It’s been five years since Guillermo del Toro’s visionary Jaegers and Kaijus broke onto the scene in the 2013 film Pacific Rim. Now, ten years after the events of the first film, the Kaijus are back and John Boyega leads a Jaeger resistance in Pacific Rim: Uprising.
Boyega plays Jake Pentecost, the son of famed Jaeger pilot Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba). As you can see in the trailer, Jake did not follow in his father’s footsteps. He chose to live in the lap of luxury instead of in the seat of a Jaeger. All of that will change, however, when Gipsy Danger pilot Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) recruits Jake to fight the returning Kaiju.
Let’s break down some of the Pacific Rim: Uprising trailer’s newest scenes:
The Return of Mako
When the first Pacific Rim: Uprising trailer landed it was full of Jaegers, Kaijus and plenty of new faces, like John Boyega, Scott Eastwood and Cailee Spaeny. Missing from the first trailer, at least close-up, was returning character Mako Mori. Mako was an essential part of the first film. She was the adoptive daughter of Stacker Pentecost and one of the pilots of Gipsy Danger. While her co-pilot, Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) isn’t returning, it’s nice to see that Mako is. Actress Rinko Kikuchi is also joined by returning cast members Charlie Day and Burn Gorman in Uprising.
In the trailer, Mako tries to convince Jake to join the Jaeger program. The program has been out of commission for over a decade, but when the Kaijus mysteriously return to earth, Mako knows that Jake must become a pilot. It’s hard to say why she isn’t piloting anymore. Possibly because of her father’s death, possibly from Becket’s absence, either way, we know that Mako has been keeping tabs on the Jaeger program, just like her father did before her.
Scrapper
The new trailer also gave us our first real glimpse of Amara, a new character to Uprising. During the Battle of the Breach (the battle that was fought at the end of Pacific Rim), Amara’s parents were killed. In the 10 years since, Amara has become an expert Jaeger hacker. She was so determined to understand how Jaegers worked that she built her own Jaeger. The Jaeger can be piloted by one person and is called Scrapper. It’s much smaller than a regular Jaeger, and in one scene of the trailer, you can even see it being deployed from inside a larger Jaeger.
It looks like her tragic backstory will mirror Mako’s in the first film. She will also be recruited into the new Jaeger program and trained by Mako, Jake and Jake’s co-pilot Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood).
Once More Unto the Breach
The biggest question of the film is: how are the Kaijus able to return to the earth? In the first film, the breach between their world and ours was destroyed. Closing that breach was the entire climax of the first film and cost Stacker and Chuck Hansen their lives. This new trailer offers two clues to the reopening of the breach.
First, when Jake asks how they are able to get in, Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (returning actor Burn Gorman), answers that “someone let them in.” Second, we see what lets them in in the screenshot above: a team of unknown Jaegers. They are clearly opening a breach, but why? The discovery of that answer will likely be the crux of the film.
The trailer also features the return of Dr. Newt Geiszler (Charlie Day), numerous new Jaegers and a wicked Jaeger versus Jaeger battle what we cannot wait to see on the big screen!
Pacific Rim: Uprising hits theaters on March 23rd.
