Speaker 1: On the beck Dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
Speaker 1: have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
Speaker 1: and husbands, or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef
Speaker 1: and best start changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hi,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Durante,
Speaker 1: my name is Jamie laft Does. And we talk about
Speaker 1: the portrayal of women in movies. Well that I think.
Speaker 1: I hated that. Yeah, we shouldn't start over, we should
Speaker 1: quit the podcast. And you know it stays it's greats
Speaker 1: we have to live with our shame. Yeah, and that's true.
Speaker 1: So we use the Bechdel test as a yard stick,
Speaker 1: as a jumping off point. The Bechtel test is a
Speaker 1: test that requires that there are two women in the
Speaker 1: movie God, they have to have names, they have to
Speaker 1: talk to each other. Hate it. They cannot talk about men?
Speaker 1: Then what will they talk about else? There's nothing else?
Speaker 1: I hate this test. Well, we're going to be exploring
Speaker 1: another test in this episode. This is a this isn't
Speaker 1: another movie. I feel like we've gotten this request before
Speaker 1: and yesterday I okay, So we all watched this movie
Speaker 1: together last night I'm just so excited because our guests,
Speaker 1: I know, is someone you may have heard us talking
Speaker 1: about before. You might have even heard his voice on
Speaker 1: certain episodes because it's our producer, Aristotle, thank you for
Speaker 1: being here. Wait, if you're sitting there, who's recording the episode?
Speaker 1: It feels very strange sitting over here watching it happen.
Speaker 1: It would be cool if we made one of our
Speaker 1: past guests come back to sit there and not talk.
Speaker 1: I feel like, actually Hampton is sitting and it would
Speaker 1: be fun if it was Josh Fatum. Josh, you cannot
Speaker 1: speak and you just had to sit there in your
Speaker 1: horny depth. So Aristotle, you brought us Pacific Rim? Yes
Speaker 1: I did. Why did you choose this movie? I love Gama,
Speaker 1: and quite frankly, if any of his movies I would
Speaker 1: have been happy to be the guest on. But Pacific
Speaker 1: Rim has a special place in my heart because it's
Speaker 1: the first movie I saw his as I was falling
Speaker 1: in love with him as a person, because I had
Speaker 1: heard his name and you knew he was I didn't
Speaker 1: know much about him. He's a friend of the store,
Speaker 1: and so I had seen him in here a few times,
Speaker 1: and so I started to look him up more like
Speaker 1: Pacific Rim was announced. I was like, oh, that sounds
Speaker 1: super cool. I saw it. Learned about him. He loves monsters.
Speaker 1: Everything he does is children and or monsters, usually both.
Speaker 1: Always horny. He is our horny is living director. We'll
Speaker 1: get into it. He's very horny fish. But alright, Mr Fish,
Speaker 1: but himself. I'm a fan of the fish tide gap personally, Kaitlyn,
Speaker 1: you were the first one to spot the spot the gap.
Speaker 1: Mind the gap, mind the gap, as they as we say,
Speaker 1: in horny fish culture. So as you mentioned a moment ago,
Speaker 1: we all watched the movie together because Aristotle, you invited
Speaker 1: this over to your lovely home. We met your dogs,
Speaker 1: we saw all of your Pacific Rim toys, and we
Speaker 1: did a couple check in. We recorded a few little snippets,
Speaker 1: so right before we started the movie, we recorded a
Speaker 1: little segment. So we're gonna periodically in this episode check
Speaker 1: in with those. So I think this is a great
Speaker 1: opportunity to check in with the first one week before
Speaker 1: we started the movie. So enjoy that. Now. Well, here
Speaker 1: we are at Aristotle's home. It's so cool here, it's
Speaker 1: so cute. The main thing to note is that there
Speaker 1: are multiple figurines, toys, what have you for Pacific Rim.
Speaker 1: I think that the word multiple actually really doesn't give
Speaker 1: you an accurate picture of how much there is. There's
Speaker 1: multiple fits. There are people with more, for sure. There's
Speaker 1: let's give other Pacific room collectors there do. But I
Speaker 1: can see a moderate collector. I think I can see.
Speaker 1: I can see like eight different things just within eyesight.
Speaker 1: It appears as that there's three different Yeager robot machine
Speaker 1: thing I thought you were talking about, like some weird
Speaker 1: like Yeager meister. You're like, look at all of our
Speaker 1: stole Yager pomps. It's like, no, that's okay. So to
Speaker 1: put this on in the context, we are here to
Speaker 1: Aristotle's house, we are about to watch Pacific Rim. Jamie
Speaker 1: has not seen it. I have seen it a couple
Speaker 1: of times, and this is apparently Aristotle's favorite movie. How
Speaker 1: many times, quite a few. I think I saw once
Speaker 1: in theaters and then bought it immediately when it came out,
Speaker 1: And now it's one of those movies that I watch
Speaker 1: every so often, or I'll just have it in the background.
Speaker 1: Sometimes this is like a kind of rare, because it's
Speaker 1: not rare that I haven't seen a movie. But it's
Speaker 1: pretty rare that I both haven't seen a movie, have
Speaker 1: no idea what it's about. I have never met anybody
Speaker 1: who has seen it that we've spoken about, like, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know. It looks like a rope DVD
Speaker 1: menu robot with a circlely light bob and a chainsaw hand.
Speaker 1: There's tires involved, something about a helicopter. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Aren't there people in this movie? Are there hot people?
Speaker 1: And there are hot people? Are there hot people that
Speaker 1: I would recognize in this movie? Yes, Charlie Hunt Him,
Speaker 1: Charlie Day, Charlie Day, why weird? He fits surprisingly well? Oh?
Speaker 1: Also Ron Perlman is in this movie? Oh interesting? Are
Speaker 1: there any women? Barely adult movie? Mr? Fish Butt himself
Speaker 1: the movie. I anno I did this as adult movie.
Speaker 1: It does not stylistically look like an adult Torro movie
Speaker 1: at all. Yes, and know and that it's Yeah, based
Speaker 1: on the DVD, it's so heavily c G. I do
Speaker 1: people like this movie? I think so. And the Macamoory test,
Speaker 1: as we will be discussing, I'm sure derives from this Yeah,
Speaker 1: dirves from this movie. The Macamore test anyway, And you
Speaker 1: asked if there were people in it, and I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know this, like I don't know the minutes
Speaker 1: Durassic Park style, but not unlike Durrassic Park. It's mostly
Speaker 1: people talking. When you watch it. It's not that much
Speaker 1: c g I happening that's appealing to But it's so big.
Speaker 1: When it does happen, it's like, oh, ship, this feels
Speaker 1: like it's going on forever. Well, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: I've seen fish but so many times. Yeah, I'm excited
Speaker 1: for this. So we'll do a couple more of these
Speaker 1: check ins. I think one halfway through the movie and
Speaker 1: then one at the end of the movie, just to
Speaker 1: get our you know, thoughts as the movies playing out.
Speaker 1: So look forward to the court. We got hapcorn, but
Speaker 1: there's some dogs here. Caitlyn brought a bottle of champagne
Speaker 1: and like she's like Princess Die, Like she's just it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a wild Pacific Rim night. What does Pacific
Speaker 1: rim mean? Is that location or a person? It just
Speaker 1: generally takes place. Well you'll find out is that a
Speaker 1: man's full name. I want there to be a character
Speaker 1: named Pacific Room, Mr rim Yeah, excuse me, name please
Speaker 1: call me Pacific. You don't see it coming, Just like
Speaker 1: you were like, whoa Jeelie is a character, Larry Geelie.
Speaker 1: Every time you mentioned Julie, I have a stroke. So
Speaker 1: we're about to watch the movie. Will check back in
Speaker 1: later on and then just enjoy the rest of our episode. Wow,
Speaker 1: what a fun clip. Wow, so cool. It feels like
Speaker 1: it was twelve hours ago, because basically it was my
Speaker 1: voice sounds like that's you're in there. You're in the
Speaker 1: comfort of your own home. You're in here. There was
Speaker 1: one point where you were like, I've got a Pacific
Speaker 1: rim poster, and your your girlfriend, who's so wonderful. She
Speaker 1: she was just like do you You're like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: in our room and and but then it turned out
Speaker 1: I was behind the door frame. Did it close in
Speaker 1: the darker? It never feels like I have that much
Speaker 1: specific stuff. But once I put it all out, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, this is twenty separate object individually boxed.
