Warning! This post tries very hard to be spoiler-free, but doesn’t quite manage it. Proceed at your own risk. And also watch Pacific Rim if you haven’t.

Over the last two or so years, I’ve gotten into the same discussion with at least four different parties. We get to talking about movies that have come out recently, especially ones with lots of explosions, and inevitably the conversation comes round to Pacific Rim. “Yeah, I liked that movie,” they say. “It was fun/interesting/exciting. I enjoyed it.”

“Oh yeah,” I reply, “it was such a great movie.”

And then they look at me funny. “Great?” they ask. “I mean, it was okay. I wouldn’t call it ‘great.'”

Now, me being me, I can’t understand that. I talked a little bit last week about what makes a movie Great. I don’t consider those to be the only requirements, don’t get me wrong, but the whole schpiel about Filmic Greatness would be a post unto itself. Perhaps next week. For now, we’ll start with the understanding that a film is great if the image and the story/plot complement one another.

The thing about Pacific Rim that I will readily admit is that it’s not some super artsy “high cinema” type of ultra significant and allegorical piece of entertainment. The colors are hyper-saturated. The dialogue is a little on-the-nose and expositional. Very few actors play characters of their own nationalities. There are explosions. Suddenly Gypsy Danger has a mother-freaking sword. But the film is a lot deeper than you might think.

Let me begin by talking about the story. As I distinguished last week, “plot” is concerned with action while “story” is concerned with emotions. I’m going to go even a step further and talk about the “core emotional story.” The core emotional story is the primary arc that the main character or characters experience. In story theory, it answers the question, “what is this movie about?” (In practical terms, the definition of story that I gave you is no different. “Core emotional story” is just the technically correct language. The word “story” alone is used more generally.)

Take for instance The Lion King. I don’t care how old you are, I know you’ve seen it and love it and know all the words to every song. Anyway, we’re going to set plot aside and talk about story. So what happens in The Lion King? A young “boy” (for our purposes) witnesses the death of his father and blames himself for it. He runs away from the life he’s known, convinced there is no hope for his future. Eventually he finds the strength to return and claim his rightful place on the throne of his people. He learns that his uncle, desperate to claim power for himself, is truly responsible for his father’s death. He defeats his uncle and restores balance to the kingdom with his wisdom. Okay, admittedly I got a little into the plot there, but only to fill in some of the gaps. Distill that down and you get something like a prince, traumatized by the death of his father, finds the strength within himself to face his demons and uncover the truth.

There are definitely movies that don’t have as deep of a core emotional story. You’d be hard pressed to watch Transformers and come up with a core emotional story much deeper than an immature young man learns the true meaning of sacrifice from a talking car. (Actually, even that is pretty deep. Minus the talking car.)

So let’s talk, then, about Pacific Rim. It’s gotta have one of these simple core emotional stories, right? A bunch of people save the world from monsters, the end. Right? Wrong. First and foremost, the film is about a young man who has ceased trusting, a young woman consumed by revenge, and how the pair come together and teach each other how to open up again and find peace in true friendship and love.

Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

Think about it, truly. Raleigh Beckett spends the entire film talking about how he was connected to his brother Yancy when he was killed, how that experience destroyed him emotionally, how he was forever thereafter unable to let anybody else inside his head. Raleigh may have been referring specifically to drifting with anybody else, but pay attention to where Marshall Stacker Pentecost finds him at the beginning of the film. Raleigh follows the construction needs of the Coastal Wall. He has no family left. He has no friends, as evidenced by the fact that he takes his meals alone. For his first several (presumably) days at the Shatterdome, he converses little with anyone else, and only with the barest manners. To be brief, Raleigh cannot let anyone else into his life at all for fear of losing them.

