PACIFIC RIM Retrospective: What Killed This Promising Kaiju Franchise?
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- Опубликовано: 28 май 2024
- A look back at Guillermo Del Toro and Travis Beacham's 2013 kaiju vs mecha film Pacific Rim and the short-lived franchise it spawned. What were its influences? Where did it succeed or fail? Why was Pacific Rim: Uprising such doodoo? All this and a ranking of the series' mechs and kaiju!
#pacificrim
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What would you want for the Pacific Rim franchise if it ever continued?
A crossover with the monsterverse
I'd want two stories: the epic of Cherno Alpha's solo defense of Russia, and an epic tale of the Canadian Jaegers defending our part of the Pacific, driving the attacks on British Columbia and the 49th Parallel back. You could do a lot with massive battles in the snowy wastes of northern BC and Russia. I just want to see Cherno Alpha stomping out of a dense blizzard, pushing the storm aside and being the juggernaut it was always meant to be.
@@doktor_ghulsecond. Cherno is my favorite Jaeger, due to it's unique and regional design and it's brutal history only hinted at in PacRim (something about a high number of successful defenses) and how stylized the pilots look. Just a badass, sexy couple with a badass giant robot that need their own movie.
Have Hannibal Chow play a bigger role. He may never have found his other shoe, could still be looking.
I'm fine with the first one. I liked it alright. Even when some of my favorite films include the Evangelion and Patlabor films, I don't love the first one (and haven't felt the need to revisit it since I first saw it in theaters back in 2013). I don't need or want any continuations. I tried watching the sequel, but stopped because I was so underwhelmed by it.
Anytime I see Pacific Rim come up I always say the same thing: "It's a shame we never had a sequel. We never had a sequel."
It's true though
I completely agree with you absolutely true statement!
I think I heard some rumors about a sequel but they never went through with it.
Never.
I like the series... think its called Pacific rim: black?
what killed the franchise is probably the fact that they only made a single movie, no sequals or anything. just a single movie with so much potential
Ye
There is no war in Ba Sing Se
There is no avatar the last airbender movie
😂😂😂 The sequel was really bad.
@@jg3000 what sequel?
I love how the entire Pacific Rim fan base Unanimously agree there's no Sequel
yeah cos there isnt
@Moto_.Mantra
Well that film that the fandom denies the existence of was my first film in this series... It has it's problems...
Would have been nice if there had been a sequel…
@@HedgeHogMan650
Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)
I think Pacific Rim was always going to be a hard act to follow, for the same reason why a lot of other great stories are hard to sequelize. There's a bit of writing advice that comes in the form of two questions: "Is this the most interesting time in your main character's life? If not, why aren't you telling us about that other time?" Translation: you want to tell the best story you can with the setting you have. And Pacific Rim does that, it does the most interesting thing it could do with its setting. It has the biggest monsters, the toughest robots, the most experienced crews and it ties the whole mess into a clean cut ending, for a nicely finished story.
Many movies and books share this problem: they are so good because they're the best they could be (or near the best they could be anyway). We can prove this a bit more by looking at the exceptions, the movies where part 2 is often seen an just as good as part 1: The Terminator in the end was a victory of style over substance. The ideas that made the story of Terminator 2 good already existed, the were in fact thinking of casting an unassuming regular guy as the infiltration robot while the muscle man would be the resistance fighter, but they decided to go with the reverse because of the visual language, the style. There is even a deleted scene where Sarah suggests going after the creators of Skynet. But they couldn't do that and keep the great horror vibe. This left the most interesting story they could tell for the sequel. Aliens manages to get similar results by just entirely switching genres. Part 1 may be the most interesting horror story you could tell with these aliens, but how about a battle story? And even with a good setup left in the setting it can be pretty hard to make lightning strike twice. I like Secret of the Ooze, but it's not on the same level as the first Ninja Turtles movie, despite the obvious sequel material of, well, the secret of that ooze.
