my favorite thing about choreographed combat is the sheer variety of things
you can do with it including selling us on both how these characters will be
bffs but these characters will just never get along
today's topic is Pacific Rim and there are two scenes we're going to talk about
finding Raleigh a drift partner and Raleigh versus Chuck Hansen in one we learn how
close two people can be in the other we see there's never going to be any
understanding my name is Jill Bearup and I make videos about screen and stage
combat aka all that fake fighting in movies stage combat is basically the
only hope I have that lets me get out in the fresh air and even then only
sometimes my second favorite thing about stage combat if you were wondering is
that the narrative controls the outcome which is great for me because I'm kind
of a wuss and so it's nice to be able to win sometimes even if it's totally
fake Pacific Rim is the 2013 giant mecha punching giant monsters movie that I
loved more than I really expected - even though I am a fan of people pretending
to punch each other in creative ways look at these crazy kids and their giant
robots that they pilot through the power of togetherness and sharing and whatnot
the deeper the bond the better you fight the plot revolves around the team trying
to fight the monsters that appear from under the Pacific Ocean and then also
seal up the interdimensional breach that means that they keep on coming so there
are lots of giant monsters fighting giant robots but I've always been a
sucker for the more human scale fights the setup for the first one is that
Stacker Pentecost has decided he needs Raleigh for the whole saving the world
thing which means that Raleigh is going to need a drift partner. Raleigh is not
exactly a maverick but he is "you're unpredictable you have a habit of
deviating from standard combat techniques you take risks that endanger
yourself and your crew" Yeah. That. "I don't think you're the right man for this mission"
well that was blunt "Wow thank you for your honesty" and that for
those of us expecting standard action film archetypes was unexpected though I
guess him speaking to Mako in Japanese when he gets off the helicopter is
possibly our first hint of this slight unexpectedness in Raleigh's character. I
think most of the reason for Chuck Hansen existing in this film is to
provide a contrast to Raleigh. Chuck is a jerk and we dislike him whereas Raleigh
is not when we first see Raleigh in the movie he's an enthusiastic puppy with
really great Abs. the enthusiasm does not persist past the death of his brother
though and by this point in the film he's mostly thoughtful which is going to
be important because it turns out that the chaps that Mako has picked out for
him to potentially drift with are mostly just wrong wrong for him anyway we know
that none of them is going to be right for him visually because they're all
pretty much identically dressed Asian dudes with similar haircuts the
variation is mostly you know in height they've got no names and no Jaeger and
the movie doesn't really care about them and so probably neither do we
But they're also there as an explanation of why it's hard to find Raleigh a drift
partner he's unpredictable Raleigh's previous partner was his brother Yancy
they grew up together they knew each other I mean the
unpredictable becomes predictable when it's family it wasn't a problem for
Raleigh and Yancy to drift together but these guys do not know Raleigh at all and
they don't really understand him either possibly what Mako thought was that he
needed someone to rein him in because his previous tactical style was so
unorthodox and brash but actually given the loss of his brother and the years he
has spent avoiding the fight and the gentleness with which he responds to are
basically saying I don't think you can cut it gives us the clue that he doesn't
need someone to tell him what to do at this point he's older and more
experienced and less hot-headed note I said less hot-headed everyone has a
button you can push and we'll get to that later what he needs in the drift is
not someone who can rein him in it's someone who can keep up and these three
can't so he fights "it's a dialogue not a fight" fine he communicates via sticks
with Makos hand-picked candidates only to communicate via beating with all of
them now in order to keep everything moving along we only see the last point
in the first three fights that Raleigh does there's a definite theme that
emerges the choreography in the first match is brief and most of what we see is
Raleigh parrying but when Raleigh goes in overhead and is parried he jabs his
staff under the parry twists his opponent gets him on the floor and we're
done while everything is basic staff drills guy number one is fine but as
soon as Raleigh does something slightly unorthodox... can't cope. guy number two
loses 4 points to 1 and this initial piece of choreography it's fairly
standard staff drills stuff high left low left high right low left again high
right and then Raleigh just barges him and he's on the floor you see the theme
emerging as soon as Raleigh does something even slightly unexpected like jabbing
his staff under the guard instead of a sweeping strike or bodychecking instead
of fighting with the staff directly his opponents can't anticipate and they
can't recover. guy number 3 is weirdly flashy for someone who's on his sixth
match you'd think they'd have stopped posturing by now but you know what you
do you interestingly enough they both start in a stance which says I have a
two-handed sword and so do you which is perfectly fine but it's fascinating that
Raleigh chooses to echo his partner here you could have taken all of them two
moves earlier well yes but maybe he's trying to feel
that bond with them Mako be reasonable so they do some two-handed sword style
work for a bit but the way that Raleigh scores the point is again doing
something unexpected by using his staff in a very staff like move as opposed to
a sword like one to flip this guy over so then having been dressed down by Mako
on his performance we let the young lady have a turn
kick his butt baby I'll hold your clipboard. Now Mako is smart and
