Briefing: Pacific Rim

The Good

A year before the big guy arrives, we'll get to see Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim, Legendary Pictures' other attempt on Americanizing all Japan-o-philes' and Godzilla fans' favorite giant monster sci-fi extravaganza genre, the kaiju eiga. ("Kaiju" means "monster" in Japanese, sometimes written as "daikaiju" for "giant monster", while "eiga" simply means "movie".) A viral video hit the web today, showing deleted scenes from Cloverfield a news report on a creature destroying the Golden Gate bridge (let's mourn it with The Room theme), narrated by a voice eerily similar to the "Would you like to know more?" guy's from Starship Troopers.

The Bad 

While the premise of kaijus attacking different parts of the world around the Pacific Ring of Fire (hence the title) sounds great to me, the plot will mostly focus on the Jaegers (from "jäger", the German word for "hunter"), these huge fighting machines built by mankind to battle the kaijus. Yup, giant robots vs. giant monsters will be our main attraction  Does it sound like a silly Transformers cash-in? Absolutely. But hey, it's a del Toro flick, let's give it a chance.

And the Ugly

According to the viral site Pan Pacific Defense Force, the American Jaeger is called Gipsy Danger, a name that may sound awesomely cool and romantic on the other side of the Atlantic, but will undoubtedly cause awkwardness in some Central-European countries. I don't envy the translators and distributors back home.

Pacific Rim is out on July 12, 2013. Visit here for in-game updates.

Keep On Calling Me

And just like that, I'm back in the UK, for Ian knows how long.

Eh, star-cult too much? Just an in-joke with no harm meant toward Good Ol' Life, Fate, God Or Whatever. I've been listening to a lot of Joy Division lately.

Update, two days later: just found out that Ian and Deborah Curtis actually lived in Chadderton for a few years, only two blocks away from my place. According to Debbie's book, they found it too depressing here. Heh.

After I saw Control (that goddamn powerful biopic on Ian) this summer, I did some reading, and became aware of the Joy Division/New Order story as a whole, but not its details, like this one. Or that they actually recorded some of their stuff (including the An Ideal for Living EP and two tracks from the famous Love Will Tear Us Apart single) up there in Oldham.

Back home I've been an avid listener of their discography all summer long. Coming back here to find out all of these information is the strangest, eeriest kind of culture shock I've ever experienced. I think it's safe to call me a fan.