I actually kind of liked that non-existent sequel to Pacific Rim. It's not nearly as bad as say anything after the first Highlander. But it is a case of them just throwing ideas onto a big pile and hoping that everything mashed together makes for something as interesting as the first movie. Child prodigy, failed pilot turned edgy thief, mini robot, evil robots, new portals, bigger monsters, twist villain, twist good guy, twist monster, twist objective, drift compatibility is even less of a thing than at the end of the previous film now, why isn't this good yet?! The movie was not created because there was another story to tell, it was made for financial reasons, hoping the plot would materialize on its own. Because sequels sell, they get butts in cinema seats. It's easy to market a sequel to a good thing, which is why we have so many. It's just really hard to make a worthy sequel to a good thing.
To this day, when Gypsy uses the ship as a club is still one of the greatest moments EVER in cinema. And I'll forever defend this.
Shipping crates as brass knuckles(not as good as boat bat)
@@optisprimusproductions I remember sitting in the theater watching and thinking, 'no movie ever made me feel more like a kid building robots with his Legos and then destroying each other in bliss than this did'.
@@jasonmaclean719but there is also stuff like a great plot! So good!
@@_MECHA_ it's exactly what we all wanted in a fun movie. Flawed sure., but God DAMN was the movie a great time.
Rocket Punch had my Mazinger childhood scream for joy
What killed Pacific Rim? A sequel so bad people collectively agreed to pretend it didn’t exist.
A what? No such thing exists. Quit playin!
What sequel?
what sequel?
Truth in words.
What do you mean, "pretend"?
If only Del Toro had done the sequel. The man's a genius, and following on from his original was always going to be tough.
The really big problem about Uprising wasn't that it was bad, it was that it had so many genuinely great ideas that just...failed in execution. Newt's drifting backfiring? Mako's long lost adoptive brother? Kaiju-hybrid drones? An evil Jaeger? Three kaiju that can fuse into one giant Megakaiju? All of those could have been great if utilized right, but Uprising just never developed on any of them and focused instead on the Power Rangers esque team of teens.
@@dracodracarys2339 partly true, but most of the ideas sucked in my opinion. Should've done a prequel on the golden age of jaegers
@@zorbangoofer9426 EXACTLY 😔💯
what sequel?
huh? there was a sequel?
I just remembered learning that they're killing off Mako Mori and going "I'll pass."
Same thing when they killed off Roxy from Kingsman.
I didn't watch it because they brought Harry back to life. Now I learned from you they really just shat on the first film. Glad I skipped it
When did they kill mako?
@@drewsachs6238 Golden circle was actually not bad
I liked all of the kingsman movies, but the kingsmen (3rd one iirc) was really good Imo
I liked all Kingsmen but yeah...odd choices for sure. And mako dies with little to no relevance
That first PR nailed what so many movies with cgi get so wrong. Every piece of tech felt real. There was a weight and worn texture to them. The same thing happened with Iron man. I get by endgame it was nano tech, but those earlier films were so dope because the suit felt like a real heavy metal weapon.
there was only one pacific rim movie made
@@connerwillis5901
It's sequel was made in 2018 weirdo.
@@janepatton8100 bro didn't get the memo lol
@@janepatton8100 r/woosh
@@janepatton8100there was never a sequel. Hey, no, look at me, and listen to what I am telling you: there is no sequel. It is a shame we never got one, but there is no sequel
I absolutely adore this movie, it's still probably my favourite kaiju movie of them all. Mako Mori is such a standout character, it's still unthinkable to me that they killed her off so unceremoniously in the sequel, she could easily have carried her own film.
Killing off Mako was such a bad idea. It completely alienates any preexisting fan and really, who is watching Uprising that hasn’t watched and like the original?
What sequal
A sequel? Never heard of it/it's not real
Uprising is high budget fanfiction that the fandom has collectively banished from the canon. There is and always will be one Pacific Rim movie
@@joaquinwaters1810 a fanfic? Okay then I guess it doesn't exist
My absolute favorite part of the story and few people talk about, is how fast the kaiju learn and adapt. The jaegers only start falling after knifehead accidentally hits one in the head, thus showing one can be incapacitated by that weak spot, not to mention it only did this AFTER it played dead. Also, the only jaegers to be left are super unique, Cherno Alpha doesn’t have a visible head. Crimson typhoon has three arms. What happens next, Charlie day drifts with one and suddenly kaiju know a TON about jaegers, especially the living ones.
