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kaijuassassin:
man, i keep thinking about how uprising could have been such good commentary on the vietnam war/other wars fought during the red scare, especially drawing parallels with the glorification of the military and the abuse of new technologies and the use of these weapons against civilians (kaiju blue as a metaphor for agent orange, anyone?), given how many people mentioned their discomfort with the fact that the battles in the movie had such little regard for civilian lives/damaged infrastructure. i feel like the twist with newt and the precursors, while interesting, was ultimately a cop-out for an even bolder move– pointing out how easily our unity can fall apart after a greater danger passes and how easily we can excuse violence during those times. guillermo kept bringing up in the pacrim 1 commentary that he modeled the sets and the atmosphere of the movie after ww2-era aesthetics, and it would only be logical for the sequel to take inspiration from the wars right after it.
could you imagine the movie if it had been this way? jake, too young to have been raised in the shatterdome with his father, wholeheartedly believes that his father and sister were heroes, but not in the way they really were. he believed the twisted take the pentagon and other private weapons development companies had on the nature of the war and the purpose of the jaegers. the ownership of jaeger technology and kaiju research would be disputed from country to country and that in itself is enough conflict to start a war.
show us synthesized kaiju blue and acid being used by jaegers to clear towns and defoliate forests and poison water in the name of total war. show us drift technology being used to interrogate captured prisoners. show us plasma cannons being attached to tanks. show us how easily everything can fall apart. the kaiju were a metaphor for ecological disasters, but jaegers could have become a symbol of the punishments humankind inflicts upon itself.
we could turn that iconic scene with stacker and young mako on its head– jake standing over a city he just helped destroy and seeing a young, wounded child staring up at him in his jaegar in terror, not relief. maybe that’s when he realizes that something is very, very wrong.
reverse the red herring, too. newt and hermann have spent years fighting the bastardization of their work but can’t gain any traction because they Drifted With The Anteverse and are therefore insane and untrustworthy (are they infected by the precursors?). because it’s not mad scientists who will end the world, it’s the greedy politicians and CEOs who ignore science and morality who will. they are the ones we saw the PPDC so fiercly opposing in the original movie.
keep mako alive and in the picture. she’s jake’s only connection to stacker, and a powerful figure in his life in her own right. she knows what real heroism is, and she’s grown tired of her name being abused to glorify the military (the pilots are now only rangers in name). she and raleigh don’t want to fight anymore, but they must, and that’s what they do– because heroism isn’t about looking cool while shooting things, it’s being willing to give up everything for a greater good, whether that be one person or the entire world.
let the old generation teach the new: herc finally getting to retire and mako stepping up as marshal, mako supporting jake and helping him become the leader of an uprising stacker would have been proud of.
kaijuassassin:
man, i keep thinking about how uprising could have been such good commentary on the vietnam war/other wars fought during the red scare, especially drawing parallels with the glorification of the military and the abuse of new technologies and the use of these weapons against civilians (kaiju blue as a metaphor for agent orange, anyone?), given how many people mentioned their discomfort with the fact that the battles in the movie had such little regard for civilian lives/damaged infrastructure. i feel like the twist with newt and the precursors, while interesting, was ultimately a cop-out for an even bolder move– pointing out how easily our unity can fall apart after a greater danger passes and how easily we can excuse violence during those times. guillermo kept bringing up in the pacrim 1 commentary that he modeled the sets and the atmosphere of the movie after ww2-era aesthetics, and it would only be logical for the sequel to take inspiration from the wars right after it.
could you imagine the movie if it had been this way? jake, too young to have been raised in the shatterdome with his father, wholeheartedly believes that his father and sister were heroes, but not in the way they really were. he believed the twisted take the pentagon and other private weapons development companies had on the nature of the war and the purpose of the jaegers. the ownership of jaeger technology and kaiju research would be disputed from country to country and that in itself is enough conflict to start a war.
show us synthesized kaiju blue and acid being used by jaegers to clear towns and defoliate forests and poison water in the name of total war. show us drift technology being used to interrogate captured prisoners. show us plasma cannons being attached to tanks. show us how easily everything can fall apart. the kaiju were a metaphor for ecological disasters, but jaegers could have become a symbol of the punishments humankind inflicts upon itself.
we could turn that iconic scene with stacker and young mako on its head– jake standing over a city he just helped destroy and seeing a young, wounded child staring up at him in his jaegar in terror, not relief. maybe that’s when he realizes that something is very, very wrong.
reverse the red herring, too. newt and hermann have spent years fighting the bastardization of their work but can’t gain any traction because they Drifted With The Anteverse and are therefore insane and untrustworthy (are they infected by the precursors?). because it’s not mad scientists who will end the world, it’s the greedy politicians and CEOs who ignore science and morality who will. they are the ones we saw the PPDC so fiercly opposing in the original movie.
keep mako alive and in the picture. she’s jake’s only connection to stacker, and a powerful figure in his life in her own right. she knows what real heroism is, and she’s grown tired of her name being abused to glorify the military (the pilots are now only rangers in name). she and raleigh don’t want to fight anymore, but they must, and that’s what they do– because heroism isn’t about looking cool while shooting things, it’s being willing to give up everything for a greater good, whether that be one person or the entire world.
let the old generation teach the new: herc finally getting to retire and mako stepping up as marshal, mako supporting jake and helping him become the leader of an uprising stacker would have been proud of.
