Pacific Rim (the big general thread)

[Israha]

Second showing mostly fixed my opinion, created after the first one. Not as good as the first movie, but still good enough. Lacked the heart and enthusiasm that Del Toro put it, the jaegers and the kaiju had less personality and less chance to shine. Still a blast nonetheless, and a worthy sequel.

One plot elemenet struck me as weird, though. It was stated that the three kaiju destroyed all jaegers, which tried to intercept them on their way to Tokyo. Completely believable for Raijin, that thing was a huge and nasty s.o.b., who could probably solo multiple jaegers at once...but for Shrikethorn and especially Hakuja? They got their asses nearly handed to them in the Tokyo battle, looked very weak, even weaker than most kaiju from the first movie. What kind of crappy jaegers they had in the rest of the Shatterdomes, when they failed to beat those two?

[ernesth100]

Y'know upon watching this film it wasn't by any means a bad concept it just seems a bit....half baked. The action is rushed, and not in a good way there's no time to develop the plot deeper the way they go about it. The thing that made the first so great is I feel as if it took it's time and paced the world building better.

Plus it's almost like a psuedo-reboot with the fact that none of the core cast save Mako, Newt and Hermann return.

Spoiler:

And this is ignoring the fact they made Mako die and Newt evil, Ugh.

Which means it's literally jumped ship to a different direction for the franchise if they decide to continue. Which they can, don't be fooled. The budget for this film was 150mil. A common opening weekends worth for your average blockbuster film.

They decided to tread lightly with the money they put into this. A smart move from an industry stand point imo. Thus ensuring in the event the sequel doesn't catch the audience like the first one. It's not a waste of time, resources and effort. It's a punk move, as if they didnt have faith, but smart. At least this is my interpretation.

[Mr_Goji_and_Watch]

Pacific RIP

[UltimateDitto]

Just came back from the theater, and I gotta say, it was good, not bad, not fantastic, just good.

The kaiju designs in my opinion were not as memorable as the original, beside the final boss and the one Revenger fights, I'm already forgetting what the other two did and how they looked.

Spoiler:

I did like the idea of the kaiju brain controlling the rogue Jaeger, which I assume was Newt's 'wife'. The Jaeger, kaiju fusion were cool little baddies too.

Spoiler:

Characters. Pentacost was an alright main character, I didn't find him too compelling, the little girl was a tad annoying,, in the beginning but turned out fine towards the middle and end.

I really wish we got to see the actual pilots for the Jaeger's that fought alongside Revenger instead of the kids, the little girl knew almost everything about them, a scene with her going to each pair and asking questions would have been a good way to introduce us to them.

We hardly got to know those kids, so they didn't really stick to me. When that one kid died, it wasn't very impactful because I knew next to nothing about him, except his dad was a plastic surgeon or something. I think we could have done without them.

Aside from the recurring characters and main characters, the secondary characters didn't stand out to me.

Might give it a second watch to pick it apart and understand it better, but raw thoughts now, I give it a C+, not bad, but could have been better!

[TheSecondComing]

PR: Uprising suffers from too many writers trying to stuff too much plot into too short a space, and a television director who was fine with this. I didn't want to hate this movie, but if we never see anything more from the world of PR, I would not get emotional.

3/10.

[BlankAccount]

I didn't want to hate this movie, but if we never see anything more from the world of PR, I would not get emotional.

I would. I like the world of PR and would be pissed if we didn't get a 3rd one cause the second didn't do good enough, especially since the third film can make up for the second one's mistakes.

[TheSecondComing]

I would probably change my mind if GDT had control again, because without him, PR is just generic as all hell. Thinly-written characters whose motivations change both onscreen and off, four different big bads operating as plot conveniences, so many small whiffs suggesting nobody even saw the first movie before they started work. They're going to have to pull major rabbits out of the hat to get back what was magical once, and for me at least, PR is a dead series.

[BlankAccount]

I would probably change my mind if GDT had control again, because without him, PR is just generic as all hell. Thinly-written characters whose motivations change both onscreen and off, four different big bads operating as plot conveniences, so many small whiffs suggesting nobody even saw the first movie before they started work. They're going to have to pull major rabbits out of the hat to get back what was magical once, and for me at least, PR is a dead series.

Yeah, the third one doesn't have to be as good as the first one, it just needs to be a lot better than the second one. I don't even dislike the second one and I still find it to be a huge step down from the first.

[Cookson]

Deknight has gone silent on Twitter. The realization has probably set in. It's dropping hard at the box office... Pretty much everywhere. A 3rd isn't happening.

[Chris55]

Deknight has gone silent on Twitter. The realization has probably set in. It's dropping hard at the box office... Pretty much everywhere. A 3rd isn't happening.