Yeah, the more I watched it, the less "Red Shirt" the extras became. The other teams clearly new what they were doing, but you clearly see that this is a team that was fighting an adaptive hoard mode game and their success is finally catching up to them. The reason Otachi and Leatherback are so dangerous is because they were purpose built to counter every strength of the last three known active yeagers, even including the tag team element that was hinted at occurring during different operations. Despite how it seemed at first viewing, there's alot of thought as to WHY they're dead... because there's a whole movie there (or two) we never got to see...
@scottjs5207 I think the movie should at least give them more screen time to see they fight
@@heitorpedrodegodoi5646 definitely would've been nice, but that probably would've messed with pacing. Maybe in the reel losing more pilots, they could've at least had them in the backdrop still standing strong with their partnering Yeager being destroyed in the foreground.
This sounds straight copy and pasted from a video I watched the other day
@anon05
Prove it.
Plus, how much more can people say with such limited material?
Fun fact: The reason they don’t use the sword often is because kaiju blood is poisonous so spreading it across a city could cause even more colateral damage than just fighting with bare fists.
I would believe they cared if not for that scene where they blow leatherback wide open with the plasma cannon lol
@@jam5287 They were in a harbour where there aren’t that many people around also it was manly just to insure that leatherback was dead
It's a crime that this amazing giant robot vs. kaiju movie didn't even get a sequel.
Pacific Rim Uprising, I didn't like it at all
Woosh lol. We all agree THERE WAS NO SEQUEL.
Sir, you need to take ALL of your pills. Your imagining things and making all kinds of outlandish claims again. Please take your medication. @latonyagreen-warner7402
True, so sad
@@latonyagreen-warner7402there was no sequel just a mass hallucination
I still kick myself for not seeing the first movie when it was out in theaters. It's such an earnest film that not only respects mecha anime, but the kaiju genre in general.
Me too, mate. I only had cash to watch one movie that day, and I decided to watch The Wolverine. Cool movie, but I definitely should've watched this one instead, specially when Pacific Rim was on the IMAX 3D Deluxe (the chairs recline and has waiters serving wine and other drinks once in a while) 😅.
It doesn't
Watching it in theaters was definitely one best choices I made picking a movie to watch.
My movie reviewer, Movie Bob said to go see it and I did. I do not regret it. It was so amazing! I remember saying loud enough for people to hear "IT HAS WINGS?" Loved it!
ruclips.net/video/u4yJSCwpzFc/видео.htmlsi=brKj9ieAMt-9kIm-
I drove an hour to an IMAX theater in Indianapolis to see the first Pacific Rim on opening night, alone. I was epic. I could feel the weight of the mechs and kaijus. The script was quite mid though.
Pacific Rim 2013 for me was great because every battle had a reason for happening and the people in it feel realistic and understandable enough, and the fights are just immaculate
Pacific Rim: The Black was my introduction to the franchise and I fell in love with it's art style and action. I wish they could at least continue with the anime...
Guillermo del Toro should just be approved and given what he needs for all his projects
"Gipsy Danger...blends the Chrysler Building with John Wayne." Best line in the whole video.
The Gypsy Jager's art deco influence gives me Big O vibes!
Thought so, too.
In God's name your not Guilty.
“It’s got everything your inner 9-year old will love!” - Epic Voice Guy
A doggie!
Pew pew pew!!!
Whoaa!!
Great essay. I went in with lowered expectations for Uprising and came out thinking, "that was okay." The daylight effects don't look as good, but it is different. I like the jaeger idea from the films and I won't be surprised if someday it's brought back. I don't think it LOST money.
Thanks, Chris! I feel like there’s still potential in the series but I have no idea how they bring it back for a financially successful sequel because I feel like it hit a dead end.
@@MattDraperReboot it into the monsterverse
@@caseymiddleton5534No? It needs to be its own separate thing. We can’t add kaijus coming out of another dimension from the bottom of the ocean into the Monsterverse. And most/all jeagers get absolutely bodied by 90% of the kaiju in the monsterverse
@@ZillaGuy15 the jaegers and kaijus could just get new stats
@@Mr.Margwito still it’s not a great idea considering the kaijus have two completely different origins. And adding jeagers who all have pilots which means more characters we need to focus on would take away from Godzilla and other kaijus
I'm a bit more positive on The Black than most fans of the series.
