'Pacific Rim' Details Revealed?

Yes, At the Mountains of Madness sounded amazing. Yes, we're all super bummed that Guillermo del Toro is no longer making the film. Yes, we should all curse out Universal for not allowing the possibility of an R-rating, despite the movie being a hugely risky financial undertaking that could have very easily bombed at the box office and lost them a ton of money.

Moving right along.

Guillermo del Toro is officially committed to directing Pacific Rim, a PG-13 monster movie for Legendary Pictures that's set for a Summer 2013 release. It's no At the Mountains of Madness, but it could end up being a halfway decent consolation prize — especially now that plot details have been unveiled that clarify what specifically the movie is about. In a nutshell: It sounds insane. Read all about it after the break.

Here's what we know about Pacific Rim thus far: It's scripted by Travis Beacham (Clash of the Titans), and features "big monsters and the creation of a new world". Other than that, all we know about the story is what's described in the below logline.

Set in a future in which malevolent creatures threaten the earth, the planet must band together and use highly advanced technology to eradicate the growing menace.

That's about as vague a pitch as you can get, and doesn't do much to differentiate the film from a dozen or so other sci-fi monster movies. News in Film intends to correct this though, providing the inside scoop on what they're claiming to be the plot of Pacific Rim.

Reading this synopsis, the Godzilla reboot confusion suddenly becomes so very clear.

This project will give the Hellboy filmmaker the opportunity to create two worlds. The first is an alternate version of Earth in the near future, decades after a historic date in November 2012 when the first kaiju, a towering Godzilla-like beast, emerged from a hole in the Pacific Ocean and attacked the city of Osaka, Japan. The second is "The Anteverse," another universe on the other side of that gaping portal, 5 miles below our ocean's surface. Since the first attack, the rim has been "spitting out" a variety of gigantic monsters at an increasing rate, which then stride out of the ocean and begin destroying sea-bordering cities, like Tokyo and Los Angeles.  In order to combat these monstrous, otherworldly menaces, the military developed the "Jaeger" program, which trains teams of two pilots to jointly operate massive, building-sized mechanized suits of armor and high-tech weaponry.

So, in essence, Pacific Rim is akin to what The Mist would've been had the focus been on the military — and had the characters not been engulfed by mist for the entire time. We even get to see "several different species of towering kaiju, each with their own unique characteristics". The movie also has a touch of Avatar to it, adding in its own epic-scaled mech suit battles, along with a heavily detailed, fully fleshed out universe (which includes a newly developed glossary and lingo to reflect the changes in this futuristic world).

As for the film's characters, the protagonist is a skilled mid-20s pilot who's struggling with the loss of his brother. Recruited to re-join the task force in Tokyo, he finds himself teamed with an inexperienced female Japanese pilot, which causes a whole new set of problems due to the language barrier. Also in the mix is the fiancée of the protagonist's brother, who's a journalist looking to unravel the mystery behind the rift and its origins. More detailed descriptions of these characters can be found at News in Film.

There's more, too. The article also refers to the "god-like Jaeger systems" and "shared neural piloting system (called 'pons')" found within the film, and frankly, I have no idea what any of it means. No matter; my interest has been sufficiently piqued. How about yours?