Pacific Rim Plot

Spoiler warnings for everyone as Guillermo Del Toro’s upcoming project has had very few details released aside for the fact that Del Toro was directing. Today I feel as though we have found out more than we ever expected to learn without purchasing a theater ticket first:

Source: News In Film

…not much is known about Pacific Rim yet, other than it’s about giant monsters and will allow del Toro to create a “new world” of beastly creatures. That’s only halfway accurate. This project will give the Hellboy filmmaker the opportunity to create two worlds.

The first is an alternate version of Earth in the near future, decades after a historic date in November 2012 when the first kaiju, a towering Godzilla-like beast, emerged from a hole in the Pacific Ocean and attacked the city of Osaka, Japan. The second is “The Anteverse,” another universe on the other side of that gaping portal, 5 miles below our ocean’s surface.

Since the first attack, the rim has been “spitting out” a variety of gigantic monsters at an increasing rate, which then stride out of the ocean and begin destroying sea-bordering cities, like Tokyo and Los Angeles. In order to combat these monstrous, otherworldly menaces, the military developed the “Jaeger” program, which trains teams of two pilots to jointly operate massive, building-sized mechanized suits of armor and high-tech weaponry.

Within the first act alone, we are given enough detailed background on the god-like Jaeger systems, its shared neural piloting system (called “pons”), and the relentless beasts. But Beacham is an absolute master at immediately establishing characters and their conflicts.

The central character is Raleigh Antrobus, 23, a skilled Jaeger pilot still wrestling emotionally with the loss of his co-pilot and biological brother, Yance, during a mission a year earlier. The ordeal has wreaked havoc on his mind spirit, leaving him with ghostly nightmares of the battle from the shared “pons” experience. After the initial setup, the damaged hero is recruited to re-join the task force in Tokyo, where pilots are in demand, and team with a fellow “leftover,” 22-year-old female Japanese pilot Mako Mori. Naturally, the language barrier (among other things) presents an issue for the out-of-sync duo, meaning an even steeper learning curve for the unprecedented pairing.

Meanwhile, Felicity “Flick” Kincaid, a journalist and Yance’s former fiancée, circles the globe (ours) to discover answers about this mysterious rift and the origins of its intensifying threat.

Without ruining any more surprises (past the first act), there are several different species of towering kaiju, each with their own unique characteristics, and the clashes between monster and machine are epic in scale. Beacham has even developed his own glossary and lingo for his characters, a blend of scientific and military jargon used to describe the elements of this fully fleshed out reality, much like the shorthand in Cameron’s Avatar or the developing mecha-warrior versus aliens movie All You Need is Kill.

The story is something straight out of several different Japanese Anime’s but I feel it has the opportunity to carve something unique out of the heavily used concept with Guillermo at the helm. I still feel kinda bad that the guy didn’t get the opportunity to make Mountains of Madness and appreciate that he’s holding out hope but this actually seems just as interesting of a project for him to be involved with to me. I’m looking forward to finding out as much as I can and have, again, elevated this movie on my ‘radar’.

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About Anthony Whyte

Content Manager | Senior Editor | Daydreamer | Keep your head on a swivel and don't blink

6 thoughts on “Pacific Rim Plot

  1. Hate to be such a pessimist, but I’m betting this movie falls through. Del Toro does not have a very successful track record in pulling together big-budget films.

    Anyway, I think he should stay in the low-to-mid budget world where he can demand control.

    In closing, I will point out that much of this sounds like the role-playing game world ‘Rifts’.

    1. What’s his track record of failed film projects?

      He had nothing to do with The Hobbit delays, and he walked from that project because other people dropped the ball getting that going and he wasn’t going to hold his breath any longer.

      Del Toro has only one track record. Anything he is attached to is instantly Awesome.

      And this doesn’t sound anything at all like Rifts.

  2. Very interesting. I love the direction this is going. Its definitely risky for live action and has the potential to bomb, save for the cult following it will undoubtedly garner. Del Toro alone tho makes this a must see for me!

  3. I get the sense that this movie will have scenes where these Jaegers cross over into the other universe, and we see a world populated by Godzilla-like beasts. While that seems amazing at first, I also think that will be just too over the top. Like too much of a good thing. We’ll see how Del Toro handles it.

  4. Del Toros stamp on this gets me excited for a re-hashed (in theory….somewhat) Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla for the ADD masses!

    Can someone please, please give this guy the Godzilla movie.

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