I like the characters and the concepts it used. Like, using the Drift as a pseudo-torture device and the ability of a once-existing Jeager pilot AI to double as an emergency second pilot. Quite inventive.
Also, I love the titular three characters of the show and what they present and the mysterious Kaiju-Jeager hybrid.
As for favorite bots, I think my favorite has to be Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon.
also the idea of a good kaiju was interesting, even if the whole human form and Eren Yeager style transformation felt a bit too fantastical for a mostly sci-fi universe.
Personally i love how they took the throwaway jeager drones and created Apex
It was a fun spin-off story. My only issue is that you can tell they were forced to end the show earlier than expected due to some unresolved questions and rushed pacing.
The first Pacific Rim has risen to one of my favorite monster movies and just one of my favorite movies of the past 15 years. Ill always be upset that Uprising turned out the way it did cause Mako is arguably one of the best characters in a kaiju movie, especially for America. Del Toro's live is on the screen so much so that I noticed possible references to War of the Gargantuas in the first movie. It’s great that we have a successful kaiju series going in the Monsterverse, but there's always that part of me that wants more from this universe. We need more giant monster apocalypse movies
Best movie ever
I would say my second or third favorite in the last 15 years.
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Pacific Rim
Godzilla Minus One
King of the Monsters was also not bad.
They should declare the sequel that never happened to not cannon and start new.
Don’t make a drinking game out of every time a Del Toro project does not get made. You will die.
Del Toro takes risks while Hollywood executives don't
Fun fact - Hugo Martin, the creative director of the greatest game of all time, DOOM Eternal, worked on the design of the Jaegers in Pacific Rim. He was one of the concept artists
We need a sequel to this movie!
I know why stop at one?
@@jg3000maybe because it ends in a way that would’ve made any sequel feel dumb?
We have a sequel it's called Godzilla vs Kong
@@methlokaijufan9729 big monkey isn't as cool as big robot.
Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)
Latinos loving giant robots it is so true
Godzilla vs Kong felt way more like a sequel to Pacific rim than Uprising did
Pacific Rim was my introduction to the idea of mecha and kaiju, and the film that made me love the genre. It's one of my favorite films even to this day, and I'm sure it'll remain so for many more years to come
Godzilla Minus One should be on your watch list. No mechas, but it's amazing on the Kaijus and the human stories matter mroe than other Godzilla movies.
19:49 When you said that youtube showed me an ad for Warhammer 40K, and i thought "wow Pacific Rim and 40K are the same franchises".
I'll give the sequel credit, Obsidian Fury was cool. If it was the only design of it's kind and played a bigger role it could have really gone places. Gotta love a "shadow the hedgehog" type character.
Agreed, Obsidian Fury is my favourite part of that movie.
Yeah I think the fight with Obsidian Fury was the peak of the movie. I also wasn't as put off by their speed in that battle. They're both not really doing anything too far outside of what Striker Eureka could do. Though the cinematography could have done better to frame their size and weight.
(But yes, boooo for that fight including the death of Mako)
Also yeah the Jaeger/Kaiju hybrids are cool. Basically EVA units which is rad. No big surprise it's an idea that came from Del Toro, coolest concept to actually make it to Uprising. That and Obsidian Fury *almost* justify the sequel's existence.
What sequel, Pacific rim never have a sequel
Does anyone else know what these silly children are taking about? Is this a game that the kids play now where they just make up a pretend movie and talk amongst themselves like it's real? It's a good thing that they never did anything foolish like trying to make sequel without del Toro as the director. I'm sure that would have been an unmitigated disaster and ruined a potentially wonderful franchise.
@@AdrienMitchell69 if you’re referring to us, we’re talking about awesome character designs and not the story itself. I know you’re telling a “joke”, but there’s no need to make it personal…
The ending killed any potential for a good sequel if they had del toro make a prequel it would have been popular to those day
I REALLY wanted a prequel of the start of the the Jaeger program, culminating in a young Idris Elba fighting in the climatic battle.
