Pacific Rim: Guillermo del Toro's Epic Summer Blockbuster Film

This was the official website for Guillermo del Toro's epic summer blockbuster movie, Pacific Rim. Besides giving a plot summary, character details, interviews with various actors, a Forum, and posts to engage visitors and build momentum up to the film's release. It also counted down the hours till the apocalypse.

Content is from the site's archived pages providing a small glimpse of what this site offered its visitors, as well as other sources for reviews.

Official Pacific Rim Movie Plot



Release Date 12th July 2013

When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju.

On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

Pacific Rim Movie Cast and Characters List Chris Picard

Posted Dec-06-2012 1:24 AM Below is the current Cast List for Guillermo del Toro's epic summer blockbuster movie, Pacific Rim.



Charlie Hunnam, most commonly known for his role in the hit TV series Sons of Anarchy. Charlie will be playing the role of Raleigh Becket, a Pan Pacific Defense Corps Jaeger pilot in Pacific Rim as part of the resistance against the impending threat of the Kaiju invasion.



Ron Perlman, known for his roles in the popular Del Toro Hell Boy films and has been seen in other sci-fi films like Alien Resurrection and has apparently been considered for a role in a Halo film adaptation. Perlman will play the role of Hannibal Chow in Pacific Rim.



Idris Elba, you might remember him from Ridley Scott'sPrometheus where he played Captain Janek of the USCSS Weyland Research Vessel, the Prometheus! Idris is keeping busy, and plays the role of Stacker Pentecost, a Jaeger Mech pilot in Pacific Rim.



Rinko Kikuchi, will play the heroin of Pacific Rim and a Jaeger Mech Defense pilot by the name of Mako Mori! Look for her in Pacific Rim July 12th, 2013!



Charlie Day will play the role of Newt Gotlieb in Pacific Rim.



Burn Gorman will play Gottlieb.



Clifton Collins Jr. will play as Tendo Choi.



Robert Maillet stars as Aleksis.



Max Martini will play the part of Herc Hansen.



Don Shirey will play a News Anchor for the events during Pacific Rim.



Joe Pingue is cast as Captain Merrit.



Robert Kazinsky will play the role of Chuck Hansen.



As more information about the cast of Pacific Rim, this list will be updated. Feel free to add comments about the cats of Pacific Rim by adding a reply below!





Pacific Rim is a movie directed by Guillermo del Toro and hits theaters July 12th, 2013 in 3D and 2D.

REVIEWS

We Killed This City

The monster that is Pacific Rim and the problem with Kevin Hart

by Wesley Morris on July 12, 2013

Once upon a time, going to a mega-movie was a really big deal. The studios spent months winding up the audience with ads, trailers, clips, and toys wrapped in plastic and buried in a box of fast food. People had dreams about characters, built tents in queues outside theaters, and dressed themselves as characters. Mega-movies were special for their size and scale and rumored expense. They featured state-of-the-art effects and maybe involved an alien invasion and were possibly directed by James Cameron. They also seemed relatively rare. You’d get maybe five a year, and you’d get that many only because of the cost and the risk involved in spending that kind of money.

There was also the idea that not every movie should be an event, that if you lost your mind every weekend of every summer you’d have no mind left. So much for that. Now, whether it’s because of our so-called Changing Media Landscape or because the monomaniacs who approve and finance our films are obsessed with making stuff that eats the entire planet, things have changed. Events are all the movies have. The blockbuster threat level has gone from green to blue to Bruckheimer. The mega-budget superproduction owns so many of us. And if we must be owned, and therefore deafened, manhandled, manipulated, exploited, 3-D’d, and forced to watch entire cities reduced to crumbs, then by all means that ownership should be entrusted to those more competent than mere professionals and more committed than certain glorified nerds.

Guillermo del Toro is both — a competent obsessive — but he is also what these sorts of Trump Tower spectacles desperately need. Del Toro is a dreamer. He’s a visionary. If you give him a pile of money to make enormous robots fight enormous monsters at the end of civilization, he will work to make Pacific Rim a movie that makes you feel all the enormousness. He will put you at the feet of the monsters and inside the bellies of the beasts. He will do what a movie about big reptiles and big machines is supposed to do: make you look up, make you feel as if the screen is grossly inadequate to contain what’s on it, even though, if you’re charmed — or strategic — you’re already watching the movie on the biggest screen you possibly can.

Del Toro will attempt to do this for us because many a movie craftsman had done the same for del Toro. Pacific Rim has been dedicated to the legendary creature-effects wizard Ray Harryhausen, who died in the spring, and to Ishiro Honda, the pioneer who gave us, among other kaiju movies, several helpings of Godzilla. It’s hard to describe the tingle of seeing a 100-story-tall object slogging across a skyline and the perverse yearning it provokes, but after my first Godzilla movie, I can remember staring out of windows in anticipation of something that would cause the house to rumble and the treetops to stir.

