Pacific Rim: Uprising

[jellydonut25]

I hated that NPR review and couldn't get past more than a few paragraphs of it.

Smug snarking about how it's not "meant to be an Oscar movie" and therefore not worthy of any actual criticism.

The "it's not Citizen Kane" defense is the worst.

[lhb412]

^It's a lot of windup, but it goes into fun places.

[Jorzilla]

This was a bad movie that is held up by the strength of the universe and the world building of the first.

It was enjoyable with some great moments.

[Moonlight SY-3]

[Psycho Soldier]

Well, the movie turned out to be a 6/10. Solid action, some fun character moments, but it lacks the artistry and emotional heft of the first film and makes some seriously dubious story decisions. It does feel like a direct-to-video sequel, for the most part. I think it could've benefited from an extra 10-20 minutes to flesh out the world's status quo (clearly different from the first film's) and some of the new characters. And let's not forget the criminal treatment of the first film's characters (other than the scientists, who really helped save this movie). I may just rewatch the first film and try not to think too much about Uprising. This might end up being my personal TLJ, where my positive feelings give way to negative upon reflection.

[The Shadow]

[Benjamin Haines]

[Geno]

You know the movie is garbage when the best defense people have for it is to deflect arguments and claim sci-fi films are exempt from criticisms. Delegitimizing certain genres is ridiculous.

[jellydonut25]

[canofhumdingers]

[lhb412]

^ I totally agree. Ben's rejiggering of the plot would've been more satisfying, made more sense, and would have honored the franchise's most beloved character (Mako) while still leaving room for Boyega to be the hero.

[Psycho Soldier]

[Gwangi]

[tbeasley]

My loose thoughts -
Some parts were very enjoyable, others not so much. It can be very clunky and rough around the edges, its rocky road to the screen very apparent. Many ideas are not handled well at all and makes you pine for how del Toro would've approached the material.

Lots of people called the first film dumb fun which I don't necessarily agree with, it has its flaws but is an otherwise captivating, well meaning film with big ideas that the sequel unfortunately undermines both visually and tonally. So if you want dumb fun, look to Uprising.

[Benjamin Haines]

Pacific Rim: Uprising dropped a harsh -67.3% at the North American box office with an estimated $9.2 million second weekend after its $28.1m opening. The first Pacific Rim dropped a mediocre -57.1% from a $37.2m debut back in 2013, whereas Uprising had an even steeper second-weekend drop than Legendary's Godzilla (-66.8%). With an estimated $45.6m domestic in 10 days, Pacific Rim: Uprising will be lucky to break $60m in North America at this point.

It's also sinking hard in China. After opening to $64.1m last weekend, it got terrible word-of-mouth from Chinese audiences and plummeted -85.6% for a $9.2m second weekend and a $90m ten-day total. The original Pacific Rim made $111m in , #5 for the year and second only to Iron Man 3 ($121m) among Hollywood imports in 2013. The Chinese moviegoing industry has expanded tremendously in the five years since then. There were five movies that grossed more than $100m in China in 2013, then that number jumped to 11 in 2014, then 20 in both 2015 and 2016, then 24 last year. Movies like Transformers: Age of Extinction ($320m in 2014), Furious 7 ($390m in 2015), and The Fate of the Furious ($392m in 2017) have broken records for Hollywood imports in the Middle Kingdom.

More significantly, since the record-breaking $381m Chinese haul of Raman Hui's Monster Hunt in 2015, Chinese-made blockbusters have proven capable of tapping into the cultural zeitgeist and selling more tickets than even the biggest Hollywood imports. Stephen Chow's The Mermaid grossed $526m in 2016 to become China's biggest movie ever, a record which Wu Jing's Wolf Warrior 2 obliterated last year with $854m, which is now the second-biggest single-territory gross for any movie anywhere in the world after Star Wars: The Force Awakens' $936m North American haul.

Point being, there are a lot more movie theaters selling a lot more admissions in China in 2018 than there were in 2013, but now Chinese moviegoers don't need to look to Hollywood imports as much as they used to for top-quality blockbuster entertainment. Already in 2018, the top six films in China are all Chinese-made, with Monster Hunt 2 at $354m, Detective Chinatown 2 at $539m, and Operation Red Sea at $568m so far. While a spectacular Hollywood work like Pacific Rim loomed large in China in 2013, a noticeably inferior sequel like Pacific Rim: Uprising can't capitalize on the expanded Chinese market of 2018. Chinese audiences don't need to settle for Hollywood's reheated leftovers when they're getting event-level blockbusters in their own country.

[lhb412]

^It's sad, because I think there was real potential for a Pacific Rim sequel and franchise... if this movie wasn't, you know, bad. When I went to the earliest Thursday premier showing the theater was full of all sorts of nerdy folks from every age and demographic and you could tell they were all superfans of the original movie and you could feel the excitement, but by the end the mood was quiet and more than a tad sour.

I don't think the original movie's status of cult favorite is gonna dim, though.

[Outkaster]

This film was a missed opportunity. We started getting into the fast and furious/transformers world a little too much for my liking. Sending inexperienced pilots out there to fight the Kaiju was stupid. I liked parts of it but you never get the feeling the world is in any kind of danger. It got too silly for me.

[klen7]

I saw this and was disappointed despite low expectations. It seemed eager to embrace my pet peeves. The promise and premise of a sequel (which was literally the same way Independence Day Resurgence ended) is not enticing. The humor fell pretty flat for the audience I was in. It seemed incongruent in many ways with it's predecessor.

Things I liked
- First Jaeger v Jaeger fight
- The flashback kaiju and the mega kaiju designs
- the idea of drones replacing pilots as a significant plot point

[lhb412]

[Psycho Soldier]

I found this video easier to enjoy than the film, even if it is a glorified ad:

[Psycho Soldier]

[lhb412]

^ Going 'sideways' is a good way to put it. No one wants to make a bad movie, and rarely does one want to make an egregiously bad creative choice, but when you have so many moving parts and momentum going forward a fatal flaw can be hard to remove and can easily snowball into being even worse.

Not that context in itself improves bad things about a work of art, but it does allow greater understanding and I appreciate him talking about it.

[tbeasley]

Some name dropping

[lhb412]

^ Awesome! Somehow I feel most happy for Yongary.

[jellydonut25]

Aguara? The second one...?

Or are my eyes just worthless as well as my brain?