I’m not sure Pacific Rim ever had enough story to keep it going beyond the first movie. Its success always rested on Del Toro’s ability to bring the feel of Gundam/Evangelion style robot combat to live-action. Once you lose that, as Uprising demonstrated, the results are quite generic.
But hey, at least we got some Portal homages out of it.
I Disagree heavily.
Pacific rim has so much potential for so much story. And at the end of the day even if it didn't, no one watches these movies for the story.
It's more about the sequences and the theatre the movie brings. The scale, the 'cool factor', the feats, the level of detail/realism. Those are the things that pacific rim fans want more of. Given better immersion, maturity, and focus pacific rim 2 had the bones for a good movie. But the framework was so crap and the execution was so poor it ended up making the series look bad.
I don't think the series is dead in the water, but i if it comes out mediocre or worse, Legendary will be S.oL. and i doubt theyre willing to take a risk on it.
Although....i did hear a rumor there might be a Pacific rim Godzilla crossover as both are Legendary studios 'properties'.
True, I think they'd been better off doing prequels from the war days.
I like how the names sound like a Japanese teenager made them
Just like the names american pilots give their jets and bombs :D
That theme still gets me hype. And the "because its cool" is a rule of thumb that I wish was used more in cinema and we got past gritty realism. "People dont call the police in horror movies becahse its boring." The logic comes from the same place as the music and lighting.
Pacific Rim i think fell into the same pitfall as Scott Pilgrim. The audience was too old to convince their parents to take them to the movies over and over again, too young to have liesure money themselves. Just broke high school and college kids. The Avengers had only just broken the mainstream dam, but genre programming hadnt quite become ubiquitous. The massive adult collectibles market hadnt taken off with all the kids that grew up on toys having disposable income. That early 2010s claimed a lot of good media. I think if Pacific rim had come out a few years later it would have been huge.
Ill admit Obsidian Fury was pretty cool. Ive got a toy of that. Wish I had gotten some of the Kaiju like Otachi and Knife head when Neca was making them.
Special shout out to Del Toro getting Glados to voice the Jaguer AI.
Honestly, I wanted prequels. They gloss over so much awesome stuff in the first 3 minutes of the first movie. I wanted to see more of that.
the way that the FTR theme coming in as backgound music shocked me 😂. nice to see another aew fan
Top guys out!
I wish we could have seen a shatter machine on a kaiju in pac rim
Taking Pacific Rim away from Guillermo Del Toro killed it.
Great video. Pacific Rim is and will probably remain a Top 10 film for me. While I understand the criticism of Raleigh's arc, or lack thereof, I actually found it refreshing that there wasn't some drawn out build up to his return, and how that, for me, helped sell his immediate confidence in Mako. I went into Uprising with very very low expectations and I liked bits of it, but I can't get over how they did Mako dirty. I checked out after that happened. The Black was something I tried and didn't connect to, but I did appreciate what they were doing. If we can have several Halloween and other REquels, I'll hold some hope for a proper Pacific Rim 2.
What perfect timing, I actually just rewatched Pacific Rim last night!
Honestly, the original Pacific Rim is one of my favorite movies ever. It's a masterclass in executing on its mission statement with precision and passion. But I think ultimately when stacked up against the Monsterverse, Legendary can only have so many franchises about grey amphibious kaiju with glowing blue mouths rising from the ocean to do a big fight, and you can't really beat the big G at his own game. Pacific Rim is a loving tribute to Kaiju media, and Del Toro and his team did a great job of making it feel unique and give it a personality of it's own, but without him, and with the Monsterverse's shadow looming ever larger, I don't think Uprising was able to feel unique from the other giant robot franchise and the other giant monster franchise going on at the time.
I heavily agree BUT I do think that if Guillermo stayed and made uprising, it could of beaten godzilla at his own game in terms of writing the characters that is and giving us action that was on par, if not better than what the MV has given us. If kaneko was managed to have gamera beat godzilla at his own game with a smaller budget in the 90s, I can see Guillermo doing the same. But unfortunately....uprising had to happen
I think Pacific Rim does a hint better at human characters. A common complaint about the Monsterverse is that the humans are "boring", and while I find them perfectly serviceable (after all, humans in Godzilla movies usually just serve as exposition and audience surrogates, which was why Godzilla Minus One stood out so much), none of them were particularly memorable.
