Pacific Rim (film)

Pacific Rim
North America release poster
Directed by	Guillermo del Toro
Produced by	Thomas Tull Jon Jashni Guillermo del Toro Mary Parent
Screenplay by	Travis Beacham Guillermo del Toro
Story by	Travis Beacham
Starring	Charlie Hunnam Idris Elba Rinko Kikuchi Charlie Day Robert Kazinsky Max Martini Ron Perlman
Music by	Ramin Djawadi
Cinematography	Guillermo Navarro
Editing by	John Gilroy Peter Amundson
Studio	Legendary Pictures
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release dates	July 1, 2013 (2013-07-01) (Mexico City) July 12, 2013 (2013-07-12) (United States)
Running time	132 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$190 million
Box office	$411,002,944

Pacific Rim is a 2013 American science fiction monster film directed by Guillermo del Toro, and starring Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, and Ron Perlman. The screenplay is by Travis Beacham and del Toro, with a story by Beacham. The film is set in the 2020s, when Earth is at war with the Kaijus, colossal monsters which have emerged from an interdimensional portal on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. To combat the monsters, humanity unites to create the Jaegers: gigantic humanoid mecha, each controlled by at least two pilots, whose minds are joined by a neural bridge. Focusing on the war's later days, the story follows Raleigh Becket, a washed-up Jaeger pilot called out of retirement and teamed with rookie pilot Mako Mori as part of a last-ditch effort to defeat the Kaijus.

Del Toro envisioned Pacific Rim as an earnest, colorful adventure story, with an "incredibly airy and light feel", in contrast to the "super-brooding, super-dark, cynical summer movie". The director focused on "big, beautiful, sophisticated visuals" and action that would satisfy an adult audience, but has stated his "real hope" is to introduce the kaiju and mecha genres to a generation of children. While the film draws heavily on these genres, it avoids direct references to previous works. Del Toro intended to create something original but "madly in love" with its influences, instilled with "epic beauty" and "operatic grandeur". The end credits dedicate the film to Ray Harryhausen and Ishirō Honda, who helped to establish the giant monster genre with films such as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Godzilla respectively.

The film was produced by Legendary Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros. It was released on July 12, 2013 including releases in 3-D and IMAX 3D. While the film received positive reviews, with the visual effects receiving particular praise, and was highly successful in many other territories, the film was a disappointment at the United States box office. It earned a worldwide total of more than $411 million, including $114 million in China, its largest market.

Plot

In 2013, human cities come under attack by the Kaijus, colossal beasts who come to Earth through a portal on the Pacific Ocean floor. To combat them the Pacific Rim nations build the Jaegers, equally colossal robotic war machines. Each Jaeger is piloted by two people whose brains are linked to share the mental load of operating the machine. The Jaegers are initially effective, but many are destroyed as the Kaijus grow more powerful and their attacks more frequent. In 2025, the governments deem the Jaeger program ineffective and discontinue it in favor of building massive coastal walls. The four remaining Jaegers are redeployed to Hong Kong to defend the coast until the wall is completed. Jaeger commander Stacker Pentecost devises a plan to end the threat permanently by destroying the portal with a nuclear bomb.

Pentecost recruits retired Jaeger pilot Raleigh Becket to pilot Gipsy Danger, the Jaeger he and his brother Yancy once operated together. During a mission in 2020, Yancy was killed by a Kaiju while still mentally linked to his brother. Raleigh travels to Hong Kong with Pentecost and begins the process of finding a new co-pilot. Raleigh selects Mako Mori, the director of the Jaeger refurbishment project and Pentecost's adopted daughter. Pentecost reluctantly allows Mako to participate in a test run with Raleigh. During the test, Mako loses control and nearly discharges Gipsy Danger's cannon in the hangar. Pentecost deems her unready for combat and grounds the pair. When two Kaijus attack Hong Kong, destroying the two Jaegers Crimson Typhoon and Cherno Alpha, plus disabling a third, Striker Eureka, Pentecost is forced to allow them to pilot Gipsy Danger. The Kaijus are defeated.

Meanwhile, Newton Geiszler, a scientist studying the Kaijus, creates a device that allows him to establish a mental link with a Kaiju brain. He discovers that the Kaijus are not wild beasts but cloned living weapons that share a hive mind and fight at the behest of a race of alien colonists who wish to invade Earth. Pentecost demands that Geiszler repeat the experiment on a different Kaiju brain and sends him to Hannibal Chau, a criminal who sells Kaiju body parts on the black market. Geiszler commissions Chau to recover an intact brain. Chau's men investigate one of the fallen Kaijus and are attacked by its unborn offspring, which devours Chau before dying. Geiszler links with its brain and learns that the ocean portal only opens for Kaiju DNA, meaning the bombing mission will fail.

The two remaining Jaegers commence the plan to bomb the portal. Pentecost is forced to pilot Striker Eureka after one of its pilots is injured; Raleigh and Mako pilot Gipsy Danger. Arriving at the portal, they are ambushed by three Kaijus including the largest ever encountered. A violent battle ensues, crippling Gipsy Danger and rendering Striker Eureka unable to deliver the bomb. Geiszler warns the two Jaegers that they must take a Kaiju into the portal with them for the bombing to work, and Pentecost decides to detonate his bomb immediately to clear a path to the portal for Raleigh and Mako. Since Gipsy Danger has a nuclear reactor core they can use it to destroy the portal. Pentecost detonates his bomb, destroying two Kaiju and his Jaeger. Gipsy Danger kills the third Kaiju and uses its body to open the portal. Once inside, Raleigh ejects Mako's escape pod and sets the Jaeger to self-destruct. The Jaeger erupts on the other side of the portal, destroying the invading aliens and the portal. Raleigh is able to jettison his escape pod and travel back before the portal collapses. Mako and Raleigh's escape pods surface safely in the Pacific, and the duo embrace as rescue helicopters arrive.

