Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim is a 2013 American science fiction film directed by Guillermo del Toro from a screenplay by del Toro and Travis Beacham, who wrote the film's story. Pacific Rim stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini and Ron Perlman. It is the 635th installment in the theatrical Disney Movieverse canon (also the 400th Warner Bros. feature film)
The film is set in the future, when Earth is at war with the Kaiju, colossal sea monsters that have emerged from an interdimensional portal at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. To combat the monsters, humanity unites to create the Jaegers, giant humanoid mecha, each controlled by two co-pilots whose minds are linked by a mental link. Focusing on the final days of the war, the story follows Raleigh Becket, a failed Jaeger pilot called out of retirement and joined by rookie pilot Mako Mori as part of a last-ditch effort to defeat the Kaiju.
The film is produced by Legendary Pictures and Double Dare You Productions, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. Pacific Rim premiered in Hollywood, California on July 9, 2013, and was released in theaters worldwide (in 104 countries) on July 12, 2013 in 3D and IMAX 3D (followed by its Chinese theatrical release a week later, which comes a Japanese theatrical release another week later), grossing over $101.8 million domestically and $309.7 million worldwide. Pacific Rim received generally positive reviews from critics, praising the visual effects, action sequences, and nostalgic style, while it won the Buena Vista Awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay by and Best Producer.
==Plot==
The film begins in 2013. Deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, a fissure opens up that leads to another dimension. Through the fissure a giant monster appears, and destroys portions of San Francisco. After several days and countless lives lost, the creature is defeated by human military forces.
However, what seemed to be an isolated attack builds as more creatures begin to come through the fissure, attacking coastal cities around the Pacific. The world unites to stop the invaders, and develop the Jaeger Program: a series of giant mechanical 'monsters,' intended to stop the creatures. Original tests to have one pilot per Jaeger prove unsuccessful, as the test subjects were not able to handle the stress and strain of controlling such a huge robot by themselves. It was then decided that each Jaeger would be piloted by two pilots, their memories linked together in the "Drift", synchronizing their movements to maneuver the massive machines.
As the Jaegers go to work, they begin to turn the tide, and take down the creatures which are named "Kaiju". Pretty soon, the world is enthralled by the Jaegers and their pilots. They become celebrities, and even have merchandise made. As well, the dead Kaiju are soon seen as a black-market commodity, their parts sold off for various collections and medicinal purposes, though many of their bodily fluids are toxic and cause severe environmental pollution. But just as the war seems to be turning in humanity's favor, the Kaiju's attacks become more frequent and more brutal.
In 2020, seven years after the fissure opened, one of the more famous Jaeger duos, Raleigh Beckett (Charlie Hunnam), and his older brother, Yancy (Diego Klattenhoff) have become heroes with an impeccable record of defeating Kaijus. Pilots of the Jaeger named "Gipsy Danger," they are sent off to stop a category 3 Kaiju heading towards Anchorage. The beast is larger and more powerful than previous category 3s and will be a challenge for the team. Though the information on their monitors shows a fishing boat in the path of the attack, the Becketts are told their priority is to protect Anchorage.
Disobeying orders, the two still save the fishing boat, but end up being brutally attacked by the Kaiju, which possesses a head designed specifically to penetrate the Danger's chest. In the battle, the kaiju rips off the Gipsy Danger's left arm, and tears away a chunk of the vehicle's helmet, sending Yancy to his death. Raleigh barely manages to pilot Gipsy Danger on his own and finishes the battle, using the robot's giant plasma blaster to kill the creature. Raleigh later pilots the Jaeger to a remote beach where it finally collapses. Raleigh walks out, bearing injuries from the battle -- because of the Drift, Jaeger pilots experience the same injuries that their mechanical counterparts do -- and collapses on the beach too, exhausted and emotionally devastated from his brother's death.
After the attack, Raleigh leaves the Jaeger Program, and goes to find work wherever he can. Five years later, he finds work along the Western coast of the United States as a construction worker, helping build a giant coastal wall that is meant to keep the Kaiju out out.
In the 5 years since Raleigh was with the Jaeger program, numerous countries have called for the program to be terminated due to spiraling casualties of Jaeger pilots in the increased Kaiju attacks and the enormous cost of keeping it funded. Many assume that building the coastal barriers will make them safe, but the head of the program, Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), claims that the world's leaders are making a terrible mistake. Even though Pentecost claims the program is still viable, it is relocated to Hong Kong and given 8 months of funding before the program will be permanently retired.
