Some random Pacific Rim thoughts
Dec. 24th, 2014 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yuuagoJust jotting down some PacRim thoughts that were on my mind today. Some minor spoilers for that movie if you haven't seen it, though I think most people who are interested in it have probably seen it by now.
I like this movie a lot, but it kind of chafes that it doesn't pass Bechdel.
So, we have two named female characters. And I think that they would have plenty of things to talk about! (Hella jaegers, yo) But Mako and Sasha don't exchange a single word with each other even once over the course of the film, no matter if it's about a man or not, and that's disappointing.
I like the Kaidanovskys even though they get very little screentime, so maybe I'm kind of biased in that direction - more screentime for Sasha would have been great (and maybe a couple of speaking lines for Alexis would have been nice? Really) and it would have been so easy for there to be some kind of scene where she's exchanging a word or two with Mako about SOMETHING, most likely something Jaeger-related. But it isn't there. WHY.
In discussions about Pacific Rim, I've seen several people forget that Mako isn't the only named female character. And when reminded about it, they say "Yeah, but the female Russian pilot doesn't have any speaking lines", which isn't true. Sasha does have lines! ... A handful of them, during the scene when she's in her jaeger, shortly before she and her husband die.
It sucks that she has so few dialogue scenes that it causes people to forget that she has any at all. I feel like Sasha had the potential to be really cool - I love her character design, I love that she's the one leading the Cherno Alpha team, I'm interested in what little backstory we have for her and her husband as a veteran jaeger team - and it's really too bad that she and Alexis were underused in the film.
And that comes right back around to the lack of interaction between Sasha and Mako - if there had been a scene where they're talking together, even if it was brief, then at least Sasha would have had more dialogue, and it could have broadened what little characterization she has, and broadened Mako's scope of character relations as well. Not to mention getting it to pass the bare minimum for female character interaction.
OH WELL. These scenes will exist in my mind... I suppose.
I like this movie a lot, but it kind of chafes that it doesn't pass Bechdel.
So, we have two named female characters. And I think that they would have plenty of things to talk about! (Hella jaegers, yo) But Mako and Sasha don't exchange a single word with each other even once over the course of the film, no matter if it's about a man or not, and that's disappointing.
I like the Kaidanovskys even though they get very little screentime, so maybe I'm kind of biased in that direction - more screentime for Sasha would have been great (and maybe a couple of speaking lines for Alexis would have been nice? Really) and it would have been so easy for there to be some kind of scene where she's exchanging a word or two with Mako about SOMETHING, most likely something Jaeger-related. But it isn't there. WHY.
In discussions about Pacific Rim, I've seen several people forget that Mako isn't the only named female character. And when reminded about it, they say "Yeah, but the female Russian pilot doesn't have any speaking lines", which isn't true. Sasha does have lines! ... A handful of them, during the scene when she's in her jaeger, shortly before she and her husband die.
It sucks that she has so few dialogue scenes that it causes people to forget that she has any at all. I feel like Sasha had the potential to be really cool - I love her character design, I love that she's the one leading the Cherno Alpha team, I'm interested in what little backstory we have for her and her husband as a veteran jaeger team - and it's really too bad that she and Alexis were underused in the film.
And that comes right back around to the lack of interaction between Sasha and Mako - if there had been a scene where they're talking together, even if it was brief, then at least Sasha would have had more dialogue, and it could have broadened what little characterization she has, and broadened Mako's scope of character relations as well. Not to mention getting it to pass the bare minimum for female character interaction.
OH WELL. These scenes will exist in my mind... I suppose.
Yuu. Fic writer & book lover. M/Canada.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-25 04:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-25 05:45 am (UTC)I had been really hoping/wishing that the second PacRim movie would be a prequel, and that we'd get to see one of the other team's stories. ALAS. It is not to be.