In a post-credits scene, Chau cuts his way out of the newborn Kaiju's stomach.

Cast

Top to bottom: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, and Rinko Kikuchi star in the film as Raleigh Becket, Stacker Pentecost and Mako Mori respectively.

• Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh Becket:

A washed-up former pilot called out of retirement by the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. On casting Hunnam, del Toro stated: "I saw him and I thought he had an earnest, really honest nature. And he was the kind of guy that I can relate to, as a male audience member I go, 'I like that guy. I would like to have a few beers with that guy' … he has an earthy quality. Describing the character, Hunnam stated: "When you meet me, in the beginning of the story, I've suffered a giant loss. Not only has it killed my sense of self-worth, but also my will to fight and keep on going. And then, Rinko and Idris, and a couple other people, bring me out of retirement to try to help with this grand push. I think that journey is a very relatable one. Everybody, at some point in their life, has fallen down and not felt like getting back up, but you have to, no matter how difficult it is." Hunnam was also considered for the role of Prince Nuada in del Toro's previous film, Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Paul Michael Wyers plays Raleigh as a child.

• Idris Elba as Stacker Pentecost:

Raleigh's commanding officer. On selecting Elba, del Toro stated: "This is a movie where I have had to deal with more dialogue than ever, and the way I cast the movie was—who do I want to hear say these things? Who do I want Charlie Hunnam to go against? Who can really tell Charlie Hunnam 'sit down and listen'?" In another interview, the director said: "I wanted to have Idris not be the blonde, square-jawed, Anglo, super hip marine that knows [everything]. I wanted somebody that could bring a lot of authority, but that you could feel the weight of the world on his shoulders. When I watched Luther, that's the essence of the character... Luther is carrying literally the evils of the world on his shoulders. He's doing penance for all humanity... Idris is one of those actors that is capable of embodying humanity, in almost like a Rodin sculpture-type, larger than life, almost like a Russian realism statue, you know, big hands, all the turmoil of humanity in his eyes. I wanted somebody that you could have doubts internally, and very few guys can do that." To prepare for the role, Elba watched footage of politicians David Cameron and Barack Obama, as well as Russell Crowe in Gladiator and Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Del Toro initially offered the role to Tom Cruise, who declined because of scheduling conflicts.

• Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori:

Raleigh's co-pilot who lost her family in a Kaiju attack. Though Mori possesses a strength and fury that should serve well against the Kaijus, Pentecost is reluctant to use her, partly because of a fatherly bond and partly because he knows she is still fighting the terror of her childhood. Del Toro stated: "I was very careful how I built the movie. One of the other things I decided was that I wanted a female lead who has the equal force as the male leads. She's not going to be a sex kitten, she's not going to come out in cutoff shorts and a tank top, and it's going to be a real earnestly drawn character." Noting that the other actors were exhausted and "destroyed physically" by filming in the intensive Jaeger cockpit harnesses, del Toro said: "The only one that didn't break was Rinko Kikuchi, the girl. She never complained... I asked Rinko her secret and she said 'I think of gummi bears and flowers.' I try to do that in my life now." Mana Ashida plays Mako as a child.

• Charlie Day as Dr. Newton Geiszler:

A scientist studying the Kaijus. Day stated: "Certainly myself and Burn Gorman provide a little bit of much needed levity, it's a break from the monsters and the guys fighting. But then the character gets thrust into the story in a way that his life is seriously at risk and it becomes a little more action oriented and a little more horror movie-esque. So, he kinda bounces back between being humorous and also being real... the rest of these guys, they look really good in their suits and they've got abs, they can kick and fight and punch. Newt is sort of the 'everyman' and he's flawed and he's arrogant." Del Toro gave Geiszler the mentality of a celebrity chef, with tattoos and a "big personality". According to the director, Day was cast based on his performance in an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: "He comes out with a stick, and he has a monologue about what it is to hunt the rats in the basement. It was very funny, but he was coming from character. He was not doing big stuff, he was, like, really mourning and lamenting his job, you know, how inhuman it is. And I thought, 'This guy is great at shading and comedy.' There are moments in the movie where he delivers them both." Trek Buccino portrays Geiszler as a child.

• Max Martini as Herc Hansen:

Chuck's father and co-pilot. Kazinsky stated Martini hated the fact that he was cast as Chuck's father, being only 13 years Kazinsky's senior. However Kazinsky said they developed a bond while filming, "Because we were working so tight together, we would finish and then we would go out for dinner every night and we would go to the gym together on days off we had... The emotional scene toward the end with the father-son parting, it was very easy for me to play because I had grown to actually genuinely love Max as a man and as a friend." Kazinsky revealed that Herc and Chuck's pet bulldog was del Toro's idea and said, "The dog's name was Max, ironically, and we ended up using Max for so many things. The story was that Herc and Chuck have difficulty communicating, that they communicated via the dog, and all the love that they couldn’t show each other they would show the dog." The role was originally written for Ron Perlman, but del Toro decided the scenes between Perlman's Herc and Hunnam's Raleigh "might start to feel like Sons of Anarchy 2.0".

