Fuck yeah we are.
In fact, we may even need a bigger blog.
Honestly, I haven't actually been this taken with a film in... I don't even KNOW how long. I've probably been to the cinema about as many times in the past 2 or 3 years as I've seen Pacific Rim.
And I've only been to see it TWICE as I'm writing this.
Yes, I know. Need to get out more. Whatever.
The thing is, as I believe I may have mentioned, the film is actually rather good. And thus it is that even after going for two whole posts talking about it I still find myself thinking of stuff I haven't mentioned yet. So let's get on with it shall we?
I talked before about how the film has a solid grounding in the style, tropes and history of the giant monster genre of film making. But there are still a couple of things I neglected to mention, classic tricks that have been used since the 60s to sell the idea of colossal titans and their city destroying rampages.
The first is one I've actually seen complained about in some places, which I find kinda baffling. One important thing to remember when you're trying to sell your giant monster is to, wherever possible, have it appear at night. This is pretty straightforward stuff, since everything is always scarier in the dark. It adds atmosphere and disguises limitations. Having encounters set in rain and storms has a similar purpose. I'm guessing that those complaining that all the darkness and rain make it difficult to see what's going on were watching the film in 3D, as I certainly didn't find any issues here when I saw it. But in my limited experience 3D does tend to make things darker, and with the amount of stuff happening on the screen I can imagine maybe things might get a bit noisy, visually speaking. I have to admit I would have actually liked to try watching it in 3D, which is almost unheard of for me. That sort of thing normally just gives me eyestrain and a headache. But the visual composition did seem like it would lend itself to the technique, and the film was actually good enough to make the experiment worthwhile. Unfortunately they stopped showing it in that format before I had a chance to. Still, never mind eh?
Shooting your monsters at night also allows for the use of lighting tricks to help sell the size of the monster. This isn't desperately advanced, you just light it mainly from below. Indeed, if there's one basic thing you do when trying to show a giant monster it's shoot it from a low viewpoint. Not exclusively, but a few establishing shots from ankle height, preferably with some scaled detail in the foreground will do wonders for establishing the idea of just how big these things are.
Why do you think there's that fishing boat in the fight between Gipsy Danger and Knifehead? It's not just there to motivate the encounter, but also to give us both a frame of reference and point of view for establishing just how gigantic the Kaiju and Jaegers are. Without that frame of reference it could easily just look like 2 guys fighting in a bathtub or something.
"Rubber ducky, you're the one....." "DON'T SQUEEZE!"
Establishing scale is one of the most important things in any giant monster media, and Pacific Rim is FANTASTIC at this. The film has a tremendous sense of weight and impact. A combination of visuals and sound design, complimented by the fantastic soundtrack really works together to sell the scale of everything.
Oh god, haven't I mentioned the soundtrack before/ The soundtrack is AWESOME. Seriously. After watching the film for the first time, one of the first things I did was hop onto amazon and order the soundtrack. And it's been on heavy rotation ever since. Again, it has this marvelous sense of heavyness to it that works fantastically in the film.
Of course, it's the sheer weight of the film itself that I think is one of the prime limiting factors in expanding into full on franchise territory. Let me explain.
One thing that is undeniable about Pacific Rim, even if you've disagreed with everything else I've said on it so far, is that it's effects budget was FUCKING HUGE. And equally undeniable I think is the fact that a large part of the films appeal is in how that effects budget was spent: awesome high quality giant monster fights. It is rather the central conceit of the film after all. The characters and worldbuilding are all important to, don't get me wrong. But let's not kid ourselves on what the main selling point is.
Now, keeping that in mind let's examine our options. If you're expanding a single story into a franchise you have basically 2 options. You either can go forwards and do a sequel, or backwards and do a prequel. Technically speaking there's also the third option of going sideways and doing other stuff happening in the same timeframe as the original, but that's not really going to be an option here. After all, one of the main plot points is that the Jaegers in the film are the only ones left.
