idonotbitemythumbatyou:

the-oxford-english-fangeek:

geiszlerian:

No matter how many times I watch PacRim, one line always strikes me as being a little odd. During Newton’s first meeting with Hannibal Chau, this exchange takes place:

N: I need to access a Kaiju brain, completely intact.
H: No, no, no. The skull plate is so dense that by the time you drill into it-
N: The brain has rotten away, but I’m talking about the secondary brain. Now, we both know the Kaiju are so large they need two brains to move around like a dinosaur.

It’s undeniable that Newt is extraordinarily clever. He canonically holds at least one PhD, while the extended canon of the novelisation states that he actually holds six advanced degrees (as well as having taught at MIT, pioneered research in artificial tissue replication and created the Milking Machine used to extract noxious chemical agents from Kaiju glands for specialized classification). You’ve gotta respect that the guy is considerably more intelligent than a large portion of the global population and does know what he’s talking about, even if he gesticulates wildly with ink adorned arms as he does it. Newton Geiszler knows his shit.

This is why it struck me as odd that he should so candidly acknowledge, with utter seriousness, the concept that dinosaurs had a secondary butt brain.

The myth that dinosaurs had two brains stems from the 19th Century when a large canal was found in the hip region of a Stegosaurus spinal cord that could have accommodated a structure up to 20 times larger than their famously small brain. This led to the widespread belief that dinosaurs like the Stegosaurus had a second brain in the tail, which may have been responsible for controlling reflexes in the rear portion of the body.

For decades, popular articles and books claimed that the armour-plated Stegosaurus and the biggest of the sauropod dinosaurs had second brains in their rumps due to this extra mass of tissue.

This is inaccurate and totally untrue.

Why would a doctor with genius-level intellect, a doctor well versed in biology and biotechnology, still believe a concept that has been disproven by experts in the field? Surely a person with Newt’s level of intelligence would not be taken in by inaccurate interpretations like the butt brain theory?

Unless in the Pacific Rim universe it is not a theory.

Newt’s post-drift monologue gives us this extra insight into the history of the PacRim universe:

These beings, these masters, they’re colonists. They overtake worlds. They just consume them and then they move on to the next. And they’ve been here before in a sort of trial run. It was the dinosaurs.

I always kind of breezed over this quote under the impression that the dinosaurs were already present on Earth and that the Precursor’s initial attempt to overtake the planet was the mass extinction event that wiped them out. However, taking into consideration Newt’s assertion that dinosaurs did have a secondary brain, I now more firmly believe that some of, if not all the ‘dinosaurs’ of the Pacific Rim universe are in fact early Kaiju specimens that succumbed to the unsuitable conditions the planet presented, causing the Precursors to wait until the 21st Century to make their second attempt on the planet.

Newton isn’t expressing belief in and inaccurate theory when he’s talking to Hannibal; he’s presenting a pretty awesome example of the kind of world building Guillermo del Toro is so good at. Sure, in our universe the concept of a secondary butt brain is popularised misinterpretation, but in the PacRim universe it is a scientific reality.

Or maybe I’m just looking into this too hard?

But hey, isn’t that the beauty of meta?

#i saw someone complaining about the lack of research in relation to the secondary brain thing#and i just think#if guillermo spent weeks discussing the way air displaced by large objects like jaegers and kaiju would shake windows as they pass by#he wouldn’t include something like one of his genius level scientists believing a disproven theory#unless it was for a reason…

Finally I can sleep at night.