This article was originally published on Substack in September 2023
Pacific Rim turned 10 years old on July 12, 2023, and there’s still no sci-fi future-time mech movie that did what Pacific Rim did. It’s comparable to Neon Genesis Evangelion both in unique mech-piloting and in how much I love it, but that’s not really the best metric to judge a movie by. What I want to judge Pacific Rim by is how it portrays all the different types of love in the world. Here’s a hint: it does this very well.
How did I come to love Pacific Rim?
I discovered Pacific Rim like I discover most things: two years late and with an ensuing all-encompassing obsession that ebbs and flows over the subsequent years. Sometimes I forget about this movie, and then it comes up on HBO Max and I feel compelled by something beyond myself to watch it over and over again for about a week.
Everything about this movie scratches all my particular itches when it comes to what I look for in sci-fi films. At the bare minimum, it’s the giant monsters, giant robots, and unique, diverse characters that intrigue me. Specifically: Gipsy Danger is a beautiful mech, Mako is a precious, precious angel, and generally I adore Charlie Hunnam.
So, when I say Pacific Rim checks all my boxes, I really mean it. And that comes down to the portrayal of love in all its forms.
Love conquers all (even giant alien monsters)
Pacific Rim expertly draws upon the different types of love to shape the plot and provide the driving force behind the Drift. The basic concept of the Drift is two Jaeger pilots enter into a neural bridge where they share their memories in order to sync with the Jaeger (aka giant robot). Being Drift Compatible is key, but it’s not something that is determined by a preexisting relationship. It’s more of the potential between two people to share respect, love, and a common goal.
When we talk about love in Pacific Rim, we’re not just talking about romantic love. Sure, there’s husband and wife Jaeger team Aleksis and Sasha Kaidonovsky, but there’s also the father and son team Chuck and Herc Hanson, and the two brothers Yancy and Raleigh Becket. Love transcends romance and enters the realm of family, friends, and selflessness.
Types of Love and How They Relate to Jaeger Pilots
The ancient Greeks generally agreed on seven different types of love (There is some debate that there are only four types of love, and sometimes eight, but we’re going to focus on the seven):
eros: romantic love
philia: friendly, platonic love
storge: familial love
agape: selfless, empathetic love
ludus: playful love
pragma: committed love
philautia: self-love
So, how do these types of love translate into Pacific Rim, and how do the characters become vehicles for these types of love? Here we’re going to look at each pair of Drift Compatible Jaeger pilots and determine their love type.
Yancy and Raleigh Becket — Gipsy Danger
The movie opens with Raleigh and his older brother Yancy as the pilots of Gipsy Danger, and our first look at storge: familial love. They are called out to fight a Kaiju, and Yancy dies in combat while the two are still connected in the Drift, resulting in Raleigh piloting their Jaeger alone, limping to shore with the mech significantly damaged and himself injured. I believe this disaster firmly links Raleigh to his brother because Yancy died while in the Drift with Raleigh. They were sharing their memories and their minds with each other, and when Yancy died, it is my belief that some of Yancy stayed with Raleigh.
Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori — Gipsy Danger
Later, Raleigh and Mako pilot Gipsy Danger together, as the two of them are Drift Compatible. Their relationship, I believe, is a mix of philia, agape, and possibly a bit of eros, depending on how you view their partnership. There is the potential for romantic love, but Pacific Rim doesn’t really explore that (there’s mostly just a hint at the very end). But, Raleigh and Mako have platonic and selfless love in spades. In the end, Raleigh essentially sacrifices himself to save Mako (not to mention everyone else). Throughout the film, they are constantly drawn to each other, mostly platonically as two misfits who no one really wants to be around. Generally, they support each other with selfless love in and out of the Jaeger.
Hercules and Chuck Hansen — Striker Eureka
This father-son duo also represents storge, but Chuck Hansen can be said to represent philautia, self-love, in the beginning of the film as well. There’s immense respect between Chuck and his father, which aids in their Drift Compatibility, and Herc has a singular love for his son, having raised him alone after his wife died in 2014 during a Kaiju attack in Sydney. Herc stated that he did his best with Chuck, but Chuck is somewhat self-centered and arrogant about his abilities. Eventually, Chuck must step up and be selfless for the good of mankind after his father’s injury, and he begins to embody agape following that because he knows he will probably die.