The most obvious option is to do a movie sequel. That's the only way you'd have the budget for a similar scale of spectacle whilst simultaneously being able to retain the main characters. At least the ones that survive.
Guess which popular character I'm referring to here.
In movie terms the choice between sequel and prequel is basically a choice between Mako and Pentecost. And I honestly can't see them ditching the only female character. In terms of plot... well, who knows. There's nothing stopping another Breach being opened up somewhere, aside from the fact it would be a straight up retread of the first film. Not to mention kinda ruining all the struggle and sacrifice of the characters in the first film somewhat pointless. So that's less than ideal. Unless they come up with something really clever. Maybe you could do something with some silly people trying to clone a Kaiju and it going out of control? Giant Monster Wars are always fun to watch.
Now, I'm not really convinced that a prequel would work in terms of a film. But as a series? Totally. Except you'd never get the budget for it. Not if you really wanted to be comparable to the film version. Could you do it on a smaller budget? Probably. Things have come a long way in terms of digital effects. And with a clever combination of practical and digital effects I think you could probably get away with it.
What would be great about doing a series is that you could go right back to the start of the war and follow through different groups of characters. Take the focus away from the main crews in the film and establish some new ones. And the beautiful thing here is that you can create all these cool and interesting characters safe in the knowledge that pretty much all of them are going to DIE. Indeed, the only characters who would be safe to any extent would be those in the support staff (assuming you had the budget to retain the actors from the films) or the crews of Cherno Alpha, Crimson Typhoon and Striker Eureka. Who would probably be confined to the occasional guest appearance. Everyone else is fair game.
Running such a show in the traditional monster of the week format might be overly ambitious. But a monster every 2 or 3 weeks could work. There's enough human drama, intrigue and dodgy dealing in the increasingly distopian world to sustain interest. I mean, let's be honest, if you can't get a few episodes out of the rich and powerful retreating inland whilst the poor are left working to build the coastal walls in return for food then what kind of writer are you?
The main thing such a project would need is careful planning, with a strictly defined running time. No stretching it out. You have a defined point to get to in the final closure of the Jaeger program after all. Pick the points you want to hit along the way and stick to them.
Now, I'm going to honest here. I can't honestly see such a series getting made. High budget, strictly limited run, wholesale slaughter of the main cast and a mounting sense of bleakness due to the whole thing inevitably ending on a big downer? That's kinda risky. But it WOULD be cool.
Of course, you could conceivably do it as an animated series. That would solve a lot of the budgetary issues, both in terms of effects and allowing you to get in cheaper sound a like voice actors if necessary, allowing you to open out the scope a bit. I suppose it would depend on the style and quality of animation involved. Honestly I'm not sure it'd make such a thing any more likely to happen though. Pacific Rim is a western property, and we still haven't really worked out that animation is medium suited for more than just kids shows.
Outside of the televisual media there is of course always the prospect of comics. Indeed, there already exist a prequel graphic novel, Tales From Year Zero.
It's not bad, although it does seem to contradict the film on a couple of points. Interestingly it actually focuses more on the human drama than giant monster fights, which might seem a little odd considering the freedom form budgetary restraints the medium provides. But it does underscore the fact that it's the human drama that provides the framework for the action to actually MATTER. Ultimately though I think suffers slightly from the same problem as most of the Godzilla, Ultraman and other giant monster type comics I've read. They're all pretty cool, but somehow lack the same sense of impact that you get from the originals. Such is the nature of transitioning to different media. I just think such things tend to work better on the screen than the page, generally speaking.
I think that the world of Pacific Rim is one that I'd like to see a bit more of. I think that there's certainly the potential to tell some more stories in it. But I also think that any such stories should be carefully considered and carefully implemented. One of the great strengths of the film is, after all, that a lot of genuine care and attention was put into making it as good as possible. I'd hate for overuse to start detracting from that.
After all, is it not one of the wonders of the modern age that, due to our ease of access to the permanent multimedia record, we no longer NEED for such repetition?
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