MOVIE TITLE	RELEASE DATE
2013. “Pacific Rim”	11 July 2013

STARRING:

•Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh Becket: A washed-up former pilot called out of retirement by the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. On casting Hunnam, del Toro stated: "I saw him and I thought he had an earnest, really honest nature. And he was the kind of guy that I can relate to, as a male audience member I go, 'I like that guy. I would like to have a few beers with that guy' ... he has an earthy quality." Describing the character, Hunnam stated: "When you meet me, in the beginning of the story, I've suffered a giant loss. Not only has it killed my sense of self-worth, but also my will to fight and keep on going. And then, Rinko and Idris, and a couple other people, bring me out of retirement to try to help with this grand push. I think that journey is a very relatable one. Everybody, at some point in their life, has fallen down and not felt like getting back up, but you have to, no matter how difficult it is." Hunnam was also considered for the role of Prince Nuada in del Toro's previous film, Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Paul Michael Wyers plays Raleigh as a child. •Idris Elba as Marshal Stacker Pentecost: Raleigh's commanding officer in Pan Pacific Defense Corps and former Jaeger pilot dying of radiation poisoning due to lax radiation shielding on the first Jaeger models. On selecting Elba, del Toro stated: "This is a movie where I have had to deal with more dialogue than ever, and the way I cast the movie was - who do I want to hear say these things? Who do I want Charlie Hunnam to go against? Who can really tell Charlie Hunnam 'sit down and listen'?" In another interview, the director said: "I wanted to have Idris not be the blonde, square-jawed, Anglo, super hip marine that knows [everything]. I wanted somebody that could bring a lot of authority, but that you could feel the weight of the world on his shoulders. When I watched Luther, that's the essence of the character ... Luther is carrying literally the evils of the world on his shoulders. He's doing penance for all humanity ... Idris is one of those actors that is capable of embodying humanity, in almost like a Rodin sculpture-type, larger than life, almost like a Russian realism statue, you know, big hands, all the turmoil of humanity in his eyes. I wanted somebody that you could have doubts internally, and very few guys can do that." To prepare for the role, Elba watched footage of politicians David Cameron and Barack Obama, as well as Russell Crowe in Gladiator and Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Del Toro initially offered the role to Tom Cruise, who declined because of scheduling conflicts. •Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori: Raleigh's co-pilot who lost her family in a Kaiju attack and was adopted by Pentecost. Though Mori possesses a strength and fury that should serve well against the Kaiju, Pentecost is reluctant to use her, partly because of a fatherly bond and partly because he knows she is still fighting the terror of her childhood. Del Toro stated: "I was very careful how I built the movie. One of the other things I decided was that I wanted a female lead who has the equal force as the male leads. She's not going to be a sex kitten, she's not going to come out in cutoff shorts and a tank top, and it's going to be a real earnestly drawn character." Noting that the other actors were exhausted and "destroyed physically" by filming in the intensive Jaeger cockpit harnesses, del Toro said: "The only one that didn't break was Rinko Kikuchi, the girl. She never complained ... I asked Rinko her secret and she said 'I think of gummi bears and flowers.' I try to do that in my life now." Mana Ashida plays Mako as a child. •Charlie Day as Dr. Newton 'Newt' Geiszler: A scientist studying the Kaiju. Day stated: "Certainly myself and Burn Gorman provide a little bit of much needed levity, it's a break from the monsters and the guys fighting. But then the character gets thrust into the story in a way that his life is seriously at risk and it becomes a little more action oriented and a little more horror movie-esque. So, he kinda bounces back between being humorous and also being real ... the rest of these guys, they look really good in their suits and they've got abs, they can kick and fight and punch. Newt is sort of the 'everyman' and he's flawed and he's arrogant." Del Toro gave Geiszler the mentality of a celebrity chef, with tattoos and a "big personality". According to the director, Day was cast based on his performance in an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: "He comes out with a stick, and he has a monologue about what it is to hunt the rats in the basement. It was very funny, but he was coming from character. He was not doing big stuff, he was, like, really mourning and lamenting his job, you know, how inhuman it is. And I thought, 'This guy is great at shading and comedy.' There are moments in the movie where he delivers them both." Trek Buccino portrays Newt as a child. •Ron Perlman as Hannibal Chau: A black marketeer who makes a living dealing Kaiju organs. Perlman stated, "I actually think this character