Holy shit that's dramatic



He's on his way back from Japan. He's got post release interviews coming up too.

[Stefanos of Levanon]

Deknight has gone silent on Twitter. The realization has probably set in. It's dropping hard at the box office... Pretty much everywhere. A 3rd isn't happening.

I know right?!
Boy we forum users sure are smart and definitely know more about a supposed failure of the film and how it's not getting a third installment more than the very people who produced, directed, and funded the film.
They should stop wasting time and just hire us finally

[Israha]

Exactly. The movie made its budget back in a week. Nothing too impressive, but neither a failure by any means.

[ShinGi]

Exactly. The movie made its budget back in a week. Nothing too impressive, but neither a failure by any means.

A movie usually needs to make twice its budget to be profitable . So Uprising would need to make 300 million dollars to be profitable

[Israha]

That's right. And it could very well happen. Or not, my point was that labeling Uprising a commercial failure after only a (quite decent) week in theatres may be too quick of a judgment.

[ShinGi]

That's right. And it could very well happen. Or not, my point was that labeling Uprising a commercial failure after only a (quite decent) week in theatres may be too quick of a judgment.

The last PR was saved by China but reception over there is pretty negative for Uprising so it will end up doing much less. There is a pretty much no chance that this does more than the original and i really doubt that they would greenlight a sequel after this

[The Octopus]

A movie usually needs to make twice its budget to be profitable . So Uprising would need to make 300 million dollars to be profitable

That would be to break even. For profit you have gross back 2.5X the budget. Remember studios only keep about half of the final gross of a movie (55% domestic and 40% International).

To break even it would need alittle over $300M. To hit profit it would need over $375M (closer to $400M).

The first Pacific Rim needed over $380M to break even and over $475M to hit profit. Thanks to China it hit $411M. Good enough to break even but not good enough for profit. That's why LP and Universal were dragging their feet on a sequel for years. Wanda comes along and buys LP and immediately puts Uprising into production. Because the first film was such a big hit in China, thier mindset was if they scale back on the budget and if it grosses $400M+ like the first one the film will make money. I don't know if that's going to happen now.

[Cookson]

That's right. And it could very well happen. Or not, my point was that labeling Uprising a commercial failure after only a (quite decent) week in theatres may be too quick of a judgment.

You guys need to be realistic about Pacific Rim. The first barely broke even(if not at all), and only did so because of China. It's been 5 years since then, and the Chinese box office has grown significantly since then. This film should have been able to beat the first pretty easily there.... And was the main reason this film got made. IMO, a film needs to at least double its budget +20-30m to be considered possibly breaking even(us as non industry people will never know exact numbers), but PRU would need 320-330m worldwide following that.

Someone said I was being dramatic (maybe being sarcastic?). No, I'm being realistic about this franchise. The film in the US has dropped almost 70% compared to Friday to this Friday. 85% drop comparing Fridays in China.

Added in 5 minutes 59 seconds:

Deknight has gone silent on Twitter. The realization has probably set in. It's dropping hard at the box office... Pretty much everywhere. A 3rd isn't happening.

I know right?!
Boy we forum users sure are smart and definitely know more about a supposed failure of the film and how it's not getting a third installment more than the very people who produced, directed, and funded the film.
They should stop wasting time and just hire us finally

No, I just enjoy following box office numbers. Have for a long time. I know a stinker when I see one..... Don't be confused with that and my thoughts of the film though. I enjoyed it.

[The Octopus]

a film needs to at least double its budget +20-30m to be considered possibly breaking even(us as non industry people will never know exact numbers).

As I said in my earlier post its usually

2X the budget the film breaks even
2.5X the budget, the film is a modest hit
3X the budget the film is a legit hit. What I mean by legit hit is that it makes enough of a profit where the investment was worthwhile.

This is all covered in the book The Hollywood Economist

[Cookson]

a film needs to at least double its budget +20-30m to be considered possibly breaking even(us as non industry people will never know exact numbers).

As I said in my earlier post its usually

2X the budget the film breaks even
2.5X the budget, the film is a modest hit
3X the budget the film is a legit hit. What I mean by legit hit is that it makes enough of a profit where the investment was worthwhile.

This is all covered in the book The Hollywood Economist

I know, but we don't know exact numbers. My personal rule is X2 the budget +20-30m

As I'm typing this, Saturdays number in China just popped up. Only 2.82m. Might not even make 100m there.

[daveblackeye15]

I kind of wish I ended up hating the movie since I wouldn't mind seeing an invasion of the Anteverse. Still had several fun times with the movie so I did my part. Might see it once more.