Working on the wall near Sitka, Alaska, Raleigh sees television reports that a Kaiju has broken through the wall surrounding Sydney Harbor in Australia. Fortunately, a Jaeger named Striker Eureka was still stationed in the area before being moved to Hong Kong and is able to take the monster down. After seeing the news report, Raleigh is surprised when a helicopter lands near his construction area, with Pentecost requesting he come along. Raleigh is reluctant to join the Jaeger program again, however, Pentecost convinces him that he belongs in the pilot's seat.
Raleigh is then flown to the Hong Kong Base (known as 'The Shatterdome'), where he meets Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi). Mako tells Raleigh that she has studied his moves during his years in action as a Jaeger pilot, Raleigh notes she seems apprehensive.
Pentecost also introduces Raleigh to two scientists under their command. One of them, Dr Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day), is an obsessive 'Kaiju Fanboy,' who studies the creatures from a biological standpoint, through salvaged organs and other parts. The other is Dr Gottlieb (Burn Gorman), who is a more 'practical' man, using his mathematical knowledge to try and pinpoint the frequency of creatures coming through the ocean rift.
Within the Shatterdome, the last remaining Jaegers and their crews have been assembled: The 3-pilot Crimson Typhoon (from China), Cherno Alpha (from Russia), Striker Eureka (fresh from its stint in Australia), and (to Raleigh's surprise) Gipsy Danger. However, since her encounter 5 years ago, she has been rebuilt and retrofitted for more extreme combat.
Raleigh questions Pentecost on just what their plan is. Pentecost explains that are formulating a plan to drop a nuclear weapon into the channel between dimensions. If it works, the channel will be destroyed, stopping any further Kaiju from coming through. Though the plan of attacking the channel has failed in the past, the program's leaders are confident they will be successful this time if all the remaining Jaegers attack simultaneously.
Pentecost soon after meets again with Geiszler and Gottlieb. Gottlieb predicts that mathematically, the number of Kaiju coming up through the rift is increasing. Geiszler meanwhile, wonders if they can learn more about the Kaiju, if they are able to 'drift' with its brain. Having a portion of one, he is eager to test his theory, but is denied by Pentecost, who decides to follow Gottlieb's research.
Without his brother, Raleigh is tasked with helping to find a replacement. However, during a training and reflex exercise, Raleigh becomes irritated when Mako keeps calling him out regarding the number of moves to take down his opponent. Inquiring why she is being so vocal, she responds that he could have taken down his opponents with a shorter amount of moves. After winning approval from Pentecost, Raleigh spars with her and is amazed at her prowess. He proclaims that she should help him co-pilot Gipsy Danger, but Pentecost refuses.
Eventually, another pilot is chosen for Raleigh, but at the last minute, Mako is given permission. A test-run of Gipsy Danger within the Shatterdome appears to be going well, until during the Drift session, Mako gets locked into a tragic memory and almost sets off the Jaeger's plasma cannon within the dome.
Following the incident, Raleigh understands more about Mako and Pentecost. When Mako was a child, she lost her family to a Kaiju attack in Tokyo. Just when it seemed the creature was going to kill her, a Jaeger was deployed that stopped it. The pilot of the Jaeger was Pentecost himself. Even with her becoming unfocused in the drift, Raleigh still wants Mako as his partner, but is again rebuffed by Pentecost.
Meanwhile, Dr Geiszler has hooked up a crude connection machine, and hooks into the Kaiju brain in his lab. The strain of the drift is quite overwhelming for Geiszler and Gottlieb shuts it down. Geiszler reports to Pentecost and his men that the link allowed him a glimpse into the other side of the portal. Geiszler had theorized that based on some Kaiju samples, that what they were seeing coming through were cloned creatures, and his drift vision appears to corroborate the theory. Unfortunately, the Kaiju brain has been damaged, and Geiszler needs a fresher brain in order to learn more. Pentecost gives him a small card, and sends him to Hong Kong to look for a man named Hannibal Chau.
Geiszler finds Chau, who is actually an American going under an alias. Chau is a dealer in Kaiju remains, collecting them from battle sites and dealing them on the black market. Geiszler is sufficiently impressed with Chau's secret room containing live specimens that could be useful in his research. Geiszler tells Chau that he wants an intact brain. Chau balks at the idea since recovering a Kaiju brain is nearly impossible -- the skull bone of a Kaiju is too thick to penetrate quickly and the brains become useless when contaminated with ammonia. Geiszler still bats around Chau's arrogance and questioning demeanor, saying that he can use a Kaiju's secondary brain instead. He mentions how he drifted with a Kaiju brain, leading Chau to question that if he connected to the other side, what's to say those on the other side don't know what he now knows? Chau reveals that he'd also drifted with a Kaiju brain and the result was permanent injury to his left eye and the danger that the aliens can send any Kaiju to find him in the city.
