[caption id="attachment_2666" align="alignnone" width="497"]
This film doesn't even have good stills! But click the image to enlarge it anyways.[/caption]
Blockbuster movies starring the Pacific Ocean have a poor track record. It's been little more than a year since audiences told Universal Pictures, "We sunk your battleship!" Now comes Pacific Rim, a science fiction, action-adventure film, set to open July 12. The trailers I've watched make it look an awful lot like Transformers, and Battleship, and Cloverfield, all rolled together -- and, did I mention "awful?"
Battleship, at least had the suspense element of how the filmmakers would ever contrive a direct tie-in to the mechanics of the board game, and it had some star power, including Rihanna channelling her inner-guyness. Pacific Rim has a kooky plot, and for the most part, no-name actors. What's it's schtick? Anime! Humans in "plug-suits" who pilot giant robots -- the immortal anime trope known as mecha.
In Pacific Rim, hostile, reptilian aliens rise up from the depths of the Pacific Ocean, and open a big can of whup-ass on the human race. Hope comes in the form of the "Jaeger” program (bet this leads to a maneuver called a "Jaeger shot"), giant fighting robots, each piloted by two humans. As a long-time anime fan, I should be excited, right? The trailers make me wince. I see the Transformers, or perhaps Gundam, versus Godzilla, as filtered through mecha anime tropes in the former, and Cloverfield in the latter.
Hollywood has been pecking, crow-like, at the more exposed bits of anime, for years. The Tinseltown dream machine is used to taking popular raw material from other countries -- remaking, and re-branding, it in the American fashion.Good or bad, the remakes feed the insatiable machine, which is the point. Japanese anime should be an inexhaustible feedstock for Hollywood -- you'd think -- but it hasn't worked out that way, with the dubious exception of the Transformers franchise.
Over the years Hollywood has optioned many of the biggest anime successes for live action remakes; one of the few that skidded all the way to theatres was Speed Racer (2008), written, produced and directed by The Wachowski brothers, of Matrix fame. The live action adaptation of the 1960s Japanese anime series reportedly cost $120,000,000, and crashed big-time at the box office. I liked it a lot, but it's failure surely served as a warning for Hollywood to cool it's jets concerning live action anime remakes. Sony Pictures Astro Boy (2009) was originally to be live action, but the final film was CGI, and very underwhelming at the box office, though, again, I really liked it.
Still, American directors know good things when they see them, and can't keep their hands off anime. The Matrix trilogy borrows from anime, as well as cyberpunk; Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films are steeped in anime goodness, even including an anime sequence in the first film. Hit Girl borrowed an iconic scene from the first episode of the first season of the Gunslinger Girl anime series. While both Tarantino, and the Wachowski brothers, clearly love anime, the general impulse behind Hollywood's interest in anime, is avaricious. They want to steal the cool visuals, and they really want a piece of the success enjoyed by many anime franchises.
In borrowing from mecha anime, Pacific Rim has some of the biggest anime franchises to choose from: Macross, Gundam, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, come to mind, particularly the latter. Macross was an Ameican cut-and-paste of three anime series, which I was devoted to in the 1980s. There is now, apparently a Gundam series for every day of the year, and I can't get into any of them. Neon Genesis Evangelion is, no doubt about it, even greater than Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and just as depressing in places. Unfortunately, like Visigoths pillaging the Roman Empire (stretch alert!) Hollywood wants the shiny things it sees in anime, but it just doesn't understand what to do with the stuff. I mean, really! Everyone in Japan knows that only children can don plug-suits, and properly pilot giant robots! Get with it America!
[caption id="attachment_2664" align="alignnone" width="497"]
Godzilla vs. EVA Unit-01; so much for Tokyo-3. Illustration by Patrick Towers. Click to go to the original.[/caption]
Minions beat Jaegers: Pacific Rim's first weekend box office ►
This film doesn't even have good stills! But click the image to enlarge it anyways.[/caption]Blockbuster movies starring the Pacific Ocean have a poor track record. It's been little more than a year since audiences told Universal Pictures, "We sunk your battleship!" Now comes Pacific Rim, a science fiction, action-adventure film, set to open July 12. The trailers I've watched make it look an awful lot like Transformers, and Battleship, and Cloverfield, all rolled together -- and, did I mention "awful?"
Battleship, at least had the suspense element of how the filmmakers would ever contrive a direct tie-in to the mechanics of the board game, and it had some star power, including Rihanna channelling her inner-guyness. Pacific Rim has a kooky plot, and for the most part, no-name actors. What's it's schtick? Anime! Humans in "plug-suits" who pilot giant robots -- the immortal anime trope known as mecha.
We ah cansulin' tha apohcolips!
In Pacific Rim, hostile, reptilian aliens rise up from the depths of the Pacific Ocean, and open a big can of whup-ass on the human race. Hope comes in the form of the "Jaeger” program (bet this leads to a maneuver called a "Jaeger shot"), giant fighting robots, each piloted by two humans. As a long-time anime fan, I should be excited, right? The trailers make me wince. I see the Transformers, or perhaps Gundam, versus Godzilla, as filtered through mecha anime tropes in the former, and Cloverfield in the latter.
Hollywood has been pecking, crow-like, at the more exposed bits of anime, for years. The Tinseltown dream machine is used to taking popular raw material from other countries -- remaking, and re-branding, it in the American fashion.Good or bad, the remakes feed the insatiable machine, which is the point. Japanese anime should be an inexhaustible feedstock for Hollywood -- you'd think -- but it hasn't worked out that way, with the dubious exception of the Transformers franchise.
Go, going, gone, Speed Racer!
Over the years Hollywood has optioned many of the biggest anime successes for live action remakes; one of the few that skidded all the way to theatres was Speed Racer (2008), written, produced and directed by The Wachowski brothers, of Matrix fame. The live action adaptation of the 1960s Japanese anime series reportedly cost $120,000,000, and crashed big-time at the box office. I liked it a lot, but it's failure surely served as a warning for Hollywood to cool it's jets concerning live action anime remakes. Sony Pictures Astro Boy (2009) was originally to be live action, but the final film was CGI, and very underwhelming at the box office, though, again, I really liked it.
Still, American directors know good things when they see them, and can't keep their hands off anime. The Matrix trilogy borrows from anime, as well as cyberpunk; Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films are steeped in anime goodness, even including an anime sequence in the first film. Hit Girl borrowed an iconic scene from the first episode of the first season of the Gunslinger Girl anime series. While both Tarantino, and the Wachowski brothers, clearly love anime, the general impulse behind Hollywood's interest in anime, is avaricious. They want to steal the cool visuals, and they really want a piece of the success enjoyed by many anime franchises.
In borrowing from mecha anime, Pacific Rim has some of the biggest anime franchises to choose from: Macross, Gundam, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, come to mind, particularly the latter. Macross was an Ameican cut-and-paste of three anime series, which I was devoted to in the 1980s. There is now, apparently a Gundam series for every day of the year, and I can't get into any of them. Neon Genesis Evangelion is, no doubt about it, even greater than Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and just as depressing in places. Unfortunately, like Visigoths pillaging the Roman Empire (stretch alert!) Hollywood wants the shiny things it sees in anime, but it just doesn't understand what to do with the stuff. I mean, really! Everyone in Japan knows that only children can don plug-suits, and properly pilot giant robots! Get with it America!
[caption id="attachment_2664" align="alignnone" width="497"]
Godzilla vs. EVA Unit-01; so much for Tokyo-3. Illustration by Patrick Towers. Click to go to the original.[/caption]Minions beat Jaegers: Pacific Rim's first weekend box office ►
My personal review of Pacific Rim ►
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