Pacific Rim: Uprising Trailer Breakdown

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Four years ago the geek world was changed forever with the release of Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim.  The film helped kick off the Kaiju craze that’s continued with a new entry every year like clockwork, as well as introducing the term Kaiju into the common parlance.  More than that, the film redefined what it meant to be a success in the modern era.  Despite failing to make back its budget in America and losing the #1 box office spot to Grown Ups 2 the film made big bucks overseas- 3X its American gross.  That overseas success combined with a massive cultural impact that’s continued to fuel fan hype and purchasing power has finally translated into a new movie, coming next year.  Directed by Steven DeKnight and starring John Boyega, Pacific Rim: Uprising finally has its first trailer- let’s take a look. 

The first big takeaway from this trailer is how much Pacific Rim: Uprising has embraced the very Japanese origins of the material.  That’s not a slam against it, to be sure, and it definitely seems they’ll be keeping the globalist philosophy that probably helped the first film be such a success.  However, the visual design of the new generation of Jaegers feels decidedly more inclined towards Japanese mecha-design and, combined with the broad daylight battles, the whole thing has a much more Super Sentai aesthetic than the previous film. 

What we know so far is that our new lead is Jake Pentecost, son of Idris Elba’s Stacker Pentecost from the first film.  Jake has followed in his father’s footsteps to become a Jaeger pilot as well, though why the Jaeger program has persisted remains a bit of a mystery.  Obviously, some new kind of rift will be opening and heralding in a new age of Kaiju but it also seems as though there’s more going on prior to that attack.  This trailer specifically features A LOT of Jaeger vs. Jaeger combat, which would imply a very different situation.  

My best bet is that in the wake of closing the rift in the Pacific in the previous film the world has become more united, a development that doesn’t sit well with everyone.  In particular, I think the Asian military commander looking character who gets blown up in this trailer is the leader of some kind of separatist/nationalist group opposing global unity with the scraps of the Jaeger program, forcing the world powers to bring the rest of the program back online just in time for the monsters to return.  That might also fit with the new slogan “we stand tall for all humanity.”

The new Jaegers are Titan Redeemer, the broader looking bot with a mace for a hand, Gipsy Avenger, the leaner and meaner version of Gipsy Danger, Saber Athena, the twin blades Jaeger, Guardian Bravo, the arc whip one, and the Bracer Phoenix, the missile/torso machine gun Jaeger.  This is based on the posters that’ve been released, which also indicate that Bracer Phoenix is actually an outdated Jaeger model, another clue I’d point to in my hypothesis.  

There also seems to be a scene in the trailer where Adria Arjona’s character Jules is piloting some kind of cargo cult Jaeger which looks really interesting.  We’ve no clear indication yet of which countries are contributing Jaegers to this new program, though I’d assume it’s the same five as last time: Russia, China, the US, Australia, and Japan.  I hope that one of them is Canadian, specifically Titan Redeemer, but that’s pretty unlikely. 

The trailer features a few other interesting twists and turns including a wave of smaller, more mechanical looking Kaiju and the Jaegers now coming with flight capabilities.  We also see the return of Burn Gorman and Charlie Day as scientists Newton and Hermann, two of the best parts of the first film.  The other major returning character, Rinko Kikuchi’s Mako Mori, is curious AWOL in this trailer but I’m guessing they’re saving her to hype up the next one.  We also caught a glimpse of Tian Jing as a mysterious but amazing looking new character and most likely the new leader of the Jaeger program.  Thankfully the trailer is light on Scott Eastwood, our replacement Charlie Hunnam, and presumed weak link of the film. 

If I was going to criticize it’s that I don’t love the new design aesthetic.  The first film favored a lot of night fights and dim lighting and I think that might’ve been for the best- bright lights are not Pacific Rim’s friends.  All the daylight city fights here feel a bit too anime for my taste.  My preference in giant robots has always run more Robot Jox and less Power Rangers, which this reminds me of in a BIG way.  The blend of a younger cast with an older mentor and the out of armor fight scenes are a big part of what I meant about a more anime/manga/super sentai focus for this installment, not that any of that is an inherently bad thing.  I mean, I don’t like anything about the design aesthetic of the Christopher Nolan Batman films but they’re still movies I enjoy so I can easily look past that.  What’s more, I’m glad at how much John Boyega is front and center and it’s nice to see him getting more roles and not falling into the Star Wars curse. 

Overall this is a pretty successful trailer all around and I appreciate that it isn’t giving too much of the plot away.  That’s always been the strongest aspect of Kaiju movies and, I suspect, part of why they’ve become such consistent successes these days.  All the trailer really needs to convey is that in this movie giant robots and monsters will be punching each other in spectacular scenes, all else is a formality.  

As such it becomes easier to keep the plot details and structure of the film proper secret and the audience feels a lot less like they’re waiting for the movie to play catch-up with where they are.  It’s a kind of simplistic understanding I think benefits everyone- we want spectacle and they promise it and, if we’re lucky as with Pacific Rim and Kong: Skull Island, we’ll get a good movie out of it as well. 

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