First Look At The New Jaegers In 'Pacific Rim: Uprising'

John Boyega recently offered our first look at Jake, who represents the next generation of badass kaiju-fighting Pentecosts. Naturally, he and the rest of this new wave of warriors will need some new tech to work with. So today, prepare to feast your eyes upon the next evolution in giant freakin' robots. We've got a peek at the design for the new and improved Pacific Rim: Uprising jaegers, and you can click through to check 'em out.

Our first look at the Pacific Rim: Uprising jaegers comes from License! Global via an unofficial Pacific Rim fansite. Tie-in merchandising, man. It'll get you every time. No matter how carefully the studio marketing teams try to dole out a film's big reveals, it seems like the toys beat them to the punch. Despite the fact that in this case, the toys don't even exist yet.

Anyway... where were we? Oh, right, oohing and ahhing at the Pacific Rim: Uprising jaegers. Here you go.

Pacific Rim Uprising Jaegers (1)

It's tough to make an exact comparison to the original Pacific Rim jaegers, since this looks like concept art or a painting, not a still from the sequel. But as you can see, they haven't been radically redesigned. They still look like they're part of the same family, with just enough details to make them feel fresh. (And, of course, to sell more toys.) While none of the new jaegers have names, the one in the middle shares enough similarities to Gipsy Danger (Mako and Raleigh's jaeger from the original Pacific Rim) to make me wonder if it's using some of the same parts.

They also look kind of like the robots from another popular sci-fi franchise, as /Filmcast co-host Devindra pointed out on Twitter.

He's referring to the Evas from Neon Genesis Evangelion, which look like this. Though the Pacific Rim filmmakers have denied that they were inspired by Evangelion, the similarities between them have been pointed out time and time again by fans. I wonder if the jaeger redesigns are intended as a more overt homage, or if it's just a coincidence.

Pacific Rim: Uprising is in theaters February 23, 2018.