Pacific Rim (2013) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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Are you a Kaiju Kisser or a Jaeger Meister?

Pacific Rim takes the best bits of kaiju monster films, adds in the best bits from giant robot fiction, and creates a genre movie that provides fun and excitement as giant beasts battle one another for the fate of the world. This is the perfect sort of sci-fi movie for a Saturday, generating popcorn-like enjoyment while presenting strong characters and good morals.

First Impressions

Monsters are real, and they are gigantic beasts that rise from an ocean trench to terrorize coastal towns like San Francisco. Humanity fights back by creating monsters of their own, giant mechanized robots that are controlled by two drivers. These armored warriors fight the monsters in a way never before seen on the silver screen. It’s a mix of Godzilla, Robot Jox, and Independence Day as mankind battles for control of the Pacific Rim.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

A brief introduction, narrated by Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam), explains the origins of the war against the Kaiju. In 2013, giant alien monsters appeared from Innerspace as they entered our world from an interdimensional portal under the Pacific Ocean, known as the Breach. They began attacking coastal cities, creating a catastrophic death toll. Within 7 years, giant robotic mecha, known as Jaegers, have been deployed to fight the Kaiju. Each Jaeger is piloted by two drivers who are linked by a neural interface called the Drift. Raleigh and his brother, Yancey (Diego Klattenhoff), pilot the Mark 3 Jaeger, Gipsy Danger, in a battle against a category-3 kaiju, Knifehead, outside Anchorage. The Jaeger is damaged, and Yancey is killed, forcing Raleigh to solo-pilot the machine, which takes a physical and mental strain on the man. He quits the Jaeger program.

Five years later, in 2025, the Jaeger program is being terminated in favor of the coastal wall program. This decision is put into question when a category-4 kaiju emerges outside Sydney and breaks through the wall as if it were nothing. Marshal Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) moves the world’s remaining Jaegers to the Hong Kong facility, known as the Shatterdome, and finds and recruits Raleigh to rejoin the program. He is introduced to Stacker’s recruitment officer, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), and the kaiju research team made up of kaiju-famboy Dr. Newton “Newt” Geiszler (Charlie Day) and super-serious Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (Burn Gorman). Raleigh is introduced to the remaining Jaegers in the program: the Russian Mark 1 Cherno Alpha, the Chinese Mark 4 Crimson Typhoon, and the Australian Mark 5 Striker Eureka. Along with an upgraded Gipsy Danger, Stacker plans to take and detonate a 2400 pound warhead in the Breach.

Raleigh doesn’t get along with Chuck Hansen (Rob Kazinsky), who is the son of Herc Hansen (Max Martini), and one of the drivers of Striker Europa. Chuck believes that Raleigh is a washout and doesn’t trust him, believing Striker is playing favorites. Raleigh feels that he could Drift with Mako as a co-pilot, but Stacker forbids her from getting into a Jaeger. Newt believes that he can Drift with a kaiju brain, and does so with a homemade device which nearly lobotomizes him. Newt discovers that the kaiju are all clones and have been sent by alien colonizers, but he needs another brain to get more details. He heads into Hong Kong to meet with a black market seller of kaiju parts, Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman). Unfortunately, he has nothing to offer the scientist.

At the Shatterdome, Raleigh convinces Stacker to give Mako a chance to co-pilot with him. During the Drift interface, which blends the personalities and memories of the two pilots, Mako gets lost in a memory of her as a young girl during a kaiju attack in Japan. She was rescued by Stacker, piloting a Mark 1 Jaeger, Coyote Tango, and later adopted by him. Her lack of control nearly activated Gipsy’s plasma cannon which would have killed them all. She is benched for the time being. Newt realizes that the kaiju share a hive mind, and they know as much about humans as he knows about kaiju. Two more monsters emerge from the Breach in a double-event and track Newt to Hong Kong. Three of the four Jaegers are sent to protect the city from Otachi and Leatherback, but are either destroyed or disabled by an EMP blast. Gipsy Danger is an older analog Jaeger and is immune to such devices.

Raleigh and Mako successfully co-pilot Gipsy, defeating Leatherback and then bringing Otachi down in the city with its chain sword. Chau and his team begin to break down the kaiju’s body for parts when a smaller kaiju bursts from the dead body. Otachi is pregnant and the baby strangles itself on the umbilical cord, but not before eating Hannibal Chau. Newt gets his viable kaiju brain, and he and Hermann Drift together to discover the final secrets of the aliens. They have been softening up our world, waiting for us to terraform it into a place that better suits their needs. They also discover that only kaiju DNA can enter the Breach and that without it, Stacker’s plan will fail. Suddenly, two more kaiju arrive, but remain stationed underwater near the Breach.

