–The world is rapidly becoming a more and more vile place that celebrates vulgarity and brutality in the abstract but that hypocritically demands absolute moral perfection in public
–Sooner than you might think, with noise comes emptiness. The explosion occurs when emptiness trumps substance
–How pleasant is the sensation of absence. What a pleasing assassin is silence
–Absolute inconsequence, empty gestures, distance. To be so close and yet so distant from others; to fade away without thunder, without a roar and without fury. Without a vessel, without meaning, without a clear direction; without a destiny, finding nothing but echoes in the voices of other people.
–To which one of the voices should we pay attention? To the one that says “keep going, keep going”? To the one that speaks of tedium? What is the purpose of the gears? Entropy overcomes and guides us as we lurch along toward our cosmic destiny; perhaps, the most we can do is end our days as tiny discharges of energy. Positive, negative? What difference does it make? Murals made by ants, crushed under the feet of a man trudging along, part of an incomprehensible, indecipherable cosmic joke.
NOTEBOOK 5, PAGE 5
The code in the Kaiju’s viscera should he fascinating. Blues, iridescence; translucent and opalescent. Bioluminescent blood should come from the glow sticks; this would help with the FX brain
–Before the written language in Cluva events were recorded by knotting cords or making notches on a stick (SINOGRAMS is what the symbols are called) 6 categories. XIANGXING, ZHISHI, HUIYI, XIESHENG, ZUANZAU, and JIAJIE —PICTOGRAMS.
–Wide-angle lenses to capture the CHARACTER and the SURROUNDINGS in the same frame 18 mm
–For Beauty and the Beast, the Age of Reason, which is the period during the eighteenth century in which reason is enthroned above spirituality, which witnesses the birth of Diderot’s Encyclopedia. It’s in this spirit that the United States is born as a new country.
–Perhaps it might also be worthwhile to set it in the following period: during the Napoleonic Wars, when reason has been abandoned but spirituality has not been recovered or reclaimed.
–BOXING FIST FIGHT in the middle of a battlefield in F.
–Gathering pages from her encyclopedia Bella finds something ancient and magic.
“Sprouting Boy”
GDT: The idea in both films is that the flower tells the story. But I abandoned the idea in the middle of shooting Pacific Rim because I thought we wouldn’t have time. When we started shooting, the screenplay was about 130 pages long. That meant at least a 2-hour-and-45-minute movie for me.
But the idea was that the entire command center would be made of concrete and metal. And I wanted Raleigh and Mako to talk about themselves to one another, in the heart of the rubble. Originally, they were going to talk on a ledge outside, and she would notice a flower that was blooming in the concrete and she would say, “Oh, the poor thing, it won’t live.” And then, at the end of the movie, we would go back to the flower, and it would be blooming.
MSZ: It looks like there is an image of the rubble on the facing page. Can you say something about that?
GDT: I love finding beauty and symmetry in ruins, and I thought this crumbling half-pipe could look almost like a throne. I also used a circle for the throne in Hellboy II, which I think has a certain inherent magnificence. I wanted both scenes to feel operatic, if you will.
MSZ: And does the symbol on this page mean anything?
GDT: I wanted a symbol for the Kaiju organ harvester, Hannibal Chau, and I wanted it to look sort of like an Oriental character, even though it’s just his initials. So that’s an “H” and a “C.”
Del Toro had a clear idea early on that a broken, massive circular opening could serve as a symbolic throne for his reluctant hero Raleigh Beckett (Charlie Hunnam).
NOTEBOOK 5, PAGE 4
–Use very wide-angle lenses for the film. The scale of the action is not human, taking place at a height of 25 stories. Wide-angle lenses will he of great use in the struggle to get humans and Jaegers into the same frame. Ask Memo which set of lenses comes with the Epia.
–Make sure that the Scavengers’ biosuits aren’t too sci-fi.
–Colors in Raleigh’s apartment with his clothes. (?) Speak with K.
–Divide the Shatterdome “intro” into 4 different areas, offering a clear sense of the geography. The center of this geography is the main portal through which the Jaegers emerge into the bay of H.R. On the other side is the Loccent.
–The Chernobog Alpha is finally destroyed when they crush the cabin that is its heart.
–Mako and Raleigh need to fall in love in a way that is believable. Their time together is short. Their mutual gazes need to be intense right from the start. Mako is stunned by Raleigh’s apparent carelessness and he is attracted to her apparent orderliness. Together they form the perfect Ying Yang
“Elegant Scavenger”
Del Toro drew on Renaissance dress codes and historic whaling gear to keep the Kaiju scavengers in the film low-tech. Concepts of the scavenger by Kate Hawley closely followed del Toro’s direction.
GDT: I wanted them to be like seventeenth-century whalers. Their tools of the trade are blades and wicker baskets. Everything about them is a little funky—like steam-powered or clunky. So they are really, really low-tech. Even the robots and the control mechanisms in Pacific Rim have an analog component, which for me is very important.
MSZ: And the Kaiju here?
GDT: I wanted to evoke a whale. It was going to open and have another head inside. But it ended up looking like a crocodile—Francisco Ruiz Velasco took it in a completely different direction.
MSZ: And what about the note, “Kaiju cutie?” You’ve discussed the idea of giving monsters personalities, making them somehow sympathetic.
GDT: I just thought he looked cute, you know? But I love all the Kaiju in Pacific Rim. My favorite is Leatherback, the gorilla-like one. I voiced three Kaijus in the movie, and Leatherback is the one I voiced most. Every time he moves, I’m complaining about weight. Like, I was actually saying the words, but then we distorted the sounds. I was going, “Oh, I’ve got to lose weight. Oh, I’m so heavy. I shouldn’t have eaten that last pilot.” I don’t know how much of that is in the final mix, but when I was doing the sounds, I was complaining actively and thinking, This guy really hates being out of the water, because that happens to me when I get out of a pool. I go, “Shit, I’m heavy!”