Thinking about Pacific Rim Uprising
Pacific Rim Uprising wasn't a perfect sequel to PR1, but it was pretty fun and had a number of good points. It, alas, also failed to kickstart it into being a full ongoing franchise.
And hearing about the earlier drafts and ideas, from back when Del Toro was attached? I'm pretty sure it never would've, and I'm kinda glad we got what we got. Oh, sure, it'd have looked cooler under Del Toro, but there was never a plan to really make things more Mako-centric, which is what I think it needed, and in the earlier draft, Mako's plot was basically the same as what we got, but Raleigh had Jake's plot. Which thematically... would be super-weak for a number of reasons, big sis and lil bro is a lot more 'raising the next generation,' senior pilot being the focus again seems if anything moving backwards. Sure, we'd also still have country-focused mecha again, but mecha theme vs character theme, give me character any day.
So yea, give me Jake Pentacost and Amara! Gimme jaeger vs jaeger action and then a kaiju brawl! Gimme DeKnight's vision for the sequel. I don't think the Del Toro draft would've made a franchise and given that, I think we got the strongest thematic option of what was on the table. If it had hit it big and we'd gotten more, that'd be great, but what we did get is the second strongest live-action mecha movie out there, which is much better thematically than the other drafts, and I love it.
And hearing about the earlier drafts and ideas, from back when Del Toro was attached? I'm pretty sure it never would've, and I'm kinda glad we got what we got. Oh, sure, it'd have looked cooler under Del Toro, but there was never a plan to really make things more Mako-centric, which is what I think it needed, and in the earlier draft, Mako's plot was basically the same as what we got, but Raleigh had Jake's plot. Which thematically... would be super-weak for a number of reasons, big sis and lil bro is a lot more 'raising the next generation,' senior pilot being the focus again seems if anything moving backwards. Sure, we'd also still have country-focused mecha again, but mecha theme vs character theme, give me character any day.
So yea, give me Jake Pentacost and Amara! Gimme jaeger vs jaeger action and then a kaiju brawl! Gimme DeKnight's vision for the sequel. I don't think the Del Toro draft would've made a franchise and given that, I think we got the strongest thematic option of what was on the table. If it had hit it big and we'd gotten more, that'd be great, but what we did get is the second strongest live-action mecha movie out there, which is much better thematically than the other drafts, and I love it.