When Guillermo del Toro’s mech actioner Pacific Rim hit theaters, praise was certainly high for the effects and set pieces, but some had issues with the film’s character development—or lack thereof. I personally felt the movie’s simple narrative served its overall purpose quite well, and del Toro nailed key emotional sequences like Mako’s flashback, but I can understand where folks were coming from with complaints about the sacrifice of character over action. And apparently the film’s star was a tad disappointed by that balance as well, as Charlie Hunnam recently told EW that he doesn’t think Pacific Rim nailed the effects/character balance as well as they hoped it would:
“I think world creation and monster creation and all of that stuff is exciting as a secondary element of storytelling. When it becomes more important than storytelling, I get very nervous, and you sort of lose me a little bit. Although we tried very hard on Pacific Rim to marry those two elements, I do feel like ultimately it got weighed heavier on the side of spectacle than storytelling.”
The actor was quick to point out that he’s still incredibly proud of the film, but for the upcoming sequel he hopes they can flesh out the characters a bit more:
“I hope that we are able to remedy that a little bit going into the second. Not to say I wasn’t proud of the film. I really liked it, and I felt like it delivered exactly what it was supposed to. But I do feel like we could have maybe plumbed the depths of the character and the storytelling a little bit more.”
Possibly del Toro’s greatest accomplishment with Pacific Rim was world building, and that’s going to go a long way towards setting up a foundation for Pacific Rim 2 that allows the filmmaker to rely on the established mythology to focus a bit more on the characters. And while the follow-up will certainly have its fair share of action sequences, THR recently reported that Legendary Entertainment will be spending less on the budget for the sequel than they did on the first film. That’s in no way a bad thing, and del Toro has proven adept at telling compelling stories on a range of budgets, so it’s unlikely to hinder the overall quality of the film. In fact, to Hunnam’s point, it’s possible that the lower budget will allow del Toro to craft even more character-centric scenes in Pacific Rim 2 instead of having to live up to a giant budget by injecting more action.
Whatever the end result, del Toro is hard at work on pre-production for the follow-up with Hunnam returning. Filming is poised to get underway later this year in anticipation of the film’s August 14, 2017 release date, and I'm more than eager to dive back into the world of Pacific Rim again.