Speaker 1: That's also that's part of it. It tapped into a
Speaker 1: lot of things that I knew I loved, but I
Speaker 1: did like I it took time to realize like, oh,
Speaker 1: this specific movie is tapping into like all these things
Speaker 1: in my brain that are like, yes, cool, exactly. It
Speaker 1: is a beautiful as with all fish butt joints, a
Speaker 1: beautifully crafted tail. I enjoyed it. I did end up
Speaker 1: watching certain parts of it a second time, and I
Speaker 1: have had a lot of thoughts. So I think this
Speaker 1: would be a very interesting discussion because this movie was
Speaker 1: a little bit I didn't realize. I went back to
Speaker 1: some of the original coverage of it because I think
Speaker 1: that I tark about this last night too. But it
Speaker 1: was like this movie, I was not even aware it
Speaker 1: had ever come out. I don't know what it did
Speaker 1: not do well him, It didn't do well, like it
Speaker 1: did fine, but it wasn't until it came out in
Speaker 1: China that like, it made a ton of money. All right,
Speaker 1: we can do the sequel. So the sequel. We're releasing
Speaker 1: this movie as the sequel, Pacific Rim Rising. Is that
Speaker 1: what it's called Uprising? Originally Milestorm? But now upright? Should
Speaker 1: I do the recap? Go for it? Okay, what is it?
Speaker 1: What is this movie about? Well, Pacific rim So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of sort of exposition at the top of
Speaker 1: the movie where it takes place. I want to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not so distant not so distant future. I can't
Speaker 1: refer it to be twenty. There's one point where like,
Speaker 1: and I love when people do this in the movies
Speaker 1: of like Not So Different Future, where someone's seventeen and
Speaker 1: it's almost like a winking and not set in this movie, No,
Speaker 1: they do. Yeah, they they say the year seen, but
Speaker 1: it's said in a way of like like oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I did that back in ever heard of it? And
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, called down. I knew it was not
Speaker 1: so distant future, but I didn't realize how soon it
Speaker 1: was occurring until we watched it last night. Yeah, some
Speaker 1: of it already happened. So there's an alien invasion aliens
Speaker 1: called Kaiju. So there's a portal to a different dimension
Speaker 1: by which they travel through to get to Earth and
Speaker 1: then just basically invade the ship out of a bunch
Speaker 1: of cities. They're big, they're scary, they hate large structures. Yes,
Speaker 1: some of them sort of look like sharks. There's sea
Speaker 1: creature like they're a bit fish manny there. Some of
Speaker 1: them are of vaginas, some of them aren't. And I
Speaker 1: will say there's plenty of opportunities in this movie where
Speaker 1: people are submerged and it's like, where's the butt? Well,
Speaker 1: I will say you do see robot butt because there's
Speaker 1: a very specific scene that I thought was kind of
Speaker 1: funny where you see Gypsy Danger walking down the street
Speaker 1: and he's watching them past by and then bam, big
Speaker 1: old root. But carol te tauris so horny? What's wrong
Speaker 1: with them? Someone has to tranquilize him. He's too horny. No,
Speaker 1: he's not. He's not horny enough. How does the male
Speaker 1: gaze apply when it's fish robot? But he's cornered the
Speaker 1: market on places where he's like, this is an area
Speaker 1: of horny that can't be regulated. He figured it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good for him. Most directors, most male directors, just have
Speaker 1: to find an unregulated horny area to thrive within. Right. Okay,
Speaker 1: So there's an alien invasion. They keep coming, so everyone's like,
Speaker 1: we got to figure out a way to stop these
Speaker 1: because you know, they use missiles and tanks and all
Speaker 1: sorts of other artillery and it doesn't really work. So
Speaker 1: then they end up they're like, what if we build
Speaker 1: these giant robots called yagers and we get people to
Speaker 1: pilot them. They fight the Kaju, and that's just how
Speaker 1: we defeat them and it works for a while. And
Speaker 1: a thing about the yeagers that they have to be
Speaker 1: co piloted because they kind of like mindmeld with each other.
Speaker 1: And then also the machine so for like people's like
Speaker 1: neurons to get the robot to move around and punch
Speaker 1: people very early and are viewing the science of this
Speaker 1: movie is if it's like and I know that, and
Speaker 1: a lot of it's just like, Okay, this is just
Speaker 1: like it's more visually interesting to watch it this way,
Speaker 1: but it's like you get the feeling that the people
Speaker 1: inside the robots they could probably be offsite. I've got
Speaker 1: to be in there, right, They could probably be in
Speaker 1: a second location and be safe. Yes, that was what
Speaker 1: I was thinking. The entire movie could also be like,
Speaker 1: you know, like there's two guys in there. We have
Speaker 1: to imagine a billion government dollars going into at least
Speaker 1: twenty for each of two guys. Two guys one dies,
Speaker 1: one falls asleep. Billion dollars gone government money? What in
Speaker 1: this this someone apocalyptic future? You'd have to imagine that
Speaker 1: WiFi still sucks. I mean, in two years, WiFi is
Speaker 1: not going to be that much better, right, But there's
Speaker 1: I was like, how is there not some sort of
Speaker 1: like fail safe autopilot If one guy dies and one
Speaker 1: guy falls asleep, people don't lose a billion dollars and
Speaker 1: this large robot doesn't fall on whatever is in front
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, so that's a little questionable, but we
Speaker 1: just as the audience, have to suspend our disbelief for
Speaker 1: it if we're going to enjoy the movie. So we do. So.
Speaker 1: The main character of the movie is this guy named
Speaker 1: Rolie Beckett, and he's a co pilot with his brother.
Speaker 1: There's this whole sort of they got matching jackets, they
Speaker 1: got watching jackets. And the thing about that is that
Speaker 1: co pilots have to be what's called drift compatible because
Speaker 1: their mind melding with each other and with the robot.
Speaker 1: So it has to like, I don't know, they have
Speaker 1: to have like a compatibility for this to all work
Speaker 1: because they're kind of fighting in unison. So and they
Speaker 1: communicate in this kind of like leave it to Beavery,
Speaker 1: super like upbeat kind of way where like the older
Speaker 1: brothers like, don't get cocky kid. There lives a line
Speaker 1: from Han solo. Yeah, they're communicating with whatever Houston basically,
Speaker 1: and and they're like, you know, a man's gotta do
Speaker 1: what a man's gotta do. I'm like, is this a
Speaker 1: line from rug Rats Young and Naive? And yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 1: It's just like a bunch of dudes wearing jackets and
Speaker 1: they're like, we like each other. We got robot, we
Speaker 1: got jackets. They look like the same man, which is distracting.
Speaker 1: Even then thankfully one of them dies because it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: well this eliminates confusion. So one of these So the
Speaker 1: brother dies, he's all upset, and then a few years
Speaker 1: passed and he goes to work on this wall, which
Speaker 1: is supposed to be the thing that's going to stop
Speaker 1: the kaiju now except a dozen. So they're like, actually, right,
Speaker 1: let's bring Brack Bratt. Let's bring bring back that's a
Speaker 1: that's a good character him. We've got to remember that
Speaker 1: Mr bing Brack. So they're like, hey, let's restart this
Speaker 1: yeager initiative and let's get Raleigh Beckett back into the picture.
Speaker 1: This is what Idris Elba's character does, whose name is
Speaker 1: something Riker So Idris Elba is Striker Pentecost. He's hot.
Speaker 1: He speaks in a vocal style. I will call i
Speaker 1: ambic pan i ambic pentecost Fortune Cookie, where every line
Speaker 1: of dialogue for this character is just sort of like
Speaker 1: a vaguely motivated but like could really apply to any
Speaker 1: situation kind of motivational or stern kind of nonsense, which
Speaker 1: culminates in really one of the best movie monologues of
Speaker 1: the past ten years. It's incredible. So he basically recruits
Speaker 1: Raleigh to rejoin this initiative, but because his brother is dead,
Speaker 1: he has to figure out someone else who he's drift
Speaker 1: compatible with. Enter Maco Mori. She's sort of like Idris
Speaker 1: Elba's assistant slash daughter prodigy, and she expresses a strong
Speaker 1: desire to want to be a co pilot, but for
Speaker 1: reasons that we don't understand at first, that's not an
Speaker 1: option for her. So she has selected all these different
Speaker 1: people to sort of audition to be a copa to
Speaker 1: see if their drift compatible with Ralli. And then he's like, ooh,
Speaker 1: then none of these people are good. How about you, Maco,
Speaker 1: And she's like okay, So they like do the tests
Speaker 1: and it turns out she is the most drift compatible
Speaker 1: with him, and as Albo is all like, no, I
Speaker 1: won't let this happen and they're like, well, it's happening anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he can't say that yet because we've got another hour.
Speaker 1: So basically make preparations for Ralli and Maco to co
Speaker 1: pilot Gypsy Danger, Gypsy Danger. That's a great there's a
Speaker 1: lot of like almost every name in this movie is
Speaker 1: like pretty awesome. We also haven't even mentioned any of
Speaker 1: the kid name those are my favorite. Oh I don't
Speaker 1: never even feminist icon Crimson Typhoon. Well that was a yeager. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go up. Are there any women in this
Speaker 1: movie anyways? Hardly so more Kaiju were coming. You know,
Speaker 1: they can tell when they're about to show up because
Speaker 1: there's this guy named Tendo who's sort of in the
Speaker 1: control room. And then there's some other co pilots. There's
Speaker 1: an Australian father son duo who are both adult blonde
Speaker 1: men who look exactly like which is Ali, which is
Speaker 1: personally every adult blonde male is enacting out terror on me.