• Robert Kazinsky as Chuck Hansen:

An Australian Jaeger pilot considered the finest soldier left in the Resistance. He and his father pilot Striker Eureka, "the strongest and the fastest" Jaeger with eleven Kaiju kills, and make up the Resistance's "go-to team". Kazinsky, a fan of science-fiction, was initially drawn by the film's concept, "My immediate reaction was 'Holy crap, that's cool.' In the hands of somebody else, you might sit there and go, 'Well, this might be terrible,' but with del Toro doing it, you kind of go, 'This is going to be amazing.'". Reflecting on his experience in the film, Kazinsky said in an interview, "The most fun I have ever had in my entire life was Pacific Rim, playing Chuck was incredibly fun."

• Ron Perlman as Hannibal Chau:

A black marketeer who makes a living dealing Kaiju organs. Perlman stated, "I actually think this character was designed to be played by another ethnicity other than myself. And somewhere along the way, [del Toro] had the notion, 'Wouldn't it be interesting to turn this guy into more of an invention.' So, in other words, somebody takes on a persona that completely sounds like he's someone else and acts like he's someone else but he's really, you know, as you see me. That added a dimension to the larger-than-life aspect of the character... I'm playing somebody very close to my own origins. But a completely made-up persona... which makes him even more full of shit. And I think that's the charm of the guy—that he's kind of elusive, hard to pin down. Pacific Rim marks Perlman's fifth appearance in a del Toro film. The director stated: "I think the moment you have a guy that is called Hannibal Chau and Ron shows up, and he's from Brooklyn and he's been selling black market organs, you know the whole story... That's all I need to know. If it's any other actor, there's a lot more explaining to do. But when Ron comes in with that look, you can make your own story and it'll be as compelling as anything I can invent. You do a little weightlifting with the audience." The bird tattoos on Chau's fingers indicate his past as a gangster. In the film, Chau states he took the name from his favorite historical figure and his second-favorite Szechuan restaurant in Brooklyn. Del Toro drew inspiration from Burt Lancaster's performance in Elmer Gantry when writing the character.

• Clifton Collins, Jr. as Ops Tendo Choi:

A Chinese-American Jaeger technician. Collins described his character as the "brains" behind the Jaegers.

• Burn Gorman as Dr. Hermann Gottlieb:

A scientist studying the Kaijus alongside Geiszler. According to del Toro, Gottlieb is a "tweed-wearing, English, phlegmatic introvert that never leaves the lab". The modest Gottlieb resents Geiszler's arrogance and radical behavior; the duo echo the film's theme of incompatible people functioning together when the time comes. Drew Adkins portrays Gottlieb as a child.

• Diego Klattenhoff as Yancy Becket:

Raleigh's older brother and co-pilot. Klattentoff joined the project to work with del Toro. Describing his character, Klattentoff stated: "This is a guy who is looking out for his very eager, younger brother and they were enabled with this gift that gave them the opportunity to kind of save the world. Or help, at least." Tyler Stevenson plays Yancy as a child.

• Ellen McLain as Gipsy Danger AI:

The voice of Gipsy Danger's artificial intelligence system. Del Toro secured permission from Valve Corporation to cast McLain in homage to GLaDOS, her homicidal AI character in the Portal video games. The director stated: "It was clear to me that we needed something beautiful in that voice. My daughter is my wingman, we had done co-op on Portal 2 for a long time and I did Portal 1 when it came out. It becomes ingrained in you, that voice. I didn't want to use her as a negative force of evil. I called Valve and asked 'Can you give us the filter?' so we went full GLaDOS for the first commercial, but I thought it was too much. If you're a gamer, it's too distracting so we created our own GLaDOS 2.0 filter that's a little less full-on."

Additional Jaeger pilots include Charles Luu, Lance Luu and Mark Luu as the Wei Tang triplets (China), and Robert Maillet and Heather Doerksen as Sasha and Aleksis Kaidanovsky (Russia). Joe Pingue portrays Captain Merrit, the captain of a fishing boat caught in a battle between Jaeger and Kaiju. Santiago Segura plays an aide to Hannibal Chau. Brad William Henke and Larry Joe Campbell portray members of a construction team Raleigh joins after retiring from the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. Robin Thomas, Julian Barnes, and David Richmond-Peck portray U.N. representatives from the United States, Great Britain, and Canada respectively. Sebastian Pigott appears as a Jaeger engineer and Joshua Peace appears as an officer. David Fox plays an old man on a beach, while Jane Watson portrays Raleigh and Yancy's mother in a flashback sequence. Producer Thomas Tull makes a cameo appearance.

