Tag: jake pentecost

Jake Pentecost and Birthdays

pastandfuturequeen:

When he was little, Jake would get a cupcake every year. The icing would be thick, and fluffy, and tasted so sweet he could barely stand it. But the thing that he loved most was the way that his dad would put a hand on his shoulder and beam at him, saying, “Happy Birthday, son.” Jake remembers swelling up with pride, those words making him feel like he could conquer the world.

The kaiju attacks start. Everyone’s scared. He’s scared. He’s young and his shoulders are too thin to deal with the burden or war. But every year his dad still gets him his cupcake, and he still beams at him. And it’s on that day every year where he finally feels safe.

The kaiju keep coming. His dad needs to be away more often but Jake knows he’ll never forget his birthday. No matter how busy things got, no matter how often his dad would leave, he wouldn’t forget.

One year the cupcakes stop. Stacker Pentecost is needed halfway across the world to settle a dispute. World leaders are squabbling and it doesn’t look like there’s an end to the kaiju in sight. Jake doesn’t get a call. Or a smile. 

His dad becomes overcome with work. Mako tries to make up for it but she can’t. She’s young, too. She’s scared. She’s not their dad. Nate sees what’s going on so he tries by scraping together a gift that he thinks Jake would like and stocking up on jokes to bring a smile to Jakes face. For a time that helps but it’s still not enough. There’s too much going on.

Then Jake leaves. He leaves everybody and everything behind. Each day blurs into the other until a year passes and he all but forgets his birthday. Years pass.

Jake gets the news of his father’s death. His birthday is a month later. He doesn’t speak a word the entire day.

Then he just forgets. Maybe because he’s just too busy trying to survive in a world so infested by war and insecurity. Maybe because it hurts less that way. Not even he’s sure why.

Then Jake comes back. And things are going normal until Mako shows up one day and sets down a huge cupcake in front of him. The icing is thick, and fluffy, and it tastes so sweet he can barely stand it. She remembered. Jake hasn’t seen that kind of decadence in years and he briefly wonders how his sister pulled that kind of favor but then he doesn’t really think anymore because Nate’s there too, and he’s giving Jake a gift and Nate and Mako are just telling him how much they care about him and there are tears forming in his eyes because he remembers, they remember, and all the emotion and the pride and the mourning for what used to be hits him like a wave crashing against the shore and he’s carried off by the tide.

The next birthday, Mako brings him a cupcake. And for the first birthday in years, Jake can feel himself smile.

sithchirrut:

sithchirrut:

Ever since we got the teaser trailer for Pacific Rim Uprising and I got some “semi creepy propaganda” vibes of it and its promotion of the Jaeger program, I’ve been wondering what the Jaeger program turned into post the First Kaiju war. And with the trailer released I’m wondering even more.

Because the Jaegers and the Jaeger program aren’t phrased as a good here – they’re literally called “the monsters we created” and it’s Jake who’s talking here – but as a necessary evil to fight a greater and more destructive evil.

I’m wondering if the Jaegers were used to keep a fearful populace in check? If Jake saw where it all was headed even before the end of the first war and that that is why he left the program? If he had a falling out with his father and sister about it? And if that’s why he got caught up in the criminal underworld which might be the only “free” place left?

Of course, with the Kaiju back in force the Jaegers are once more a very necessary evil and Jake decides for his own reasons to join up again to help.

A few more thoughts after watching the trailer again.

This would go a way to explain Amara, that 15 yo Jaeger hacker that’s in the movie. Why would someone hack a Jaeger?

Okay I know it’s common human nature for some to try and break into stuff where they shouldn’t be, not out of malice but just to see if they can. But on the other hand, it might indicate that some humans anyway seems to need/want protection from the Jaegers.

And then there’s the opening scene where we see said hacker standing in the middle of what looks like a Jaeger attack, but there seems to be no Kaiju around. It looks more like the Jaegers attacking ordinary humans. Then a bit later we see Jake get off something (a helicopter carrier?) along with the 15 yo girl. So she’s with him, and by extension probably part of that criminal underworld mentioned in the synopsis.

Holy shit, I think you’re on to something! You’re right that we don’t see kaiju in the opening of the trailer. In fact, look at what a Jaeger is doing in the background here:

It’s smashing an aircraft, not fighting Kaiju. This is either Jaegers being used in warfare or in some kind of civilian repression, and I’m guessing the latter because this is clearly an urban area and not a battlefield.

Also, I went back and listened to John’s narration as Jake, and noticed something weird in the opening sentences. So my first impression was that the narration was supposed to go like this:

“We were born into a world at war between the monsters that destroyed our cities and the monsters we created to stop them. We thought we had sacrificed enough.”

Which would be straightforward, right? There was a war between the Kaiju and Jaegers, a war that caused untold loss.

But that reading is strange on a couple of levels. For one thing, the war wasn’t between Kaiju and Jaegers, it was between the Kaiju and humans. It would be like saying World War 2 was between Japan and nuclear bombs, it doesn’t fit. For another, that first sentence, “We were born into a world at war” sounds like a complete sentence and the next part, “between the monsters…” reads like the beginning of a new sentence.

So what if the narration actually reads like this?

“We were born into a world at war. Between the monsters that destroyed our cities and the monsters we created to stop them, we thought we had sacrificed enough.”

Completely changes the meaning, doesn’t it? It gets rid of the awkwardness of putting Jaegers, which are weapons of war, in the position of a party to the war. It also sounds closer to my ears to how John is reading the words.

Most significantly, this reading presents the Jaegers as an evil or at the very least a tremendous drain that demanded sacrifices–of expenses and resources, for a start, but what if there was more? Civil liberties? Human lives?

There’s more evidence that Jaegers are being used in conflicts between human groups. There’s the scene of missiles flying in from behind Jaegers to hit some kind of command center, and since when do Kaiju shoot missiles? Those are clearly of human make.

And of course, since those in power make the rules, the “criminal underworld” may simply be people trying to live away from the police state’s control and outlawed for that reason. This possibility helps me feel a lot better about the whole criminal angle, because I really was not looking forward to the prospect of Jake being some unruly delinquent that Mako has to talk into doing the right thing.

If the Jaeger program did go bad, it’s likely to be after 2025 when the events of Pacific Rim took place, since the program was being shut down in the early to mid 2020s and wasn’t in a position of power. Since Stacker died in 2025 before the Jaeger program was diverted Jake’s fallout is unlikely to have been with him, at least over this particular issue.

The period after 2025 and Stacker Pentecost’s death would be a perfect time for the rot to set in. There would be the enormous political capital from the awe toward Jaegers and pilots, the surplus military hardware available at a time of peace (from the Kaiju, anyway), and the militaristic mindset of preparing for the next war through “unity” which would really be thinly-veiled code for obedience and suppression of dissent. All this would set the stage for the countries in the Pan Pacific Defense Corps to turn against each other and/or their own populations.

Assuming Jake had moral objections to the direction the Jaeger program was taking he’d have all the more reason to get off the grid into the underground. Much like Mako, he’s a child of Stacker Pentecost and a perfect pawn for propaganda. If he wants no part in that he’d have to go into hiding because repressive police states are not known for taking kindly to rejection.