Speaker 1: Adult blonde males just they just seem not to put
Speaker 1: you in a box, but also you are the most
Speaker 1: privileged of them are adult men with blonde eyelashes. You're
Speaker 1: just like, what's going on here. Something's very there's something
Speaker 1: very alien. E hey speaking, don't cut that out bringing
Speaker 1: it back. I won't Rally and Maco try to like
Speaker 1: basically be in Gypsy Dane, her and Maco. Since she's
Speaker 1: only ever done like what are they called simulations and
Speaker 1: never actually have driven one, she kind of sucks it
Speaker 1: up the first time. A small footnote that's an important
Speaker 1: one is that Raleigh sucks it up. He focks up first,
Speaker 1: and that's why she gets lost in it. Oh, I
Speaker 1: didn't catch that. He Um flashes back to his brother
Speaker 1: and it's like, all right, all right, I got to
Speaker 1: sunder control. But that's what leads her to them. But
Speaker 1: that allows us to learn some backstory about her, which
Speaker 1: is that, Um, the reason she's so desperately wants to
Speaker 1: be a co pilot is because she was like nearly
Speaker 1: killed by a kaiju. And I think we can probably
Speaker 1: assume that they killed her whole family and like her
Speaker 1: whole community basically on an attack when she was a child.
Speaker 1: And the person who comes and saves her and kills
Speaker 1: the kaiju that's about to kill her is his character,
Speaker 1: so that's he like finds her when she's a small girl,
Speaker 1: and kind of takes her if Marco mary passes to
Speaker 1: Marco Marys. But what because the twist is Idris Elba
Speaker 1: but whatever. Despite that, so we we learned that about
Speaker 1: her back story, and then some things happened where oh crap,
Speaker 1: we definitely need Raley and Maco to get into the
Speaker 1: ager and fight the bad guys who are coming. And
Speaker 1: then meanwhile, Charlie Day is in the movie and he's
Speaker 1: he's drifting with I enjoyed Charlie Day in this movie.
Speaker 1: It's always we were talking about this too, where it's
Speaker 1: like in every movie he's in, it's like did he
Speaker 1: like luck out or is he actually good at something? Unclear?
Speaker 1: He's fun to watch, He's fun to watch. Agree with that.
Speaker 1: So the ultimate plan is for them to basically drop
Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb on the portal thing that's allowing the
Speaker 1: Kaiju to enter our world, and then it happens, and
Speaker 1: then they blow it all up and they kill all
Speaker 1: the Kaiju and then we win. Hooray. Also, Marko Moury
Speaker 1: is literally launched out of the climactic scene, which was
Speaker 1: not lost on me. I know that that is like
Speaker 1: in the Sex of the story, it's that she you know,
Speaker 1: he was making a sacrifice to protect her and was
Speaker 1: putting his life on the line, and that has narrative importance.
Speaker 1: But she was literally launched out of the scene without
Speaker 1: her concetts. So because she's you're out there, like, oh,
Speaker 1: it looks like something about it important to happen in
Speaker 1: this movie with barely any women. Let's just let's just
Speaker 1: get her out of here, get her out of here,
Speaker 1: and then say we're doing her favor. Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: a very frustrating moment to see. So her like oxygen
Speaker 1: levels are becoming critical, and I think she presses out,
Speaker 1: so he launches her out there by saving her. So
Speaker 1: a man having to save a woman, and like you said,
Speaker 1: it makes her what could have been her contributing to
Speaker 1: the outcome of the story into the big climactic moment.
Speaker 1: She is then robbed that opportunity. It's what we've seen
Speaker 1: in Twilight, where Beliswan just passes out during the climate.
Speaker 1: I think she's not forced to watch. We don't even
Speaker 1: have to say, we don't even have to It's like, no,
Speaker 1: we don't have to look at her. So that is
Speaker 1: certainly frustrating. However, there's a lot to discuss in terms
Speaker 1: of Mako Morey's character. And Okay, so let's start with
Speaker 1: describing what the Mako Morey test is, yes, and where
Speaker 1: it came from. So, the Mako Morey test requires that
Speaker 1: a movie has at least one female character that's the
Speaker 1: first condition, who has her own narrative. Arc number two
Speaker 1: that is not supporting a man's story. So those three conditions.
Speaker 1: This came to be from a Tumbler conversation, as I
Speaker 1: understand it, where a user was talking about Pacific Rim saying, Oh,
Speaker 1: I wanted to like this, but it didn't pass the
Speaker 1: Bachtel test and yes, yeah, so one yeah. One user
Speaker 1: was kind of dismissing the movie because it didn't pass
Speaker 1: the Backtel test, refusing to acknowledge that the Backtel test
Speaker 1: is not the end all be all and that a
Speaker 1: movie can still have strong female characters and not pass
Speaker 1: the Backtel test. So I user responded, Um, so this
Speaker 1: is user spider Zan feminist Icon said it's really easy
Speaker 1: to throw away a film because of that test being
Speaker 1: the Betel test, which is flawed and used incorrectly in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. If you're a white woman and
Speaker 1: can easily find other films with white women who look
Speaker 1: like you and represent you, but as an East Asian woman.
Speaker 1: Someone like Maco, a well written Japanese woman who was
Speaker 1: informed by her culture without being solely defined by it,
Speaker 1: without being a racial stereotype, and gets to carry the
Speaker 1: film and have character development almost never comes along in
Speaker 1: the mainstream Western media, And honestly, someone like her will
Speaker 1: probably not appear again for a very long time. So
Speaker 1: this user is saying, like, who cares if the movie
Speaker 1: didn't pass the Backetel test, we still get great representation
Speaker 1: of this character in Mako Mori, right. I think then
Speaker 1: someone proposed the Mako Mori test and then said, okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's apply this different tests, not the Bachtel test. But
Speaker 1: a movie can pass the Maco Mori test if it
Speaker 1: has one female character who gets her own narrative arc
Speaker 1: that is not supporting a man's story. So and and uh,
Speaker 1: non white female protagonist to foot in a big summer
Speaker 1: movie is a big deal. And like is it is
Speaker 1: great that a non white female protagonist is getting so
Speaker 1: much care and treatment and narrative importance and the fact
Speaker 1: that her backstory has to do with what's going on
Speaker 1: in the movie too, and like learning by learning about
Speaker 1: her we're also moving the plot forward. Was really cool
Speaker 1: and wasn't just like that was just like good writings,
Speaker 1: only there were another female. Well it's surprising and not
Speaker 1: like surprising, and that we have this great character. That's
Speaker 1: good representation because this is also a little bias on me.
Speaker 1: Why I love Gammo is that he is a Mexican director,
Speaker 1: and so you know, and I knew that was like,
Speaker 1: oh ship, a well liked Mexican is doing cool shit
Speaker 1: awesome and he gets it, but why did he cast
Speaker 1: three white guys as the leases is? It's odd? And
Speaker 1: then his career is he kind of has leaned that
Speaker 1: way more in his later movies, which just like it's
Speaker 1: all cool, but you know he used to make movies
Speaker 1: in Spanish with all Mexican actors, right, yeah, well, like
Speaker 1: what about a fish maybe? I mean, if he's maybe
Speaker 1: trying to appeal more to the mainstream, then he's like
Speaker 1: got to get some blonde white guys in there, ypt
Speaker 1: but three identical blond they're supposed to be from different generations.
Speaker 1: You'd have no idea they have to. It's so funny
Speaker 1: because they're the acting in this movie. And this is
Speaker 1: another thing that seems like a little bit off brand
Speaker 1: for del Toro's like he tends to cast actors who
Speaker 1: have chemistry kind of a bay. But no, I don't know.
Speaker 1: For me, zero people in this movie appear to have
Speaker 1: ever met or wanted to make eye contact with each
Speaker 1: other in the fucking least like everyone. I felt like
Speaker 1: every actor, It's not like anyone with doing a terrible
Speaker 1: job to the point where it's distracting, but it was
Speaker 1: just like every actor was in their own bubble and
Speaker 1: they were not moving outside Like Idris Elba I feel
Speaker 1: like might as well have just been in a bubble
Speaker 1: this whole movie, just moving around like he's not really
Speaker 1: making He's delivering lines flawlessly, is he hot? We're all
Speaker 1: horning for each help, But it's just there is like
Speaker 1: a weird, uncanny quality of how the characters in this movie.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it's supposed to be a
Speaker 1: stylistic thing, it didn't quite work for me. But just
Speaker 1: like the way that people communicate in this world feels
Speaker 1: very even when it's supposed to be personal, feels impersonal.
Speaker 1: It was two seventeen, what do you expect it was?
Speaker 1: We're not going to be able to make eye contact anymore,
Speaker 1: everyone will just be shouting fortune cookie lines at each other.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Hey, um, I think now seems like
Speaker 1: a good time to check into our middle part of
Speaker 1: the movie segment that we recorded while we were watching it.
Speaker 1: One glass of champagne deep, all right and enjoy that.
Speaker 1: We're in the middle of the Pacific rim. Yeah we are.
