Twitter and Facebook have been places of intense discussion for the past several days, most of it revolving around the George Zimmerman verdict and Cory Monteith’s death. But there’s been just as much discussion regarding Pacific Rim‘s box office and whether the third place finish signals death of new material. Also on the Twitter is convos surrounding Crystal Fairy, a movie I loathed out of Sundance. I initially hadn’t planned on commenting on Pacific Rim or Crystal Fairy (cause I’d love to forget about the latter) but after seeing two people I respect and am friendly with advocate for these films, I had to share my opinion.
Now this is not gonna turn into an attack on people, but honestly where in the world did all of the passion for these films come from? Specifically regarding Pacific Rim, when did it turn into the Gone With the Wind of monster films? You’d think that this was a film that had Best Picture potential the way certain critics and fanboy are raving and giving this film a pass. But it’s not even that critics are giving it a pass, it’s the how. I implore you to listen to the discussion on the latest Rope of Silicon podcast where they read reviews from the film. It’s amazing how critics are pointing out every single flaw, deconstructing every problem and then saying it’s for 9 year olds and recommending it. *record scratch* It’s mind-boggling to me how you can shellac a film and then say “oh it’s for this group so just go enjoy this dumb fun.” How is that an endorsement?
There has also been arguments that because of its third place finish somehow audiences are failing by choosing to go see Despicable Me 2 or Grown Ups 2 and that the apocalypse is upon us because of this. Just stop this discourse please. I have a question for people, if Grown Ups 2 is a better film than Pacific Rim (which I wouldn’t know cause I haven’t seen Grown Ups 2), what is the problem with people going to see it? Oh is it just because it’s your beloved Guillermo Del Toro was finally given a budget to do whatever he wanted on-screen? And from that, why is it on the audience? Also, what about Pacific Rim was new? We’ve been comparing it to Godzilla vs. Transformers for the longest and it’s like a Top Gun redux. I realize that I am coming from a perspective of someone who doesn’t like the film, but I cannot for the life of me understand how lack of audience support is failing the originality of this movie and films to come.
This gets to a larger issue regarding content being delivered by Hollywood and how we should react to it. I am the first to be critical of the amount of sequels, reboots, and knock offs that are being spit out by studios. It is problematic that the originality of big studios seems to be drying up. However, just because the green light a film like Pacific Rim or something like Crystal Fairy arrives in theaters, doesn’t mean you have to see it. I love my friend Joseph Braverman, but when he brought up seeing Crystal Fairy because it was a small indie, I almost flipped out. Now me and Joseph disagreeing is not uncommon, but I find the premise of supporting something on premises of something not relating to the quality of the film to be foolish at best. By concentrating all of this energy into trying to defeat the sequels people are missing the point of just asking audiences to support good movies regardless of budget or “originality”. I mean you even have people like James Wan, a man who is directing Insidious 2 AND Fast and Furious 7, telling us to go see Pacific Rim unless we want a diet of sequels. This conversation has turned into a witch hunt and is moving away from challenging Hollywood to make more diverse fare and into people turning Pacific Rim into this saint like film that we’re ruining by not seeing.
I, for one, can’t recommend either film for a myriad of reasons. I’m not gonna sit here and tell anyone that just because a film is a “new” or not liable to make a ton of money that you should see it. I’m totally fine with people advocating films they like, but I think this conversation has moved so far from debating whether it’s quality or not.