Giant Robots are coming...to the "Pacific Rim"
It needs to be pointed out that the Giant Robot genre has struggled to take hold in the U.S. as appealing to a broad audience for many years. Outside of animation, the only serious attempts I can think of include "Robo Jox" and "Matrix Revolutions", and those don't really count. The former was about giant robots as used in sporting events, and the mecha in latter were not giant. I'm leaving out the Power Rangers/Super Sentai since it is targetted to a specifically younger audience.
There's been greater success in animation, but mostly in Japanese series adapted for American audiences (Robotech the most successful, especially in adapting Macross, and Gundam Wing in its introduction as part of Cartoon Network's Toonami) which later inspired similar series (Exo Squad comes to mind). Transformers does not count as the robots are sentient, not piloted.
"Pacific Rim" is coming this summer, and it's directed by Guillermo del Toro. What you need to know about del Toro is that he places a tremendous focus on visual story telling without ignoring character development. "Pan's Labyrinth" is a masterpiece, visually spectacular and heart-wrenching in its tale. He also directed both adaptations of "Hellboy," and "Blade 2." He was an executive producer of both "Kung-Fu Panda 2" and "Rise of the Guardians" so he knows how to back a good horse. He is also credited as a co-writer on not only many of these films but also of "The Hobbit" trilogy. Del Toro was originally in line to DIRECT the Hobbit before Peter Jackson decided to hold on to it.
So, yeah, "Pacific Rim." Giant robots fighting giant monsters. Had I forgotten to mention the giant monsters? And how del Toro was playing around with the idea of doing a Lovecraft inspired piece at some point? Or that certain Lovecraftian concepts are woven into the plot to bring giant monsters to Earth which necessitated the creation of giant robots to combat said monsters? Forgive me, Godzilla and Cloverfield have done such a good job of keeping giant-monster-generated devastation in the American consciousness that it had slipped my mind...
There's been greater success in animation, but mostly in Japanese series adapted for American audiences (Robotech the most successful, especially in adapting Macross, and Gundam Wing in its introduction as part of Cartoon Network's Toonami) which later inspired similar series (Exo Squad comes to mind). Transformers does not count as the robots are sentient, not piloted.
"Pacific Rim" is coming this summer, and it's directed by Guillermo del Toro. What you need to know about del Toro is that he places a tremendous focus on visual story telling without ignoring character development. "Pan's Labyrinth" is a masterpiece, visually spectacular and heart-wrenching in its tale. He also directed both adaptations of "Hellboy," and "Blade 2." He was an executive producer of both "Kung-Fu Panda 2" and "Rise of the Guardians" so he knows how to back a good horse. He is also credited as a co-writer on not only many of these films but also of "The Hobbit" trilogy. Del Toro was originally in line to DIRECT the Hobbit before Peter Jackson decided to hold on to it.
So, yeah, "Pacific Rim." Giant robots fighting giant monsters. Had I forgotten to mention the giant monsters? And how del Toro was playing around with the idea of doing a Lovecraft inspired piece at some point? Or that certain Lovecraftian concepts are woven into the plot to bring giant monsters to Earth which necessitated the creation of giant robots to combat said monsters? Forgive me, Godzilla and Cloverfield have done such a good job of keeping giant-monster-generated devastation in the American consciousness that it had slipped my mind...
posted by Ravings of Ki at 8:29 PM
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