Speaker 1: I'm learning a lot of things. Yes, Actually, I'm like
Speaker 1: kind of really into this movie. Midpoint check. I think
Speaker 1: I've seen three women I noted in the Shattered Dome
Speaker 1: when they're walking through. There's quite a few women in
Speaker 1: the background, are there? Okay at an account, but there were.
Speaker 1: It's it looked like there was, because you could see
Speaker 1: a lot of like ponytails and hairs and buns. Is
Speaker 1: that is that a women in stem environment? Or wait, okay,
Speaker 1: is that when they're like they're walking through. He's like,
Speaker 1: that's gypsy danger? That the potentially right, like potentially mechanics
Speaker 1: or engineers maybe for a movie with I I say,
Speaker 1: so far, stundingly few women. At least most of the
Speaker 1: ones we are seeing are probably women and stuff. So
Speaker 1: that's good. Yeah, they're your extras or women and stuff,
Speaker 1: all right, del Toro. All right, we've encountered Marco moriy
Speaker 1: We just finished the part where she gets like a
Speaker 1: really cool backstory moment that I feel like, even when
Speaker 1: female characters are given backstories, I feel like it's so
Speaker 1: rarely connected directly back to the plot as much as
Speaker 1: hers was in a way that was like, well that's
Speaker 1: so cool, Like not only does she have a backstory,
Speaker 1: but it's like relevant to what's happening right now. I
Speaker 1: feel like there's like there's a more tasteful way to
Speaker 1: put this trope. But like if a movie is very
Speaker 1: lazily trying to like characterize a woman in TV two
Speaker 1: where it's just like there's a point in the movie
Speaker 1: where like a woman raises her hand she's like just
Speaker 1: so you know, I was raped, and they're like, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: now we know one thing about her and let's just
Speaker 1: keep going with the movie and like using abuses just
Speaker 1: like a device to be like see if she's existed
Speaker 1: prior to being in this movie. Well, it's weird because
Speaker 1: this sad truth of that is a lot of women
Speaker 1: have been assaulted. However, it's not the only aspect to
Speaker 1: a woman's personality. Yeah, thats experience that's more of the
Speaker 1: point I was speaking to. And then the only other
Speaker 1: thing we know about her other than she's gonna kiss
Speaker 1: the fucking guy at the end, is this, you know, Okay.
Speaker 1: I feel like each el Us character in this movie
Speaker 1: is like a character we've for sure seen before of
Speaker 1: just like vague authority figure who has a heart but
Speaker 1: sort of not. Oh man, I can't wait till we
Speaker 1: get to the part where he delivers his Bill Pullman
Speaker 1: an Independence Day like speech. The last line of his
Speaker 1: speech is the funniest thing I've ever heard in my
Speaker 1: entire life. I can't wait for you to hear it, Jamie. Okay, Well, uh,
Speaker 1: we'll be checking back in at the end of the movie.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we'll talk to you then and we're back good.
Speaker 1: Another thing we've hinted at is that with such a
Speaker 1: huge cast of main characters, only one of them as
Speaker 1: a woman. So we've got the ones we've mentioned with
Speaker 1: in Raleigh Beckett, We've got atrislas character. We've got the
Speaker 1: two co pilots who are the Australian father son duo
Speaker 1: right there, thirty five and thirty seven respectively, and yet
Speaker 1: there's somehow father and son we've got Tendo, who is
Speaker 1: sort of like the guy who's in control room and
Speaker 1: Mexican actor, so I like as I I never I
Speaker 1: didn't recognize him. I love Clifton colle Jr. That's right,
Speaker 1: he's your Melina. Maybe Alpha Milena could have been replace
Speaker 1: like one of the blonde men without from Blace, replace
Speaker 1: any of those characters with a woman, like there's no reason.
Speaker 1: I mean, like several of the characters you do see
Speaker 1: like glimpses of women who are like helping to build
Speaker 1: the yeagers. We don't even meet Maco until twenty three
Speaker 1: minutes into the movie, and I would say it's probably
Speaker 1: around minute forty five that she says more than a
Speaker 1: few words or a few yeah. My point is that
Speaker 1: there are so few women in the movie, so many
Speaker 1: opportunities for some of the characters to be women, like
Speaker 1: you've got the two science pals who are Charlie Day
Speaker 1: and then Dr Gottlieb, and I mean forget about like
Speaker 1: gender equality, which, as I always say, forget about gender quality.
Speaker 1: It would make this movie less confusing to watch if
Speaker 1: there were more women and diversity, because it is hard
Speaker 1: to tell the blonde man apart. Genuinely, I also think
Speaker 1: that Tendo and Gotlieb sort of look alike. Like, wait,
Speaker 1: it took me a while to figure out that there
Speaker 1: were two different people I could tell I knew who
Speaker 1: Adris Alba was, I knew who Marco Moria was, and
Speaker 1: I knew who Charlie Day was. Everyone else no idea
Speaker 1: in main characters, yes, but watching the backgrounds and all
Speaker 1: the scenes where they're in the shattered dome and walking around,
Speaker 1: or anytime there's big crowds, there is a very diverse
Speaker 1: cast a background people where you see lots of mostly
Speaker 1: Asian people, which makes sense because they are in Hong Kong.
Speaker 1: Lots of women back there walking around, women walking together
Speaker 1: and talking to each other in the background women. And
Speaker 1: then that's where not like you really see that this
Speaker 1: is a world issue because there's lots of different people
Speaker 1: in the background. I thought like the movie just doesn't
Speaker 1: consider them more important enough to be included in the story, right,
Speaker 1: which is pretty true for most movies. But let's isolate
Speaker 1: Maco Mari as a character and talk about her. So
Speaker 1: one of the main things I want to point out
Speaker 1: about her is that one we know exactly what she wants,
Speaker 1: which is great. A lot of times if there's a
Speaker 1: female character, she doesn't want something for herself, or she's
Speaker 1: just there to support the male protagonists. But she says specifically,
Speaker 1: I want more than anything to be a pilot of
Speaker 1: a yeager, and we also know why, so we she's
Speaker 1: got the desire and she's got the motivation. We find
Speaker 1: out that she wants to do this because she wants
Speaker 1: to seek revenge on the Kaiju, and we learned this
Speaker 1: from her sort of like memory flashback thing. But also
Speaker 1: I think Iatris Elba has a line where he's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, revenge is not it's not good, and which
Speaker 1: brings us to yes, you know that famous saying. So
Speaker 1: she keeps me like, I want to be a co pilot,
Speaker 1: and her daddy, Idris Elba, is like, no, because your
Speaker 1: emotions are going to compromise your ability to do that. However,
Speaker 1: so I sort of can understand where he's coming from.
