Word came down today that Pacific Rim will be getting a 3D post production conversion. I’m a little bit surprised about this because, just a couple months ago, Guillermo Del Toro was pretty clear about not wanting the film to be released in 3D. The good news for American viewers is that we’ll have a choice… and this might be the first major release where the line is bigger for the 2D showings than the 3D showings.
The guys over at Collider do make a pretty cogent argument for the 3D option. Asia is a huge market for American films, but you can’t get a blockbuster into China unless it is in 3D. If that’s what they have to do to open up a continent of viewers for the film, I don’t see the harm in it.
Here’s what Guillermo Del Toro said about releasing the film in 3D at Comic Con:
“I didn’t want to make the movie 3D because when you have things that big, the thing that happens naturally is you’re looking at two buildings at 300 feet. If you move, the buildings don’t go like this (moves his hands closer together), there’s no parallax. They’re so big that you barely notice anything no matter how fast you’re moving, so to force the 3D effect on robots and monsters that are supposed to be that high, you’re making them miniaturized, you’re making them human-scale. I knew that the 3D effect sounded like a great idea, but it was gonna be counter.”
Official Synopsis:
SYNOPSIS – When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes-a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)-who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.