Guilty Pleasures #54 - Pacific Rim: Uprising

There’s something about giant robots fighting giant monsters that’s just awesome. It’s why shows like Power Rangers, Transformers, Voltron and various anime still last till this day. I said I’d be awaiting this sequel with interest, and so here we are. Pacific Rim: Uprising.

Pacific Rim Uprising had a troubled development, there was a dispute over something or another (likely budget) between the distributors Universal Studios and the production company Legendary Pictures that lead to production being delayed by a year. Guillermo Del Toro, although instrumental in getting the film off the ground, was not directing this one (he was doing The Shape of Water, he got the better end of that deal) and a rewritten script by Steven S DeKnight (who also directs), Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder (no relation to Zack or Scott Snyder) and the soon to be infamous on Rage Issues T S Nowlin

The film had a budget of around $190m and made $270m at the box office, a significant downgrade on its predecessor and likely a financial failure for the studios. Critics and audiences gave it a mixed response with 44% and 41% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes respectively with average scores of 5/10 and 3/5. So, what is it about this one where people drew the line where they didn’t last time? Let’s take a look and find out.

Guilty Pleasures #28 - Pacific Rim

So… I’ve just finished watched a show where giant robots were fighting off an alien invasion. Voltron: Legendary Defender the new Netflix Dreamworks series that tries to be Avatar: The Last Airbender in Space. I’ll save my thoughts on the show for another review but what am I watching today.

A movie where giant robots are fighting off an alien invasion. I was going to reference how both of these shows seem to have a very Power Rangers feel to them but then I found that Voltron actually pre-dates Power Rangers. But then Super Sentai, the Japanese show that Power Rangers uses stock footage from predates GoLion which Voltron used stock footage from so… I’m going off topic here.

Pacific Rim was released in 2013 making $411m off it’s $190m budget being successful enough for a sequel to be on its way, it’s been in development hell for some time. It’s received reasonable reviews with a 64 on MetaCritic and 71% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Well, this seems good, let’s take a look.