Speaker 1: But I think that might be a bad excuse because
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people are like, oh, women,
Speaker 1: they be too emotional. They can't lead a country and
Speaker 1: they can't do stuff because if their emotions. Thinking about
Speaker 1: that line now, because when that line is spoken, you
Speaker 1: don't know what their relationship is. So I think what's
Speaker 1: he's saying like emotion because her backstory, not because she's
Speaker 1: a woman, but you don't know that. And so even
Speaker 1: if that is true, even if she's just like desperate
Speaker 1: for revenge, and that might conceivably, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: cloud her ability to be an effective co pilot, I
Speaker 1: can see that happening. But no one bothers to point
Speaker 1: out that Raleigh also is probably like rife with emotion
Speaker 1: about this because his brother died while he was connected
Speaker 1: to him, and he even says like, I can't do
Speaker 1: this again my brother we were still connected, so he
Speaker 1: has so many emotions also connected to this idea of
Speaker 1: being a co pilot of a yeager, but no one's like,
Speaker 1: well he although counterpoint Marco does say you make a
Speaker 1: lot of rash decisions, like I don't think you're the
Speaker 1: right person for this mission, except that that doesn't matter
Speaker 1: because that's the only thing that's said or done to
Speaker 1: maybe stop him, and then he keeps going on with it,
Speaker 1: so at least she acknowledges it. But no one like
Speaker 1: Arise Elba isn't coming in to be like, well, you're
Speaker 1: too emotional rally because of your brother, Like no, he
Speaker 1: seeks him out without reason, seeks him out, but he
Speaker 1: also is he's desperate because he like he says, like, oh,
Speaker 1: Dijoradi trial the other pilots, and I was like, we did,
Speaker 1: They're all dead. You're the last one. You are our
Speaker 1: last resort. That's true. And it's like and I do
Speaker 1: understand from the paternal aspect of like you don't want
Speaker 1: to send basically your child out into what seems like
Speaker 1: mortal danger. That makes sense, but that to me brings
Speaker 1: out the whole like daddy thing with this movie that
Speaker 1: bugs me in regards to Marco Moore's test because she
Speaker 1: is the only female character we have. I think she's
Speaker 1: a really strong character obviously, and we're given this really
Speaker 1: satisfying backstory, but that we see the first half of
Speaker 1: her backstory, the first whatever percentage, and we don't see
Speaker 1: Idris elba connection to it. We see and for me, honestly,
Speaker 1: that would have been enough, Like you could have stopped
Speaker 1: there and had it been like I mean, the motive,
Speaker 1: there's more than enough motivation. But then she's introduced with
Speaker 1: this new father figure and in no way I'm like,
Speaker 1: does Marco Mori's story even pass her own tests, because yes,
Speaker 1: that that does not tie her to the protagonist of
Speaker 1: the movie, but it does directly connect her to another
Speaker 1: major male figure in the movie. And so it's not
Speaker 1: totally her story. It has to do with her relationship
Speaker 1: to her father, now, you know, I mean that relationship
Speaker 1: has explored a little bit and reference because spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: Eater Selva's character dies right before Marco Mori's launched out
Speaker 1: of the movie. Uh, And so I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: like there's a version of that relationship being clarified and
Speaker 1: introduced that maybe could be I and I I know
Speaker 1: that you guys might disagree. I just don't think that
Speaker 1: that was like necessary, and that felt like in what
Speaker 1: was otherwise a pretty satisfying, powerful story, kind of like
Speaker 1: the one of like, how are we going to get
Speaker 1: her back into Like all the guys like, I didn't
Speaker 1: think that that was a necessary thing to do. I do,
Speaker 1: like I agree that it would have been totally fine
Speaker 1: if she was just like vengeance, no daddy, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to fight Kaiju. But I wouldn't say that her
Speaker 1: back story doesn't pass the Maco moriches. It just links
Speaker 1: and intertwines her backstory with I just help us backstory
Speaker 1: and as supportive. It's just more of like, here's where
Speaker 1: all of these things fit together, and this is why
Speaker 1: they work this way. But also her hunger for vengeance
Speaker 1: does actually save them in one of the moments later
Speaker 1: when they're being carried off by Otachi. I forgot what
Speaker 1: Rally's line is, but it's something to look like, what
Speaker 1: do we do now? It's like there's still one more thing,
Speaker 1: and she remembers the chainsword and then she's like before
Speaker 1: she they use it like this is for my family
Speaker 1: and Slicestachi And so if anything that you know, hunger
Speaker 1: for Vengeance was a great yeah right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah. I like that she has a clear, strong,
Speaker 1: specific desire that we often don't see women having in movies,
Speaker 1: especially when they're not the protagonist, and that desire is
Speaker 1: clearly motivated by something that's actually relevant to the story,
Speaker 1: something that that I didn't like as much or that
Speaker 1: I felt she was sort of robbed of. Is so
Speaker 1: whenever Raleigh is sort of doing the drift compatibility test
Speaker 1: with the other candidates and Maco and I'm gonna never
Speaker 1: remember each Selbo's character's name. Mr pentecost. It doesn't feel
Speaker 1: right to You can think of it as close to
Speaker 1: Paddington striding. Okay, I'm just gonna call him Paddington. So
Speaker 1: Paddington and Maco are sort of overseeing these um compatibility tests.
Speaker 1: No one seems like quite the right fit, and Raleigh's like, okay,
Speaker 1: well how about her, let's give let's change this up
Speaker 1: and give her a try, And then it works out that,
Speaker 1: oh wow, they are the most compatible. But what rubs
Speaker 1: me the wrong way about that is that her taking
Speaker 1: the drift compatibility tests with him only happens because Raleigh
Speaker 1: suggests it, and then her becoming the co pilot only
Speaker 1: happens because he insists on it. So she has the capability,
Speaker 1: but she doesn't necessarily have the agency to do things
Speaker 1: for herself. And maybe that's not like a huge deal
Speaker 1: to me, but I think it's worth noting that her
Speaker 1: agency is a little bit. She's robbed of agency in
Speaker 1: that scene. In Situation in particular, I think that's almost
Speaker 1: another world problem too, though, where it's like this world,
Speaker 1: even though there appeared to be women in it, does
Speaker 1: not listen to women very much, because Marco More is
Speaker 1: our only female character and usually when she says stuff,
Speaker 1: even when she says it emphatically, people don't listen to her,
Speaker 1: even when it is character motivated that you know, Agri's
Speaker 1: elbow wouldn't want to give her what she wants right away,
Speaker 1: but it's like he's dismissive of her. For the most part,
Speaker 1: Raleigh treats her with respect and treats her skill set
Speaker 1: with respect, but he doesn't always listen to her on
Speaker 1: the first try either, And you're totally right, and where
Speaker 1: even when she's displaying agency, and I think we see
Speaker 1: this in female characters all the time, where sometimes we
Speaker 1: see a female character display agency and advocate for themselves,
Speaker 1: but it's almost an empty gesture because no one listens. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that brings up another point, which is something
Speaker 1: that I like about this movie, where even though she
Speaker 1: hasn't given much agency in that scene where she's only
Speaker 1: doing these things because other people are suggesting that she
Speaker 1: do them, and she's not necessarily super advocating for herself
Speaker 1: in that moment, but she does not have to do
Speaker 1: extra work to prove herself to the main male character,
Speaker 1: Raleigh immediately recognizes how capable she is, and he immediately
Speaker 1: respects it because oftentimes in movies, you'll see a woman
Speaker 1: being strong and capable, but the men around her dismiss
Speaker 1: her until she kicks, Yeah, until she does the kick moment,
Speaker 1: usually dismiss her only because she's a woman, and they
Speaker 1: just like have these assumptions, oh, that she can't do this.
Speaker 1: She's a woman, We're not going to pay any attention
Speaker 1: to her, We're not gonna listen to her. And then
Speaker 1: she goes hi, yeah yeah, and they're like, whoa, oh,
Speaker 1: you can do a thing. But in this movie, which
Speaker 1: I really like it frame this way, is that she
Speaker 1: doesn't have to. Like, even though this is maybe not
Speaker 1: necessarily reflective of real life where women often do have
Speaker 1: to work harder to prove themselves, but Raleigh immediately recognizes
Speaker 1: and respects her abilities and capabilities. Porn um, it's porn.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was just I really liked that aspect
Speaker 1: of the story. Yeah, I totally agree. I also say
Speaker 1: they're at at Every time we keep saying the Marco
Speaker 1: Morey test, I keep thinking the Maca more tests, which
Speaker 1: is a test that is hopefully never passed. What would
Speaker 1: that even be scientia, I don't know. Let's see what
Speaker 1: happens I assume we'll get to this, but Marco is
Speaker 1: not the only female character. She's only female main characters,
Speaker 1: but there is another, so tell us about her, Aristotle.
Speaker 1: We do hear her name when they're walking through the
Speaker 1: shadowed Dome and Pentecosta is showing Raleigh all the yagers
Speaker 1: that they still have and he introduces cherno Alpha fan favorite,
Speaker 1: my favorite and is piloted by Sasha and Alexis Katanowski
Speaker 1: husband and wife team, and just by looking at them,
Speaker 1: they're already everyone's favorite character. That's the thing that it's like, why, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the first shot of them is so cool. They're like
Speaker 1: who are these people? And you don't really get to
Speaker 1: find out. I mean there is like later, so would
Speaker 1: she be Sasha or Alexis? She's Sasha? Like I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they both have similar names, and when you first see them,
Speaker 1: he is significantly taller and bigger than she is, but
Speaker 1: they are walking as equals. They are both equally strong
Speaker 1: and when they're and when they're operating together, it seems
Speaker 1: like she's the leader, which I agree and that when
Speaker 1: I when I saw this was like, they're they're sucking
Speaker 1: Boba Fett Captain Pasma where you see this badass character
Speaker 1: that you want to love, but you never get the
Speaker 1: like satisfaction of seeing them be truly badass until so
Speaker 1: I saw this movie in theaters. I loved it. A
Speaker 1: lot of people gave it ship, Give me Ship. And
Speaker 1: then Germo del Toro retweeted this person who wrote on
Speaker 1: their blog, and this is where I got a lot
Speaker 1: of my ideas and fed deeper into my love for Gammo.
Speaker 1: If you want to look it up, it's Storming the
Speaker 1: Ivory Tower, the visual Intelligence of Pacific Rim and it's
Speaker 1: this guy who wrote a blog post about how he
Speaker 1: and his girlfriend saw it. And she has a learning
Speaker 1: disability where she can't understand like non literal language, but
Speaker 1: she interprets visual language very clearly, and so she walked
Speaker 1: out with all these great examples of the Karnowski's of
Speaker 1: them walking around, and then when you see them later
Speaker 1: in the mess hall, you see her like beckoning to
Speaker 1: him with her finger, and then when he sits down,
Speaker 1: she puts her arms around him and she's like very
Speaker 1: protective of him, and it's all in Gammo's very intentional
Speaker 1: visual language. Horneus tractor working Horneus tractor Working. I hadn't
Speaker 1: noticed that in terms of like the visual cues they
Speaker 1: give off, but like, why not give them something to do?
Speaker 1: Why not let us get to know? I mean, we
Speaker 1: can see that they love each other and that they're
Speaker 1: good at their job, particularly Sasha because we hear her talk.
