4. The Special Effects
Of course, with a movie of such grand scale, special effects artists at Industrial Light & Magic had their work cut out for them. Renowned for their impressive cinematic catalogue, ILM are largely known for their effects on
Jurassic Park,
Terminator 2 and of course,
Star Wars, but here they can add yet another great milestone to their record;
Pacific Rim.
Pacific Rim was reportedly one of their biggest challenges to date, as the effects artists were faced with bringing to life gigantic robots over 250 feet tall. It was one of the biggest concerns at first for the prodigious studio, as the sheer scale of the mechas and monstrous Kaiju had to look convincing for cinemagoers, and never before had such large machinations been brought to life by ILM. Thankfully, the Jaegers and Kaiju look discernible to the human eye, as each frame is meticulously brought to life with great care and love. They provide some amazing visuals during the movie, and some of the CGI fight scenes are arguably the best action sequences of the year. Michael Bay, take note, this is how you utilise ILM to produce such amazing and coherent fight scenes, with remarkable visuals. It should be noted however, that there is a great deal of practical effects used throughout the movie. The Jaeger's cockpits for example, were carefully constructed to actually place the actors inside. So when you witness Charlie Hunman and Rinko Kikuchi getting thrown around in their harness, it's for real. Del Toro desired sets full of complicated machinery to get the job, which just greatly adds to the immersion.