It’s Robot VS Kaiju In New PACIFIC RIM Trailer – Guillermo del Toro Talks Of Dream Of Being Jaeger Pilot

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro presented never-before-seen footage and the new trailer from his highly anticipated sci-fi adventure “Warner Bros. Pictures and  Legendary Pictures PACIFIC RIM” today at NCM Media Networks’ “The Bigger Picture” Cinema Upfront Event at New York City’s AMC Loews Lincoln Square movie theater.

As a special guest of the country’s top national cinema network, he previewed a new trailer of the film and then spoke to a standing-room only crowd of over 700 advertising and media industry professionals, highlighting why the movie theater experience is so important for audiences and blockbuster films like PACIFIC RIM.

Below are highlights from his remarks:

“I think that it is very important for us to remember why we go to the theater – what makes the experience memorable. I think that one of the reasons why we all are still making movies and showing movies is because we expect new generations of filmgoers to truly experience films. Not only in the scope and the size we create, but also in the community experience – the fact that you go to a theater.

When I first went to a theater as a kid, I went with my mother. And I came to the realization that there were two worlds – one world was outside the doors, and the other was inside the theater.  I was so little that when I went to see that first movie, I fell asleep!  I woke up, fell asleep again, and the movie kept going – I was like four years old – and it was a double feature so I was having a sandwich and some popcorn with my mother.  When we came out, I wanted to go right around the block and go right back in again!

I was completely transfixed.  It was not TV and it was not us sitting on the sofa at home. It was going to a place that was very much a temple of images.  A temple where you can find an experience that you didn’t have in any other medium.

When we go to films, I think it is to find either one of two things, in every genre of every movie ever made – we either look for intimacy, or spectacle.  I think this second category is where we crafted “Pacific Rim.”  We made “Pacific Rim” thinking about skill, about how to best deliver a spectacle that was not only about showing things, but about making an audience become involved in that adventure — become involved in a world of that dimension.

In this movie, we figured out every single detail. We stared the adventure about three and a half years ago, and we started designing everything that you will see on the screen.  From the tiniest detail in a small plate in the robot, to the markings on the machines, the diagrams, the IDs, the pamphlets – everything. Then to the big, big scale – things like Kaiju, which are the monsters, and Jaegers, which are the robots.

When I was a kid, for me a Kaiju – a great Kaiju film – was a unique experience.  I was born in 1964 and I was able to see some of the great giant monster movies back when they were released.  Some people smile when you say kittens or puppies.  When you say giant monsters or giant robots, I smile!  That’s really what makes my day. And I believe that there is something in every kid, or at least in every male kid, that makes them smile the same way.

When you think about these things going at each other in the middle of a city, destroying airplanes, destroying towns, it is OK because there is no relation to real-world violence. There is just the beauty, the graphic majestic spectacle, of two forces of nature clashing with each other. I think that is awe inspiring. And there is something of an element of redemption, in the sense that as a kid you finally feel that the world realizes what it is to live in a place where gigantic things make no sense!

And I think that when you live in a world like that, when you are like a kid and fulfill the fantasy of seeing these creatures, you can also then access a world of adventure. We wanted to create an aspirational world of adventure with “Pacific Rim” where you could dream of something. We didn’t want to make a war movie that requires you to only endorse one single country, or ideology, or point of view. We wanted to make an adventure for the entire world. An adventure where a kid could dream of being a Jaeger pilot, the way our generation dreamt of being a cowboy or an astronaut.

And to deliver this, we need the big screen. We need the bigger picture, we need the theater. We need the communal experience of seeing it like that, and the fact that we are sharing it with other people and validating our experience with a group of other moviegoers that love the experience.

Today, I wanted you to get a sense of scale with the Jaegers, get a sense of how it feels to have something that is 25 stories high walking towards you.  With “Pacific Rim,” we went for incredibly beautiful, rich color – a saturated pallet that brings this sort of pop culture, comic book feel to the film. It’s really romantic and operatic; at least it is for giant monster and giant robot lovers!”

He then rolled several minutes of exclusive, never-before-seen footage from the film that truly showed the power of the big screen.

When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju.

On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes – a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi) – who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

Oscar® nominee Guillermo del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth”) is directing the epic sci-fi action adventure from a script by Travis Beacham (“Clash of the Titans”). Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni and Mary Parent are producing, with Callum Greene serving as executive producer.

The film stars Charlie Hunnam (TV’s “Sons of Anarchy”), Idris Elba (“Thor”), Rinko Kikuchi (“The Brothers Bloom”), Charlie Day (“Horrible Bosses”), and Ron Perlman (the “Hellboy” films). The ensemble cast also includes Max Martini, Robert Kazinsky, Clifton Collins, Jr., Burn Gorman, Larry Joe Campbell, Diego Klattenhoff, and Brad William Henke.

PACIFIC RIM will be released in the US and UK on July 12, 2013.

Official site: http://pacificrimmovie.warnerbros.com/

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