Pacific Rim on the other hand has some of the most cliched and archetypical characters and yet they don't feel tired or dull at any moment. They feel like tributes to the trope with their own unique spin rather than just another instance of something we've seen dozens of times. Mako makes a great anime-esque protagonist, Stacker Pentecost is the big badass dad figure, Newt and Hermann are a delightful comic-relief duo who manage to carry their weight in the plot, Hannibal Chau is a fun side-villain revolving around some nice worldbuilding of bone slums and kaiju black market and Raliegh is...a little bland in comparison but makes a great audience surrogate to introduce the world of Pacific Rim to.
Thing is, I get Gojira is iconic, but honestly, the fights felt kinda lacking in every movie after the first. There was more of it, but it felt hollow by comparison to Pacific Rim's, and the emotional beats only kinda hit at best. Good entertainment, nothing offensive like the collective fever dream that was Uprising, but just felt a bit disappointing. But at least the monsters themselves look astounding.
@@scottjs5207 Don't see how they're lacking after g14 when g14 is the same movie that sort of holds itself back in regards to the action.
The problem with so many Godzilla movies, especially in the last 20 years (Excluding Shin Godzilla which I have not watched), is that the humans almost always felt like pointless, annoying things. Godzilla 2014 had great visuals and Godzillla looked amazing, but the humans just pissed me off. Generic white guy in the army brings his generic family near Godzillas attack area again and again. WHY THEY Heck are you bringing your family into Godzillas warpath? Are you trying to get them killed?
The following Godzilla movies were a bit better, but it wasn't until Godzilla Minus One that I was in love with human characters. The former Japanese fighter pilot was amazing. I have become a Godzilla Minus One stan and will get everyone to watch it when it comes to streaming.
Art Deco Chrysler Building combined with John Wayne….that sounds like very good description actually! Something about Gypsy Danger always felt familiar-ish, but I could never put my finger on it, and I think that gets it!
Awesome video! One of my most cherished memories is hearing the main theme drop in the movie theater during the big action scenes. It's one of the big reasons I've become a lifelong fan of mecha and kaiju. I'd love to hear you talk about tokusatsu as a whole at some point. It's an interesting genre with a rich history and is hugely influential to Japanese pop culture to this day.
I’d love to cover lots of tokusatsu in the future. It’s just a little intimidating since the big franchises are really massive undertakings.
Never pull an alien 3.
At least Alien 3’s character deaths served a greater purpose for the story rather than killing them off for shits and giggles.
My childhood, Pacific Rim and SpongeBob(2004), are two movies I will never stop watching. It hurts knowing today, more than ever, is a good day to be a Kaiju fan, yet this franchise was left behind. Although the second movie did not live up to the story of the first, I was still captivated by the world and where the story would go next. So thank you for making a video about one of my favorite franchises.
Props to the casual FTR reference while playing their theme music
pacific rim the black was actually really good, suprisingly
Absolutely love Pacific Rim. That's an annual rewatch for me. Absolute vibes central. I watched the sequel and the animated series once each. Take from that what you will 😅
God, I really want them to make a Pacific Rim game.
Make it like the Pipeworks Godzilla trilogy, have the ability to customize your Jaeger/Kaiju, and you'll have an easy 10/10 fighting game imo
I always thought the plot of the original Pacific Rim would have made for an awesome two season anime. One season to introduce the world and meet the ensemble cast of the multi-nation teams, one season to slowly start having everything go wrong as the teams are killed off piece by piece in every new incursion until the finale.
that is a genious idea
It’s crazy that Pacific Rim didn’t get a sequel.
Thanks for the video Matt. ❤ your content
Im *ALL* here for the recent rise of Pacific Rim appreciation on RUclips. God bless Del Toro & his beautifully creative mind for giving us a modern Kaiju classic & paving the way for Legendarys Monstervers
The way Del Torro just starts cool projects and then abandons them makes me wonder why or how anyone is willing to work with him at all, especially with how uncompromising he can be when it comes to budget yet produces very few actual hits or high ROI.
It's more the coked up suits he has to get approval from
In this case legendary was sold to some chinese company and the were massive delays before the production even started and i guess china told him what they want to see so he left the project.
