Pacific Rim - Giant Mecha/Monster Fiction in Popular Culture
Pacific Rim (2013) - Official Trailer
"Pacific Rim" is a 2013 action/science fiction film directed by Guillermo del Toro. In this film, Earth is under siege by giant alien monsters called "Kaiju" that invade through a space-time rift called "The Rift." In order to defeat the colossal Kaiju, humanity bands together to build massive robots called "Jaegers," the only weapons large enough and powerful enough to combat the Kaiju. This film was produced by the California based company Legendary Pictures, responsible for other films such as The Dark Knight Trilogy, the Hangover trilogy, and 300. It was distributed by Warner Brothers, one of the largest companies in American cinema. Pacific Rim is one of the first big breakthroughs of the Giant Mecha/Monster subgenre of science fiction in American film (There have been giant monster films such as "Godzilla" in 1997 and "Cloverfield" in 2008, but rarely has the American film industry made any successful attempts at Mecha.) In the development of Pacific Rim, Del Toro was heavily influenced by classic works of Giant Mecha/Monster films, especially those produced in Japan, and he pays a great amount of homage to these previous works throughout the film. Though this film is one of the first Giant Mecha/Moster films we have seen in the United States, such stories have been told in Japan for decades.
In my cultural analysis term paper, I intend on analyzing Pacific Rim and the other works and films that influenced it. Furthermore, I will elaborate on the genre of Giant Mecha/Monster in film. Lastly, I will trace the origin of this genre in Japan and analyze its social significance in Japanese society.
American Giant Monster films discussed above:
Popular works of Giant Mecha/Monster in Japanese culture:
Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)
Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)
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