. Gottlieb is all by-the-books and numbers-don’t-lie, while Newton spends his time digging around in Kaiju (alien monster) guts to find his answers. In the end, guess what (no spoilers yet, promise). They need each other... Oh, and it was pretty ridiculously refreshing to see a big, shiny, military action movie where the guys doing the fighting actually respect and listen to the guys in lab coats crunching numbers and dissecting monsters.

If you haven’t seen it, and you’re still not convinced yet, let’s go over this again.

-GIANT KILLER ROBOTS VS. GIANT ALIEN MONSTERS (really? You still need more? Do you have a pulse?)
-It’s by Guillermo Del Toro. Shut up. You know you’re gonna love it.
-Ron Perlman is awesome.
-Friendship is magic (it’s not just for My Little Ponies[tm] anymore!)

So stop reading this right now. Go see the film. When you come back, we’ll talk a little more...

...Okay, so now that you’ve seen it, let’s get down to business (to be read: I'm about to spaz out about this thing, also SPOILERS)...

Can I get a "Hell yeah!!"???

How cool is Ron Perlman? Like, for realz. Only Hell-Boy-the-Black-Market-Alien-Guts-Dealer could survive being eaten by a Kaiju fetus. Right? Right? You love it. You know it. Shut up.

Speaking of Perlman, though, remember that part where he calls Charlie-I-mean-Newton a moron for trying to Drift with the Kaiju brain? And he says that he tried it once and NO GOOD? I wonder why the Kaiju suddenly got smarter about human defenses five years ago... hmmm... But, seriously, I absolutely loved how that wasn’t just spelled out in way too much dialogue. And, to demonstrate why I loved it, here’s how they could’ve done it wrong:

NEWTON: You mean, you’ve tried this?

CHAU (PERLMAN): Yes. Five years ago. Once.
NEWTON: But five years ago was when the kaiju started figuring out our defenses. You’re the reason Raleigh’s brother died! You bastard!... Wait! That means I’m the reason all our other Jaeger pilots just died. Because I just Drifted with the Kaiju. OH NOES!

See? Bad. It’s just so refreshing (and sadly rare) when a screenwriter can trust the audience just a bit... The Kaiju have drifted with humans twice, and both times they got a LOT more dangerous. Cool... But, hey, if you didn’t catch that, it wasn’t that big a deal, and if you did, you get to pat yourself on the back, smirk to yourself, and feel kinda smart, at least for a minute or two. This is good writing, y’all.

Finally, as an audience member of the female variety, I really appreciated how Del Toro wrote Raleigh and Mako’s relationship as a friendship, rather than a love affair. Del Toro actually mentioned this in that interview I quoted earlier. He said he wanted his daughters -- ages 12 and 16 -- to have role models who could be real people, that they could dream of doing anything, not just falling in love with this guy or that guy.

...Oh yeah, and the whole cooperation and collaboration theme reminded me just a little bit of working with Cloudy and Tasky. We all have our own ideas, our own methods and madnesses. And sometimes we get real, real mad. And sometimes we yell at each other. In the end, though, I’m pretty sure we’re Drift Compatible. 

-Spelly

PS

I know I totally left out the ridiculous blond Russians, the basketball triplets, the bulldog, and the Australian kid with daddy issues. Forgive me, and let’s talk about it in the comments :)...

*So I refer to myself in the third person sometimes... What?
**I ain’t judgin’. We’ve all done it.
***Raise your hand if you cheered, or at least got a little misty-eyed, when you heard that line. Don’t lie.