Make stupid choices win stupid prices....
The male main character would have come back for a sequel with del toro and mako who was there and ASIEN gets killed in a fck helicopter crash they were so stupid.
Kill off nearly every old Char off screen or in a stupid way...
The coolest part about the CGI in this movie is watching the smaller parts of the Jaegers move around. That part after Gypsy Danger takes down Leatherback, and before "checking for a pulse", you see these vent like parts open up on his chest. Such a cool detail that grounds them in reality
I think the issue with Uprising combat is that it became kinda middle of the pack in everything.
It doesn't have the exhilarating fast combat of anime mecha, it doesn't have the larger than life awe of the OG PR, it doesn't have the inbuilt fanbase and connection of long running franchise, it doesn't have the audience invested in the cast and it doesn't have a fascinating story to tell.
Even the Jaegers are treated less like awe inspiring machines and more like mass produced smartphones. The i-phone aesthetic of the drones didn't help.
The best mecha-kaiju movie to ever come out from the West. It is even able to hold its own against Eastern movies of similar genres. What an unfortunate shame we never got a sequel…
its almost absurd how much better the first movie looks when it comes to the physics and weight. the second movie feels like they tried to power ranger it up, or something.
Gosh, im so glad you covered this franchise. I saw PacRim when it was new, ive rewatched it dozens of times, it is my favorite kaiju movie and it totally honks 🪿. Favorite kaiju is Leatherback and favorite Jaeger is Cherno Alpha.
i really liked the black tbh. the idea of trying to scrape by in an appocalypse scenario with a broken down, unarmed mech was a cool perspective, and seeing how they fleshed out stuff like the kaiju in very different ways was really interesting.
Also cherno is my favourite because the actor playing one of the pilots is from my hometown. got an autographed figure lol
Honestly, Pacific Rim worked better as an animated series. It's a great homage to Mecha anime and it didn't need a sequel. Del Toro is one of the few directors who's willing to take risks in projects.
FTR! FTR! love hearing wrestling tunes in your videos man!
Pac Rim is in my top 5 Kaiju films! The ones that followed, not so much. I still watch at least once a month. Soundtrack in my top 3! This was a great presentation! Thank you!
What killed it was the sequel. Trying to turn the franchise into a teenage, heartthrob movie meets the Power Rangers. Also, having building size robots, move, like ninjas did not help.
Turns out a lot of the things people hate about PR2 are ideas from Del Toro:
- Tech turning against humanity
- Evil Charlie Day
- Jake Pentacost (for the same reason)
- Mako’s death (the exact same way)
- Told DeKnight “Don’t make a Del Toro Pacific Rim movie, make your own Pacific Rim movie”
That first movie is one of my top favorites. I even liked the human story on this one. I hated the sequel. But oh, that first film is so much fun. Growing up, always loved Kaiju stuff. (I'm 54 now)
You just reminded me the Goku cartel memes in the bit that you talk about Guillermo del Toro's childhood and anime.
Subscribing for that FTR reference alone, this really got me wanting to go back and watch the first one soon. Wish we could get a redo on a sequel
Hey Matt first off love your channel, also would you be considering doing any future videos on popular anime? Like discussing the history of the mecha genre, philosophies of gundam franchise, or anything like that?
Excellent video retrospective i love the pacific rim franchise WE NEED MORE KAIJU MOVIES AND MORE SENTAI AND ULTRAMAN
Good content. Subscribed 👍
I love the use of the Gamera:GOTU and NGE music during the "The Black" segment.
Great 15 minute video! 👍
I really wish they made a sequel, I bet they would’ve made it so much better
Original pacific rim : a rough, tough mechanical robots.
Pacific rim uprising : so fancy.....
It's a shame we don't get any good giant robot movies nowadays. I guess you've got Transformers, but they've never been particularly amazing, and the audience appeal is long gone, and Pacific Rim never got the chance to flourish as a film franchise. Sad times we live in. 😔
I took my son to see Pacific Rim in the movies when he was 6. One of the best bonding experiences we've ever had! Major fun in the theatres.
Before watching, I'm going to guess: No Guillermo DelToro
i took all 5 of my nephews to see this in a theatre and they LOVED IT.
