Pacific Rim Uprising: short version

[tielan]

If you are going in expecting to see a variation on Pacific Rim in the sequel, then forget about it.

If you're going in for an action blockbuster involving Jaegers, kaiju, and rah-rah action, then, sure.

1. Mako dies. However, it's not a plot point to get Jake into the fight - he's already in the fight at that point - and she gets a key piece of information out. But yeah, she dies.

2. There is no mention of what Raleigh is doing in the present time, nor is there mention of what happened to Herc Hansen. (Or any mention at all.)

3. They've set up for another sequel, extremely blatantly this time.

That said, if Mako is a secondary role, there are two women with fairly important roles in the storyline, and one woman who feels like she should have had a more significant role but is framed in the cinematic release as 'confusing love interest' - maybe her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.

Also: slashers who don't have a race problem will loooove Jake and his co-pilot.

I'd say that the things that gave Pacific Rim its soul and which differentiated it so clearly from the main breed of action movies, are by and large missing in Uprising. It's an action movie with a few character moments, rather than characters who've found themselves in the middle of the action.

That makes a lot of difference.

Comments

[jenab]

Avoiding the spoilers but its good to know the non spoilers about movie.

[tielan]

Glad to have helped!

[neonhummingbird]

< sigh > I think I'll go see A Wrinkle in Time instead. Thanks very much for the heads-up, that would have killed me going in blind.

[tielan]

I wasn't expecting it to be anything like Pacific Rim. By now I know my tastes well enough to know that I liked PR for the emotional story with the technical/military background, and that PR:U was unlikely to hit the mark on that.

It's a reasonable continuation of the story told in the first one, but the 'charm, warmth, and sweetness' of the first was lacking for me, as enjoyable as it was to watch Jake's story unfold.

[havocthecat]

If Mako dies, I'm not sure I'm up for Pacific Rim 2. Even if it is ~plot-important~ and she gets key information out - while doing so? Eh, I'm sure it'll be on cable or at the library on DVD or something if the synopsis reads as interesting.

[tielan]

Honestly, if I'd known ahead of time, I wouldn't have gone.

And I think it's safe to say that the fans who enjoyed the original are not going to enjoy the sequel half as much.

[nrgburst]

Hmm, doesn't sound like my cup of tea at all. :( Ugh, oh well.

[raine]

I just started reading the prequel, and what happened to Raleigh is in there. ::sigh:: But Herc is nowhere to be found, and I'm already halfway through the book, so I'm going to pretend he and Raleigh are off in a cabin in an Alaska, la la la la swimming in the river of denial la la la.

I suspected Mako was going to die when I heard her role was wedged in after they started talking about the movie being about the second generation.

[rmc28]

I went to see it last night for spousal date night, and had kind of pre-lowered my expectations based on the non-spoilery bits of your post (I avoided the spoilers until now). "The trailer promises giant robots, kaiju and John Boyega delivering an inspiring speech, so if I get that I'll be happy". And I did get that, and it worked for me on that level and I enjoyed it, but it was not the level of engagement I had with the first, and of course it compares poorly with our previous cinema trip being to see Black Panther.

(I think I've talked spouse into seeing A Wrinkle In Time for the next film. I read it as a child but not since; he's never read it.)

I was really annoyed that Mako died. Yes, Jake was already in the fight, but it felt like she died as motivation and inspiration for everyone by way of Nate's little speech about family. Afterward, spouse and I decided that she could have survived and the plot would have played out very similarly - the key tension point was that she was resisting drone deployment and if she'd been e.g. in hospital, the drones could have been deployed. Also I would have loved more of her and Liwen being terrifying powerful women together.

I definitely got slash / threesome vibes off Jake, Nate and the barely-there love interest. I mean, Jake already describes Nate as handsome and sexy: reams of fanfic have been written based on far less canon confirmation.