Legendary Pictures rolled out the second full trailer for the upcoming Pacific Rim 2: Uprising. The film won’t be directed by Guillermo del Toro, but the studio is likely banking on stars like Scott Eastwood and the big budget Kaiju battles to help carry the film toward a blockbuster payday.
The story follows the son of Stacker Pentecost from the original film, Jake Pentecost. Apparently he’s a typical rough-around-the-edges millennial-inspired hoodlum. However, the typical feminist-empowered sidekick managed to get her hands on (or build) her own Jaeger and fight back because she doesn’t need no man.
Eventually the duo are brought to the Pan Pacific Defense Corps to become pilots under the tutelage of Scott Eastwood’s character. The big twist to the film isn’t that the diversity crew must save the world in giant robots, it’s that someone on the human’s side has betrayed Earth and have let the Kaiju through the portal. The plot is thoroughly given away in the trailer below.
Well, we know for a fact that Scott Eastwood at least isn’t the one who betrayed the humans, since he’s teamed up with Finn from The Last Jedi, who seems to have graduated from the token minority to the lead character… and we all know that the lead character isn’t going to die in battle in a big budget blockbuster.
The film also borrows heavily from Evangelion, as the corps runs low on pilots after apparently the new recruits all get killed off. So who do they bring in? Kids… diverse kids.
Yes, they’re literally just taking the whole backstabbing elements from Gundam and the child-pilot program from Evangelion, and the whole monster-battling from Toho’s iconic Godzilla, and throwing it into a mixing bowl of diversity and Chinese-funded propaganda.
I don’t even know what to call it exactly, but it appears to be an experiment of mishmashed ideas and cultural agenda pushing all wrapped up into one over-priced blockbuster.
A lot of people are worried because they feel this film is too reliant on CGI that resembles Transformers rather than the dark tone that Guillermo del Toro’s original Pacific Rim carried. Of course, given the casting and themes, could you really expect anything more?
The film is due to drop on March 23rd in theaters.