presumably unlike these guys she has studied Raleigh and all of the missions he
has ever been on "even Alaska" she has also watched his last 14 bouts and
become increasingly annoyed by the fact that he refuses to end the fight as soon
as he can he picks up on this which is how they end up fighting and immediately
the tempo changes. when you learn fight choreography you don't learn the entire
thing in one go because that would be terrible and inefficient and your brain
might explode you learn it in sections which around here we call phrases I mean
you can call them what you like but we call them phrases "it's a dialogue not a
fight" and also because of what he said but you know sometimes it can be both in
these matches the phrases are marked by a point being scored and so the first
phrase of the Raleigh Mako fight is a bunch of posturing and one actual attack by
Raleigh one move to win is as short as you can get and it's signals to the audience
that something different is happening and you should
pay attention Makos stepping on to the mat is also when the music kicks in with
you know a melody as opposed to just the sound of drumming and so you're further
cued in that something interesting is about to happen and you should pay
attention if these are conversations then we start with the equivalent of
ready? and then a little pause before the response yeah I am! now was that last
move a little bit cheeky on Makos part because they hadn't officially reset mmm
maybe maybe not Raleigh is happy to take advantage of it
though I know that he actually makes contact this time because you know it's
her side and not her head "concentrate" Are you flirting mr. Beckett? huh all right
well I'm paying attention having built up the tension with these
very short exchanges where they're kind of feeling each other out get your
mind out of the gutter you know they're analyzing they're using their brains
it's not until the fourth phrase that we actually get into it properly note that
this is the first time we get actual back and forth and also that this is
longer than any of the closing phrases in the previous fights there's also a
little bit of anticipation. I talked a little bit about anticipation in my last
Jedi video but it's one of those things that's quite hard to avoid when you're
learning choreography especially when fighting is not your specialty ideally
you are so practiced that you start moving after your partner starts
attacking I mean that often doesn't happen but when things are being played
at full speed you know it's it's kind of hard to tell that said in this fight
anticipation is exactly what you want the deeper the bond the better you
fight the more you just kind of know what the other person is gonna do like
you're a Jedi or something and the deeper the bond the longer the phrase is
because now you know how the other person thinks you can conjure them point
to Mako after a bit but it should be noted that nothing Raleigh does in this
section is particularly unexpected it's all relatively high target staff moves
it's a test kind of the fifth phrase he actively tries to throw her off a little
bit by starting with a different grip but it does not work and in this phrase
it's Mako who does something unexpected when she rolls him to take the point
then we time jump probably for reasons of pacing right into the middle of the
sixth phrase and it is on please note the variation it's not all parries now. for
example Mako ducks under a high blow here to give us something a bit visually
different and note also the symmetry this time it's Raleigh who does some
unexpected throwing and the last phrase is my favorite
it's fast and smooth and flowing and it moves and it's different in character to
the points before it because this time the unexpected moves don't throw them
off Mako ducks under Raleigh's staff again but this time she moves around him but
he is expecting that and parries. Raleigh jabs his staff at her instead of
swinging it and she avoids him Mako goes for Raleigh's feet and he jumps over
her and it takes her tackling him to the ground before she scores the point three
four Mako wins "enough" the Ranger may have
seen enough but so has Raleigh "she's my co-pilot" well yes and the choreography
makes it obvious why especially that last point which is one of the reasons
it's the longest one. also for the tension building purposes. by this point
they've already learned enough about each other that the unexpected move
which would usually have got them a point has failed to work they've been
sparring for under two minutes and already the biggest problem that the
previous guys had that of Raleigh being unexpected doesn't throw Mako off. She
can not only adapt to it she can win it's also a great way to set up their
partnership visually and technically after all he is the veteran and she is
the rookie everything he does she responds he gets a single point move she
counters with two moves to even the score he attacks she counters she
attacks he counters the unexpected changes only work once and once we get
to this last point to the heck yes we're drift compatible point the unexpected
things don't work don't work okay fine that one worked but I bet in their next
match it wouldn't. further emphasizing this connection is the fact that she's
comfortable enough to joke with him in the middle of the match "better watch it!" I mean
of course they're gonna go kick kaiju butt with cannons and a sword look at
their adorable faces and of course they're sparring so it's not a real fight as I
said in my Captain Marvel video when we know it's a sparring match and not a
fight to the death it's a very quick way to establish intimacy between two
characters because they trust each other enough to hit each other with sticks and
get all hot and sweaty while they're doing it. it doesn't establish that
intimacy for the first three candidates because we see them once briefly being
beaten and they're never seen or heard from again but everything changes when
Mako steps onto the mats we changed the tempo by having the first three points
be more mental mind games than actual technique as I mentioned previously the
music gets a melody to go along with the drumming and that melody gets
