May 8, 2024
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
The GLaDOS computer voice is going to be insanely distracting if that’s a regular part of the movie. I love Portal as much as the next nerd, but if I’m wondering why your computer voice isn’t making orphan jokes instead of taking it as part of the movie, then it detracts from the experience.
Sold.
This looks tremendous but… VOLTRON. Seriously.
NOT SOLD.
Completely sold.
HUNNAM.
It’s incredibly disappointing to see Del Toro striving to reach the heights of Roland Emmerich.
I don’t get a Roland Emmerich vibe from this. Not even remotely.
If all Del Toro aspires to now is to make films with shit getting destroyed then good for him. I’ve been bored with these types of films for a while and I don’t see anything in this trailer to make think this will be any different. I felt the same way about the Lone Ranger trailer.
Del Toro is a very talented director but he’s also a total fanboy nerd and sadly the fanboy has been winning lately.
I don’t know, it’s a summer movie. When this was initially announced, I figured it would feature a lot of destruction and mayhem. I mean, it’s giant monsters from the sea fighting giant robots. It’s not a low-key ghost story set in Spain. The trailer has to get people in the seats so naturally it focuses on the action. That doesn’t mean it’s a brain-dead Roland Emmerich movie.
Maybe they saved money by hiring the production designer of Rise of Cobra?
What shut-in nerd wouldn’t want an enormous robot suit to take on the big scary world? This movie is an allegory for the fanboy lifestyle. It’s not even remotely appealing to anyone else. Women will RUN from this monstrosity.
I’m not a fanboy or a shut-in nerd and it appeals to me. Next theory.
Women will run into the Les Miz monstrosity and hardly effect this.
And the best part is that the porn version won’t require a name change.
Rim Shot.
You don’t get a Roland Emmerich vibe? This ENTIRE premise is a Roland Emmerich rip-off.
This looks f-ing stupid.
It’s Transformers meets Battleship meets Godzilla. Getting a bit jaded. Just in the past few days we have Oblivion, After Earth, Superman, Star Trek, and now this. Add in Ironman and it’s going to be one destructive summer. Somebody will bomb.
“This ENTIRE premise is a Roland Emmerich rip-off.”
Didn’t know Emmerich created the kaiju genre.
Yeah, I get Emmerich out of this. And Bay, since this is basically a Transformers movie, right?
I could well believe that Del Toro has some kooky Del Toro things that a timid marketing department didn’t want to put in a trailer. But judging just based on what the trailer shows, I don’t see anything but a dumb paint-by-numbers summer boom boom movie. It’ll be disappointing to see Del Toro wasted on it if that’s really all there is to it — in the same way that I think John Carter robbed us of a great animated movie.
Bulldog, it’s just Voltron, and in what world has Roland Emmerich made any movie that looks as good as this trailer? Seriously? Oh yeah, Charlie Hunman will get some ladies to the theatre. It’s not all nerd shut-ins!
“This ENTIRE premise is a Roland Emmerich rip-off.”
LOL. That might make a bit more sense, if like, everything this refrences wasn’t waaay older than any Emmerich film.
Though it is amusing to see people throw out such ill conceived analogies, just because they’re so angry that someone dare make a movie they wont like!
You guys are crazy thinking Del Toro is channeling Emmerich, have a little faith. The guy’s made a few misses but I get a studio intererence vibe from the lesser Del Toro’s. I have total respect for Del Toro and his desire to make kick-ass monster/kaiju/robot entertainment and this trailer has me 100% sold.
On the flipside, I too am not crazy about that robot voice that sounds like a T-Pain song and that droning whaaaaaaon sound from Prometheus needs to be put to bed. But other than, that, looks super cool.
The masses don’t give two shits who Voltron is. It’s about splosions and stuff.
The masses don’t give two shits who Del Toro is, it’s another movie about world annihilation, be it natural or alien, and Emmerich’s bread was buttered in that sauce for years. So there will be comparisons because in the end they are all about the same thing.
And yeah, everyone hates on Independence Day, but it was the shit back in the day. I had a good time in the summer of 96. ID, The Rock, Eraser, Twister, A Time to Kill. I could be wrong but Twister is why summer starts on the 1st or 2nd week of May now.
Del Toro is channeling the fever dreams of Toho and anime. Anybody who doesn’t see this won’t get it and is already way off base. Whether it works or not is another story but the influences are beyond obvious.
INDEPENDENCE DAY is still awful and has nothing on this. If a dog jumps from a blazing ball of fire, then I’ll see Emmerich….
Christian’s always in a great mood.
Irony.
live action evangelion.
i’m gonna have a seizure in the movie theater.
