Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

I used to draw giant robots for all my friends. How’s that for a cold start to an article? No big deal. Each friend had their own giant robot specific to them that reflected what they thought was cool. They were giant humanoid robots the design of which may or may not exactly reflect heavy influence from battletech role-playing games.

Imagine my outrage when Guillermo Del Toro shows up and steals my idea! He didn’t even consult with me on the project!? And after I went to all the trouble to steal the idea from Battletech. The nerve!

Well, Pacific Rim had giant robots fighting huge kaiju which was pretty different from my proposed storyline so I guess I shan’t sue for royalties. Also, Guillermo Del Toro is kind of cool. When I first started to collect recognition of his works in my mind, his artistic visions appealed to me but his movies ultimately left a bad taste in my mouth; Or rather, one movie did; specifically Pan’s Labyrinth, which I found very hard to watch. Was this his usual modus operandi?

After finally seeing several other of Del Toro’s films, I had to conclude: No. Most his other stuff I actually liked a lot. Hellboy, Hellboy 2, Pinocchio, all great. I heard The Shape of Water was weird but I still want to see it. I’m very interested in his Frankenstein project.

So after the initial shock of Del Toro’s blatant plagiarism from me, I was excited to see this. At any rate it looked better than the transformer films which also featured giant robots, albeit not quite so giant as these. Honestly I don’t know what to say about this film. It’s a kaiju film. It has everything you want from a kaiju film: huge things fighting and destroying everything in their wake. It also has everything you never cared about in a kaiju film: all the storyline and human interactions. Would it be as satisfying just to watch a clip reel of kaiju destruction? Perhaps for a little while but the human drama, despite the fact we often find ourselves trudging through it, usually generates a sense of proportion which is necessary in establishing whatever realism there is to be established in a story about giant robots and monsters fighting each other. As far as that aspect goes, this film manages to make it fairly more interesting than most other kaiju films in my opinion.

The sequel features a man who has a concerning relationship with a leftover kaiju brain. Talk about interesting.

 But, you know? They were both fun.

I’ve read there’s plans for a third film and there’s a bunch of animated stuff and whatnot. Maybe I’ll get around to those someday. I’m not jonesin to seek them out at the moment.

Right now I’m trying my darndest to finish all Godzilla everything but I’ve run into a big road block. My wife loves King Kong. She wants to watch the recent Kong stuff with me which has become enmeshed once again with Godzilla. If we ever do get around to sitting down together and watching something (which is rare because we have five insomniac somnambulist children) she watches about 20 minutes of anything before she’s passed out. We just started Dune part 2. It took three months to get through part 1. I fear it’s going to be a long loooong time before I’m able to recommence my quest even as I am so close to the end. I guess I could go watch the animated Hannah-Barbara Godzilla cartoon while I wait. There’s only so much of Gadzooki I can take in one sitting though. *shudder*

*more shuddering*