Enter Mako Mori. Her culture requires a level of poise from her, not to mention the fact that she answers directly to Stacker, but her calm demeanor is barely controlled. She is brimming with rage beneath that cool exterior, and we see it bubble over on more than one occasion. This makes her a fierce fighter, but it means that she is willing to risk anything and everything for vengeance, including the safety of the others in the Shatterdome. Like Raleigh, Mako has few meaningful relationships. In fact, until Raleigh, her only relationship seems to be with Stacker, who has taken over as her surrogate father after her family was annihilated by kaiju.

I could go on for hours about how these events make the two drift compatible, but suffice it to say that it does. Throw the two into the ring together – in a jaeger, of course – and their enemies don’t stand a chance. But at first, they are fighting separately for similar goals. They are forced to “live” inside each other’s heads by virtue of how the drift functions, but their communication is limited to how to complete the mission. However, as time goes on, as they learn more about each other, we should notice something extremely vital. Not only do they trust each other more, but they also begin to form more meaningful relationships with others in the Shatterdome. Raleigh begins to respect Stacker for more than simply his rank, but as a person as well. He considers all of the other jaeger pilots to be his friends instead of simply his colleagues. The same can be said of Mako, although this evolution is more subtle than Raleigh’s because he is the true main character. Rather, Mako reaches one very important epiphany: she has spent something close to ten years, if not more, so consumed by avenging her family that she has not truly seen the family she still has in Stacker. At the end of the film, right before [spoilers], Mako tells Stacker something in Japanese: 先生、愛しています。It’s left untranslated for the English-speaking audience, and many people I know in fact missed it entirely. There are other sounds at the same time, including score, explosions, and kaiju roaring. She says, simply, “Teacher, I love you.” Presumably, this is the first time she has ever said anything of the sort to Stacker, as their relationship until this point has been distinctly formal and even a little distant. This is the moment Mako finally acknowledges how much her father-figure truly means to her.

But what causes these changes in our two favorite pilots? (Well, they’re my favorites, anyway. Many of my friends are more partial to the Russians.) Quite simply, each other. Although they might try to keep each other out emotionally, the drift will not let them be truly isolated. They see much of themselves in each other, and each is driven to help and protect the other for this reason. Raleigh sees how much Stacker means to Mako and defends her to him. Mako recognizes how skilled Raleigh is as a fighter and learns from him. The drift, for them, becomes a feedback loop of experiences both shared and new, and the two grow in affection for each other.

I don’t want to get too deep into the specifics of Raleigh and Mako’s relationship, because it is purposely left slightly ambiguous in the film. Are they merely co-pilots? Friends? Surrogate siblings? Lovers? I tend to view their relationship as distinctly romantic by the end, but I know many who disagree. Regardless, their feelings for one another are tender, and they do love each other in some way. They have finally learned to trust again, and they cherish each other.

Great, so that’s the story down. What about the imagery? I don’t have to answer that if you’ve seen the film; you already know that movie is nothing but screen candy. Giant robots! Phosphorescent dinosaurs from space! Explosions! Idris Elba! And what on earth is Ron Perlman wearing? That’s not even discussing the visual humor, the practical effects accomplished onscreen without CGI, the props, the sets, the costuming. Also, did you see the drift??

Beautiful story: check. Beautiful images: check. Now, do the two support each other? I say yes, absolutely. So then what are people getting hung up on? I think, truthfully, the problem lies in our collective cultural outlook on life. We have gotten it into our heads that the better stories, the more believable stories, are the cynical ones. Optimists are naive, cynics are realistic, and romance is overrated. So when a film like Pacific Rim comes along, a film that has fun having fun, a lighthearted romp through the apocalypse, people instantly dismiss it. What people fail to realize is that the carnage is real. The emotions are real. The destruction and devastation are real. What does it matter that there’s a doctor named Newt? that Raleigh cracks jokes in the heat of battle? that the automated voice for the drift process is GLaDOS? A little humor doesn’t discount the genuineness of the action. And when more people are able to realize that, I think they’ll find that Pacific Rim is genuinely one of the best films all-around to come out of the last few years.