Speaker 1: But if you you know, like miss her name, then
Speaker 1: it's only really said once, maybe twice. They didn't They
Speaker 1: refer to them as the Kotronowski's beginning again, right, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I mean, especially because it's like, oh man,
Speaker 1: they look so cool and it's such a clear opportunity
Speaker 1: to have another female character, but it's just like it's
Speaker 1: almost like a flagrantly missed opportunity, you know. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean she gets so little screen time, and even while
Speaker 1: she is on screen, she's doing really cool, kick ass things,
Speaker 1: but she on screen for maybe a total of three
Speaker 1: minutes if you just add it all together. And the mean,
Speaker 1: why we have to watch a very damp Charlie Day
Speaker 1: wander through Hong Kong for forty five minutes And it's
Speaker 1: just like there did's balance it out right? And then
Speaker 1: so like there's the other copilot pair, which is the Hansen's,
Speaker 1: the Hansen Hanson the bad Hanson. Hanson is yeah Taylor
Speaker 1: Zack and I think, oh I would have gotten that.
Speaker 1: It's a good name. So we see a lot of
Speaker 1: those two characters, the Hansen's. We explore their relationship that
Speaker 1: we don't care about and everything. Yeah, well so we
Speaker 1: care about them, I don't know. I mean, well, they're
Speaker 1: so they're poised as these like sort of like hypermacho
Speaker 1: like extra alfa, very um like talking and commercial. Well,
Speaker 1: so the thing about them is that they don't like
Speaker 1: Charlie Humes character. They don't like Rally the Sun does.
Speaker 1: Chuck doesn't. Okay, Perk is like he's really the problem
Speaker 1: is Chuck because he feels he's such a like a
Speaker 1: hot shot badass that he's better than everyone but Herk
Speaker 1: and Ralie get in a fist fight. Uh, that's Chuck
Speaker 1: that gets in the fist fight. Wait, which is the
Speaker 1: Sun is the dad? Chuck is the son? And which one?
Speaker 1: So Chuck does not like? Yeah, dads are old dads?
Speaker 1: Did no one get the note dads are not young
Speaker 1: when they have adult sons. It doesn't happen. It doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense. I know, I thought they were brothers for
Speaker 1: the longest time, and then every sort I was like, no,
Speaker 1: those are that's a father and son. But anyway, so
Speaker 1: Chuck is the one who does not like Raleigh, right, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so they yeah, they have a fight, and there's this
Speaker 1: whole like, oh, I'm more masculine than you know, I'm
Speaker 1: more masculine than you. Oh, get your girlfriend down here,
Speaker 1: Like there's this whole exchange they have. Then they have
Speaker 1: a fist fight about it. So it's just like, to me,
Speaker 1: it's like, fine, if that happens in the movie, whatever,
Speaker 1: But why does does that storyline get so much screen time?
Speaker 1: But the husband wife Sasha whatever their last name is,
Speaker 1: who are more visually interesting strictly based on the fact
Speaker 1: that they're not the same exact fucking person. I also
Speaker 1: made note of that fist fight in the hallway, and
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm just I'm just putting all my
Speaker 1: thoughts of Gamma on the scene. But it could also
Speaker 1: just be a bad scene. But the fight happens because
Speaker 1: Chuck refers to them as bitches, which is like you
Speaker 1: see Maco and Raleigh both being like very restrained and
Speaker 1: wanting to obviously yell at him and fight him. And
Speaker 1: then it wasn't until that that Raleigh loses his ship
Speaker 1: and starts fighting him, so I thought, like, well, he's
Speaker 1: kind of defending her honor, but he also could have
Speaker 1: just been okay with it. But it also shows that
Speaker 1: she's very tough skinned and that she'd like she was like,
Speaker 1: I don't care what you say, right, And it was
Speaker 1: probably dealt with like shitty dude saying horrible things for
Speaker 1: her whole life, and she's like, Oh, it's just another
Speaker 1: day for me. I mean, yeah, the real world is
Speaker 1: any indications. Probably Another thing I really like about Marco though,
Speaker 1: is that the movie establishes that the narrative could not
Speaker 1: happen without her, Like she is the most drift compatible
Speaker 1: with Raleigh, so the story just simply cannot play out
Speaker 1: without her, or not play out in the way that
Speaker 1: it does. So I like that she's poised as a
Speaker 1: very crucial character. I wish we just I mean, she
Speaker 1: even still isn't on screen all that much because there's
Speaker 1: so many other sort of moving parts to the story.
Speaker 1: Not a whole lot of time is dedicated to her
Speaker 1: or her story. I'd be interested in how much screen
Speaker 1: and she actually has. And then there is at some
Speaker 1: point in the movie and she comes back, she's in,
Speaker 1: she's in the final scene. There's a weird nozzle that
Speaker 1: you and I spar over that we don't need to
Speaker 1: spar over again because it was stressing at me. But
Speaker 1: there is there is a point where, once she is
Speaker 1: it's determined that she is the most Drift compatible. We
Speaker 1: learned the backstory, we get the Alba reveal. She disappears
Speaker 1: for chunks of this movie, even when she's physically there,
Speaker 1: and that is something that bugs me and something that
Speaker 1: I was pleasantly surprised with. But the Sasha character, it's like,
Speaker 1: when she is inside of Yeager, she's fully present and
Speaker 1: she's calling the shots and she's doing all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And I understand from a character standpoint, obviously Maco wouldn't
Speaker 1: be immediately in charge because it's like the first time
Speaker 1: she's doing it. But she's really pretty much silent when
Speaker 1: she's working with h I don't know why I was
Speaker 1: about to call him Phoenix, Well that's the name of
Speaker 1: a city. And when she's working with Raleigh, um, she's
Speaker 1: doing I mean, she's doing her job, she's doing it competently,
Speaker 1: but she's not speaking, like they're not verbally communicating during
Speaker 1: that and I and I was just like, because their
Speaker 1: minds are so melded, they do the Vulcan mind meld
Speaker 1: and they don't. You can't. You can't have both ways though,
Speaker 1: because he's speaking, is speaking out loud, and she's not there. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm referring back to Guammo because I am of the
Speaker 1: religion of Garammo. He was very with the exception of
Speaker 1: like the minor characters. He has noted that Maco and
Speaker 1: Raleigh have the least amount of lines in the movie
Speaker 1: opposed to everyone else, because he wanted them to fill
Speaker 1: the world. But he intended for Maco to be like
Speaker 1: very silent, but when she does speak, it has a
Speaker 1: point and she's thought about it and she knows what
Speaker 1: she wants, whereas Raleigh is a little more just like
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say whatever. I think that's a totally
Speaker 1: legit character decision, but it only works in a world
Speaker 1: that's populated with other women as well, other types of women,
Speaker 1: because if your only female character is like strong and silent,
Speaker 1: then we don't hear women talk. Well. I did some
Speaker 1: IMD being for specific rim Uprising, and it appears as
Speaker 1: though there are way many more characters that are like
Speaker 1: top build who are women nice? Then the first specific
Speaker 1: room movie seems to have. It's also it's hard to
Speaker 1: say until you see the movie and actually see what
Speaker 1: sort of representation is on screen of who these female
Speaker 1: characters are and do they have lines? Do they have agency?
Speaker 1: This one passes the bacteal test because it seems like
Speaker 1: they took some ship the first time around. Yeah, excited,
Speaker 1: but also nervously excited because it's not Gamo and from
Speaker 1: the trailers it looks a little more transformery. Well, that
Speaker 1: was another thing about this movie where it does like
Speaker 1: if you just see the poster, it looks transformery, and
Speaker 1: then I was like, oh no, there's this story here.
Speaker 1: There's stuff going on, stories more visually interesting that the
Speaker 1: production design and like the coloration and stuff in this
Speaker 1: movie is really cool. I think he I this morning
Speaker 1: and I tried watching it again but with the commentary,
Speaker 1: and he talked about how they spent a year just
Speaker 1: designing the things in the world, like so every little
Speaker 1: detail of like there's ladders here because people would need
Speaker 1: those ladders to climb to this to get in there.
Speaker 1: There's patches that like he was very specific about what
Speaker 1: he wanted through. He gives all of his characters bio
Speaker 1: for every movie. He does color codes everything, like Caitlyn
Speaker 1: Died Love color coding. One last thing that I wanted
Speaker 1: to say about Pacific Rim is in a very early scene,
Speaker 1: there is a boat, a fishing boat that needs saved
Speaker 1: and not and a yeager comes in and scoops it
Speaker 1: up and all the people in it. There's only like
Speaker 1: ten people in the fishing boat, but they all live
Speaker 1: and they save the day. I'm just wondering how Titanic
Speaker 1: could have done differently if it wasn't Tiger to save
Speaker 1: Titanic and scoop it out of the oceans. Well, I
Speaker 1: think we should open open a discussion about that for
Speaker 1: the next I mean, yes, it was the wrong ocean
Speaker 1: because Titanic be as we all know, cross the Atlantic
Speaker 1: and this is about the Pacific Rim. But there is
Speaker 1: an iceberg in that same scene, is there? Yeah, because
Speaker 1: that's a knife head pushes Gypsy Danger up against the ice,
Speaker 1: sticks his face into his heart. Oh my god. That
Speaker 1: fishing boat almost Titanic, almost Titanic's verb n I wanted
Speaker 1: to We talked about it a lot last night. But
Speaker 1: there are some Vagina monsters and not as agreed justus
Speaker 1: as other vagina monsters we've seen, And as someone who
Speaker 1: granted does not know a ton about vaginas, vaginas or monsters,
Speaker 1: it just seems like the easiest monster decision to make. See,
Speaker 1: I don't it's a it's a hack monster. I don't
Speaker 1: think of vagina. Dentle agree, but I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I would classify the monsters in this
Speaker 1: movie is vagina monsters. It's not all of them, but
Speaker 1: some of them you're referring to in the flashback scene,
Speaker 1: which is a crab themed kaiju, and so I looked
Speaker 1: up crab mouths and it is very that's that's just
Speaker 1: that's crab it is. It is pretty. Yeah, so it's crabs.
