Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim franchise may not be a Star Wars or MCU-level titan of cinema, but we’ve been fans ever since the first film stomped onto screens a decade ago. If you’re unfamiliar with the basic concept, they explore in a world menaced by colossal Kaiju monsters that emerge from the oceans.
Mankind is facing an extinction-level event, though the tide is turned with the development of Jaegers, building-sized giant robots with the weaponry and armor needed to bash the Kaiju into submission. In an interesting twist, each Jaeger is driven by two pilots connected by a neural link, and they need to be emotionally synchronized to fight effectively.
So, if your curiosity is piqued, here’s every Pacific Rim story to date in chronological order.
Pacific Rim (2013)
Guillermo del Toro has always walked a fine line between blockbusters and prestige pictures, but Pacific Rim very definitely leans towards the blockbuster end of the spectrum. The introduction to the Pacific Rim world is seen through the eyes of Raleigh Beckett (Charlie Hunnam), who must team up with Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) under the careful tutelage of Idris Elba’s Stacker Pentecost (who recently appeared on our ‘dumbest character names‘ list).
Del Toro is clearly having a good time bashing his toys together, and his trademark attention to detail when it comes to special effects and CGI means this still looks great to this day. Pacific Rim is part of the DirecTV and ViX streaming libraries and can be digitally purchased or rented from all the usual places.
Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)
Though Pacific Rim didn’t exactly set the box office alight it did well enough for a sequel. Uprising arrived five years after the original and featured a new cast of characters led by John Boyega as Jake Pentecost (son of Stacker).
With Pacific Rim having closed the breach through which Kaiju menaced our world, the threat in Uprising is often other Jaegers. This spirals into revelations about what’s actually controlled each Jaeger, perhaps inevitably resulting in the return of the actual Kaiju.
Much bashing and smashing follows though the film ends with a tease that the war between mankind and kaiju is just beginning. But, at least for now, Uprising is the final cinematic live-action entry in the franchise, as it didn’t meet box office expectations.
Pacific Rim: Uprising is available to stream as part of the DirecTV library, and available to buy and rent from the usual online outlets.
Pacific Rim: The Black (2021 / 2022)
Uprising failing to launch at the box office may have scuppered Pacific Rim in multiplexes, but not on Netflix. In 2021 Pacific Rim: The Black season 1 arrived on Netflix. This is a Japanese-American co-production produced by del Toro and set after the events of the films.
Much of the action is set in Australia, which is now overrun by Kaiju. We follow siblings Hayley and Taylor Travis, who are trapped in the desert after their Jaeger pilot parents disappear. Naturally giant robot combat soon ensues, with the first season seeing the pair master a Jaeger known as Atlas Destroyer.
Season two also pushes the boundaries of what a Kaiju can be and, in a very Neon Genesis Evangelion-style twist, it transpires that they can take human form if they need to. Whether you’re a Pacific Rim fan or just like seeing animated robots punching monsters in the face The Black is a fun ride, with critics concluding it’s a worthy successor to the movies.
Both seasons of Pacific Rim: The Black are available on Netflix.
Other releases
If you still haven’t had your fill there are several Pacific Rim novels out there that flesh out the world. These are Tales from Year Zero, Man, Machines and Monsters, Tales from the Drift, Ascension, Blackout, Amara, and Aftermath. All are firmly in the Young Adult reading category but are canon to the wider story.
There was also a Pacific Rim game on Xbox 360 that adapts the first movie, though this has long been unavailable to purchase online and is relatively rare in hard copy format. Mobile battler Breach Wars is also now long gone, as the servers were deactivated in September 2020.
Finally, and most obscurely, there’s Pacific Rim: Extinction, a tabletop board game funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign that was released in 2018.
And that’s it for all things Pacific Rim. As of 2023, the franchise is dormant, though we’d love to see it return someday. Guillermo del Toro has the clout, so maybe one day he’ll return and bring it back in style… perhaps even in a crossover with Legendary’s MonsterVerse? We can but dream.