was designed to be played by another ethnicity other than myself. And somewhere along the way, [del Toro] had the notion, 'Wouldn't it be interesting to turn this guy into more of an invention.' So, in other words, somebody takes on a persona that completely sounds like he's someone else and acts like he's someone else but he's really, you know, as you see me. That added a dimension to the larger-than-life aspect of the character ... I'm playing somebody very close to my own origins. But a completely made-up persona ... which makes him even more full of shit. And I think that's the charm of the guy - that he's kind of elusive, hard to pin down." Pacific Rim marks Perlman's fifth appearance in a del Toro film. The director stated: "I think the moment you have a guy that is called Hannibal Chau and Ron shows up, and he's from Brooklyn and he's been selling black market organs, you know the whole story ... That's all I need to know. If it's any other actor, there's a lot more explaining to do. But when Ron comes in with that look, you can make your own story and it'll be as compelling as anything I can invent. You do a little weightlifting with the audience." The bird tattoos on Chau's fingers indicate his past as a gangster. In the film, Chau states he took the name from his favorite historical figure and his second-favorite Szechuan restaurant in Brooklyn. Del Toro drew inspiration from Burt Lancaster's performance in Elmer Gantry when writing the character. •Robert Kazinsky as Chuck Hansen: An Australian Jaeger pilot considered the finest soldier left in the Resistance. He and his father Herc pilot Striker Eureka, "the strongest and the fastest" Jaeger with eleven Kaiju kills, and make up the Resistance's "go-to team". Kazinsky, a fan of science-fiction, was initially drawn by the film's concept, "My immediate reaction was 'Holy crap, that's cool.' In the hands of somebody else, you might sit there and go, 'Well, this might be terrible,' but with del Toro doing it, you kind of go, 'This is going to be amazing.'". Reflecting on his experience in the film, Kazinsky said in an interview, "The most fun I have ever had in my entire life was Pacific Rim, playing Chuck was incredibly fun." •Max Martini as Hercules "Herc" Hansen: Chuck's father and co-pilot. Kazinsky stated Martini hated the fact that he was cast as Chuck's father, being only 13 years Kazinsky's senior. However, Kazinsky said they developed a bond while filming, "Because we were working so tight together, we would finish and then we would go out for dinner every night and we would go to the gym together on days off we had ... The emotional scene toward the end with the father-son parting, it was very easy for me to play because I had grown to actually genuinely love Max as a man and as a friend." Kazinsky revealed that Herc and Chuck's pet bulldog was del Toro's idea and said, "The dog's name was Max, ironically, and we ended up using Max for so many things. The story was that Herc and Chuck have difficulty communicating, that they communicated via the dog, and all the love that they couldn't show each other they would show the dog." The role was originally written for Ron Perlman, but del Toro decided the scenes between Perlman's Herc and Hunnam's Raleigh "might start to feel like Sons of Anarchy 2.0". •Clifton Collins Jr. as Ops Tendo Choi: A Chinese-American Jaeger technician. Collins described his character as the "brains" behind the Jaegers. •Burn Gorman as Dr. Hermann Gottlieb: A scientist studying the Kaiju alongside Geiszler. According to del Toro, Gottlieb is a "tweed-wearing, English, phlegmatic introvert that never leaves the lab". The modest Gottlieb resents Geiszler's arrogance and radical behavior; the duo echo the film's theme of incompatible people functioning together when the time comes. Drew Adkins portrays Gottlieb as a child. •Diego Klattenhoff as Yancy Beckett: Raleigh's older brother and co-pilot. Klattenhoff joined the project to work with del Toro. Describing his character, Klattentoff stated: "This is a guy who is looking out for his very eager, younger brother and they were enabled with this gift that gave them the opportunity to kind of save the world. Or help, at least." Tyler Stevenson plays Yancy as a child. Additional Jaeger pilots include Charles Luu, Lance Luu and Mark Luu as the Wei Tang triplets (China), and Robert Maillet and Heather Doerksen as Sasha and Aleksis Kaidanovsky (Russia). Joe Pingue portrays Captain Merrit, the captain of a fishing boat caught in a battle between Jaeger and Kaiju. Santiago Segura plays an aide to Hannibal Chau. Brad William Henke and Larry Joe Campbell portray members of an Alaskan construction team that Raleigh joins after retiring from the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. Robin Thomas, Julian Barnes, and David Richmond-Peck portray U.N. representatives from the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, respectively. Sebastian Pigott appears as a Jaeger engineer and Joshua Peace appears as an officer, Jonathan Foxon appears as a frantic civilian. David Fox plays an old man on a beach, while Jane Watson portrays Raleigh and Yancy's mother in a flashback sequence. Producer Thomas Tull makes a cameo appearance.