Wait, what’s wrong with INDEPENDENCE DAY?? That’s a great summer blockbuster! Silly, fun, heroic and….splosions.
Don – the “T Pain robot” is GlaDOS, the homicidal AI who provides pretty much the only voice in the critically acclaimed game Portal, and was apparently included with game developer Valve’s blessing.
Now, if Pacific Rim also includes a cameo of GlaDOS’s creator Cave Johnson (voiced by JK Simmons in the sequel) expect there to be even more nerdgasms.
What, because Del Toro’s movie has older inspiration than Emmerich means it suddenly can’t resemble Emmerich’s take on that kind of material?
Seems like you’re all too concerned with advocating a thumbs-up or thumbs-down position to let yourself acknowledge or reject anything that might threaten that (very premature) verdict.
People —
(1) It can resemble Emmerich in the trailer and still wind up being a good movie after all.
(2) It can resemble Emmerich and yet also resemble other things too.
(3) It can resemble Emmerich and yet be an improvement on Emmerich’s work. (Tarantino does that with his influences all the time.)
Personally, I’m not convinced it’ll be any of the three, but the fact that it’s Del Toro means I’m open-minded about those possibilities.
But let’s not be such delusional fanboys that we can’t acknowledge that this trailer shows us nothing new. If you can’t entertain the possibility — not the inevitability, just the possibility — that Del Toro’s got a pricy misfire on his hands here, then you’re not much interested in rational thought.
“But let’s not be such delusional fanboys that we can’t acknowledge that this trailer shows us nothing new.”
You have seen other trailers featuring giant man-made robots fighting massive sea monsters?
Ah, TWISTER. I have great memories of going to see TWISTER in the theater. That was in the early days of the crazy CGI spectacles and I was high as a kite and wildly entertained. Always had a soft spot for that one. Some of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s finest work.
Thank you Spass for the Evangelion reference…it seemed obvious to me. I think the trailer looks like Roland/Bay/etc. but it doesn’t movie has to be. It’s just marketing pigeonholing stuff into an easily digestible blah.
“If you can’t entertain the possibility — not the inevitability, just the possibility”
Everything has that possibility. I trust Del Toro. Why should i attack this for looking like a big screen kaiju?
Who woulda thought Helen Hunt would be the lead in a major summer blockbuster.
Bulldog, no, it’s a Voltron movie without Voltron. Personally, I’d prefer Voltron but at least the ROBEAST concept has been turned into a film!
JS – Voltron was released in 1984, and this features almost none of the elements that characterize Voltron (multiple vehicles coming together etc.). Even the multiple vehicle/pilot robot concept is predated by at least X-Bomber from 1980.
If anything, this is closest to Godzilla vs. Megalon from 1973 which featured the giant hero robot Jet Jaguar fighting alongside Godzilla to defeat the “evil” Kaiju.
Well, it seemed a lot like Eva also because the trailer seems to indicate…
1. The “neural net” of the pilot had to sync with the robot for it to work.
2. The monsters seemed to come out of the earth itself and were not either mutants or aliens.
3. We seemed to have created the robots in the monster’s image in order to properly defeat them.
Eva combined the kaiju genre with the mecha genre in a similar way that this movie does.
FS, big robots versus monsters is very VOLTRON, which of course is inspired by those wonderful TOHO movies. Your inability to not see VOLTRON is not my problem. This is the closest we’ve ever come to a VOLTRON movie, and that’s rather glorious.
JS, there’s been big robots vs monsters series/manga/movies for years before Voltron, and as I said Pacific Rim has almost none of the features that distinguishes Voltron from the rest of the genre.
For a start you have:
Mazinger Z (1972) – Giant Robot fights Mechanical Beasts from underground.
Godzilla vs Megalon (1973) – Godzilla teams with Giant Robot Jet Jaguar to fight against Evil Kaiju from under the sea.
Gaiking (1976) – Giant Robots fights Dinosaur-Looking Aliens
X-Bomber (1980) – Mutiple pilots combine to form Giant Robot to defend earth from Aliens.
In contrast, Voltron (or even the original GoLion on which is based from 1981) features: Multiple vehicles combining (not featured in Pacific Rim) to defend an alien empire (not featured in Pacific Rim) against alien invaders (not featured in Pacific Rim). Transformers has more in common with Pacific Rim than Voltron does.
Your inability to recognize other series that predate Voltron and are more similar to Pacific Rim is not my problem.
Then there’s ULTRAMAN and JOHNNY SOKKO – giant robots fighting giant monsters circa 1966-67
Holy shit. I got lost back around the mention of neural nets. What are we talking about again?