Themes

In the film, a Jaeger's neural load is too much for a single pilot to handle alone, meaning they must first be psychically linked to another pilot—a concept called "Drifting". When pilots Drift, they quickly gain intimate knowledge of each other's memories and feelings, and have no choice but to accept them; del Toro found this concept's dramatic potential compelling. The director expressed his intention that the empathy metaphors extend to real life: "The pilots' smaller stories actually make a bigger point, which is that we're all together in the same robot [in life]... Either we get along or we die. I didn't want this to be a recruitment ad or anything jingoistic. The idea of the movie is just for us to trust each other, to cross over barriers of color, sex, beliefs, whatever, and just stick together." Del Toro acknowledged this message's simplicity, but said he would have liked to have seen adventure films with similar morals when he was a child. The film's ten primary characters all have "little arcs" conducive to this idea; del Toro stated: "I think that's a great message to give kids... 'That guy you were beating the shit out of ten minutes ago? That's the guy you have to work with five minutes later.' That's life... We can only be complete when we work together." The director noted that Hellboy and The Devil's Backbone told the same message, though the latter conveyed it in a very different way.

The film centers on the relationship between Becket and Mori, but is not a love story in a conventional sense. Both are deeply damaged human beings who have decided to suppress their respective traumas. While learning to pilot their Jaeger, they undergo a process of "opening up", gaining access to each other's thoughts, memories and secrets. Their relationship is necessarily one of respect and "perfect trust". Hunnam commented that the film is "a love story without a love story. It's about all of the necessary elements of love without arriving at love itself". Both Becket and Mori have suffered profound personal tragedies; one of the script's central ideas is that two damaged people can metaphorically "become one", with their figurative missing pieces connecting almost like a puzzle. Del Toro emphasized the characters' emotional intimacy by filming their training fight scene the way he would a sex scene.

Del Toro, a self-described pacifist, avoided what he termed "car commercial aesthetics" or "army recruitment video aesthetics", and gave the characters Western ranks including "marshal" and "ranger" rather than military ranks such as "captain", "major" or "general". The director stated: "I avoided making any kind of message that says war is good. We have enough firepower in the world." Del Toro wanted to break from the mass death and destruction featured in contemporary blockbuster films, and made a point of showing the streets and buildings being evacuated before Kaiju attacks, ensuring that the destruction depicted is "completely remorseless". The director stated: "I don't want people being crushed. I want the joy that I used to get seeing Godzilla toss a tank without having to think there are guys in the tank... What I think is you could do nothing but echo the moment you're in. There is a global anxiety about how fragile the status quo is and the safety of citizens, but in my mind—honestly—this film is in another realm. There is no correlation to the real world. There is no fear of a copycat kaiju attack because a kaiju saw it on the news and said, 'I'm going to destroy Seattle.' In my case, I'm picking up a tradition. One that started right after World War II and was a coping mechanism, in a way, for Japan to heal the wounds of that war. And it's integral for a kaiju to rampage in the city."

Writing for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Wai Chee Dimock connected the film's central theme of togetherness to its recurring image of missing shoes, stating the "utopian dream" driving the characters is "that puny humans like us could be 'together'—not only in the specific neural melding that must take place between the two Jaeger co-pilots but also, more generally speaking, in a fractal web of resemblance, filling the world with copies of ourselves at varying orders of magnitude and with varying degrees of re-expression, beginning with the shoes on our feet."

Production

Development

In February 2006, it was reported that Guillermo del Toro would direct Travis Beacham's fantasy screenplay, Killing on Carnival Row, but the project never materialized. Beacham conceived Pacific Rim the following year. While walking on the beach near Santa Monica Pier, the screenwriter imagined a giant robot and a giant monster fighting to the death. "They just sort of materialized out of the fog, these vast, godlike things." He later conceived the idea that each robot had two pilots, asking "what happens when one of those people dies?" Deciding this would be "a story about loss, moving on after loss, and dealing with survivor's guilt", Beacham commenced writing the film. On May 28, 2010, it was reported that Legendary Pictures had purchased Beacham's detailed 25-page film treatment, now titled Pacific Rim.

On July 28, 2010, it was reported that del Toro would next direct an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness for Universal Studios, with James Cameron producing. When del Toro met with Legendary Pictures to discuss the possibility of collaborating with them on a film, he was intrigued by Beacham's treatment—still a "very small pitch" at this point. Del Toro struck a deal with Legendary: while directing At the Mountains of Madness, he would produce and co-write Pacific Rim; because of the films' conflicting production schedules, he would direct Pacific Rim only if At the Mountains of Madness were cancelled. Tom Cruise was attached to star in the Lovecraft adaptation.

Del Toro drew inspiration from Francisco Goya's The Colossus, and hoped to evoke the same "sense of awe" with the film's battles.

On March 7, 2011, it was reported that Universal would not proceed with At the Mountains of Madness because del Toro was unwilling to compromise on the $150 million budget and R rating. The director later reflected, "When it happened, this has never happened to me, but I actually cried that weekend a lot. I don't want to sound like a puny soul, but I really was devastated. I was weeping for the movie." The project collapsed on a Friday, and del Toro signed to direct Pacific Rim the following Monday.

Del Toro spent a year working with Beacham on the screenplay, and is credited as co-writer. He introduced ideas he had always wished to see in the genre, such as a kaiju birth and a kaiju attack seen from a child's perspective. The script also received an uncredited rewrite from Neil Cross, who previously created the Idris Elba-starring drama series Luther and wrote the del Toro-produced horror film Mama. Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan were enlisted to perform uncredited rewrites when their spec script Monstropolis caught the filmmaker's attention. Drew Pearce also carried out uncredited work on the script.

Principal photography

Filming began on November 14, 2011 and continued in Toronto into April 2012. Del Toro gave an update after the second week on filming finished. The film was referred to as Silent Seas and Still Seas during production.