Shortly after their discussion, two Category 4 Kaijus surface near Hong Kong. Pentecost sends out Crimson Typhoon and the Cherno Alpha to fight the creatures, with Striker Eureka as backup to protect the City's coastline.
Just as discussion had seemed to point to the Kaiju becoming more dangerous, the two that have emerged come with extra accoutrements. One possesses a pouch in its throat containing acid that melts away Cherno Alpha's armor, severely disabling it. Crimson Typhoon's crew take her into the fight, but she is soon overwhelmed by one of the Kaiju that uses a clawed tail to rip off the jaeger's head. Cherno is attacked by the larger of the two Kaiju and defeated when they're forced underwater and the monster crushes their reactor, drowning both pilots.
The father/son team piloting Striker Eureka abandon their orders to protect Hong Kong, and go at the creatures. However, the other Kaiju lets loose an EMP burst that disables Striker Eureka, and the equipment in the Shatterdome. With 2 hours until the system can be rebooted, Striker Eureka is dead in the water until Raleigh offers a solution: though the newer models of Jaeger are digital, the Gypsy Danger is analog and thus more resistant to EMP attacks.
Pentecost sends out Raleigh and Mako, who end up destroying the EMP-armed Kaiju after a protracted battle, but the other one ends up heading into Hong Kong.
While Chau and his associates have fled to their bunker, Dr Geiszler has been thrown out into the streets by Chau to hide in a public fallout shelter. However, when it sounds like the creature has settled directly over them, he begins to panic that Chau may have been right, and that it may be looking for him. As if to answer that the ceiling caves in, and the Kaiju attempts to reach him.
Just then Gipsy Danger appears and distracts the Kaiju. The battle goes through many buildings, and Gipsy is able to freeze and shatter the creature's tail and tear out it's acid sac. However, the battle takes a turn when the creature suddenly sprouts giant wings and begins to carry the Jaeger into Earth's upper atmosphere. Utilizing a new weapon, a large chain-sword, they manage to destroy it before plummeting back to Earth, barely regaining control of the Jaeger as a team to make a safe landing.
Raleigh and Mako return to the Shatterdome to cheers as the pilots of the Eureka also voice their thanks and appreciation. During the jubilation, Raleigh notes Pentecost bleeding slightly from both nostrils. In private, Pentecost explains how, in the earlier days of the Jaeger program, shielding from nuclear contaminants had not been considered and that his condition has been worsening over time.
Meanwhile, Geiszler has returned to Chau and demands claim over the dead Kaiju's secondary brain. Chau's men attempt to get to it, but find it damaged and useless. However, they also discover the Kaiju is actually pregnant before their communication link with Chau goes dead. Just then, an infant Kaiju breaks through a slit in the side of its Mother, and attempts to escape before falling down, seemingly choking on it's own umbilical cord. As Chau gloats over the dead infant Kaiju, claiming he'd known it couldn't survive very long outside it's mother, the creature rears up and swallows him whole, finally dying in the street.
Dr Gottlieb soon shows up in Hong Kong with Geiszler's machine, and though the first attempt almost killed him, Gottlieb volunteers to drift with the other scientist, to cooperate in learning more through the infant Kaiju's brain and handle the strain of the experience together.
Plans are soon made to set up the Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka to deliver the warhead to the undersea rift. With his father unable to pilot Striker due to a broken arm, Herc Hansen is left without a partner. Pentecost surprises everyone when he takes the role. However, the strain of piloting a Jaeger could prove fatal to Pentecost, but he volunteers anyway.
As the two Jaegers near the rift, Geiszler and Gottlieb rush into the Shatterdome's control room, and explain that the plan will not work. The channel between dimensions will only allow in a Kaiju, the very reason for the previous failures to destroy the channel with other nuclear weapons: if they attempt to drop the warhead into the channel, it'll just deflect off the breach. The two Jaegers battle two Category 4 Kaiju guarding the rift as a third Kaiju, a Category 5, larger and more powerful than the previous creatures, emerges.
Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka sustain heavy damage in the battle. Unable to deliver the bomb, Striker Eureka detonates it to take out the defending Kaiju and give Gipsy Danger a chance to enter the rift. Once inside, Raleigh and Mako will detonate Gipsy's nuclear reactor and destroy the rift. Gipsy attaches itself to the Category 5 Kaiju and fall with it into the rift, bypassing the code that would reject any non-kaiju. Inside the Kaiju dimension, Raleigh ejects Mako in a life pod and manually initiates the detonation of the nuclear core. As Gypsy Danger enters the other dimension, Raleigh ejects in his own pod before Gipsy Danger explodes and collapses the rift, ending the Kaiju threat once and for all. On the surface of the Pacific Ocean, both pods reach the surface. For a brief period it seems that Raleigh may be dead but he awakens, much to Mako's joy.