If only they made a sequel it would have been lit AF
I saw this film in theaters at the age of 4. Liked but it was too loud for my ears. Watched it when it came to blu ray and still remain a die hard fan of it to this day. One of the best movies ever made. Legendary got me addicted to kaiju films
...and that's why I held onto my CHERNO ALPHA figure, because out of all the Jaegers, that Russian fist throwing analog bruiser was just my absolute favorite. It's big, ugly, nigh unstoppable, and so Russian that it practically reaches out of the screen and drowns you in Popov Vodka. The newer Jaegers may move faster and do more, but one brutal punch from Cherno, and they're on their asses.
Popov vodka is made in Massachusetts. Not Russia lol
Also nice use of Showa Gamera theme around the 21-minute mark
I discovered this movie like 5 years after it came out watching it with my kid and I was so blown away
The Original was epic and I regularly go back and rewatch. It laid the foundation for many more but of course instead of following the same style, atmosphere, and grittiness. It got the Disney Treatment. RIP
Love the FTR shoutout
As much as I really don't like Uprising. I actually enjoy the Netflix series called "The Black". And I really hope that "The Black" gets a Blu-ray and/or DVD release because I prefer watching shows and movie in the old fashion way.
I remember reading "Tales from year zero" back in the day when the first movie was released, and it was very good. A great prequel with great characters, probably the best thing out of this franchise along with the first film.
I have such bias for Cherno Alpha. A MK1 that survived it all till the horrible drowning death? Badass!
It's good to see audiences have some actual self-respect with Pacific Rim.
My brother and I went to see the first film in theatres when it first came out. We saw it in 3D and it was one of the most awesome spectacles we'd seen 😊
the second film is just John Boyega going around shouting "arent i awesome, arent i hot!".... and 15 minutes of robots vs monsters
The China fight still has yet to be topped. Including GVK.
The Sequel killed it. It was TRANSFORMERS BAD.
It was Hong Kong...not China as well whole
This video can be resumed:"no Del toro, no pacific rim"
This is an AMAZING video, thank you for this analysis because now I know more what Uprising did wrong and how it lost its Identity, when I watched it back in the day in the cinema I liked it because I just enjoyed it and it wasnt a marvel type "sequel" afterall.
Now I value the identity of the first film even more and mourn it's death, you really showed a great explanation and why it failed, Keep it up💯
+ Thanks for mentioning the Sequels
Little headcannon i made for the baby kaiju was that the precursors wanted to test how much earth had been terraformed by seeing if the baby could survive.
There is a sequel coming out!? Omg! I can’t wait!
The first time I came across the giant mecha "Jaeger" was in the early 2000s video game FRONTLINE 2 (there was no Frontline 1). Played it many times. The first giant monster movie I saw and loved was Rhodan. Rhodan also appeared in recent King Kong movie.
The (nonexistent) sequel had a few cool concepts, but I will simply repeat what many RUclipsrs have already said when analyzing the (nonexistent) sequel.
It felt… dull, to put it in a short way. The Jaegers, the epitome of human technology at the time, was recreated by a preteen out of junk and stolen parts. The main character wasn’t shown he’s a cool person we should like, but we were told he was and that we should agree. The Jaegers didn’t feel mechanical, heavy, or real at all, but rather moved in physics-defying ways without even causing significant damage to the roads they walked on (meanwhile the first movie made the Jaegers look, sound, and overall feel and move real while causing craters as they walked). Characters we had never met before or have had no story until that point are suddenly a part of the main team and feels like a Top Gun Maverick team build but way, way worse. The main character is a criminal douchebag who we have no reason to like or respect, and never really redeems themselves. The CGI overall felt cheaper, more rushed, and more boring. The concepts of Jaeger-Kaiju hybrids, of drone Jaegers, and a rogue Jaeger are all cool except it was all pursued in non-memorable and uninteresting ways (sometimes straight up poorly).
I don’t know why they thought they should follow Trashformars format, when literally everyone loved PR because it did giant robots better.
They wrapped up the story with the first movie pretty well. The second movie just felt like the top execs saw how much money the first one made and said "ok next movie here’s money, make us more." They should have made a prequel if anything