Aleksis and Sasha Kaidonovsky — Cherno Alpha
These two don’t get much screentime but I believe this husband and wife team represents eros and pragma. They are together in a committed, romantic love, and they die still committed to each other.
Cheung Wei, Jin Wei, and Hu Wei — Crimson Typhoon
Triplets from China, these three, again, represent storge on an extreme level. They are perfectly in sync when they pilot their Jaeger, and even in sync when out of the Jaeger as well. It’s like people say about twins and triplets: they’re tapped into each other’s brains. But, in Pacific Rim, that’s a literal statement. The Wei Tang brothers are neurally connected through the Drift, so their triplet magic is something very real.
Stacker Pentecost and Chuck Hansen — Striker Eureka
Near the end of the film, Chuck and Stacker Pentecost (Marshal in the Pan Pacific Defense Corps and Mako’s adoptive father) pilot Striker Eureka after Herc’s injury. This Drift Compatibility is based on agape as well as the respect that Chuck has for Pentecost. They both tap into selflessness—Pentecost easily, Chuck with a little bit of prodding—in order to pilot the Jaeger together.
The Global Relationship
One thing that I find interesting about Pacific Rim is the relationship between global entities. I’ve often compared this to Marvel movies, where all the bad things attack the United States but we don’t accept help from any other countries. Pacific Rim was different: the US, Australia, China, and Russia—at the very least—came together to fight a common enemy, the Kaiju. The Pan Pacific Defense Corps was made up of representatives from all over the globe, and Jaeger pilots came from everywhere. It showed a unique unified front against monsters, a view that I haven’t seen in a lot of sci-fi films.
Essentially, Pacific Rim was an analogy for globalization. Deidrene Crisanto said it best: “While this blockbuster film is rooted in the Pacific stage with respect to national identities, it is clear that the Jaeger initiative is a microcosm that represents a universal, planet-oriented ideology that subverts the physical, political, and social boundaries to create a globally conscious world through its interrogation of certain globalizing processes and identity boundaries,” Crisanto wrote for BYU’s Aperture Journal in 2016.
This global unity sets Pacific Rim apart from other sci-fi/action films which isolate the United States or other countries in order to make them the dominant power. This mindset in our fiction correlates to our mindset in reality: everyone has to be the strongest, most powerful, singular entity in the world, and no one can accept help from anyone. Pacific Rim saw that and threw it out the window, creating a world where people help each other. We don’t need giant alien monsters to bring us together, though. We just need some common sense.
Why Love is Important For Life
Love—any type of love—is crucial for living a fulfilled life. Whether you have the love of a partner, your family, or your friends, you will always be surrounded by love. There is always someone who loves you, no matter what. Even self-love is considered love, and the longest relationship you will ever have is with yourself, after all. So, while loving your family and friends and partner is important, it’s also crucial to show yourself love.
While Pacific Rim didn’t really focus on self-love—the two-pilot system pretty much perpetuates love in the context of another person—it’s still important to mention here. Self-love is not an everyday occurrence, and some days it just doesn’t happen at all, but there’s something to be said for giving yourself some credit, grace, and love when you need it.
Pacific Rim Taught Me How To Love
Overall—as dumb as it sounds—Pacific Rim made me a better lover. It wasn’t singularly Pacific Rim, of course, but my further understanding of love stemmed from this movie. It was the jumping-off point that led me to books like Rilke on Love by Rainer Maria Rilke, On Loving by Erich Fromm, and Works of Love by Søren Kierkegaard. Essentially, Pacific Rim led me to the philosophy of love, which in turn made me better at feeling and expressing love.
Visually, narratively, and action-wise, Pacific Rim is a masterpiece of sci-fi cinema. It’s even more of a masterpiece when you take into account its relationships and depiction of love in all its forms. Guillermo del Toro did something here that I haven’t seen in the genre for a long time; not Star Wars, not Dune, not any other huge sci-fi franchise has given me the same feeling that Pacific Rim did. That’s my pragma for Pacific Rim: truly, I’m committed.
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