Del Toro had never shot a film in less than 115 days, but had only 103 to shoot Pacific Rim. In order to achieve this, del Toro scheduled a splinter unit that he could direct early in the day, before main unit, and on his off-days. The director worked 17 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for much of the schedule. Del Toro took a new approach to directing actors, allowing "looser" movements and improvisation; the director maintained tight control over the production: "Everything, 100% goes through me sooner or later. I do not delegate anything. Some people like it, some people don't, but it has to be done that way."

The film was shot using Red Epic cameras. At first Guillermo del Toro decided not to shoot or convert the film to 3D, as the effect would not work due to the sheer size of the film's robots and monsters, explaining; "I didn't want to make the movie 3D because when you have things that big... the thing that happens naturally, you're looking at two buildings lets say at 300 feet [away], if you move there is no parallax. They're so big that, in 3D, you barely notice anything no matter how fast you move... To force the 3D effects for robots and monsters that are supposed to be big you are making their [perspective] miniaturized, making them human scale." It was later announced that the film would be converted to 3D, with the conversion taking 40 weeks longer than most. Del Toro said: "What can I tell you? I changed my mind. I'm not running for office. I can do a Romney."

Del Toro cut approximately an hour of material from the film. The unused footage explored the characters and their arcs in greater detail, but the director felt it was necessary to strike a balance, stating: "We cannot pretend this is Ibsen with monsters and giant robots. I cannot pretend I'm doing a profound reflection on mankind." Each character's arc was edited down to its minimal requirements. The director wanted to keep the film around two hours, particularly for younger viewers. Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón helped with the editing; Iñárritu removed ten minutes of footage, while Cuarón removed "a few minutes" and rearranged several scenes. Iñárritu and Cuarón receive a "special thanks" in the film's credits, as do James Cameron and David Cronenberg.

Design

Del Toro wanted to "honor" the kaiju and mecha genres while creating an original stand-alone film, something "conscious of the heritage, but not a pastiche or an homage or a greatest hits of everything". The director made a point of starting from scratch, without emulating or referencing any previous examples of those genres. He cautioned his designers not to turn to films like Gamera, Godzilla, or The War of the Gargantuas for inspiration, stating: "I didn't want to be postmodern, or referential, or just belong to a genre. I really wanted to create something new, something madly in love with those things. I tried to bring epic beauty to it, and drama and operatic grandeur." Rather than popular culture, he drew inspiration from works of art such as Francisco Goya's The Colossus and George Bellows's boxing paintings. The film's designers include Wayne Barlowe, Oscar Chichoni, monster sculptors David Meng and Simon Lee, and Hellboy II and The Hobbit designer Francisco Ruiz Velasco. Del Toro has acknowledged that some designs created for his cancelled At the Mountains of Madness adaptation may have been used in Pacific Rim.

Approximately a hundred Kaijus and a hundred Jaegers were designed, but only a fraction of these appear in the film; every week the filmmakers would "do an American Idol" and vote for the best. In designing Kaijus, the film's artists frequently drew inspiration from nature rather than other works. The director commented: "Kaijus are essentially outlandish in a way, but on the other hand they come sort of in families: you've got the reptilian kaiju, the insect kaiju, the sort of crustacean kaiju... So to take an outlandish design and then render it with an attention to real animal anatomy and detail is interesting." Del Toro avoided making the Kaijus too similar to any Earth creatures, instead opting to make them otherworldly and alien. Del Toro called the film's Kaijus "weapons", stating that they are "the cleaning crew, the cats sent into the warehouse to clean out the mice." Certain design elements are shared by all the Kaijus; this is intended to suggest that they are connected and were designed for a similar purpose. Each Kaiju was given a vaguely humanoid silhouette to echo the man-in-suit aesthetic of early Japanese kaiju films. While del Toro's other films feature ancient or damaged monsters, the Kaijus lack scars or any evidence of prior culture, indicating that they are engineered creations rather than the result of an evolutionary system.

Knifehead, the first Kaiju to appear in the film, is a tribute to the plodding kaiju of 1960s Japanese films, and is intended to look almost like a man in a rubber suit; its head was inspired by that of a goblin shark. Leatherback, the bouncer-like Kaiju which spews electro-magnetic charges, is a favorite of del Toro, who conceived it as a "brawler with this sort of beer belly"; the lumbering movements of gorillas were used as a reference. The Kaiju Otachi homages the dragons of Chinese mythology. The director called it a "Swiss army knife of a Kaiju"; with almost 20 minutes of screen time, it was given numerous features so the audience would not tire of it. The creature moves like a Komodo dragon in water, sports multiple jaws and an acid-filled neck sack, and unfurls wings when necessary. It is also more intelligent than the other Kaijus, employing eagle-inspired strategies against the Jaegers. Onibaba, the Kaiju that orphans Mako Mori, resembles a fusion of a Japanese temple and a crustacean. Slattern, the largest Kaiju, is distinguished by its extremely long neck and "half-horn, half-crown" head, which del Toro considered both demonic and majestic.