progressively more insistent as we go through the fight the phrases get
increasingly long because it's progressively more difficult for them to
fool each other and the fights get more beautiful and fluid and
dance like as they understand each other better and anticipate each other more
what they're trying to sell you on here is basically the concept of drift
compatibility they fight this well because they're friends because they
have a connection you don't want to know how Raleigh fights with people he doesn't
like "but it is pretty cool so I might tell you"
"I'm gonna tell you" the Raleigh versus Chuck fight occurs after Raleigh and
Mako's first disastrous drift attempt in which she nearly shoots everyone with a
cannon Chuck who has spent the entire film being an antagonistic jerk to
basically everyone gets up in Raleigh's face note how Raleigh isn't even bothering
to look at him at this point and he's a jerk being a jerk and fighting kaiju
basically comprises 90% of chucks personality. Raleigh who has so far
responded to Chuck's provocation with precisely the level of interest that it
deserves, ie. basically none calms Mako down when she
gets angry on his behalf but then Chuck insults Mako and it's on there is
basically no windup Raleigh looks at Chuck takes a breath and punches him in the
face. Raleigh and Chuck are not compatible at all
and we're about to demonstrate that which is why everything is different
their motivations are different its unsanctioned brawling rather than
sparring its unarmed rather than having bo staffs the music is more percussion
and less melody the camerawork is generally closer in to emphasize the
anger on their faces rather than how beautifully they're moving and chuck
isn't expecting it and this fight is vicious and not really very beautiful at
all it's kind of ugly. Raleigh lands two punches before Chuck manages to score
one and from then on it's Raleigh's fight and Chuck doesn't really get a look-in
we've spent some time in this movie setting up the fact that Chuck is a
bully who tries and mostly fails to pick on Raleigh and that he doesn't understand
Raleigh he doesn't understand what he thinks or what he values or what would
actually hurt his feelings he just kind of flails if as Raleigh says "it's a
dialogue not a fight" on the mats then this is not so much a dialogue as a
monologue that Chuck tries and mostly fails to interrupt and that monologue
reads how dare you insult my BFF apologize or else I'll smash your face
and so Raleigh goes to town punching kicking more punching wall slamming more
wall slamming symbolic steam and Brazilian Jujitsu to finish it off
because why not that last move is pretty much the nicest looking thing in the
entire fight. Mako and Raleigh's fight is set up in every single way to emphasize
their compatibility it's an official sparring match for the purpose of
finding someone compatible with Raleigh there is a point system they anticipate
each other's moves which as I said previously is pretty much inevitable in
choreography but in this case works to emphasize
what's going on there is back and forth in terms of who's attacking and who's
defending they recover quickly from unexpected moves that the other person
makes and they make unexpected moves themselves there is a fluid flowing
quality to it the builds over the course of the match they're trying to discover
whether or not their drift compatible it's competitive but it's also meant to
be cooperative the whole point of this match is to sell you on their
compatibility physically mentally emotionally everything away and so it
looks nice Chuck and Raleigh's fight is set up not just so you know they loathe
each other but also to underline visually both their personalities and
all of the things Chuck does not understand they don't gel visually
because they don't tell spiritually and it's like two dudes fighting in a bar
there's not a lot of finesse or tactics here they just want to hurt each other
but one of them can still think when he's angry and one of them can't want to
take a wild guess which ones which physically Chuck is overwhelmed by Raleigh's
skills Chuck has mistaken passive responses to his bullying for weakness
but it's not so he's off guard initially and then off balance for a significant
section of this relatively short fight emotionally Chuck is in the same state
that he's always in angry quarrelsome sarcastic scared he's never seen Raleigh
angry on behalf of someone he cares about before I'd be scared too honestly
and Chuck can't appropriately respond to that because the only thing he knows how
to express love and care for is his dog Stacker Pentecost is Pacific Rim's
closest equivalent to Mary Sue so he can drift with anyone "I carry nothing into
the drift" for no apparent reason including very angry Chuck but that's
clearly never gonna be true of Raleigh. in this instance they are speaking the same
kind of language which is to say the language of rage but Raleigh's anger is
usually well contained focused meaningful Chuck is just kind of angry
at the world and so the idea of being mad on someone else's behalf doesn't
really occur to him I mean if he understood how to deal with his anger
they wouldn't be fighting would they? it's not a sparring match between two
opponents testing their skill on each other it's you know a bar fight albeit
carried out by two guys with the higher level of skill than you would normally
find in a bar and also not actually located in a bar fine it's not very
much like a bar fight but you take my point. Raleigh is one guy and these are two
fights or I guess technically five fights but the
contrast in them is pretty stark. in the first three he looks for understanding
but doesn't find it in the last one the only understanding he wants is the
understanding that if you say mean things about Mako you apologize or I
beat your face and in the fourth one he finds everything he's looking for don't
you love it I love it for another look at how phrases shape fight scenes I
recommend my Witcher video or if you'd rather talk about the character clues
that one can glean from sparring then maybe my Vers/Yon Rogg
Captain Marvel video is the one for you either way thank you for watching thanks
to my patrons and I'll see you next time