Hardly a week goes by before the announcement of a new Guillermo Del Toro project, and there’s also hardly a week that goes by when Michael Bay doesn’t shoot his mouth off about something, and for his latest lame-brained rant, he’s going after Del Toro’s Pacific Rim.
Yes it has giant robots just like Transformers, but we think it’s clearly its own movie.
Yet The Hollywood Reporter tells us Bay took a shot at Del Toro, as well as Battleship for being “rip-off” robot movies, and that the audience knows the difference between them and his films. While no one’s crying in their beer over the fate of Battleship, which was indeed a pretty blatant Bay rip-off, to lump Del Toro in with this isn’t exactly fair because even when Del Toro makes movies that are more commercial, he wouldn’t resort to a pure hack exercise like Battleship.
As far as comparing Rim to Transformers, Del Toro responded, “We are far, far, far away from that in a very willing fashion. For good or bad, this is my movie. This is my universe and my creation, and I do not create through comparison.” For the record, Del Toro’s robots are taller than the Transformers, so there.
“The fights don’t occur in well-lit, supercool, car commercial-looking environments,” Del Toro continued, clearly taking a shot at Bay’s hyper-slick style. “They occur in the middle of a raging sea storm or in a savage snowstorm. They happen in a universe that is incredibly saturated.” Not to mention we’ve had giant robots forever, Transformers certainly hasn’t cornered the market on this, so Bay needs to chill out here.
Funny enough, after this little back and forth between Del Toro and Bay, the L.A. Times ran a report asking, “Is Pacific Rim the New Transformers?” While it’s doubtful Rim will make as much money as Transformers, if it delivers on the action and FX wizardry, it could bring Del Toro back in a big way. (Warner Brothers is also hoping Pacific Rim will be a franchise, and a sequel is already reportedly in the works.)
Maybe someday they can do a Pacific Rim Vs Transformers movie, a la Freddy Vs Jason, where these big robotic warriors can duke it out once and for all. It could be a lot of fun watching those guys beating each other into piles of scrap, and as big as they are, there’s plenty of room for giant robots of all styles on the silver screen. If Pacific Rim is a hit, it certainly won’t keep people away from Transformers 4, which promises to be a huge success when it hits theaters on June 27, 2014.