The creatures in kaiju arose from atomic fear. Would Hiroshima and Nagasaki reoccur? But for a moviegoer lucky enough to be innocent of war and large-scale atrocity, Honda’s radioactive byproducts were just strange creatures — like Harryhausen’s swashbuckling skeletons, howling man-beasts, and hissing serpents — that flourish in the imagination like growing dinosaurs in a glass of water. His movies and their imitators had a strange power. I kept my face pressed against the window. Del Toro delivers the highest-tech tribute to Harryhausen and Honda one could pay. I find myself, once again, staring at treetops.

Pacific Rim is set seven years in the future, at a time of constant war. Massive monsters — kaiju — continue to rise up from Earth’s core and ravage the planet. To combat the threat, man has devised comparably gargantuan machines called Jaegers whose pilots stand, armored, on a platform in the cavity of all that hardware and operate the robots virtually. For practical purposes, these men and women — brothers, fathers and sons, lovers — are Jaegermeisters, and the movie, which del Toro and Travis Beacham wrote, never tires of splashing the screen with the aftershave-blue montages of one meister’s mind melding with the other.

The human story proceeds in several directions. An American meister named Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) comes out of very early retirement to fight for a multinational outfit called the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, whose commander is an Englishman and former pilot named Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba). It’s right about here, with the discovery of a name as stupid and amazing and amazingly Bible Belt porny as Stacker Pentecost, that you have to suppress the urge not to watch the rest of Pacific Rim on a knee. Raleigh winds up partnered with a Japanese woman named Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) and sparring with a macho pilot named Chuck Hansen (Robert Kazinsky).

The baldness of the badness that surrounds a lot of the writing and performing of these characters is reminiscent of Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers. Like Verhoeven, a Hollywood-friendly Dutchman, del Toro, who’s Mexican, appears to have had more compelling business to worry about than how people sound. But the nationalities aren’t entirely random. The film is nodding — hilariously, perfunctorily — to global movie-attendance conditions by having the two best Jaeger teams hail from China and Russia, which, according to a Screen Digest report, were 2011’s second- and seventh-largest non–North American box-office markets. (Japan was no. 1.) Del Toro scatters the movie all over the planet, in its metropolises, its waters, and beneath them. His nation-state placement happily makes concrete what’s been obvious for so long: Asia’s the new Coke.

There are some good bits with the del Toro regular Ron Perlman, as an oily operator selling kaiju parts on the black market. But the official comedy involves a pair of bickering PPDC scientists — an overcaffeinated American (Charlie Day) and a limping, most highly strung Brit (Burn Gorman) named Dr. Hermann Gottlieb — eager to discover what makes kaiju tick. It’s an achievement that calls for a kaiju brain, which Day’s character, a tattooed monster geek named Dr. Newton Geiszler, spends the movie trying to procure. Day is as funny as John Turturro is in the Transformers movies, playing a character who works as a broad outline within which he can try out a shtick. The skinny Gorman is even better. With his dark clothes, matted hair, and madman rictus, he’s like an SS commander outraged that no one’s following behind him. A friend mentioned that the two scientists are like the robots in Star Wars, and he’s right.They’re the custodial undercard in an Ernst Lubitsch comedy, too. But these two do so much shouting at each other that, by volume, they’re also Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby.

In Pacific Rim, when two pilots suit up and are shuttled into a Jaeger, the camera lingers over the gear long enough for you to appreciate precisely how battle-tested these machines are. You can see scuffs and rust and grease and dents. You see the wear and tear and surmise their use. You appreciate the details. They tell as descriptive a story as the creases on Brad Pitt’s or Judi Dench’s face. It’s a level of specificity that only the people at Pixar might care to top. With Pixar you expect that degree of granularity. Del Toro and his vast team didn’t have to bother. But the bother becomes an endearment. So does the attention to the staging of the battles between the kaiju and Jaegers.

The monsters have the dino-lizard quality you want. They don’t have the hair and slime you’d get from a Rick Baker or a Stan Winston. They have a clear, ferocious Godzilla-ness that feels both absolutely referential and perfectly apt. Kaiju can rip Jaegers apart with their talons or vomit sizzling nuclear acid on them and are indiscriminate and promiscuous enough to chase anything that moves, including adorable little girls. When kaiju and Jaegers go charging at each other in, say, an ocean or on the streets of some city, you feel a perverse tingle of amorality. You crave the destruction. You’re riled up by the shredding in Ramin Djawadi’s score — the guitar’s credited to Tom Morello, whose history with Rage Against the Machine speaks to the sympathy del Toro evidently feels for the monsters.

