Kaiju Smash! Robo Bash! Here's The Trailer For Del Toro's PACIFIC RIM

Ben Umstead, East Coast Editor

On our radar for years now, Guillermo's del Toro's first foray into truly big, big, BIG budget filmmaking is nearly upon us. So after many a teasing image and viral video, we now have a solid, if very standard trailer-cut look at Pacific Rim. While I find myself less than enthused with the trailer itself, much of the content hidden under the flash-fades and booming Inception-clone tone, makes the 10-year old in me smile. But what do you all think? Does del Toro's monster-mash look more like proper homage or is this an out and out aping of the Kaiju classics and giant robo anime so many of us love, or at least being Twitch readers, know a thing or two about. Talk it out in the comments.

Set for release on July 12, 2013, Pacific Rim stars Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, Idris Elba, Ron Perlman, and Charlie Day (where was he in the trailer?).

Around the Internet:

Darren

Reminds me of the Matrix series. Especially the speech by the guy form The Wire.

lily

this is nice

Gopal Natarajan

This doesn't look very good. "Transformers" meets "ID4" meets "Big O" meets...

And despite del Toro's recent good work, let us not forget that he is the creator of such cinematic garbage as "Hellboy," "Hellboy 2" and "Blade 2".

This kind of stuff works better as anime anyway.

Art Vandelay

What ever happen to that live action Evangelion anyhow?

EVA

looking forward to watching this, i especially like the Glados voiceover for the robots :D the jet-propulsion of the arm reminds me of an anime, i don't think it was NGE...or was it?

sezzzz

So Idris Elba turned down Django Unchained but signed up for this?!?

Sean Smithson

Wow. Talk about a rough crowd. WTF do people want from a film like this? I watch a LOT of anime, the classics like YAMATO, GUNDAM, VOTOMS and the original MACROSS in particular. I also watch a ton of kaiju, namely the Ishiro Hionda classics. They are all referential as hell to begin with.

I'm stoked for PACIFIC RIM and expect a good time munching popcorn in the extreme.

Mr. Cavin

But that's just it. I can see all sorts of awesome animated robots any time I want to. What I would have liked to see is something that looks a bit more realistic--or at least a bit more kaiju. I mean, I'm no big fan of CGI (or, full disclosure, anything else lately), but it can be accomplished in such a way that looks like live-action filmmaking. Eschewing the needlessly swooping trick POVs we're seeing here might have been a good start. Ditching the ADHD fidget of over-detailed Transformers is another.

But obviously this is just a crappy modern trailer, so there's no way to really judge what we'll get once the lights dim. I'll still give it a shot, but I'm even more skeptical now than before.

Chuck

Really hope that Transformers Audience that goes and wastes money on those garbage films will come out and see this so we can get more of THESE films made. Also Sebo McPowers I think they where trying for a more "this can be usable " design for the robots.

dx_xb

Watching that made me angry. Weak ass narration, stupid female robot voice, pilfering from Evangelion....boycotting! You'll never take my money del Toro!

Also what's with that droning sound that accompanies every science-fiction movie trailer these days?

Leandro

Pretty lame... I could watch it only for Rinko Kikuchi.

Grimoire

Dare I say - Transformers vs Godzilla? Hopefully Guillermo can pull something a little more interesting out of the hat.

Fub Frank

The fact that the trailer doesn't have explosions happening every 5 seconds where I can't tell if there is an actual movie behind it makes me happy. With this premise you'd expect to see something like that, so even though I'm not bursting at the seems over it I think it's a solid trailer.

The premise and Guillermo Del Toro directing it is what makes me have faith in the movie regardless of what the trailers look like.

Snail

This is going to fun as hell. Love Guillermo Del Toro.

heatbag

WTF! Why is GLaDOS in this???

Sebo McPowers

Sadly, designwise, this looks utterly boring.
When stealing from NGE the way they did (which is not a bad thing), they should have taken some of the robot/monster designs too. The Robots and Aliens in Pacific Rim look extremely generic.
Apart from that, the trailer looks kind of fun, but for a movie, who depends a big deal on his looks, this is rather disappointing.

Hiroaki Johnson

What did they steal from NGE?

Sebo McPowers

The look of the facility from 0:54-0:59 reminds me a lot of the underground facility in NGE. Plus the overall feeling and the Robots vs. Monsters thing.

Hiroaki Johnson

Huh, those things just struck me as tropes of the genre. I mean Manzinger came out in the early 70's. I guess if the characters end up feeling like they came out of the DSM-IV we'll know for sure though. :)

Hiroaki Johnson

Having grown up watching a ton of 70's kaiju movies, this looks like fun.

Nick

Charlie is at 0:14 and 1:39-40 ish. . . I'm pretty sure.

Dddie Dingle

Despite the fact that this is Guillermo del Toro this looks like really standard Independence Day type crap.

King Vegita

Holy Cow...

Jason Gorber

Nice - we were supposed to see this at BNAT, instead they showed the "tease" from Comicon. I'm biased as hell, but I still think this will be a film very unfriendly to trailers, and that it will be a hell of a lot more sophisticated (and fun) than it appears on first blush.

That said, it still looks like a lot of fun on first blush!

BRAAAAAAAAAAAAHMMMMMM..... (thank you, Mr. Zimmer, for changing movie trailer soundtracks...)

Matt

You literally can go frame by frame and point out every anime that gave them "inspiration". Which is fine by me. A giant robot/alien movie with a big American budget... FINALLY!

[A]

Yes, please. If I had money, I'd give tons to Guillermo del Toro to make big movies like this every year.

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