Speaker 1: To blame crabs with their vagina, you know, it's even
Speaker 1: more vagina like than crab faces are. I can't think
Speaker 1: of anything, certainly not vaginas themselves, muscles, m U s
Speaker 1: s e o, oh my god. Those are just little
Speaker 1: vaginas in a show eaten And that's like one of
Speaker 1: those gross things that they tell teenage boys like, you know,
Speaker 1: it'll really turn on girl on there's that's what they
Speaker 1: do in New England anyways, because I had in high school.
Speaker 1: They told him there was a point who took me
Speaker 1: out on a date to legal seafoods and got us
Speaker 1: a plateful of muscles with his dad's money because he
Speaker 1: wanted to see me eat a bunch of little vaginas
Speaker 1: real quick. They also do refer to Gypsy Danger as
Speaker 1: she Oh, Gypsy Danger is a lady, and then so
Speaker 1: is Otachi because Oachi is pregnant. We didn't talk about
Speaker 1: the pregnancy twist. We got to hear Charlie Day, which
Speaker 1: I find interesting because I mean, these are alien life forms.
Speaker 1: We do not really understand all about the intricacies of
Speaker 1: their life. But they seem like reptilian slash fish like
Speaker 1: slash crustacean type of animals. But they still give birth
Speaker 1: to young they don't lay eggs. That's interesting, but it's
Speaker 1: it's a very odd choice that I can see, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's why you needed it for the story. But they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be clones, so you would have had to
Speaker 1: have cloned the baby into it, right, unless they're on
Speaker 1: the other side of the riff. It was confused. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some more confusing science. I'm pregnant with my own clone
Speaker 1: right now. So it's actually check well, I would love
Speaker 1: to see that movie, let's write it, okay, and feminist
Speaker 1: nicon Hannibal Chow. Oh my god, yea Ron Yeah, Ron
Speaker 1: Perlman literally a queer icono this movie. It's fucking crazy,
Speaker 1: and I know that I've historically been very down in
Speaker 1: steampunk imagery. He's wearing steampunk gongles. I don't care. I
Speaker 1: love it. I love it. Let him wear him. I honestly,
Speaker 1: I was so like visually stunned by Ron Perlman that
Speaker 1: I'm not totally sure what his character was or what
Speaker 1: burying it had on the plot, if any. He's just
Speaker 1: a mobster essentially in Hong Kong. Yeah, he has he
Speaker 1: has like access to black market kaiju part yes, trying
Speaker 1: to get the brains so that he can drift with
Speaker 1: the kaiju. So weird, Like Charlie Day and Ron Perlman
Speaker 1: are in Pacific. It's just like, yeah, sure, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Those are also several characters that could have been women.
Speaker 1: I was thinking that Parker Posey and a Josie in
Speaker 1: the Pussycat style, like those two characters kind of reminded
Speaker 1: me of each other in a weird way of just
Speaker 1: like they're both very visually flashy. I think the Parker
Speaker 1: Posey could have easily done Ron Perlman's part. I love Pan.
Speaker 1: I get that he's in this movie because Gamo puts
Speaker 1: him in almost all of his movies. But I do
Speaker 1: find its range that this white guy becomes the head
Speaker 1: of this like mafia in Hong Kong. Yeah, good point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there there's like there's another white guy in that
Speaker 1: same mob too. But it's like, I almost forgot to
Speaker 1: mention that among his like mobster pals is a woman
Speaker 1: who has a shaved head. She is the baldest woman.
Speaker 1: She's not in charge. So I'm sorry to say that
Speaker 1: the loftist test does not apply. No, no, no, okay,
Speaker 1: let's rephrase. This movie fails the loftist. Yes, it's not
Speaker 1: that the test isn't correct. This movie fail sales. Yes, okay, sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's only one of a few other women
Speaker 1: you even see on screen who like in a close
Speaker 1: up sort of thing and not like an extra in
Speaker 1: the background. There's also one more when pentecost is talking
Speaker 1: to the people, the politicians the beginning about the like
Speaker 1: the Yaga program and how it's failing. There is there's
Speaker 1: a woman. She does not say anything, but she's there,
Speaker 1: so I guess, good job, Pacific Rim. Yeah. Oh okay.
Speaker 1: One last thing I wanted to mention is that as
Speaker 1: I interpreted it, there is not a romantic storyline. We
Speaker 1: we did. We covered this in the third Chicken that
Speaker 1: We'll do. So Jamie and I had a discussion after
Speaker 1: watching the movie about the possibility of this having a
Speaker 1: romantic storyline or not. So let's check in with that now. Well,
Speaker 1: we just finished watching a Pacific Rim, Yes pack ram
Speaker 1: as I like to call it. I think that it
Speaker 1: was funny and this movie, I think is maybe the
Speaker 1: first we've ever watched that goes for horny depth and fails.
Speaker 1: Oh because of the lack of chemistry between the two leads.
Speaker 1: They're given no lack of opportunity to appear attracted to
Speaker 1: each other, but we'll never quiet hack it. I think, Well,
Speaker 1: does that have something to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: there's not a romantic relationships set up between them? But
Speaker 1: even then they don't seem to have like a platonic chemistry.
Speaker 1: That's true, I mean, I just my vibe was that
Speaker 1: you were supposed to be feeling like even though it
Speaker 1: wasn't as explicitly set up as most movies would have
Speaker 1: it be, where it's just like basically the female characters
Speaker 1: like and you're going to fund me? Like I feel
Speaker 1: like we were supposed to think like, oh, yeah, they're
Speaker 1: into each other. I disagree. I never I think that
Speaker 1: that might because they were doing a bad job. Well,
Speaker 1: there maybe scenes between the two of them, like there
Speaker 1: was that scene where he's like you look good, or
Speaker 1: like they were they were little. There were always little
Speaker 1: moments that didn't quite connect between those two characters. So
Speaker 1: at the end when they're like nuzzling each other, it's
Speaker 1: like have you met before? Like it's just weird. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I just I it struck me. And it
Speaker 1: maybe it was because like their lack of chemistry between
Speaker 1: the actors, but I don't know, I just it struck
Speaker 1: me as like their colleague. They're not setting up a
Speaker 1: romantic relationship between them, like they're just like if they're
Speaker 1: nuzzling in the closing shot of the movie, I would argue,
Speaker 1: so they're gonna like like if any two characters nuzzling,
Speaker 1: Jamie we have had nuzzling had her own nuzzling. If
Speaker 1: you're closing on had her ow nuzzling, they're supposed to
Speaker 1: be into each other. But then they would have got
Speaker 1: a good movie, would have the movie would have made
Speaker 1: them kiss. Then if it was like a here's no
Speaker 1: I think that that is like a trend right now,
Speaker 1: and we're like whatever, it might even be a forward
Speaker 1: thinking trend, but the trend right now and it happens
Speaker 1: to Guardians of the Galaxy to where it's like, here
Speaker 1: are these two characters who are very into each other,
Speaker 1: and the movie is pushing together a lot, but we're
Speaker 1: not going to have them kiss yet. We're not. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of but as the audience, that's what that
Speaker 1: we as the audience feel that like sex, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: they're doing a good job. I don't know I would.
Speaker 1: I would argue I'm going to come to the defense
Speaker 1: of Pacific Room and say that the movie was not
Speaker 1: trying to establish a romantic connection between them and that
Speaker 1: instead end on I had her ownuzzle. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: There had her own with our Horny is living director.
Speaker 1: But okay, so here's this. Here's what I think is
Speaker 1: that because they've mind melded, it brings them closer together. Okay,
Speaker 1: then why don't they look like friends. Look, I don't
Speaker 1: believe their friends get intimate moments eating when they were
Speaker 1: being dissed by everyone. Man friends. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I'm so stuck on this, but it's just like if
Speaker 1: the most they remember that scene where they ate together,
Speaker 1: they didn't seem to dislike each other in that scene. Like,
Speaker 1: there's just I just think that they are two main people.
Speaker 1: I mean, Michael Moorey. I enjoy her as a character.
