In the first movie, there were at least 10 different Kaiku that appeared on screen that I can remember off the top of my head. Of those, at least seven of them were giving a good moment in the spotlight. Each and every one looked and felt unique from one another. They were also evenly spaced throughout the movie, so that each one would be more memorable.
In the second movie, there’s five new kaiju. One of them had less than a minute of screen time. The four main ones (including the hybrid) all looked bland and generic. They were also all lumped in at the end, making them feel tacked on. Where each monster in the original felt unique and different, with each one having so much care end effort poured into them. Here, they feel rushed, lazy, and forced in due to necessity.
I agree, there was a massive focus on the individual Kaiju in the fight scenes in PR, this movie lacked that, I can barely remember the names from PR2 but I can remember at least 5 Kaiju names from PR off the top of my head.
The robots also seemed to suffer a similar, if less drastic fate. It felt like there were too many of them honestly. Even though there were just as many main jegars in this movie as in the last, they all still felt really generic. None of them had a good time to shine, and most of them were surprisingly innefective in battle.
To be honest, it’s a pretty big problem when I watch a giant robot and monster movie, and some of my least favorite parts are with the giant robots and monsters.
I think it’s because of a lack of connection with the pilots. In PR, the pilots of Gipsy were the protagonists so we understood them and formed a connection to them, similar with Striker, Crimson and Cherno less so but their gimmicks sorta made up for it, Crimson’s third pilot and arm and Cherno’s tankiness.
Name one of the additional Jaeger pilots from 2. Name the guy who died. There’s no connection even though each has a decent gimmick or thing. Avenger is awesome, then all the rest have a decent ability or weapon but I just don’t care. Not because I don’t want to, because I have no reason.
Also, what’s the deal with Saber Athena? What logical reason would the government have to make a giant robot made specifically for killing giant monsters feminine? It just feels unesesary, and only done not to “offend” anyone.
I believe it wasn’t designed to be feminine but more “sleek” and “agile”, now whilst I understand that results in a smaller mech frame, the only other thing I could find on proportion is that there are jets in the legs, so that could be why the hips are larger.
So I understand it but at the same time, it could have been explained better. Each Jaeger in PR had a scene or dialogue explaining each of it’s abilities and skills, whether demonstration or characters talking, whilst Saber did this as well in demonstration, it could have had more exposition.
Then there’s Titan Redeemer, the jaeger I was looking forward to the most, and how disappointingly he was handled. At least with Cherno or Crimson, they actually do something. But Titan… Titan did nothing.
I was looking forward to the mace and guns Titan had, which were cool and did look amazing in the film, they did basically nothing. It did more than Guardian Bravo, the most forgettable Jaeger ever.
Here’s the big thing though. Titan Redeemer didn’t actually get in any big fight scene. It got “killed” during the attack on the Shatterdome. The robot you’re probably thinking of is Bracer Phoenix with Titan’s arm.
In PR, every major jaeger presented had a reason to be there. They all did something. Even with Cherno and Crimson, who didn’t get any on screen kills, still did significant damage to the kaiju they fought. You could tell that if they weren’t there, things would have been worse.
Here however, none of the jaheres have any purpose. All of them just give meaningless attacks that bounce off the kaiju and don’t do any real damage, while Gypsy does all the work. And that’s if they get to throw an attack at all.
All in all, I feel like the film could have used more monsters, and fewer robots.
I seriously thought they just merged the Jaegers. So Titan actually did nothing and Bracer just got Titan’s arm?
T R I G G E R E D
Well all the Kaiju attacks are meaningless given the main threat was the hybrids, who all got kill commanded and then only 3 Kaiju got through? And one was still a cat 4? I think the way it should have been done was hybrids this film but make each hybrid unique, giving each one a jaeger weapon and a kaiju weapon would have been a good plot if it was set around these duels but yeah, most of the Jaegers did no work at all.
The drone kaiju things were cool in concept, and the one model they copy pasted over and over did look good, but I do think making them all look different would have been better.
And here’s a really good way to see just how poorly designed the three main kaiju are. Two of them are category 4s, and one is a cat 5. Would you be able to tell which one is the category 5?
Wait only one was a cat 5? really? in 10 years they still used cat 4s? I remember each of the individual abilities of the Kaiju but I could not tell you from looking which was the 5.