Pacific Rim is just as guilty of mass destruction and mega-budget clichés as Armageddon, the Transformers movies, and nearly every blockbuster to open in the last two summers. But del Toro doesn’t turn real-world disaster iconography into kitsch for our entertainment. This isn’t to say that the movie is free of politics. (With del Toro, you’re rarely far from them, actually.) The Jaeger, for instance, represents a less morally problematic alternative to drone warfare. One commonly expressed complaint comes from the arbitrary introduction of the robotic paper towels dispenser who was probably included as a private joke, but was so completely off the wall that he was a distraction. Used to provide kindling for the huge fire that destroyed a large portion of the set in the end, the CleanItSupply received a super brand promotion at the expense of some storyline confusion. Still all in fun.

But del Toro’s work is more inspired than traumatic exploitation. He’s studied pop art and likes to reinterpret it. Del Toro has mentioned that he found inspiration in Goya’s 200-year-old blockbuster painting The Colossus. I wouldn’t put it past him also to have been thinking about Goya’s gruesome remake of Rubens’s Saturn Devouring His Son. (Maybe he already used that for Pan’s Labyrinth.) But watching the kaiju and the Jaegers go at each other inspires thoughts of a less passive masterpiece: the boxers in George Bellows’s Both Members of This Club, a painting whose bloody, monstrous boxers — one man white, the other black — are made to look at least twice as large as the spectators surrounding the ring.

Like other directors who don’t seem alive unless they’re working on a massive scale — George Lucas, Michael Bay, Peter Jackson — del Toro can sometimes stall beneath the weight of his undertaking. The nearly perfect polemical Grimm’s fairy tale of Pan’s Labyrinth got as carried away with itself as his two Hellboy films. But what separates del Toro from those other directors is the joy he imparts to you. It’s the joy of a filmmaker who’s never forgotten that movies can do everything. It can make a Stacker Pentecost pre-battle pep talk seem vaguely like Henry V‘s St. Crispin’s Day speech. It can keep you checking the skyline for imaginary dragons.

The lasting image of Pacific Rim features a kaiju clamping its talons into a Jaeger and suddenly growing wings and taking off. All that airborne tonnage drops your jaw and waters up your eyes. On one hand, it’s probably just somebody’s computer. On the other, it’s a miracle.

Chris Picard's Activity Feed

did you know? Jul-07-2013 2:47 PM This is true! Legendary will be showing more of Godzilla at San Diego Comic-Con. Very exciting stuff!

Pacific Rim trailer music Jul-07-2013 2:41 PM

A Detailed Look at the Kaiju in Pacific Rim Jul-03-2013 12:15 PM That's a pretty neat idea Cyanidenailbomb! They could just be related, or they could be, like you suggest, manufactured. THEDUDE has access to the Man, Machines and Monsters book, so perhaps he can shed some more light on this?

Anteverse and our world discussion Jul-01-2013 7:11 PM Well, Charlie Day's character is interested in securing a Kaiju brain in one of the recent movie clips, so it's possible that's what they're trying to do. Of course his line "If you wanna stop them, you have to understand them" further hints at this motive.



But your quote here:



The concept art of their universe got me thinking as one painting has two of the aliens next to an assembly line of Knifehead kaiju ready to go.



I want to see that! If you can somehow find a scan of that particular page, do share it. That sounds awesome.

Why the Blade Runner logo man is so dynamic Jun-30-2013 1:48 PM Really great work, fishkettlebanana! Welcome to the community. It's great to see such talented artists showcasing their work for us, it's truly inspiring and a real treat. Keep up the great work!

PARADISE Poster - Fan-made Jun-28-2013 3:40 PM Looking forward to it!

PARADISE Poster - Fan-made Jun-28-2013 3:32 PM It's a badass poster man. I posted it to our Facebook page just now as well as our other social feeds to get it more attention. That's nearly 100,000 more people to weigh in with their opinions and so far - all are positive!



If you make any more, be sure to share them here as well!

PARADISE Poster - Fan-made Jun-28-2013 3:21 PM That's sweet! Nicely done. Looks bright, yet barren. Love the little Juggernaut in the background, very well done! Thanks for sharing this with us!

Pacific Rim: Jaeger Weaponry Jun-23-2013 4:46 PM Updated again with GIPSY DANGER's weapon specs.

