Pacific Rim: Jaegerbomb Edition

Decided to have a double feature of giant monsters with Rangerkris' Pacific Rim and Godzilla.

I am a big fan of the original release. It was a refreshingly fun movie about heroes and monsters.

So I was curious what Kris had in mind for a movie I felt was already a great roller coaster ride.

There are some smart/clever cuts throughout... I really liked that Mako's two flashbacks were combined into one. The new opening credits sets the perfect heroic tone for the movie.

The removal of my two favourite bickering scientists (and good old Ron Perlman) is mixed for me. Their removal has minimal impact on the actual direct plot but I missed the technobabble explanation about the Kaiju and their motivations. Also, it seemed to me, the bunker scene should have been cut too.

All in all, another fun edit by Kris which I think many will enjoy.

Thumbs up.

I'll start off by saying that I loved Pacific Rim. I watched it multiple times in the theater and bought it the day it came out. Overall I liked this edit but I will probably stick with the theatrical version.

There were a few things that I noticed and that didn't work for me. The only scene I could actually tell there was a cut was the scene when Becket is looking at the specimens in the elevator when he first arrives in Hong Kong.

The only particular scene that didn't work for me was the Charlie Day scene in the bunker. He was cut out of almost the whole movie and I was surprised to see that scene was kept intact. It was a little jarring just having Charlie Day show up randomly and then never being seen from again.

The last thing is near the end, it doesn't make much sense why Gypsy Danger is dragging the dead Kaiju as he walks towards the breach; this is only a nitpick because I know the real reason.

Other than those few things, I did liked this edit. Its quick and filled with all the exciting bits from the movie. I'm a big fan of Charlie Day and Ron Perlman so I missed their scenes, but this edit works without their subplots which I admit were on the slapstick side.

This is a great edit for those who may have found the certain comedic elements of the original not to their liking or just want a faster paced version. However, I adore the original and that is the only reason I deducted a couple of points for enjoyment because I enjoy all of the cut material.

Typing this as I watch, forgive the train-wreak of flow.

Spoiler:

Around 5:00, the the thumping bass is clipping. I don't think it was like that in the original.

This continues till around 5:36

The clipping continues through for quite some time, actually.

The exiting animations put in earlier seems cool, but it also seemed very late for an intro. 17 minutes in.


@ 20:00, the little talk between Marshall and the congressional people... This has nothing to do with the edit, but I felt the entire coastal wall thing was stupid. Why couldn't the coastal wall just be the thing that's being constructed to slow down Kaiju? Why not just show the hammer head one busting through it like the kool-aid man? And everyone could just be like, GOOD THING that big ass wall was there to slow it down!!

So, if this edit was to be revised further, I'd say cut the unnecessary coastal wall bit pieces, and leave the construction scene, and the scene where the hammer head busts through it.

I think the coastal wall bits could be cut up to 21:06ish.

38:21ish to 38:50, maybe the sub-plot of Marshall dying from cancer can be removed? This small chunk also (conveniently) contains pointless talk about the coastal wall and how the Jager program was discontinued.

39:05 - more mentions of the 'wall of life', perhaps that can be taken out? Or the entire chunk of video there altogether?


Is it just me, or does the Kaiju that appears in Marco's memory seem waaaay smaller than the very first Kaiju that came through the breach?? I thought they got bigger as time went along?

I really like how the 2nd half of Marco's memory was integrated in earlier. It wasn't one huge long chunk of her memories - like how I was expecting - it was spliced in with a bit of other video between it. It came out really nice.

54:00 exactly, the Jager has no latissimus dorsi (lats). Nothing to do with the edit, but I had to say something. It just looks so unnatural, even for a gigantic robot.

1:06:24, The scene of the Kaiju breaking into the bunker. This flows really nicely and has some great CG in it, but I wonder if the entire thing couldn't just be cut? With all the other scenes of drifting with a Kaiju being cut, why does the Kaiju dig into a bunker?? Shouldn't he be pre-occupied with destroying the city, or the last remaining Jager outpost? Or... Gypsy Danger?

1:08:33 Surprised to see that the Jager fist starting the physics-balls is still in... Sort of silly but it's comic relief.

From 1:14 to about 1:15:23 is more stuff about Marshall and his radiation exposure. It leads into the triple event though. I feel that bit could be cut, but it could go either way. You could introduce his illness at 1:14 and it'd work.

1:18:42 - This is way, way out of left field - after having all of the other scenes of bullying taken out. Marshall calls Striker's younger co-pilot a lot of seemingly off-the wall names as he describes how he has him "figured out" and it just doesn't fit well with all the pertaining back-story removed. Maybe this can be cleaned up, while still maintaining the Father-Son talk?


Another movie issue: nothing to do with the fan edit, but how did that big-ass Category 5 Kaiju survive a direct blast from a 2,400lb Thermal-Nuclear Warhead ???? but the ENTIRE Kaiju manufacturing facility is just blasted to bits from Gypsy Danger's meager dual-core nuclear reactors???? MAKES NO SENSE! NO SENSE!





Overall, great edit. I feel it can be improved a bit more though, especially with the audio. It noticeably clips throughout the earlier scenes and in some parts it's fairly distracting because the audio is distorted. The cut choices were on-target, and the scene swaps flowed fine. I think a few more (very short) sub-stories can be removed though.

I liked the edit, but like ranger613's Godzilla edit, it's hard to call this the "definitive" cut of Pacific Rim. He could have done an awful lot more with the movie than just cut the scientist subplot alone, and rewatching it makes the flaws of the theatrical cut more obvious. Just as a specific example, he definitely could have cut the entire sequence between Raleigh stumbling out of the downed Gipsy Danger and Idris Elba walking out of the helicopter, since all of what's covered during that sequence is revealed through exposition later in the movie.

That aside, the audio, video, and edit quality were all superb, as I've come to expect from ranger613. I watched it in 1080p and I didn't notice a single issue.

I rated the narrative and enjoyment the way I did because I felt that it was essentially the same movie as the theatrical release. I didn't particularly mind the scientists in the first place, and trimming them didn't do much for me. I'd really like to see a v2.0 of this edit, since ranger613's technical skills are absolutely top notch, it's just that his cutlist wasn't thorough enough by a long shot.

I can recommend this edit to people who were really bothered by the scientists, I personally didn't mind them so this edit wasn't really for me. Otherwise, great quality and a reasonable way to watch the film

Thank you RangerKris! :]X