#pacific rim draft

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In the Pacific Rim draft script, the Precursors actually started sending people nightmares to try and demoralize them. This doesn't appear to be a thing in the final version, but it sort of makes me wonder if the beings on the other side psychically reached out to people and that's one reason we have kaiju cultists.

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The kaiju of the Pacific Rim draft script

Travis Beacham's Pacific Rim draft script has a ton of problems, but the kaiju are definitely none of them! They're definitely a little different from the movie kaiju, biologically-speaking. They have red blood rather than blue, and there's nothing to suggest that toxic blood is a standard feature. There's also no reveal that they're clones with identical DNA.

(NOTE: I said earlier that it's unclear whether they have a hivemind, but I overlooked where Doctor Ivo Czerny said that there's a telepathic part of their brain that's tuned to signals from the Anteverse. The script doesn't use the word "hivemind," but the idea's pretty obviously there.) Here's a list of the kaiju from the draft script:

TRESPASSER: The first kaiju to pass through the Interstice. Category 5. Attacked Osaka and killed Mako Mori's father. Description: ...long and crocodilian, scabrously armored with rugged scales and scutes. Notes: This is the first of several kaiju to share a name with a kaiju in the actual film. However, Trespasser - like all of the others - doesn't have much in common with its movie counterpart.

UNNAMED NIGHTMARE KAIJU: Early in the story, Felicity "Flick" Kincaid has a nightmare about her dead fiance Yancy Antrobus, and sees a kaiju. Description: Hundreds of feet overhead, it's jagged jaws glow furnace-like from within. Ignescent saliva drips from it's teeth like molten napalm, fueling the encroaching wildfire. Notes: Yeah, toxic glowing blood is cool, but saliva that sets shit on fire? That's absolutely metal, man. DENGUE: Encountered by Newt and Flick in Miraflores, defeated by Puma Real. Description: Arachnoid legs bristling with hairs. Scores of black eyes above a wide reptilian grin. Some unholy fusion of tarantula and dragon. An obscene, alien spectacle. Notes: Dengue doesn't just resemble a tarantula - this beast can flick hairs like one, too! They don't appeal to be particularly damaging to the jaeger Puma Real, but at the size of arrows they're definitely a problem for the civilian population.

SLATTERN: Appears in one of Raleigh Antrobus and Mako Mori's training simulations. Description: SLATTERN boasts a shape like an armless carnosaur: a thick, serpentine body on mighty raptorial legs. A head vaguely like a moray eel. A long tail, barbed at the end. It draws patient predatory circles around us, lean and powerful as a panther, scales shifting between jet black and iridescent blue in the fog-stifled light. Notes: The way this is described sounds like it would look absolutely goofy if you drew it out, which is the opposite of a problem where kaiju are concerned.

TORTUGA: The kaiju that killed Yancy Antrobus. Shows up a lot through Raleigh's flashbacks. Description: Tortuga is described as "hulking and turtle-like, carapace studded with jagged rows of bony plates." It's also described with a "trifurcated beak" and a "harpoon-like tongue." Notes: On the one hand, Knifehead made a much more imposing figure than Tortuga. On the other... we don't really have enough turtle kaiju.

UNNAMED WOODLOUSE KAIJU: Lets off an EMP in Busan. Description: Described as "a mountain of crustacean armor, like an outsized mole crab or woodlouse." And "Under its semi-translucent carapace, something writhes and shifts." Notes: We were THIS CLOSE to having an isopod kaiju! Oh well, at least the kaiju skin mites look like isopods - I can't really complain too much, can I? INVIDIA: That thing squirming around inside the isopod is the cat-3 kaiju Invidia! Fought and defeated by Raleigh Antrobus and Mako Mori. Description: Described as "a spindly, mantid shape; tall as a skyscraper." She's described as having "a viper-like head" and "a set of long translucent wings." Notes: Invidia can't fly, but her wings give her added mobility - and create vortices in the air that throw vehicles around! Also, Invidia fills the same narrative role as Otachi - she's the first kaiju that Raleigh and Mako defeat together, using their jaeger's sword.

OOLONG: Appears in one of Mako Mori and Raleigh Antrobus's training simulations. Description: ...a chitinous crab-like dragon with black exoskeletal armor and giant pincers. Notes: I think a spider-dragon and a crab-dragon in one movie might be a little redundant, but I feel like this beast has potential.