Gipsy Danger, the American Jaeger, was based on the shape of New York City's Art Deco buildings, such as the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, but infused with John Wayne's gunslinger gait and hip movements. Cherno Alpha, the Russian Jaeger, was based on the shape and paint patterns of a T-series Russian tank, combined with a giant containment silo to give the appearance of a walking nuclear power plant with a cooling tower on its head. Crimson Typhoon, the three-armed Chinese Jaeger, is piloted by triplets and resembles a "medieval little warrior"; its texture evokes Chinese lacquered wood with golden edges. Striker Eureka, the Australian Jaeger, is likened by del Toro to a Land Rover; the most elegant and masculine Jaeger, it has a jutting chest, a camouflage paint scheme recalling the Australian outback, and the bravado of its pilots.

The film's costumes were designed by Shane Mahan and Kate Hawley, who spent several months on the costumes of the Jaeger pilots. The Russian pilot suits are old-fashioned and echo cosmonaut space suits.

Visual effects

Del Toro used classic art such as Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa as a reference for the film's ocean battles.

Industrial Light & Magic was chosen to create the visual effects for Pacific Rim. Del Toro hired Oscar winners John Knoll and Hal T. Hickel, both known for their work on the Star Wars prequel trilogy and the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Legacy Effects was hired to do the special and practical effects on the film. Shane Mahan, known for creating the armored suits for Iron Man, was hired on as effects supervisor. John Rosengrant was also brought in for his work on Real Steel. Oscar winner Clay Pinney, known for his work on Independence Day and Star Trek, was also brought on board. Hybride Technologies, a division of Ubisoft, and Rodeo FX also contributed to the visual effects.

Del Toro conceived the film as an operatic work: "That was one of the first words I said to the entire team at ILM. I said, 'This movie needs to be theatrical, operatic, romantic.' We used a lot of words not usually associated with high-tech blockbusters … We went for a very, very, very, very saturated color palette for the battle for Hong Kong. I kept asking John to tap into his inner Mexican and be able to saturate the greens and the purples and the pinks and the oranges." The classic Japanese woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai was a common motif in the ocean battles; Del Toro recalled, "I would say 'Give me a Hokusai wave' … we use the waves and weather in the movie very operatically." The director asked that Knoll not necessarily match the lighting from shot to shot: "It's pretty unorthodox to do that, but I think the results are really beautiful and very artistically free and powerful, not something you would associate with a big sci-fi action movie." Del Toro considers the film's digital water its most exciting visual effect: "The water dynamics in this movie are technically beautiful, but also artistically incredibly expressive. We agreed on making the water become almost another character. We would time the water very precisely. I'd say 'Get out of the wave [on this frame].'"

The film also features extensive miniature effect shots provided by 32TEN Studios, under the supervision of ILM VFX Producer Susan Greenhow and ILM VFX Supervisors John Knoll and Lindy DeQuattro. Shot using RED Epic cameras on 3D rigs, the scenes produced by 32TEN involved the creation of a ¼ scale office building interior which was destroyed by the fist of a Jaeger robot which was on a separate pneumatically controlled rig, as well as a sequence which depicted several rows of seats in a soccer stadium being blown apart as a Jaeger lands in the stadium, which was created by using ¼-scale seats blown apart by air cannons. Additionally 32TEN provided several practical elements for ILM’s compositing team including dust clouds, breaking glass and water effects.

Video game

Main article: Pacific Rim (video game)

A video game based on the film was announced. Published and developed by Yuke's, Pacific Rim: The Video Game was released along with the movie on July 12, 2013.

Reliance Games has developed a Pacific Rim tie-in game for iOS and Android devices.

Music

Main article: Pacific Rim (soundtrack)

The film's score was composed by Ramin Djawadi. Del Toro selected Djawadi based on his work on Prison Break, Iron Man, and Game of Thrones, stating: "His scores have a grandeur, but they have also an incredible sort of human soul." The director also stated that some Russian rap would be featured in the film.

The soundtrack was released on digital download from Amazon on June 18, 2013 and CD June 25, 2013. The physical version of the soundtrack was released on July 9, 2013, three days before the theatrical release of the film itself.

The ending theme is "Drift", performed by Blake Perlman featuring Rza.

Marketing

On November 28, 2012, the official film website premiered alongside two viral videos—one depicting the initial Kaiju attack as captured by a handheld camera. Blueprints depicting the designs for the Jaeger machines were also released online.

On June 5, 2013, the graphic novel Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero was released. Written by Travis Beacham and featuring cover art by Alex Ross, Tales from Year Zero serves as an introductory prologue to the film, and is set twelve years before its events.

On July 2, 2013, a viral video was released in which Ron Perlman's character, Hannibal Chau, advertises his fictional Kaiju organ dealership, Kaiju Remedies.

On the day of the film's release, July 12, 2013, another viral video was released to promote the film. It involved the collaboration of the film studio (including del Toro himself) and the YouTube network Polaris (also known as The Game Station). It featured members of the YouTube network (such as the Game Grumps) as Jaeger pilots fighting kaiju.

On July 16, 2013, a novelization by Alex Irvine was released.

On June 18, 2013, Insight Editions published Pacific Rim: Man, Machines, and Monsters, an art book written by David S. Cohen. The book chronicles the film's production with concept art, photography, the cast and crew's accounts of the shoot, and a foreword by del Toro.

In July 2013, NECA began selling action figures of the film's Kaijus and Jaegers.

Release

Pacific Rim was initially expected to reach theaters in July 2012. However, Warner Bros. decided to postpone the film's release date to May 10, 2013. In March 2012, it was announced that the film would be released on July 12, 2013. The film premiered in Mexico City on July 1, 2013.