Speaker 1: I think she's disserviced in some ways, but I like
Speaker 1: the actress and I think she doesn't good job. But
Speaker 1: just like with this particular like fart of an actor,
Speaker 1: there's just he just gives you nothing to work with.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, this guy's got teeth. Sort of, I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna argue that we're so
Speaker 1: conditioned to seeing a female and male lead in a
Speaker 1: romantic situation or like building to a romantic connection that
Speaker 1: because we, I would argue, do not see that in
Speaker 1: this movie. The movie is not trying to establish that.
Speaker 1: That's maybe why it feels weird, maybe why we don't
Speaker 1: feel as other's chemistry. I would say that I'll meet
Speaker 1: you there's they're just establishing a friendship their colleagues. They've
Speaker 1: mind melded and that brings them closer together. So maybe
Speaker 1: that's why it feels like maybe there could be a
Speaker 1: romantic in the middle. I'll meet you in the middle
Speaker 1: and say that maybe the movie is trying to have
Speaker 1: it both ways a little bit. We can also see
Speaker 1: in Pacific Room too, where we may find out what
Speaker 1: happened with that, you know what I mean? That's true
Speaker 1: that movie. They could have a baby. They could have
Speaker 1: just begotten really mad and never talked to each other again.
Speaker 1: And the famous words of Charlie Day, it's pregnant. I
Speaker 1: think Rallie Beckett is a bad character who's boring and
Speaker 1: I think written out of the future. I think he's gay.
Speaker 1: I think that he and his gay partner adopt a baby,
Speaker 1: and Maco, because she's friends with him, helps babysit the baby.
Speaker 1: But if there is a baby, that those are the
Speaker 1: only circumstances. Yeah, I have to think more about the
Speaker 1: character moments in this movie, which is a cool looked movie.
Speaker 1: I have fun watch it well, I ever watched again.
Speaker 1: No live from Aristol's house. Yeah, I've had a great
Speaker 1: time here tonight. We drank some champagne. We watched a
Speaker 1: long movie. It is I'm going to guess around one
Speaker 1: thirty am. I think it's two for sure. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's to eighteen and then we'll all reconvene soon to
Speaker 1: have the full episode. I can't wait, baby, and we're back.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting movie for for you. It was like,
Speaker 1: this is not this is never the kind of movie
Speaker 1: that I would gravitate towards anyways, But I end there's
Speaker 1: a lot of parts that I enjoyed it. I just
Speaker 1: the sheer lack of women was hard. Well, as we
Speaker 1: already hinted at, the movie does not pass the Bechdel test.
Speaker 1: There's not even an opportunity, no opportunities, no scenes with
Speaker 1: women even close to each other, let alone interacting. All right,
Speaker 1: let's write the movie on our nipple scale five nipples
Speaker 1: based on its portrayal of women. I think I'm going
Speaker 1: to give it a three because you do see a
Speaker 1: strong female character in Mako Mori, although not as much
Speaker 1: agency as I would like some agency, especially later on
Speaker 1: once she becomes one of the co pilots. You see
Speaker 1: her have a strong desire. Her desire is motivated. She's
Speaker 1: highly keep double and the people around her acknowledge that.
Speaker 1: And the reason that like her father figure, Atris Elba
Speaker 1: doesn't want her to be involved in this copilot program
Speaker 1: is not because she's not capable. It's because he's basically
Speaker 1: just sort of protecting her and not wanting to send
Speaker 1: her to almost certain death. However, there are scenes where
Speaker 1: she could have had more agency that she doesn't because
Speaker 1: basically choices are made for her. There the scene where
Speaker 1: she does not get to contribute to the climactic moment
Speaker 1: in the movie. I think it's great that it's a
Speaker 1: woman of color as the main female character, but because
Speaker 1: there's so few other women in the movie, the only
Speaker 1: other one of any sort of prominence is Sasha Kardinovski,
Speaker 1: who coin You'll you missed her name. Opportunities that could
Speaker 1: have been capitalized on for other female characters were just
Speaker 1: totally missed. But I think because Marko Moray is a good,
Speaker 1: strong character that has inspired this test that we can
Speaker 1: apply to other movies, because I think it might to
Speaker 1: even be a more relevant test to the things we
Speaker 1: tend to talk about on this podcast. Than the Bechtel test.
Speaker 1: I like that this movie has inspired this test that
Speaker 1: I think is very applicable to our discussions. Very much agree. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: three nipples. I will give one of them to Maco.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give one to Sasha, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to give my third nipple to the little the dog Max,
Speaker 1: who belongs to Hanson brother number one. Yeah, three nipples.
Speaker 1: I want to go one and a half, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go to. Okay, I'm going to go to because
Speaker 1: I do agree that it is net positive for the
Speaker 1: world that we get this test out of that comes
Speaker 1: out of this movie. But I do think that this
Speaker 1: movie is also a reminder for me that the Bechtel
Speaker 1: test is very important, because this movie so glaringly fails,
Speaker 1: and I think we have a less good movie as
Speaker 1: a result of it failing the Bechtel test and not
Speaker 1: introducing more women into the narrative. I like Marco a
Speaker 1: lot for all the reasons to say. I wish that
Speaker 1: she was given more screen time because I feel like
Speaker 1: she gets just about as much screen time as any
Speaker 1: I mean, although I could be mistaking two men for
Speaker 1: the same man and lumping them, I honestly don't know,
Speaker 1: get rid of those guys, replace them with people like yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: It's really not that hard, and it truly logistically makes
Speaker 1: this movie easier to watch because it's so confused. Like
Speaker 1: watching this movie, Yeah, I liked, I like the movie.
Speaker 1: I just it's just so frustrating seeing like when we
Speaker 1: have to have these discussions of like where we're really
Speaker 1: grasping at straws of like, well, we saw a woman,
Speaker 1: a she was there, she and it's important that we
Speaker 1: acknowledge it. But it's you just get Maco, and that's
Speaker 1: very that's very summer movie all over, of like a
Speaker 1: five million men and then one woman who kicks Granted,
Speaker 1: as far as a woman who kicks goes, Marco's fucking awesome.
Speaker 1: And we have a backstory that we do we wouldn't
Speaker 1: normally have with the woman who kicks Trope, but I
Speaker 1: think she still sort of falls into that in some regards,
Speaker 1: especially when she's sidelined for her climactic scene, which is like,
Speaker 1: so you go too, I'm gonna give one to Maco
Speaker 1: and give one to Ron his little steampunk goggle nipple.
Speaker 1: I too, will give it three because I mean, I
Speaker 1: wish it could have done better, but I do like
Speaker 1: that a lot of attention and focus was given on Marco.
Speaker 1: I wish we also got more attention on Sasha that
Speaker 1: we do get that great yell from her. She gives orders,
Speaker 1: but in their final moment you see them drowning and
Speaker 1: she's yelling out. But it's not like a scared or
Speaker 1: painful kind of thing. She's like fucking pissed. It's a
Speaker 1: whale of fury that I could so identify with. And
Speaker 1: so three nipples and give one to Atachi, the flying Kaiju.
Speaker 1: One to leather back like spread. That was a great
Speaker 1: cool moment, another to leather back the big grilla ligand
Speaker 1: one and then went to baby Atachi, who died almost
Speaker 1: like minutes after being out of the womb. Uh cool.
Speaker 1: So Aristotle, thank you, our wonderful friend, our dear producer,
Speaker 1: Thank you for having he thanks for being here a
Speaker 1: long time coming. I know, Oh no, I totally understand.
Speaker 1: I get it. Um, We've been so glad to have you.
Speaker 1: Let us know if you ever want to come back
Speaker 1: on and talk about a different movie or just hop
Speaker 1: on the freaking mic whenever that not with the chains
Speaker 1: that we do always tell you up yeah, but and
Speaker 1: since we watched fifty Shades, we've gotten really good at it.
Speaker 1: But any Garamma movie, I am happy. All right, We've
Speaker 1: got to do a Shape for Water episode. Where can
Speaker 1: people follow you online? Is there anything you would like
Speaker 1: to plug I do? You can follow me at al
Speaker 1: these tacos on everything A R I S Tacos, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and Instagram. You can all follow Protein Press, which is
Speaker 1: the zine press I do with my friend Chris Saldania.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Chris, who has a Pacific Grim tattoo,
Speaker 1: and uh, we're supposed to get matching ones, but it's
Speaker 1: kind of a I don't know subject, no, Like I
Speaker 1: just don't have money for tattoos, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of other tattoos. I wanna put a pigher on that list,
Speaker 1: So sorry Chris. But protein Press you can find all
Speaker 1: our cool zines, which god damn it, I forgot. I
Speaker 1: was going to bring them today to give you all.
Speaker 1: That's okay, why you well, yeah, check out protein Press,
Speaker 1: check out our wonderful producer Aristotle on all the social
Speaker 1: media platforms. You can also do that for us. You
Speaker 1: can check us out back Toelcast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 1: go to our Patreon and subscribe to that. It's five
Speaker 1: dollars a month and you get too freaking bonus episodes.
Speaker 1: Just the one last final thing I want to say
Speaker 1: is today we are canceling The Apocalypse. Best line in
Speaker 1: the movie ever. Thank you, Thank you, King Adris. Bye.