Stacker agrees to partner with Chuck in the repaired Striker Eureka, knowing that entering a Jaeger again will mean his death. Raleigh and Mako pilot Gipsy Danger and descend to the breach to take on Scunner and Raiju. The first ever category-5 kaiju, Slattern, arrives damaging Gipsy, who still manages to kill Raiju by bisecting it with his sword. Striker is also damaged and detonates the bomb just to stop Scunner. Newt gets word to the team that they need a kaiju with them to keep the Breach open, so Raleigh and Mako grab Slattern and jump into the dimensional portal. Raleigh ejects Mako in an escape pod and falls into the alien world. With the older model of Jaeger, he sets his nuclear reactors to overload and detonates them, managing to barely escape in his own pod. He is reunited with Mako on the surface as the Pan Pacific Defense Corps declares victory against the kaiju. In a post-credit scene, Hannibal Chau is shown cutting his way out of the kaiju fetus, screaming, “Where is my shoe?”

“Today, at the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen not only to believe in ourselves, but in each other.” – Stacker Pentecost

History in the Making

Pacific Rim is a modern-day love letter to the giant monster movies and giant robot manga of the late 20th Century. It draws inspiration from the Toho Studios Godzilla franchise, Japanese manga, and films like Robot Jox and Independence Day. It feels very familiar in terms of technology and plot, even though nothing like this had ever been released as a film before. It’s like a cinematic comic book come to life, which makes it so much fun to watch. Director Guillermo del Toro dedicated the film to the memories of both Ray Harryhausen and Ishirō Honda, two extremely influential filmmakers in both his life and for the larger filmgoing audience.

It’s safe to say that without the influences of Harryhausen and Honda, there would be no Pacific Rim or any other type of giant monster movie. While other filmmakers may have picked up ideas from 1933s King Kong, it was these two that kept sustained interest alive in this genre. Ray Harryhausen received his start on the King Kong lookalike Mighty Joe Young in 1949. From there, he created the creature effects for films like It Came from Beneath the Sea, 20 Million Miles to Earth, a handful of Sinbad movies, and Clash of the Titans. He worked primarily as a stop-motion animator, creating larger-than-life creatures atop miniature sets. Honda, on the other hand, worked with men in suits to create the monsters that terrorize his films. Godzilla was the first Japanese kaiju film, spawning hundreds of spin-offs, sequels, and wannabes. His films also helped to define and popularize the disaster film, which has been going strong now for over 60 years.

The director of Pacific Rim is something of a surprise. It was Guillermo del Toro’s eighth film and second sci-fi film, after Mimic in 1997. His films have usually leaned closer to horror and fantasy than action-adventure. With films like Mimic (which is certainly in the vein of Alien), The Devil’s Backbone, Blade II, and Pan’s Labyrinth, giant monsters fighting giant robots seemed like a weird direction for him to take. However, he was absolutely the best person for the job. His eye for detail and social commentary took what might have been a B-film and made it a solid A-plus.

Genre-fication

Pacific Rim would not exist without the imaginative works from Japan, both in film and in print. The earliest credited kaiju film is the 1954 Godzilla and all of its monstrous spin-offs created by special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya and filmmaker Ishirō Honda. This was itself inspired by King Kong and the special effects work of Willis O’Brien. Tsuburaya and Honda opted not to use stop motion animation for their creatures, but rather actors in suits. This became a staple of the series, even into modern times, as well as a much-parodied trope. Besides the large gamut of alien creatures in these films (such as Gigan, Mothra, Ghidorah, and the Gargantuas), Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla, from 1974, provided an early on-screen giant robot. Giant robots in film had less of a background, having existed primarily in the manga comics of Japan. Del Toro and screenwriter Travis Beacham pulled ideas of these mechanized warriors from titles such as Mobile Suit Gundam, which features humans controlling robotic mecha, Tetsujin 28-go (aka Gigantor), Ultraman, and The Big O. Similarities can also be found in Giant Robo (known stateside as Johnny Sakko and His Flying Robot) and the low-budget 1990 film Robot Jox.

Of course, the premise of any film like this is to pit the kaiju against each other, or against the humans in their armored suits. That’s the draw of this type of film, and Pacific Rim includes multiple battles and creative fights to satisfy audiences. But it goes deeper. The film spends time with the technology of the robots as audiences get to understand the mental and physical tools that go into being a Jaeger driver.