A mid-credits scene reveals that Hannibal Chau has survived being swallowed by the baby Kaiju by cutting his way out with a pocket knife. He angrily asks where the shoe he lost is.
==Cast==
*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 Marshal Stacker Pentecost: Raleigh's commanding officer in Pan Pacific Defense Corps and former Jaeger pilot dying of radiation poisoning due to lax radiation shielding on the first Jaeger models. 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 and was adopted by Pentecost. Though Mori possesses a strength and fury that should serve well against the Kaiju, 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 explained, "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 'Newt' Geiszler: A scientist studying the Kaiju. 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 Newt as a child.
*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 Sichuan restaurant in Brooklyn. Del Toro drew inspiration from Burt Lancaster's performance in Elmer Gantry when writing the character.
*Robert Kazinsky as Chuck Hansen: An Australian Jaeger pilot considered the finest soldier left in the Resistance. He and his father Herc 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."
*Max Martini as Hercules "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".
*Clifton Collins Jr. as Tendo Choi: A Jaeger technician of Chinese and South American descent. Collins described his character as the "brains" behind the Jaegers.
*Burn Gorman as Dr. Hermann Gottlieb: A scientist studying the Kaiju 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. Klattenhoff joined the project to work with del Toro. Describing his character, Klattentoff said, "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.
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 Alexis 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 an Alaskan construction team that 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, Jonathan Foxon appears as a frantic civilian. David Fox plays an old man on a beach, while Jane Watson portrays Raleigh and Yancy's mother in a flashback sequence.Pacific Rim (2013) – Full cast and crew Producer Thomas Tull makes a cameo appearance. Ellen McLain makes a vocal appearance as the A.I of the Gipsy Danger, a nod to her role as GLaDOS in the Portal game series.
== 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 that he "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.
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.
===Filming ===
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 fewer 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 end credits, as do James Cameron and David Cronenberg.
===Design===
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 ending 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 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 Godzilla, Gamera, 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 The Colossus and George Bellows's boxing paintings. The film's designers include Wayne Barlowe (who is the primary designer of the Kaiju), 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 one hundred Kaiju and one 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 Kaiju, 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 Kaiju too similar to any Earth creatures, instead opting to make them otherworldly and alien. Del Toro called the film's Kaiju "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 Kaiju; 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 Kaiju 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 Kaiju, 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===
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 co-owner Shane Mahan, known for creating the armored suits for Iron Man, was tasked with building the suits, helmets and conn-pods. 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 quarter-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 quarter-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.
==Music==
The soundtrack was released on digital download from Amazon on June 18, 2013, and CD on June 25, 2013. The physical version of the soundtrack was released on July 9, 2013, by WaterTower Music, three days before the theatrical release of the film itself. Guest musicians Tom Morello and Priscilla Ahn also feature as soloists on the score. Two songs appear in the film which are not included on the soundtrack are "Just Like Your Tenderness" by Luo Xiaoxuan, and the ending theme "Drift", performed by Blake Perlman featuring Rza. The Action Elite rated the album with a perfect five stars, the Empire gave four, while MSN and Filmtracks also gave the soundtrack four out of five stars. On July 27, 2013, the soundtrack appeared at peak position number 7 on "US Billboard Top Soundtracks."
Ramin Djawadi, one of the main composers in Disneyverse, whose films and television productions included Game of Thrones, Iron Man, A Wrinkle in Time, Westworld and Feligarden, returns to compose the music for Pacific Rim. Contracted by Peter Rotter, the score for Pacific Rim was recorded at the Warner Bros. Eastwood Scoring Stage with the Hollywood Studio Symphony and a 20-person choir contracted by Jasper Randall. 
==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 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. 
==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 Hollywood, California on July 9, 2013.
===Domestic release===
Pacific Rim opened in more than 8,230 theaters in 104 countries worldwide, including the United States, on July 12, 2013, and was released theatrically alongside Grown Ups 2 from Sony Pictures Entertainment and Rockville Worldwide Studios/Lionsgate's CGI-animated film Thunderbirds are Go!. Upon its domestic release in the US, Pacific Rim grossed over $101,802,906 domestically, while upon its international release, it grossed over $309,200,000 internationally, ultimately grossing over $411,002 906 worldwide in the inner world of the Disneyverse. 