SYNOPSIS:

In 2013, an interdimensional portal called "the breach" opens at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, from which giant monsters, the Kaiju, emerge, destroying various cities across the Pacific Rim. In response, humanity builds massive mechs called Jaegers. Each Jaeger is piloted by two to three pilots, who are mentally linked in a process called "Drifting" to share the mental stress of piloting the machine. In 2020, brothers Yancy and Raleigh Becket pilot the Jaeger Gipsy Danger to defend Anchorage from a category-III Kaiju codenamed "Knifehead". During the confrontation, however, the Kaiju unexpectedly pierces the Jaeger's armor ripping out its left arm and half of its head and pulling Yancy out of the Conn Pod, killing him. Eventually Raleigh, in the damaged Jaeger kills Knifehead and walks Gipsy back to shore by himself but traumatized by the loss of his brother and the strain of drifting alone, Raleigh quits the Jaeger program. Five years later, in response to the increasing power and number of Kaiju attacks and despite evidence of the effectiveness of the Jaeger program, World Leaders, over Jaeger program director Marshal Stacker Pentecost's protests, make the decision to cease funding the Jaeger program and replace it with coastal defence walls, believing it to be a more effective option. Marshal Pentecost, under orders, then moves the remaining four Jaegers to Shatterdome: the last Jaeger base in Hong Kong. During a subsequent attack on Sydney, however, a Kaiju is seen to demolish the city's coastal defense wall and proceeds to wreak havoc and destruction. Determined to bring about the destruction of the Kaiju once and for all, Pentecost plans to destroy the Breach with a nuclear bomb. Meanwhile Raleigh is engaged in the coastal wall building program. Pentecost tracks him down and eventually persuades Raleigh to come back to the Jaeger program. While at Shatterdome, Raleigh meets Mako Mori who is Pentecost's adopted daughter and director of the Jaeger restoration program. Raleigh and Mako are found to be compatible pilots. Pentecost is against Mako entering the Jaeger program but she convinces him to permit her to copilot the restored Gipsy Danger. During their first drift, however, Mako gets lost in the memory of her parents dying in a Kaiju attack and in then, 'chasing the rabbit', believing that she is going to destroy the Kaiju Mako activates Gipsy's plasma cannon, in reality threatening to destroy Shatterdome. Both are subsequently relieved of combat duty. While in the drift, however, and having seen Mako's memories Raleigh comes to understand Pentecost's decision: he saw that it was Pentecost who saved her from the Kaiju attack that killed her parents. Armed with this knowledge, Raleigh confronts Pentecost and persuades him to bring Mako onboard. Pentecost consults the Kaiju experts, Newton Geiszler and Hermann Gottlieb, to plan the assault on the Breach. Newton was able to drift with a piece of a Kaiju brain, but only saw fragmented memories, which revealed that Kaiju are in fact genetically-engineered by a race of extraterrestrial beings to conquer Earth. He proposed finding a "fresh" brain, and goes to meet Hannibal Chau, a black market dealer of Kaiju organs. Chau berates Newton, who realizes the brain also accessed his memory due to the two-way nature of drifting. Since all the Kaiju share collective memories, they now have some of his knowledge. Two category-IV Kaijus emerge, Otachi and Leatherback, and approach Hong Kong to find Newton. The humans deploy three Jaegers, Crimson Typhoon, Cherno Alpha, and Striker Eureka to intercept them. The creatures destroy the former two and disable Striker Eureka with an EMP blast. One of them proceeds to rampage through the streets in an attempt to find Newton. Having no other choice, Pentecost deploys Gipsy Danger, which slays both Kaiju. Newton and Chau inspect the corpses and find out that one of the Kaiju is pregnant. The infant Kaiju bursts out, swallows Chau whole and dies strangled by its own umbilical cord. Newton and Hermann drift with the infant's brain and discover the breach will only open in the presence of a Kaiju's DNA. The Shatterdome proceeds with the attack on the breach with Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka. Pentecost, who is dying from radiation sickness, replaces the injured Herc Hanson to pilot Striker Eureka. Two category-IV and one category-V creature emerge from the breach to defend it. Gipsy Danger kills one category-IV, but Striker Eureka is immobilized by the other. Pentecost and Chuck detonate the bomb, killing the category-IV and mortally wounding the category-V. Gipsy Danger finishes off the category-V and uses its corpse to go through the breach. Raleigh sets Gipsy's reactor to overload. Raleigh and Mako eject from Gipsy and go back through the breach. The reactor explodes, closing the breach. The two escape pods surface in the Pacific Ocean. Raleigh and Mako hug as helicopters are sent out to retrieve them. In a mid-credits scene, Chau cuts his way out of the infant Kaiju carcass, and asks,"where is my God damn shoe?".

