As I said on Twitter, this post will be comprised of squee and speculation in the wake of this exciting teaser video from Guillermo del Toro:
So, quick recap. We are promised the following by 2017 –
- Animated series
- More comics
- Pacific Rim 2 (in 2017)
Please pardon me while I flail for a moment. Like so:
Ahem. So, as you might remember from our Shoot the WISB episode, I am a big Pacific Rim fan. The film reaches into a special, giant robots vs. giant monsters place in my heart that was formed when I watched Robotech, Gigantor, and Godzilla movies as a kid, and it spams the squee button so hard that even reasonable critiques fail to detract from my un-self-conscious appreciation of the film.
After seeing Pacific Rim the first time, I bought the comic and ordered a Jaeger toy. I geeked out harder for that movie than I had for a while. But despite my enthusiasm, and that of many of my friends, the film’s domestic performance was weak. Thankfully, the rest of the world embraced the film, and now we see that there’s enough support to create more content in that world.
Del Toro and company have an already-established continuity to draw upon: backstory from the film, the content established in the Year Zero comic, and the rich design work that the team put into the first film. An animated series makes perfect sense, as it will let them draw visual and stylistic inspiration from anime series while still keeping true to the world they’ve created. Continuing the comic is another solid move, as it branches out into the comics world, which often goes hand-in-hand with the merchandise world — sell more Jaeger and Kaiju toys and increase cultural saturation for a bigger launch when Pacific Rim 2 lands.
I couldn’t be happier about this news, and I hope that all of these plans come to fruition, giving us more delightful Jaeger vs. Kaiju combat, more diverse casts working together with a global focus, and more strong themes of interdependence and teamwork.
This has been your regularly scheduled Geekomancer Under Glass Pacific Rim squee. Carry on.
One Response
Squee!