Oh man, Ultraman… I knew I was forgetting someone. I was like “Kamen Rider? Naaah…” I wouldn’t really call him “mecha” though, but I think he’s the earliest “Giant Dude Fights Giant Monsters”.
Stella – for me, it’s a side-effect of working in Japan for 3 years. It’s hard NOT to pick some of this up.
Oh I’m sure. Just couldn’t help but notice a major shift in the discussion. One second it’s Roland Emmerich comparisons, then it’s lots of stuff I know nothing about.
FS, how am I ignoring it? Seriously, your posts about a personal preference of mine are astoundingly adept at missing the point. You also seem to be missing that all of those series (It is a lot like Eva as Palm is noting) and movies, are all about people getting into robots and fighting monsters. Why you went through all of those mental gymnastics when, ahem, IT’S STILL ALL ABOUT PEOPLE GETTING INTO ROBOTS TO BATTLE MONSTERS IS ANYONE’S GUESS!
Seriously, it’s Voltron, it’s Power Rangers, it’s Eva, because that’s seems to be the point of Pacific Rim: PEOPLE GETTING IN ROBOTS AND FIGHTING MONSTERS! Good lord man, is it that hard to not get how one could make a reference to Voltron and have it still be somewhat comparable? Seriously?
If you’re telling Bulldog what the movie is and isn’t, then no – you can’t say “it’s a Voltron movie without Voltron” and have it still be somewhat comparable.
Hand in your geek cred card on the way out.
I don’t think JS acknowledges pre-1980 pop culture.
“Some of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s finest work.”
hahahaha i was going to say pretty much that exact same thing re: ‘twister’. and as a girl i’ll point out that sales of the plain white tank top went through the roof thanks to helen hunt’s wardrobe in ‘twister’, the fashion must-have for the summer (or winter here, not as much fun wearing the white singlet under six layers of wool, but still).
FS, that’s not what I did at all. I am… READ IT AGAIN FS… I am viewing it as a Voltron movie and not stating what it is! My opinion on how I view it and you not getting that, is still on you. You are also forgetting that there’s more than ONE VERSION of Voltron. There are versions based on earth and they fight monsters with robots!
Also, geeks don’t have cred or cards, or any of that other shit that they love to think they have. It is what is is and Christian, I saw most of watch FS mentioned in the 80s so for me it’s 80s pop culture! Seriously, I spent the same afternoons as a kid watching Mazinger Z (as I knew it as a kid “Tranzor Z”) and Voltron, because they aired one hour a part from one another. Again, it’s PEOPLE IN ROBOTS FIGHTING MONSTERS but god forbid you have a preference, some guy from Australia will really get bizarrely bothered by at your preference!
“sales of the plain white tank top went through the roof thanks to helen hunt’s wardrobe in ‘twister’”
How did I miss out on this?
Although I don’t think at that age I was paying any attention to Helen Hunt or Bill Paxton – Cary Elwes was the only cast member I recognized, and I was SHOCKED (SHOCKED! I tell you!) that he was playing a villain.
were you also shocked by his american accent foamy? (no he probably did one earlier than that, I can’t remember)
Well, he’d done the whole “Unlike other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent” gag in Men in Tights, so it wasn’t a complete shock. I didn’t get around to seeing Glory until the late 90s, and I think he was still riffing off Princess Bride in Hot Shots! (which I haven’t seen in like 15 years), but at least I was aware that he lived in America.
This looks like Robot Jox but with a $200M budget.
My eyes went all glazed over with all that robot talk. All I want for what will fall into the category of another noisy summer blockbuster with people soapboxing about great the human survival spirit is, is a plausible story in an unbelievable premise, (we are talking robots vs monsters after all.)
I want to be pleasantly surprised like Transformers 1.
I want to give Del Toro the benefit of doubt that he will show me something I haven’t seen before unlike Berg who gave me nothing new in Battleship.
I want characters I care about.
I want the great Ron Perlman to have at least one awesome moment in the film that makes the audience go nuts,
I want Idris Elba act the shit outta this bitch and be a totally believable badass.
And yes…..I want splosions..splosions…splosions,
I think it looks like a eulogy for Nathanial Hornblower.
But seriously, it’s not like Del Toro hasn’t pulled some magic out of tired studio genre conceits before. Has everyone forgotten MIMIC?
Starring GOD BROLIN, of course. And ROC.
Mimic is a great genre flick, even with the studio-mandated compromises. I’d like to see the director’s cut.
The fact that the mechs are called “Jaegers” is of course unintentional.
Jet Jaeger, nahhh….
Saw Cronos recently. Really pleased at how it was genre, but still personal and intimate. One can hope he hasn’t gone down the dark path yet.