Societal Commentary

Besides Jaeger on Kaiju action, Pacific Rim also creates a film that is a team-up movie as well. Both in the traditional sense of superhero films, where the heroes join forces to battle the villain, but also in a non-traditional sense that within each Jaeger is a pair of pilots. When scientists invented the neural interface for the Jaegers, it was unknown that the load would be too much for a single pilot. Certainly, there was some trial and error at that part of the development process. From then on out they realized they needed two pilots to work in tandem to control the giant robots. But it couldn’t just be two random people. These drivers needed to be able to be in sync with each other. Raleigh and his brother were prime candidates since they both shared a deep history with each other. Their genetic link was also a plus. The level of teamwork needed to defeat a kaiju speaks to del Toro’s view of the world. The film lets audiences know that individuality is a good thing, but also that in some cases, it’s just not possible to do something by yourself.

Now, the film does give Raleigh some superhuman abilities in this arena, as he has been able to pilot a Jaeger by himself twice by the end of the film. But this can be seen as more of a lead character trope, rather than the normal state of affairs. Raleigh follows the rules, but he can also circumvent them occasionally. The need for teamwork is further cemented by showing Newt nearly frying his brain when Drifting with a Kaiju brain. He caused himself serious trauma as indicated by his bleeding orifices and bloodshot eyes. Gottlieb offers to join him in the second attempt to “share the load,” a common phrase about the necessity of helping hands. The Jaegers also team up with each other to hold off the impending Kaiju attacks. Even though the individual drivers may not get along, like Raleigh and Chuck, when they are on the job, they realize the importance of working together regardless of past disagreements. It’s something that more people can learn from.

Pacific Rim also speaks to the idea that sometimes the old ways are the best (or at least better). Some sci-fi films deal with the advancement of technology versus the human spirit. They may speak of humans getting replaced by new technology, but in the end, they show humanity winning out by being able to do something that the tech wasn’t able to. This film doesn’t quite go that far, but it does speak to how older technology may be superior to more complicated technology. Most of the humans did not see the patterns and evolution of the Kaiju like Newt and Gottlieb did. As the Jaegers got more and more complex to be able to defeat the Kaiju, so too did the Kaiju evolve. Leatherback comes into the fight with a biological EMP power that disables the more advanced mechs, such as Striker Eureka. It’s only older models, like Gipsy Danger, that can survive these deadly attacks. In the end, Gipsy was also useful and necessary in its antiquity due to the fusion reactors it housed. Without those, the PPDC would have been unable to close the Breach.

The Science in The Fiction

Technology, and the failure of technology, is a theme in Pacific Rim. When giant monsters suddenly emerge from under the ocean, the world joins together and proceeds to make giant robots to battle them in only 14 months. On one hand, it’s a marvel that all the various factions of the world could unite and complete such a colossal task in just over a year. But on the other hand, some corners were cut due to the speed of building these Mark-1 Jaegers. Marshal Pentecost exemplifies the fallout from those shortcuts. He tells Raleigh that the last thing designers were thinking about when building Jaegers, like Pentecost’s Coyote Tango, was radiation shielding. Now, years later, he is suffering those effects as his body begins to fall apart. Drivers thought all they had to fear was being killed by Kaiju, not by their own rigs.

Hannibal Chau represents the other side of the technological gulf. He doesn’t work with modern electronics or create battle bots. He has found a way to clean up the dead Kaiju and turn a profit from it. Chau recycles most of the material from the carcass, selling off certain parts to collectors, providing others to scientists, or fueling a holistic need, such as the ground bone powder being good for male potency. This appears to be a riff on the real idea that rhinoceros horn can be an aphrodisiac. While grinding up and ingesting part of a terrestrial animal to cure impotency may be considered fashionable in some circles, at no point does ingesting part of an alien creature seem safe or smart.

The Final Frontier

Pacific Rim was successful enough upon its release that a sequel was produced (but not directed) by del Toro five years later, Pacific Rim: Uprising. It starred John Boyega, but was not as well-received as the original. At the time of the film’s release, a series of tie-in comics were created and released by Legendary Comics and including Tales from Year Zero, a prequel to the events of Pacific Rim, along with several other original graphic novels. In 2019, a Pacific Rim ride, Shatterdome Strike, opened in Indonesia’s Trans Studio Mall Cibubur. It’s a 20-minute ride and experience that creates a new story for participants. Finally, in 2021, Pacific Rim: The Black, a 14-episode animated series, premiered on Netflix to continue the franchise. It only lasted two seasons.

Pacific Rim is a superior film to many of the recent Monsterverse titles (which include the King Kong and Godzilla team-ups). Even though many of the characters fit the tropes of monster and disaster films, they are not confined by them. The actors constantly provide more than necessary in what might be seen as a cartoony attempt at a high concept idea. There is real heart and commitment to telling the tales of individuals affected by the Kaiju invasion. Whether that’s a young girl that lost her family, the connection that the man who found her feels towards his adoptive daughter, or the isolation brought on when a Jaeger driver loses his partner, Pacific Rim makes these relationships more complicated and real while bringing together a kick-ass film where giant robots fight giant monsters.

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