Box office

Pacific Rim grossed $101.8 million in North America, and has had a favorable international release, grossing $309.2 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $411,002,944.

The film grossed $3.6 million from Thursday night showings, 23 percent of which came from IMAX showings. It then faced competition from Grown Ups 2 and ultimately fell behind it on opening day, earning $14.6 million. The film reached the #3 spot during the opening weekend with $37.2 million, behind Despicable Me 2 and Grown Ups 2. This is the highest ever opening for a film by del Toro, surpassing Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Around 50 percent of tickets were in 3D, which makes it the second highest 3D share of 2013, behind Gravity. During its second weekend, the film dropped a steep 57% with a gross of $16 million, and during its third weekend, had dropped a further 52% with a gross of $7.7 million.

On July 22, 2013, it was reported that the film had reached #1 at the international box office over the weekend. The film had a successful opening in China, grossing $45.2 million, the largest opening in China for a Warner Bros. title, and the sixth-largest Chinese debut of all time for any Hollywood film. On August 19, 2013, its gross crossed $100 million in China alone, becoming the sixth-highest grossing American film ever in China. It grossed a total of $114.3 million in the country, making China the largest market for the film. In Japan, the film landed in the fifth position on opening weekend, with an initial earning of $3 million (behind World War Z's gross of $3.4 million).

In September 2013, Forbes highlighted Pacific Rim as "the rare English-language film in history to cross $400 million while barely crossing $100 million domestic".

Critical reception

Pacific Rim received generally positive reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Metacritic gives a rating of 64 out of 100 based on reviews from 48 critics, which indicates "generally favorable" reviews. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 72% approval rating with an average rating of 6.7/10 based on 253 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "It may sport more style than substance, but Pacific Rim is a solid modern creature feature bolstered by fantastical imagery and an irresistible sense of fun."

The Daily Telegraph's Robbie Collin awarded the film five stars out of five, likening the experience of watching it to rediscovering a favorite childhood cartoon. He praised del Toro for investing his own affection for the genre and sense of artistry into the project in such a way that the viewer found themselves immersed in the film rather than watching from afar, noting the director had catered to younger and older audiences alike and expressed surprise that the film could rise above the sum of its parts. Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter gave a positive review, describing the film as the sum of the potential every monster film had ever tried to fulfill. Lou Lumenick of The New York Post gave the film four stars out of four, and said it had "no shortage of brains, brawn, eye candy, wit and even some poetry", praising the "clean and coherent" action sequences and the "terrific chemistry" between Hunnam and Kikuchi. Drew McWeeny of HitFix highlighted other aspects of the film, paying particular attention to the production and art design. He also praised the cinematography for "perfectly capturing" the film, and described the score as "ridiculously cool". Rolling Stone's Peter Travers called the film "the work of a humanist ready to banish cynicism for compassion", saying that del Toro "drives the action with a heartbeat". Keith Uhlich of Time Out called the film "pure, pleasurable comic-book absurdity", and noted that del Toro had lent the proceedings a "plausible humanity" lacking in most of summer 2013's destruction-heavy blockbusters. He said the Kaijus' civilian victims make a "palpably personal impression", deeming one scene with Mako Mori "as mythically moving as anything in the mecha anime, like Neon Genesis Evangelion, that the director emulates with expert aplomb." The Village Voice's Stephanie Zacharek called it "summer entertainment with a pulse", praising its "dumbly brilliant" action and freedom from elitism, but noted the story is predictable and suggested del Toro's time would be better spent on more visionary films. Angela Watercutter of Wired called it the "most awesome movie of the summer", a "fist-pumping, awe-inspiring ride", and opined that its focus on spectacle rather than characterization "simply does not matter" in the summer blockbuster context. Richard Roeper gave the film a B, commenting that either the Jaegers or Kaijus "can take down any of the Transformers." Leonard Maltin gave the film two-and-a-half out of four stars, calling it "three-quarters of a really good movie that doesn't know when to quit."

The Guardian's Andrew Pulver was less enthusiastic, calling the film a mix of "wafer-thin psychodrama" and "plot-generator dialogue". Time's Richard Corliss said the action was let down by "inert" drama, describing the film as "45 minutes of awesome encased in 90 minutes of yawnsome." Justin Chang of Variety criticized it as loud and lacking the nuance and subtlety of del Toro's previous films. Slant Magazine's Ed Gonzalez, who said the film lacked poignancy, compared it to a video game: "a stylish but programmatic ride toward an inevitable final boss battle". The Wrap's Alonso Duralde criticized the choice to set most battles at night or during the rain, feeling it detracted from the action, and said the comic relief actors—Day, Gorman, and Perlman—stole the film from the less interesting leads. Jordan Hoffman of Film.com identified Hunnam as the weak link in the cast, calling him a "charisma black hole". Giles Hardie of The Sydney Morning Herald was particularly critical of the film, awarding the action sequences "five IQ points out of five" as he described the film as an hour and twenty minutes of fight sequences vaguely connected by ten minutes of story.