The film grossed $3.6 million from Thursday night showings, 23% of which came from IMAX showings. The film peaked at #3 for the opening weekend with $37.2 million, behind Despicable Me 2 and Grown Ups 2. This is the highest opening ever for a del Toro film, surpassing Hellboy II: The Golden Army. About 50 percent of tickets were in 3D, making it the second highest 3D participation of 2013, behind Gravity. During its second weekend, the film fell 57% with a gross of $16 million, and during its third weekend, it fell 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 for the weekend. Pacific Rim ended its 90-day domestic theatrical run in the United States on October 19, 2013.
=== International release (in both China and Japan) ===
The film opened a week later, on July 19, in China, followed by opening another week in Japan, on July 26. Upon its release in China on July 19, 2013, it grossed over $100 million in China alone, becoming the 18th highest-grossing Disney Movieverse film in China. It grossed a total of $114.3 million domestically, making China the largest market for the film. In Japan, the film landed in the first and only position on its opening weekend, with an initial gross of $1 million. 
== Merchandise==
=== Graphic novels===
The graphic novel Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero was released on June 5, 2013, 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 June 18, 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. On July 2, a viral video was released in which Ron Perlman's character, Hannibal Chau, advertises his fictional Kaiju organ dealership, Kaiju Remedies.
===Video games===
Yuke's published and developed a video game based on Pacific Rim, for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. A mobile game, titled Pacific Rim: The Mobile Game, has been released for the iOS and Android smartphone platforms. It is a fighting game where players choose between the Jaegers and the Kaiju from the movie. The game was released on July 12, 2013 to coincide with the film's original United States theatrical debut, to mostly negative reviews from critics.
===The Backyardigans marketing===
Rockville Worldwide Studios, Warner Bros. Entertainment and Legendary Pictures launched a The Backyardigans-themed marketing campaign with the film. On July 19, 2013, Rockville Worldwide Studios releases Pacific Rim-themed Backyardigans toys, including Uniqua, Pablo, Tyrone, Tasha and Austin wearing Jaegers pilots. The Backyardigans toys themed after Pacific Rim debuted in Japan on September 1, 2013.
==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 United States on October 15, 2013, and internationally on November 25, 2013. 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. As of March 2014, Pacific Rim has sold 961,845 DVDs along with 1,427,692 Blu-ray Discs in the United States for $10,045,530 and $24,634,992 in revenue, respectively, for a total of $37,079,122. Pacific Rim was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray on October 4, 2016.
===Critical response===
Pacific Rim received generally positive reviews from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 72% approval rating based on 294 reviews, with an average rating of 6.60/10. The website's critical 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." Review aggregation website Metacritic gives the film a rating of 65 out of 100 based on reviews from 48 critics, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
The Daily Telegraphs 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 Stones 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 Voices 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 Kaiju "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 Guardians 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. The New Yorkers Anthony Lane's verdict read as "It is possible to applaud Pacific Rim for the efficacy of its business model while deploring the tale that has been engendered—long, loud, dark, and very wet. You might as well watch the birth of an elephant." The San Francisco Chronicles Mike LaSalle reacted extremely negatively by stating "If this is the best we can do in terms of movies—if something like this can speak to the soul of audiences—maybe we should just turn over the cameras and the equipment to the alien dinosaurs and see what they come up with ... Director Guillermo del Toro, who gave us Pan's Labyrinth not too many years ago, used to be known as an artistic and discerning filmmaker, despite his affection for blockbuster action and grotesqueness. But too often he gets lost in his computer ... Why go to the movies to look at somebody else's computer after looking at your own all week? ... The actors can't make Pacific Rim any better. They can only relieve some of the pain." Slant Magazines 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". TheWrap 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.
===Other response===
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."
==Accolades==
Award 	Category 	Recipients 	Result
Buena Vista Awards	Best Director 	Guillermo del Toro 	Won
Buena Vista Awards	Best Screenplay by 	Guillermo del Toro, Travis Beacham	Won
Buena Vista Awards	Best Producers 	Thomas Tull, Mary Parent 	Won
Buena Vista Awards	Outstanding Achievement, Character Animation in a Live Action Production	N/A 	
Teen Choice Awards	Summer Movie Action 	N/A 	
==References==
Category:2013 Films
Category:Domestic Films
Category:American Films
Category:Warner Bros. Pictures Films
Category:Legendary Pictures Films
Category:Science Fiction Films
Category:Action Films
Category:Monster Films
Category:PG-13-Rated Films
Category:Disney Movieverse Films