Pacific Rim Monsters and Mecha Inspires Fans and Critics

It has been a couple of weeks since the summer release of Pacific Rim.  I was pretty excited to go and see this kaiju versus mecha flick myself.  I'm writing science fiction with an anime inspired mecha focus (but with a more realistic military SF interpretation) so it had particular interest for me.  I came out of the movie thinking it was pretty darn good and would see it again.  Guillermo del Toro did not disappoint as he does a great job with the giant robots and monsters that just drags you willingly along for the ride.  I'll definitely get the Blu-ray and watch it again to see the details and things I missed on the first viewing as the world building was very rich.

More interestingly, the movie hasn't been the blockbuster they were hoping for in America, but it has done fairly well.  I suspect they will make a pile of money in Japan and China when it opens at the end of July.  In Korea it has been a big hit and I think it will continue to do well wherever Japanese anime and kaiju films like Godzilla have been part of the childhood culture.  My books probably need to be translated to Japanese, Korean, and Chinese :)

Best of all, you are seeing some good speculative buzz along with both critical and complimentary buzz in non-SF circles.  Places like Space.com, Scientific American blogs, and other sites have been running articles.  People have seen the movie and have been inspired to write about it from both the art, biology, and engineering sides.  This is good stuff.  I've linked to the articles below so you can see for yourself.  Most of them are pretty good and fun to read!

• The Visual Intelligence of Pacific Rim
• The Tet Zoo Guide to Pacific Rim
• How Possible are the Giant Robots in Pacific Rim?
• The Secret Sauce That Makes Pac Rim's Fight Scenes So Exciting.
• Monster Mayhem: Pacific Rim - ILM special effects article.
• Why the Pacific Rim Robots Are Impossible
• How the Pentagon Could Destroy All Monsters.  I also love this article about how the military could do a better job fighting big monsters at Popular Mechanics!