Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Pacific Rim'

[PetarB]

Also I blame SoCal School of Design churning out concept illustrators that all paint in the same technique - while beautiful, all looks the same

I also have - an albeit tiny - view into this as well. The SoCal School of Design really do churn them out with the same design aesthetic. You just have to visit Conceptart.org 'its finished' forums to see this in action. Massive Black also have a bit to answer for in my opinion. It's so refreshing to see NEW designs outside of this milieu. I grimace when i see a design 'created' with inspiration from nothing more than a photoshop brush.

Mecha designers benefit from engineering exposure, experience and education in engineering fields. I think the current cadre of mecha designers draw most their inspiration from other mecha designers. This is bad for the field in general.

[EXO]

Yeah. A lot of the good designs that I've seen in the new stuff coming out next summer are from designers from

europe. it's weird that even though A lot of this type of scifi are anime inspired, they refuse the design concepts. It's like they're still making Lost In Space or Buck Rogers. Transformers is a good example. Years and years of great design tradition out the window.

Havent really seen anything from this movie past that suit. But I loved the look from a lot of Guillermo Del Toro movies. Hopefully we'll get to see some more stuff soon.

[BeyondTheGrave]

Years and years of great design tradition out the window.

Not sure what you mean here.

[Keith]

Not sure what you mean here.

He means that even though the story/genre is anime inspired, they're tossing out the design aesthetic that goes along with it.

[wm cheng]

I think you see it happening in Automotive design as well, just compare the latest GM, Ford or Chrysler offerings with German automakers - the Americans have a "ego" design sense where fashion and trends take precedence over form and function.

[F-ZeroOne]

I'm going to be mischevious and point out that the Pixar movie "The Incredibles" features a giant robot (in fact, a series of giant robots) as the main threat quite a bit... Mind you, leading into whats said about a design tradition, the director of that film had previously made "The Iron Giant"...

Edited June 10, 2012 by F-ZeroOne

[EXO]

Not sure what you mean here.

Maybe Transformers (cartoons) isn't your cup of tea. But they've always maintained the proportional transformations from vehicle or animal into human robots, albeit with small help of anime magic. But the movies made threw that out the window with nonsensical millions of parts just moving around to get a robot with hips and abs (so they can be sexy???)

I think you see it happening in Automotive design as well, just compare the latest GM, Ford or Chrysler offerings with German automakers - the Americans have a "ego" design sense where fashion and trends take precedence over form and function.

That American Old School Hollywood ego goes across the board. It goes into casting, storytelling, and even in music, etc. Where they want to take a pure foreign material that someone else made a hit movie of but are too afraid to take it as a whole because people might get "confused" by it. You can't tell a "ninja/samurai" story or maybe even a "Hindu" spiritual journey without your obligatory fish out of water western character to see the story through his/her eyes. It's not like I, growing up in California can ever understand a movie like "City of God" with Portuguese subtitles. It's takes someone crazy like Mel Gibson to do Apocalypto. it's not a great story but I thought it was pretty ballsy to do it like he did and would love to see more movies like that.

I'm going to be mischevious and point out that the Pixar movie "The Incredibles" features a giant robot (in fact, a series of giant robots) as the main threat quite a bit... Mind you, leading into whats said about a design tradition, the director of that film had previously made "The Iron Giant"...

As pretty as Iron Giant was, it was still in context to the old Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon school of design, but updated really nicely.

[electric indigo]

What the American concept designers of today lack in robotic designs, their fellows from the 70s spaceship department had in abundance. The Buck Rogers Starfighter, Cylon Basestars, X-Wings (Basically everything from the drawing boards of Johnson/McQuarry) and the Syd Mead stuff are timeless classics and excellent examples how far you can get with basic shapes.

I don't think that "form follows function" or an engineering background produce better designs. Is the Metal Gear Rex a functional design? Not really; but on an artistic level it produces a maximum of expression from a well-balanced composition of basic, blocky, mechanical elements.

[PetarB]

[wm cheng]

That's my Conn-Pod in the background!! - get those stupid actors out of the way... they're covering up my set ;-) In fact all the Conn-Pods are mine.

[PetarB]

Good to hear!

Now tell us what the hell a Conn-Pod is (I can guess, but I would love to hear it), without infringing and NDAs you've signed.

[Knight26]

Our names are Commander Shephard and we approve this set and costume design.

[wm cheng]

Conn-Pods are the control cockpit within the head of the Jaegers (robots)

[Kurisama]

Awesome work Mr.Cheng!

Are they pretty much as -is in the final version? As in, did the final physical/CG conn-pod retain all your design? Some times the final product is in some ways different from the final concept piece.

