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the more Pacific Rim fic I read the more feelings I have about Chuck? specifically these feelings to support (well, to something) Chuck/Raleigh and make sense of Chuck’s conduct towards Raleigh. for what it’s worth, I don’t mean to excuse Chuck’s behavior, by any means. he’s a jerk.

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raleigh becket has no more spoons - invisible disability

so a lot of good things have been said how PR (like HTTYD) is a positive role model for portrayal of ppl w disability in the media, obv 1st for the role of Dr Gottlieb with his cane, in a conventional Action Adventure movie he wd have some backstory where his leg was broken in a Kaiju attack & that drives him for revenge, but instead he is just a guy w a bad knee & a whole lot of tics & issues whos doing the best job he can bc he doesnt want the world to get eaten

and possibly Newt as ADD/OCD/Spectrum Disorder but he cld equally be  one of those guys (THOSE GUYS OMG) too common in fandom who are all IM NOT A JERK I HAVE ASPERGERS SO I CANT BE EXPECTED TO PAY ATTN TO OTHER PPLS BOUNDARIES GO ME so im not sure

but i want to talk right now about how Raleigh Becket coping with his damage is portrayed, not bc YAY HERO MOST IMPORTANT CHARA but bc this is a huge subversion of the traditional macho American gunbro icon

think of pretty much every STRONG MANLY MAN PROTAGONST, theyre all stoical and grimacing and striding along undiminished by their pain, beat them down & they get up asking for more, willpower is all

and its like, here Raleigh is at the top of the world, almost literally, at the farthest north, riding a 200+ ft tall MONSTER HUNTER, you cant get more world-at-yr feet than that if yr a hero, its the pride riding so high it foreshadows its own fall (see also, IRON MAN cycle)

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Another summer movie that succeeded by not pretending to be more than it was. And what it was was a saving the world movie where the ability that put humanity over the top was not our ability to survive at any cost, our intelligence, our breeding power, or our common cold virus, but rather our ability to form strong interpersonal relationships of all kinds: friend to friend, parent to child, lover to lover, and sibling to sibling (to sibling, even). Also it had a giant robot cutting a giant monster in half with a sword, in space. If you think Pacific Rim was a bad movie, you are not allowed in my house.

Pacific Rim, according to Mary Sue’s summer movie wrap-up (via beximilian)

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drift details and trauma

Here’s a little detail that blew me away once I realized what I was seeing regarding Raleigh and his brother.

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Mako is defined by the grey colour and the blue colour… On the other hand, Raleigh is in a colour space made up of greens, browns and amber. - Guillermo del Toro

For most of Pacific Rim, Mako is defined by the color blue because it represents the trauma she went through on the day her family died. She literally carried that memory with her by dyeing her hair blue so that she had a constant reminder of her goal. Everything she did contributed to her goal of becoming a Jaeger pilot and avenging her family. “For my family” wasn’t just a battle cry, it was the credo by which she lived her life and it didn’t leave much room for anything but work. When she surfaced in the escape pod at the end of the movie, it was the first time since Tokyo that she was free from her vow. She had avenged her family, and cancelled the apocalypse. When she took her first breath of air, it was as a free woman. Her life wasn’t defined by the color blue anymore, because by destroying the breach she had fulfilled her promise to herself and made sure that no other family would be torn apart the way hers had been. The tracing dye was pumped into the water around her, and Mako was surrounded by green, for the first time in the movie. Green is the color of life and growth. Green is Raleigh’s color. Mako was reborn again not of trauma this time, but out of victory and her relationship with Raleigh. Her life won’t be defined by her past anymore, but by whatever the hell she chooses.

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I saw some people complain about Raleigh being the one who saved Mako when he gave her his oxygen and set the self destruct on Gipsy. I had no problem with that scene. First off, Mako was very definitely the one in the first fight to not only carry the weight of the fight (Gipsy fights left...

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For your reference. A half-assed verbal illustration of what a drift with a new partner might be like. Red for one mind. Blue for the other. Purple for blended thoughts. Enjoy.

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this post by Pacific Rim screenwriter Travis Beacham crossed my dash, and it inspired a lot of feelings about Mako and Raleigh and media portrayals of different kinds of love.

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The Bechdel Test has long been the barometer of women-friendly films, but Pacific Rim fans say it doesn’t give the movie’s female lead enough credit.

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(Includes some spoilers)

On Mako and Stacker’s relationship

In the beginning when Mako is introduced to Raleigh, she says “Imeji to chigau,” to Stacker, meaning “(he) is different than I thought.” When I heard her say this, I thought it was weird for her to use such informal language towards her superior. If she were actually talking to her superior, she would have said “Imeji to chigaimasu," which would be a more formal way of saying so. I thought it was a minor slip-up with the script, as not many writers look too much into the culture basics of foreign languages when writing dialogue (although towards Raleigh, she speaks formally). Later on we find out that she is actually his adoptive daughter, and I realized why she used such informal language. Although in English, she may speak to Stacker in a way of talking to her superior, in Japanese, her mother tongue, she uses an informal, friendly way of talking to Stacker, her father figure. 

