'Pacific Rim,' for me, was a chance to touch on those old Toho monster movies. 'Godzilla' and 'Rodan'... and then 'Ultraman' and 'Robotech' and all those kinds of things.
If you were around when 'Them!' or 'Tarantula' came out, those effects were as good as you had ever seen.
I revel in movies where the monsters tower more over the tiny budgets than the characters they threaten.
I actually got into 'Ultraman' through the video games first, before I realized they were based on something. You remember how they had those fighting Ultraman video games? That's how I got into it. Then I started watching the show. Their kaiju look so weird.
I was way into 'Voltron,' Ray Harryhausen: anything with giant monsters, I was really into. Even dinosaurs - for a while, I wanted to be a paleontologist. So it's almost like primal, ancestral mythology to me, this fascination with monsters.
I grew up with a lot of monster movies, robot movies, since I was a kid. I love anime movies, like 'Evangelion' and 'Ghost in the Shell.'
Once you start putting in political subtext, it does create intellectually challenging science-fiction, but with 'Pacific Rim,' I always thought it would be a shame if kids couldn't go see this movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters because it seemed to have a political point of view.
I love Godzilla, but my favorite was on this TV Show, Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot. I used to love the idea of having a giant robot under my control. That was like a dream come true for a kid.