Director Rian Johnson praised the film, as did Japanese game director Hideo Kojima, who called it the "ultimate otaku film" and stated he "never imagined [he] would be fortunate enough to see a film like this in [his] life". Go Nagai, who pioneered the idea of mecha piloted from an interior cockpit, praised the film's fun and intense action, while game developer Fumito Ueda said its battle scenes surpassed memories of the tokusatsu films he saw as an impressionable child. Science fiction author William Gibson called the film "A ravishing display of intelligent, often wonderfully witty visual design, every frame alive with coherent language, in the service of what is at heart a children's story... A baroque that doesn't curdle, that never fetishizes itself."

The inclusion of only one female character of note resulted in Pacific Rim not passing the Bechdel test. This became a topic of discussion in the media and on the Internet. Opinions were divided between those pointing to the film as an example of Hollywood's practice of ostracizing women, and those noting that the film did not sexually objectify Mako Mori and gave her a narrative arc not revolving around a man.

Accolades

Award	Category	Winner/Nominee	Result
ABFF Hollywood Awards	Artist of the Year	Idris Elba (also for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and Thor: The Dark World)	Nominated
Annie Award	Outstanding Achievement, Animated Effects in a Live Action Production		Won
	Outstanding Achievement, Character Animation in a Live Action Production		Nominated
British Academy Film Awards	Best Special Visual Effects		Nominated
Critics' Choice Movie Award	Best Visual Effects		Nominated
Denver Film Critics Society	Best Science Fiction/Horror Film		Nominated
Empire Awards	Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy		Nominated
Hollywood Film Awards	Best Visual Effects	John Knoll	Won
Las Vegas Film Critics Society	Best Horror/Sci-Fi Film		Won
Saturn Award	Best Science Fiction Film		Pending
	Best Director	Guillermo del Toro	Pending
	Best Production Design	Andrew Neskoromny and Carol Spier	Pending
	Best Editing	Peter Amundson and John Gilroy	Pending
	Best Special Effects	John Knoll, James E. Price, Clay Pinney and Rocco Larizza	Pending
St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association	Best Visual Special Effects	John Knoll	Nominated
Teen Choice Awards	Summer Movie Action		Nominated
Visual Effects Society	Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture	John Knoll, Susan Greenhow, Chris Raimo, Hal Hickel	Nominated
	Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture	Jakub Pistecky, Frank Gravatt, Cyrus Jam, Chris Havreberg for Kaiju - Leatherback	Nominated
	Outstanding Created Environment in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture	Johan Thorngren, Jeremy Bloch, David Meny, Polly Ing for "Virtual Hong Kong"	Nominated
	Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture	Colin Benoit, Nick Walker, Adam Schnitzer, Victor Schutz for "Hong Kong Ocean Brawl"	Nominated
	Outstanding Models in a Feature Motion Picture	David Fogler, Alex Jaeger, Aaron Wilson, David Behrens	Nominated

Home media

Pacific Rim became available for download on the iTunes Store and Vudu on October 1, 2013. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the USA on October 15, 2013. It will be released on home video in the UK and other countries on November 25. A collector's edition was also available on the same date. To help promote the home media release, Bryan Harley and Roque Rodriguez of Fresno, California, produced a "sweded" version of the film's Gipsy Danger vs. Otachi battle scene, after del Toro was impressed by the duo's "sweded" trailer released on YouTube in March 2013.

Potential sequel

In July 2012, del Toro discussed the possibility of making a Pacific Rim sequel. "We always leave ideas that were in the first draft as you go along. You know, either a set piece that was great but too expensive, an idea that was really bright, but it couldn't quite fit the structure... so we have a little stash of stuff we wanted to do that we didn't get to do. So if that's a possibility, A) I would be very happy to do a sequel, but B) a lot of these ideas, set pieces and all that, actually have in them a really good seed for a sequel."

On December 4, 2012, Legendary Pictures announced that it had selected Pacific Rim co-writer Travis Beacham to write the sequel, along with del Toro, though there was no comment as to whether del Toro would return to direct the second film.

At WonderCon 2013, del Toro expressed enthusiasm for a potential crossover between Pacific Rim and Godzilla—another Legendary Pictures kaiju film—but stressed that no such plans were in place.

In July 2013, del Toro discussed the sequel, stating: "The main idea that we're bouncing off is the fact that Newt drifted with a Kaiju brain, and all Kaiju brains are connected. We say that. They are like a hive mentality. So, you know, draw your own conclusions." The director has also stated the sequel will feature "Gipsy 2.0", as well as a "merging of Kaiju and Jaeger".

In October 2013, del Toro spoke to IGN about the sequel and revealed that, "Travis Beacham and I are writing [the sequel]", despite the film not yet being greenlit.

Notes

1. ^ The word kaiju ('怪獣', "strange creature, monster") is Japanese in origin, and thus has an identical singular and plural form, i.e. the plural of "kaiju" is still "kaiju". However, the film specifically uses the plural "Kaijus", as does del Toro. This English modification is fairly common for Japanese loanwords. Travis Beacham has said that he believes both forms to be correct in the film's universe.

1. ^ The word Jaeger ('Jäger', "hunter") is German in origin, and has an identical singular and plural form, i.e. the plural of "(der) Jäger" is still "(die) Jäger". However, the film specifically uses the plural "Jaegers".

External links

• Official website
• Pacific Rim at the Internet Movie Database
• Pacific Rim at Rotten Tomatoes
• Pacific Rim at Box Office Mojo
• Pan Pacific Defense Corps (Viral site)
• Pacific Rim at AllMovie