[wm cheng]

Awesome work Mr.Cheng! Are they pretty much as -is in the final version? As in, did the final physical/CG conn-pod retain all your design? Some times the final product is in some ways different from the final concept piece.

Yep, its exactly as I designed it because I supervised the construction of the physical sets. However, the CG extensions are done at ILM after my employment with the production - so I will hope they will follow my designs for the virtual world.

[Kurisama]

Awesome! Must've been awesome to see your designs be produced by a 3rd party Can't wait to see this film. Del Toro + Kaiju + Giant Mecha = happy me.

[PetarB]

I love the design of this poster. Simple and awesome. As for the design of the mecha, not sure until I see more...

[Duke Togo]

The inclusion (or exclusion) of rocket punch for the robots will make or break this movie. Without it, it is doomed to fail. Just sayin'.

[azrael]

Something about that head reminds me of the Crysis Nanosuit.

[Ghost Train]

That is a huge mech.... yea, needs rocket punch.

[renegadeleader1]

That poster has me a little relieved. Cheng had me believing that we'd get some type of shards of metal crap ala the bayformers. It doesn't look too bad, and certainly has the "heft" of what I picture a super robot to be. Considering how mutch Del Toro says this is a tribute to the genre I'm almost certain a rocket punch is in it(hell robotjox had it), or we get a moment from daiguard where they rip the arm off and throw it at an enemy.

[anime52k8]

At first I thought it was power armor and I thought it looked cool, then I saw the tiny people and decided it sucked.

[BeyondTheGrave]

^ this.

for the time being.

Edited July 8, 2012 by BeyondTheGrave

[EXO]

Rinko Kikuchi looks cute it that suit though...

Something about that head reminds me of the Crysis Nanosuit.

I'm hoping that's the neck... yeesh!

[electric indigo]

Oh well, another one from the School of Generic Concept Design.

[Mr March]

I've never been a huge fan of Del Toro beyond Devil's Backbone, but I can't recall the last time I wanted a movie to succeed this much. I want Pacific Rim to be a good film for certain, but more than that I really want it to be popular and make a ton of money. If it does, it opens the door for the mecha genre in live action film. If the movie fails, it could be decades - or maybe never - that we see a proper mecha movie even attempted. At best we could hope for something like District 9, but nothing bigger. So much is riding on Pacific Rim, it's going to give me a heart condition. Oh you cruel gods, please let this be the film every potential filmmaker can point to and say "See, this kinda of mecha movie can work! Finance me!"

Edited July 8, 2012 by Mr March

[Ladic]

I've never been a huge fan of Del Toro beyond Devil's Backbone, but I can't recall the last time I wanted a movie to succeed this much. I want Pacific Rim to be a good film for certain, but more than that I really want it to be popular and make a ton of money. If it does, it opens the door for the mecha genre in live action film. If the movie fails, it could be decades - or maybe never - that we see a proper mecha movie even attempted. At best we could hope for something like District 9, but nothing bigger. So much is riding on Pacific Rim, it's going to give me a heart condition. Oh you cruel gods, please let this be the film every potential filmmaker can point to and say "See, this kinda of mecha movie can work! Finance me!"

Pan's Labyrinth was fantastic!

[UN Spacy]

I haven't seen a mecha movie since....Real Steel.

Definitely looking forward to this.

[electric indigo]

Pan's Labyrinth was fantastic!

Pan's Labyrinth is definitely far beyond the rest of Del Toro's work, which is not that bad to begin with.

I would have preferred if he had made his "Mountains of Madness".

[Mr March]

Pan's Labyrinth was fantastic!

I do have to check it out. I've seen Devils Backbone (loved it) and the Hellboy films (okay, but not great); I have a lot of faith in Del Toro as a creative director, but I guess I'm just waiting for the next film of his that I really like. Pacific Rim looks like it could be it. I hope and pray.

[EXO]

I feel like his Spanish language films are better too. Maybe because they are original projects where his english movies are more franchises. Mimic was pretty bad though.

[glane21]

I love Hellboy 2.

I'm kind of disappointed in the big robot design above though.

[PetarB]

I almost am, but let's see the rest of it first. Very hard to get a proper sense of it with a quarter of the 'head' and upper chest.

[Keith]

Looks a little too generic Hazmat-suit-ey. Also kinda reminds me of Jet Alone.

[Greyryder]

I like it. Reminds me of the old school super robots, that were mostly made up of simple shapes. This one has just enough detail added to look cool, but not to the point of being so busy that you can't tell exactly how it's moving.