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The first choice I had to make that was a political was “Are we making a movie about a bunch of winners, a jingoistic movie about one ideology, one race? Or are we making a movie about the resistance, a bunch of people who are incomplete, fundamentally damaged?” It’s ultimately about the world saving the world, not just about one country with one ideology. I think it’s a very humanistic message, but hopefully with some of the most amazing action sequences you’ve ever seen.

Guillermo Del Toro, in this article on bleedingcool.com

"I never should have put the two of you in that jaeger" isn’t about Mako and Raleigh’s compatibility or skills, it’s about the massive trauma each of them experienced, it’s about how raw that trauma still is for both them, it’s about how their both “incomplete, fundamentally damaged". but they decide to trust each other, they decide to let each other in, and ultimately the trauma doesn’t make them worse pilots (or better pilots), but the extreme amount of trust they have (that they have to have) with each other DOES make them better pilots.

later in this article Del Toro talks about how Mako is blue and Raleigh is amber and they’re complements, they complement each other, they complete each other because later, with both of them together, they get to red, which is the heart.

IT’S JUST A REALLY BEAUTIFUL MOVIE OKAY AND OH BY THE WAY IT’S ALSO A TON OF FUN

(via onlysunscreen)

Can I also just stress how important that “ideology” bit is? How many blockbuster action movies do we have of the (white male militaristic) USA saving the rest of the world (Independence Day, Zero Dark Thirty, etc) and thus affirming the necessity of US global hegemony? I’m so sick of white male US dudes saving the world and glorifying the ideologies of a white supremacist nation built on the enslavement, genocide and colonization of people of color. “Pacific Rim” has its problems (most notably the name of Mako and Raleigh’s jaeger), but the glorification of US imperialist white ideology is not one of them. The moment I knew for certain that I loved this movie, and that it was attempting to decentralize the hubris of white male US ideology was one line of Mako Mori’s when, in response to Raleigh urging to throw off her “obedience” to Stacker Pentecost, she says simply, “It’s not about obedience, it’s about respect.”

(via irresistible-revolution)

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I’m currently in research mode for some cosplays (both for myself and others) and my current focus is on Dr. Hermann Gottlieb.

Here’s a closeup of his costume, sans parka.

Some ramblings thoughts and observations:

Striped jacket, plaid vest, checked shirt. Seriously, dude, what are you thinking? YOU BETTER NOT BE WEARING WHITE SOCKS OR I WILL SMACK YOU.

Interesting details: The unbuttoned collar points, wrinkled shirt, tatty jacket lapels. Vest is a bit too large.

It’s fairly obvious through costuming alone that Hermann is the yin to Newt’s yang. Left brain / right brain. Most people seem to focus on the numbers/theory vs visual/practice dichotomy between the two scientists. Professor dude vs rockstar dude. 

There’s also a neat split with regards to how they frame themselves age-wise.

Both actors are about the same age and were probably in their mid-thirties when the movie was shot. That’s not very old; I look at these two and still see a lot of kid in them both. Newton presents himself as a man still caught up in his glory college years, be it from never quite growing up or his death-grip on his rockstar dream. Hermann, on the other hand, broadcasts as a man twice his age. He dangerously close to tottering at times.

I find it refreshing that the costume designer didn’t decide to go whole-hog on the “bookish Brit” motif and dress Hermann in tweed and elbow patches. Instead, Hermann dresses like a young man trying to look like an older man with the resources he has at hand:

Proper tweed is too expensive, that workhorse blazer will have to do, even though it’s beginning to fray. Sweater vests are dignified, never mind this particular one is ill-sized. Never quite got the hand of ties, but undoing that top button is simply far too casual, we’ll leave the shirt buttoned up all the way. And, oh, lord, this collar is so awkward when it’s buttoned down, do I tuck in in or outside the vest, oh, hell, let’s just unbutton the points, it’ll look more like a proper dress shirt this way, won’t it?

I may be projecting a lot, because I dressed exactly like Hermann when I was younger and with the above thought process. I was a baby faced kid with only my mind and frustrations and one of the ways I tried to garner some respect was to dress (and act) how I thought respected people (who were always older) dressed. And I did it rather badly.

I’ve seen the movie twice now and there’s several points where it suddenly strikes me that Hermann looks very much like a kid in a grown man’s clothes.

So, in a way, Hermann, like Newt, is kind of trapped in that awkward post-college age where you’re still trying to figure out who you are and how to relate to other people, now that you’re supposedly a grown-up.

I’m not sure how much of this is deliberate or even accurate, but it’s a fun exercise to me as a cosplayer, trying to infer character traits from costuming alone.

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Let’s talk about Newt’s costume today and what it communicates about his character. (For fellow cosplayers, I’m searching for better pics of his bracelets and ring, and will be recreating his tatts for printing on temp tattoo paper. Stay tuned…)

Newt is pretty solidly within the “rockstar nerd” trope and doesn’t much deviate from it in the little quirky ways that Hermann,  for example, deviates from the classic Tweed Professor. This is probably because the Nerd Rockstar is quirky enough as it is and has loads of interesting character prompts going for it.

