Some more on Pacific Rim visuals-- costuming, military aesthetics, and circularity
So I've read the post on the visual intelligence of Pacific Rim and while it was a good article, I really liked this one a great deal more.
(The original hits a certain doth-protests too much button with me. I feel no need to justify my love for Pacific Rim or any other action movie. While I appreciate the attention given to del Toro's thoughtfulness, the premise that this should stand as a response to people who are not interested/are not up with its codes is one I am not fond of, pearls before swine and all that. Secondly, I am uncomfortable dismissing that the movie's dialogue as well as it's treatment of Mako and its secondary characters leaves much to be desired. It's not linguistic bias to criticize language as unnatural/wooden/cliche and actually detracting from characterization, or the lack of language as also working against the same -- note the article makes much of the Kaidanovskys, but what about the equally silent Wei triplets? So to sum up, I have issues with the article's framing, but the analysis of the way del Toro uses imagery is still very relevant)
But on to the costume article. What strikes me it the avoidance of military elements in the costuming. I did hear that del Toro tried to marginalize the military undertones so prevalent in this kind of media. This is a claim I arch my eyebrow to, as far as I think it's a failed enterprise from the get go. Military undertones are so deeply encoded into the DNA of genre with mecha and kaiju that it's difficult to get away from them either at a plot level (so here del Toro makes the Shatterdome be this vague "resistance" when it's not a community of nations thing) or aesthetics (mm uniformssssss, behavior codes/hierarchies--I know that "Ranger and Marshall" supposedly are another way of steering clear, but I'm not sure it's effective).
So one of the observations in the article is that we don't see the sleek futuristic images of sci fi (think Oblivion), but a grungy aesthetic for everyone involved and this shows up in the costuming. The article seems to imply that this turn towards rough edges is a way of distancing the film from military undertones, or rather perhaps from the military fetish that it's genre predecessors have, if we're going to be more nuanced.
What I was surprised by is that the article doesn't mention steampunk. This, to me, would be a good shorthand for what we see in the film. True steampunk has its origins elsewhere, but I think I've discussed it in another post how steampunk (exposed machinery, dirt, and grotesquerie) aesthetics are the yin to the yang of cyperpunk (smooth, clean and sublime). As far as a lot of it's visuals are also rather retro (WWII bomber jackets, Choi's style) that also seems to fit in with the steampunky vibe. But just by looking at some of the retro elements (aforementioned bomber jackets to be repetitive), you see how the film can't really escape these military visual codes (and their coolness). But then again, this is the prelude to the movie where it all ends in tears, so perhaps the visuals should be accounted for with that in mind.
The drivesuits are where this gives a little, particularly the second set as far as Raleigh, Mako, and Stacker are concerned (the Wei triplets also have slick suits). So sure we might think of these choices being made for in-film reasons (the connection to the Jaeger in general for the triplets, for example). The article mentions the black of Mako and Raleigh's suit reflecting Kaiju Blue and providing that link to memories--I was surprised it didn't look at that with respect to Raleigh and Yancy's grungier white armor, so that break might have another in-film reading (an opportunity for rebirth? Recalling that Mako fixed the Jaeger. Visually linking Mako and Raleigh to Stacker's storyline?). There's a lot that we can untangle there at an even more meta (haha and navel gazey) level, something about the clean circularity of the narrative at the end. Stacker's storyline (his fear of losing Mako) opening up to Mako's (coming to her own) linking to Raleigh's (healing from the loss of his brother) the recuperation of partnership (Mako and Raleigh left standing).
In really perfect, slick suits. :D