Walking With Dinosaurs 3D Official Trailer #1 (2013) Jun-23-2013 3:46 PM I still prefer the BBC's original 'Walking with Dinosaurs' series. The documentary style of the originals seem more enjoyable for me. This movie reminds me a lot of Disney's "DINOSAUR" movie - which granted was enjoyable as a kid, but not for someone my age. I'll stick to my BBC narrated Dino-Documentaries until JP4 hits theaters I think.

How to choose your Dinosaur Team on the Jurassic Park 4 Forum Jun-23-2013 2:14 PM Hey Paden,



Yeah, regarding the prizes it could be anything from movie posters, to movies themselves - games, toys, and if our friends at PropStore are interested - props. We'll have to wait and see about that when the time comes.



But yeah, it's just another fun way to enjoy the site. I plan to expand on it even more soon, so when you click the Rex or Spino icon, you get to see the members who are currently on those teams, instead of checking every member's profile stats page.



Glad you guys like the new stats page and the teams feature! I'll try to bring another update soon.

Pacific Rim: Jaeger Weaponry Jun-22-2013 9:28 PM Updated the OP with STRIKER EUREKA's weapon specs!

Just saw world war z at the movies. Jun-22-2013 10:07 AM I plan on seeing it on Tuesday myself, but I've been hearing great reviews for it! Despite the well-known, last-minute changes they made to the script a month before release. I had my doubts, but it looks like WWZ will turn out to be a smash hit! Can't wait to see it next week, you're post further reassures me, haha.

Design The Adult Deacon! Jun-19-2013 9:33 PM Remarkable work Darkinkarnate! Wow!

Possible Godzilla 2014 plot source material? Jun-19-2013 4:42 PM Interesting! Thanks for posting this!

JP4 POSSIBLE LOGO RELEASED!??!?!? Jun-18-2013 8:05 PM I like it. But if you check out the news post I just made about this - I bring up some good questions. Specifically what the title will be.

New Trailer??? Jun-18-2013 1:52 PM Wow, very cool new trailer! Thanks for posting this up! Once WB releases an HD version on YouTube (if they do), we'll be sure to feature it!

Godzilla 2014 merchandising news Jun-18-2013 11:50 AM Thanks for this, I'll make a news post about it now!

Godzilla 2014 run time 45 minutes? Jun-18-2013 11:48 AM Highly unlikely. Perhaps they meant to say 1 HR and 45 MINS ? Or better yet, 2 HRS and 45 MINS? It wouldn't be a feature-length film if it was under an hour. Not to mention, they haven't finished filming yet, so I doubt we'll get these details until post-production is completed and film is given a rating. (Run times generally accompany the official rating for a film)

Godzilla 2014 Cast and Characters Jun-10-2013 9:25 PM Update - just updated Aaron Taylor-Johnson's character bio in the original post with his character's name, as discovered in this recent news post (WARNING: Major SPOILERS in this post).

Locations for the sequel? Jun-10-2013 1:32 PM Yeah, these images and potential filming locations were mentioned here a couple months ago. Turned out not to be for Paradise, but for Ridley's other movie Moses.



They're still working on the script, so until they have the story solidified, they won't be looking for locations just yet.

A Place for UPDATES: Is PARADISE moving forward? Skeptics, thoughts, hopes, fear Jun-10-2013 2:27 AM No necessarily true. According to 2 very reliable sources close to both the studio and the Prometheus 2 project, the film is progressing behind closed doors. Ridley is very much interested in continuing on with the sequel(s) and from what I've been told, the script is nearing its completion. They must have some kind of grounded story, because Ridley's already met personally with at least one actor for a potential role in the sequel.



I expect the studio to remain even more tight lipped with Prometheus 2 than they were with Prometheus. With so much being leaked the first time around - it led some fans to certain expectations which set them up for disappointment (ie. expecting a direct prequel to Alien - which is was not, but seemed like it was due to the set pic leaks and word of mouth), so I expect to hear very little in terms of major announcements for a little while still. But mark my words - it is moving along and we'll probably see it hit theaters..... May 2015. That's my guess.

Customize Scified - Change your Site Theme! Jun-10-2013 12:09 AM Glad you like the updates guys!

So why did Gareth Edwards chose San Francisco instead of Tokyo Japan? Jun-09-2013 10:47 PM Godzilla takes place in both Japan and America. The set photos reveal this as well as the various leaks we've reported. So no need to be disappointed! Godzilla will seatmate both countries! Haha

10 Dinosaurs That Could Be The New Villain In Jurassic Park IV Jun-09-2013 7:02 PM Wow, I'm really quite impressed at the discussions being posted on these forums. You guys are posting some really interesting stuff, keep up the great work! I love this list, all of them should be in Jurassic Park 4 - but that's my opinion. Haha

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