Pacific Rim is an awesome sci-fi franchise that can be summed up with the coolest elevator pitch ever: giant monsters fighting giant robots. The concept of human-piloted robots fighting giant monsters is endlessly entertaining to audiences worldwide. Though it might be one of the most popular, Pacific Rim was not the first to show these kinds of ideas. In fact, it is indebted to much older movies and a monumental Eighties anime.
The franchise smashed into theaters with the first movie in 2013, under the directorial vision of Guillermo del Toro. It was followed by a weaker sequel, Pacific Rim Uprising in 2018, and a newly released Netflix anime, Pacific Rim: The Black. There have been rumors and snippets of public statements about a third Pacific Rim movie but nothing concrete yet. Some of the discussions involve a crossover with the current running Godzilla and King Kong franchise (known as the MonsterVerse). If that were to come to pass, it would be a collision between two separate but comparably traced movie franchises.
There is nothing in the MonsterVerse that indicates a connection to Pacific Rim, so the filmmakers would have to contort both franchises to fit a shared timeline and universe. If jaegers were to face off against either of the famous giant monsters, they would have to be prototype models, or possibly the origin schematic for the future kaiju battling mechs.
Before anyone else did it on the big screen, the grand pappa of Pacific Rim was the King of Monsters himself, Godzilla. Godzilla invented the kaiju genre. The decades long franchise depicts a wonderful cavalcade of monsters and a variety of scenarios to which those monsters can rampage or duel above tiny model cities. It even tested a crossover of monsters with 1962’s King Kong vs Godzilla.
The potency of Godzilla remains strong to this day, as a remake of the 1962 movie is poised to release in theaters once the global pandemic allows it. Godzilla vs Kong is hopefully going to release this March. The only change from Godzilla to Pacific Rim is that most of the kaiju in Godzilla are homegrown, whether born from nuclear fallout, on hidden islands, or built by governments. Pacific Rim’s foes are purely alien, deriving from a rift in space to another dimension.
Where Godzilla established the monsters, Robot Jox established the concept of the “jaegers.” Twenty-three years before Gipsy Danger deployed its chain sword against Otachi above Hong Kong, Achilles dueled Alexander for ownership of the territory of Alaska. In 1990’s Robot Jox, the future conglomerate nations of The Market (basically the United States and NATO allies) agreed with The Confederation (loosely equivalent to the USSR) to no longer wage wars against one another. Instead, they devised the ingenious idea of using mecha-gladiators to settle their conflicts.
They were not called jaegers, they were “jox.” There were no kaiju to battle, only each other. Very much like jaeger pilots, jox were celebrities and the matches were treated as sports events. They never had computer-generated imagery, so they used stop motion animation to have the mechs fight one another. Viewing it now, it gives the movie a charming, if antiquated, style. Robot Jox was ahead of its time but missed its window for success. By the movie’s release, Transformers was waning in popularity. Worse, its underlying message of political satire had rapidly gone stale. The Cold War was already over. People had moved on.
Airing in 1985, Robotech is about the defense of Earth against an invasion from alien giants. The Earth Defense Force uses adapted alien technology for their fleet of transforming robots. The robots are called “veritechs” and have three configurations: jet, half-jet-half-person, and full mecha. One of the first and most influential animes ever to hit the United States, Robotech’s influence can be felt across the science fiction genre to this day. Not only in Pacific Rim, but in things like Independence Day, or Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Specifically, its sweeping memorable music, its melodramatic space operatic characters and conflicts, and its fast and furious battle scenes are its defining legacy.
For the last decade and a half, several producers and writers have been trying to make a Robotech live action feature film. Tobey Maguire was one of the most recent owners of the rights, which has since gone to Sony Pictures. For several complicated reasons, it seems like a Robotech movie will forever be in development hell. Fortunately, properties like Pacific Rim and the MonsterVerse are keeping the spirit fresh and relevant.
Pacific Rim combines the best of these distinct ingredients into something new and awesome. Should movie productions companies and producers sift through the heavy legal red tape over the Robotech property, anime fans will finally get the glorious return they have been waiting for. Additionally, Robot Jox has just passed its twentieth anniversary, it is ripe for reboot territory.
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