So, some random observations:

(Quick bit of headcanon: Like Hermann, Newt has a fashion sense that solidified in high school/college and didn’t evolve much beyond that. While Hermann dresses to look older, Newt dresses to look young. Both characters are roughly 36.)

Newt’s skinny pants have a thin pinstripe to them. I can’t quite tell if they are black or just very dark denim, damn you set lighting. (Edit: they could also be skinny thin-wale corduroys.) No belt. Badge clipped to his jeans pocket, like a kid who really would prefer not to have to wear a badge, but fine, if you must I’ll do the absolute bare minimum and clip it to my pants are you happy now, I’m wearing my badge. His pants are rolled up neatly with large cuffs, a fun contrast to Hermann’s pants, which are too short.

As far as I can tell, Newt wears black Doc Martin boots or similar, which is a punk rock staple.

His shirt is rumpled and on the verge of being untucked. Plain white, lacking in the subtle textures/patterns most other characters’ clothing have. This offsets his tattoos well, and later, his accumulated bloodstains and grime. Tie is absurdly thin, it’s practically a ribbon (I like to think it was knotted once and never altered; the knot is so tight now, it probably couldn’t be easily undone).

The jacket is a black leather motorcycle-style jacket, more racing style than tough-guy cruiser, even if Newt looks a little greaser-like when his hair is slicked back from the rain.

Adornment-wise, Newt wears 3 bracelets (probably leather) and a silver skull pinky ring on his left hand. His glasses are chunky “wayfarer” style, a shorthand for “geek” for decades. Contrast again to Hermann, who I don’t even think wears a watch and wears glasses (horribly school-marmish ones at that) only when he absolutely has to.

It would have been easy to make Newt a completely disheveled, stereo-typically “mad” scientist. But there’s little clues that indicate at least some of his fashion choices (seriously, dude, those pants) are deliberate and communicate a character that is less scattered-brained and more desperately trying to prove himself.

Newt’s tattoos are his most striking costuming feature. What’s most interesting to me is not that they are colorful, large, and ornate, but rather that they are a cohesive whole. If you look at the art book, Newt’s tattoos follow an integrated and carefully planned theme. If Newt got a new tatt every time there was a major new Kaiju… or if he even just waited to do them all at once, it’s still hours and HOURS of work across many sessions. I know lots of people with tatts and that kind of consistency is rare.

Newt doesn’t strike me so much an ink junkie as he is… well, a Kaiju groupie. This speaks to a character who, while eccentric and impulsive, follows his impulses to a systematic, and often over-the-top conclusion. Which makes perfect sense given his actions in the film.

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pacific rim's six pilot duos' and human relationships

the becket brothers: introduced us to how deep a sibling bond could run and how horrifying it can be to see another be ripped from your heart, mind, and soul to the finality of death

mako and raleigh: the purest example of the process of a growing camaraderie, trust in a stranger, and how a woman and a man alike from completely different backgrounds could unite and overcome any obstacle (and eventually maybe grow in ties even more)

the hansens: a father and son who couldn't talk to one another and used a dog to act as an affection avatar, they were the example of how even a broken parent and child's relationship could make their own versions of amends and finally 'finish the mission' despite their differences

the kaidanovskys: a giant of a man her junior and a veteran who donned lipstick as warpaint, their marriage and love ran so strongly that they could defend an unforgiving coastline for six years straight and be united in unconventional love during hard and trying times, because they would die together or not at all

the wei triplets: brothers who had known each other all their lives and moved as one unit comprised of three parts, they overcame hardship off the streets and used their familial ties as their advantage

stacker and chuck: illustrated the humility and respect that the younger must show the elder, while the elder showed faith plus gentle yet firm understanding to trust the younger with the future

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To fight monsters, we created monsters of our own.

Pacific Rim, 2013

One of the greatest things about this quote (and this movie) is that it had all the potential in the world to spread the dark and terrible (and often truthful) idea that in order to fight the darkness, one must absorb some of that darkness. It was very prominent in The Dark Knight trilogy, especially as articulated by Harvey Dent: “You die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” 

Pacific Rim doesn’t do this. Mankind bands together for a true world war. There are already enough monsters coming for them; they do not need to become monstrous themselves. The monsters they create are not beasts but guards and armor to protect, not universally destroy. The jaegers rarely deliberately destroy massive structures (remember Gipsy Danger carefully stepping over a large walkway and nimbly navigating between buildings during the fight in Hong Kong). The pilots in the jaegers are very human and imperfect but are still heroes. They may have created monsters, but they did not become them.

Everyone and their mother has lauded this, but it bears repeating: in Pacific Rim, mankind’s power is not in its capacity for destruction or power or control or harnessing its deepest instincts but instead in its humanity—its ability to rebuild, to persevere, to empathize and to understand. 

(via mymarysunshine)

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It’s about compatibility (x)