MOVIE TITLE	RELEASE DATE
2018. “Pacific Rim - Uprising”	22 March 2018

STARRING:

•John Boyega as Jake Pentecost, the son of Stacker Pentecost, the adoptive brother of Mako, and Nate and Amara's partners. •Scott Eastwood as Nathan Lambert, Jake's estranged co-pilot and partner who piloted the Gipsy Avenger. •Jing Tian as Shao Liwen, a businesswoman and technologist who joined the allies with PPDC against the Precursor Emissary. •Cailee Spaeny as Amara Namani, a street orphan who created a civilian Jaeger, Scrapper, and Jake's partner after Nate is injured by the Mega-Kaiju. •Madeleine McGraw as Young Amara •Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori, the former pilot of Gipsy Danger and the adopted sister of Jake who is now the head of the reorganized PPDC and becomes the Secretary General working with Hermann. •Burn Gorman as Hermann Gottlieb, a scientist and officer who stayed and continued to work in PPDC with Mako. •Adria Arjona as Jules Reyes, an officer of the PPDC. •Max Zhang as Marshal Quan, a commanding officer in the PPDC. •Charlie Day as Dr. Newton 'Newt' Geiszler, a brainwashed former scientist and officer in the PPDC who becomes the emissary of the Precursors after his mind is taken over by them. •Wesley Wong as Cadet Jinhai, Vik and Amara's partner and cadet who piloted the Jaeger Bracer Phoenix. •Karan Brar as Cadet Suresh, Ilya's partner and cadet who piloted the Jaeger Guardian Bravo. •Ivanna Sakhno as Cadet Viktoria, Ou-Yang's partner, a cadet who piloted the Jaeger Bracer Phoenix and starts out as Amara's rival. •Mackenyu as Cadet Ryoichi, Renata's partner and cadet who piloted the Jaeger Saber Athena. •Lily Ji as Cadet Meilin. •Shyrley Rodriguez as Cadet Renata, Ryoichi's partner who piloted the Jaeger Saber Athena. •Rahart Adams as Cadet Tahima •Levi Meaden as Cadet Ilya, Suresh's partner and cadet who piloted the Jaeger Guardian Bravo.

