The Pacific Rim franchise, which began in 2013 with the titanic robots vs. monsters film directed by Guillermo Del Toro, has expanded and grown over the years, painting a picture of a world where survival is always in question, and the threats keep escalating. Pacific Rim: The Black is an animated exploration of this familiar world after things have taken a dark turn, focusing on a small cast of teenagers who try to use their newfound bonds (and the giant Jaeger known as Atlas Destroyer) to survive the monsters, people, and chaos trying to bring them down.
Ahead of Pacific Rim: The Black’s Season 2 premiere on Netflix, CBR spoke with series creator and co-writer Greg Johnson about building new elements of a mythos in someone else’s universe. He also dove into blending the character drama with giant robot/monster fights and what fans can look forward to in the second season.
CBR: The world of Pacific Rim is such a distinct take on this genre. What was it like to take charge of the setting for the series?
Greg Johnson: Going in, if I tried shouldering the weight of expectations while trying to adapt a successful movie franchise into an animated series, I’d curl up into a ball. It’s an anxiety-driven business anyway, and with the added hopes, expectations, and financial stakes of a studio and a streamer looming behind me, I could easily lose focus. For me, I can’t let the enormity of the task derail the creative process. It has to be all about the story.
The genre and setting of Pacific Rim are clearly influenced by Japan’s legacy of sci-fi anime and Tokusatsu films — giant monsters trying to destroy us, giant robots trying to defend us. Together with series collaborator Craig Kyle, we knew that such an influence had to remain a part of the series’ DNA. As long as we baked that into the overall concept, we felt we had the freedom to carve out a small area of the world in which to tell our story.
How tricky is it to balance the human character drama with the giant robot monster fights?
We knew we had to have big battles across many episodes. The magnitude of the setting and its threats must remain a constant source of tension. We love zeroing in on the small struggles and triumphs of our characters, too. I mean, we have actual people at the core of those battles, both physically within the Jaeger and emotionally within the people. We understand what Taylor, Hayley, Mei, and bOy are endeavoring to do, and those colossal fights must exist as impediments to their goals rather than just opportunities for action. That way there is no real trick to balancing character drama with monster fights — one happens because of the other.
This series has added so much lore to the universe of Pacific Rim. How do you approach adding new ideas to the world, like the circumstances surrounding bOy?
The first blood that ignites the entire franchise is the Precursors’ efforts to conquer Earth, first by sending a string of Kaiju through a single breach. When that failed, the enemy advanced their tactics by taking over our own Jaeger defenders. That also failed. So, for the series, we needed the invaders to again escalate their efforts, which became our starting point. We came up with the idea that the Precursors would try to establish a beachhead on a landmass that they could defend — a continent. Such a strategy would require multiple breaches and lots more Kaiju, and this time, the Precursors’ plan actually works.
We wanted to give the enemy plan some complexity in the form of Human/Kaiju hybrids, a backdoor threat in case the beachhead approach stalls or fails. Such an idea felt justified as it ties into the Precursors’ overall agenda. By anchoring any new ideas to existing lore, it hopefully never feels as if we’re throwing in elements for nothing but the shock factor.
It’s ultimately a dark series, with a lot of death and destruction for the extended cast. What was it like working with Netflix to bring this story to life?
I have to say that both Netflix and Legendary felt more like creative partners than any kind of “executives in charge of.” Their input throughout the process was always supportive of our vision, including green-lighting our desires to explore some darker corners. We didn’t really reinvent the wheel by introducing emotional deaths into the franchise, though. The films had major characters die, some as heroic sacrifices, like Stacker Pentecost, some to establish emotional trauma, like Yancy Becket, and some as unexpected collateral damage, like Mako Mori. Our goal was always to make the deaths in the series feel supported by story logic and to add emotional conflict within our characters. Our partners at Netflix and Legendary are savvy storytellers, and they understood perfectly why we made certain decisions.
Going into season 2, what has surprised you the most about Taylor and Hayley as characters?
Family was always the theme running through the series. The familial hole in Mei’s heart left by Shane’s meddling [leads] to a dysfunctional father/daughter relationship with Shane. bOy, a being never meant to emotionally bond with anyone, finds a loving caregiver in Hayley, and that relationship changes his entire trajectory. Loa, who is haunted by heartbreak in her past, finds herself reluctantly forming a new family unit with Taylor and Hayley. Of course, Taylor and Hayley’s struggle to reunite with their parents propels us through every episode.
What snuck up on me is that Taylor and Hayley needed to repair themselves before they could ever hope to call themselves a family again. It’s more than the distance that can separate people. Taylor’s myopic view of what’s required to restore their family and Hayley’s immaturity in seeing beyond her emotions — those have done as much to destroy their unity as anything external. What they need is to understand how flawed they themselves are to finally take ownership of their own culpability, if they ever hope to fully restore the family.
Season 2 is going to have to deal with the fallout of the Sisters looking for the Kaiju Messiah. What about that concept excites you the most as a creator?
I love that in a franchise about robots fighting monsters, the heroes can be more than just robots and the enemy can be more than just monsters, and the fight can take place within the mind as much as on the battlefield. When it comes to the frightening devotion displayed by the Sisters, we’ll actually see that “battlefield of the mind” in ways that will hopefully surprise our viewers. The Sisters wage their fights in multiple landscapes, making them an adversary very difficult to beat.
What are you most excited for fans to see in Season 2?
That the Pacific Rim universe can be bigger and more complex than Jaegers vs. Kaiju. It’s a rich world that can, and should, continue serving up untold stories without ever betraying what inspired the first movie.
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