SYNOPSIS:

It is 2035, ten years after the Battle of the Breach, in which the interdimensional portal created by the Precursors (through which they sent marauding Kaiju) was closed. Former Jaeger pilot Jake Pentecost - son of Battle of the Breach hero Stacker Pentecost - makes a living by stealing and selling Jaeger parts on the black market in the Los Angeles area. After he tracks part of a disabled Jaeger's power core to the secret workshop of fifteen-year-old Jaeger enthusiast Amara Namani, both are arrested by the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps (PPDC) following an altercation between Amara's small, single-pilot Jaeger Scrapper and the Police Jaeger November Ajax. A holographic transmission of Jake's adoptive sister and PPDC Secretary General Mako Mori persuades him to return to PPDC as an instructor, with Amara as his recruit. Arriving at the China Shatterdome, Jake starts training Jaeger program cadets with his estranged former co-pilot Nate Lambert. Nate and Mako reveal to him that the Jaeger program is threatened by the Shao Corporation's new drone program, which offers to mass-produce Jaeger drones developed by Shao Liwen and Dr. Newton 'Newt' Geiszler. Mako is due to deliver a final assessment to determine the approval of the drones at a PPDC council meeting in Sydney, but is killed by rogue Jaeger Obsidian Fury before she can report. Her death prompts the PPDC council to authorize and deploy the drones immediately. Moments before her death, Mako had transmitted the location of a defunct Jaeger production facility in Siberia. Jake and Nate travel there in Gipsy Avenger, but Obsidian Fury destroys the complex and engages them in another battle. Upon destroying its reactor, they find that Obsidian Fury was piloted by a Kaiju's secondary brain, which testing shows was grown on Earth. When the drones reach their respective locations, their piloting operations are hijacked by cloned Kaiju brains secretly mounted onboard. The Kaiju-Jaeger hybrids simultaneously attack all Pacific Rim Shatterdomes, inflicting heavy casualties on PPDC forces and incapacitating almost all Jaegers. Hermann Gottlieb and Newt try to disable the drones, but Hermann discovers that Newt is behind the attack when he commands the Kaiju-Jaeger hybrids to open multiple breaches across the Pacific Rim. Newt's mind has been taken over by the Precursors - who forged a link when he drifted with Kaiju brains in the previous movie - and orchestrated Mako's assassination to ensure his plan would proceed. Although Shao is able to destroy the drones, closing the breaches, three Kaiju - named Raijin, Hakuja and Shrikethorn - had already emerged and reached Tokyo. The team realizes that the Precursors' true goal is to activate the Ring of Fire by detonating Mount Fuji with the Kaijus' blood, spreading toxic gas into the atmosphere and wiping out all life on Earth while terraforming the planet for Precursor colonization. The cadets are mobilized while Gottlieb and Shao repair the PPDC's four salvageable Jaegers; Jake and Nate's Jaeger Gipsy Avenger is joined by Guardian Bravo (piloted by cadets Suresh and Ilya), Saber Athena (cadets Renata and Ryoichi) and the three-pilot Bracer Phoenix (cadets Amara, Viktoria, and Jinhai). Gottlieb develops Kaiju-blood-powered rockets, which launch the team to Tokyo. Although the Jaegers initially repel the three Kaiju, Newt merges them into a "Mega-Kaiju" using robotic parasites from one of Shao's factories. The creature quickly overpowers the Jaegers, injures Nate, and Cadets Ilya, Renata, and Ryoichi and kills Suresh. Three of the four Jaegers are destroyed, leaving Gipsy Avenger as the only operational Jaeger. Jake and Amara pilot it against the Mega-Kaiju, with Shao remote piloting Scrapper and aiding them by locating a rocket and welding it to Gipsy, which sends the Jaeger (with Scrapper holding on) into the atmosphere and free-falling back to Earth, colliding into the Mega-Kaiju and killing it, while Jake and Amara survive by transferring to Scrapper. Angered by the Mega-Kaiju's failure, Newt tries to flee, but is knocked out and captured by Nate. In a mid-credits cut scene, Newt - now in custody - threatens that their victory is meaningless because the Kaijus will keep sending attacks, but Jake replies that humanity will soon be the ones attacking the Kaijus.