KOMODO: A cat-4 kaiju that attacks Minato Mirai. Defeated by Duc and Kaori Jessup. Description: A long, lizard-like creature called KOMODO. Rows of teeth curl sloppily from his jaws. A baroque frill of coiled and braided horns embellishes his head. He scrabbles on six splayed legs; tail terminating in a spiked thagomizer. Notes: Do you know how many kaiju have thagomizers? Not nearly enough of them. Also, this GINORMOUS beast (it's taller than Lady Danger!) spits acid. Definitely inspired Otachi a bit.

FULCRUM: A kaiju that attacks Minato Mirai along with Komodo. Defeated by Mako Mori and Raleigh Antrobus. Description: Tentacles hide his jaws. Longer tentacles trail from his taloned arms. A scourge of tails whips the air behind him. He is kaiju FULCRUM -- an alien chaos of tentacles and dinosaurian limbs, his movements fluid and menacing, as much like a predator stalking primeval jungles as like a kraken prowling sunken ruins. He glisters with bioluminescence. He climbs ashore and rises to his full height -- almost a third bigger than the Mark-2. He lashes out with one of his long tentacles. The mech dodges and as the tentacle rakes past us, we see the rows of cruel, hooked claws running the length of it. Notes: Not to sound like a kaiju groupie, but I love Fulcrum. This absolute BEAST tosses around these things called "Berserkers" - small tentacle-covered creatures that grab and rip apart anything they can get hold of before they swell up and EXPLODE. Oh, and when they rip its head off? Its body just keeps going! Role-wise, Fulcrum seems to have inspired Leatherback a bit - and perhaps inspired the tentacles on Leatherback's head? UNNAMED WORMLIKE KAIJU: Briefly attacks Lady Danger. Description: Described as "wormlike" and having "crocodilian jaws." That's all there is to it, really.

TENGU: Appears toward the story's climax, as Lady Danger approaches the Interstice. Defeated by Duc and Kaori Jessup. Description: A horrific skein of dozens of viper heads on long sinuous necks erupting from a body like a naked bat. Notes: Absolutely hideous beast! Makes me think Ghidorah and Rodan. I'd honestly like to see this one on film. PHARAOH: Appears toward the story's climax. Defeated by Kaori and Duc Jessup. Description: Something between a scarab and a bull, with vicious mandibles and long horns like a rhino beetle. Notes: This one just sounds like a scaled-up beetle. It's a little difficult to imagine that it would be anything other than a Very Good Boy if left to its own devices. I mean, it's probably only attacking the jaegers because it thinks they're mating rivals. SCUNNER: Appears toward the story's climax. Defeated by Kaori and Duc Jessup. Description: Beige-hued skin lends it a disturbingly human look; but grotesquely misshapen, joints bulging and twisted. A skull-like face, jaws over-crowded with jagged teeth. Notes: I really think the sudden appearance of a human-looking kaiju would have been very jarring! It wouldn't have worked in the film that was actually made, but part of me wants to see a movie where this could have happened.

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In the Pacific Rim draft script, Raleigh Antrobus and Mako Mori don't speak each other's languages. The draft script also includes ghost drifting. After a few rounds in the simulator they begin to ghost drift, and somehow... this effect helps them overcome the language barrier?? It's very silly - he hears her speaking English, she hears him speaking Japanese.

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I love the concept of ghost drifting as much as anyone, but every now and then I remember that the reason it exists is because Travis Beacham thought the best way to cure his protagonist’s depression was to give him a psychic connection with a woman whose language he couldn’t even speak and I am sadly forced to remember how little we as a society value actually working on our communication skills.

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In the Pacific Rim draft script, intrepid reporter Felicity "Flick" Kincaid is the one who drifts with a kaiju brain. It's honestly a kind of stupid process and a bit squicky, so I won't go into detail.

Here, drifting with a kaiju brain isn't explicitly stated to be too much for the human brain, so it's unclear if that's a problem here or if it's life-threatening because it's just that alarming, and maybe also because of the fucked-up procedure used for it. Flick also gets strapped to a table in the process, and to make a long story short that's why she requires rescuing from her love interest, Newt Gotlieb. So if that scene where Hermann Gottlieb rescued Newt Geiszler felt particularly romantic? That could be why - it was literally adapted from a love interest rescue scene!

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Pacific Rim draft script fact: Raleigh Antrobus loathes his brother's former fiancee, Felicity "Flick" Kincaid because... uhh... well, I'll let you read for yourself:

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“Anteverse” and “Precursors” - why these terms exist

Something Pacific Rim fans might find interesting - the terms “Anteverse” and “Precursors” go back to Travis Beacham’s draft of Pacific Rim. The Anteverse’s name refers to the fact that its existence preceded our universe; in fact, our universe was actually created by the Precursors to move into, hence the name. Beacham’s version of Pacific Rim has a pretty big misotheist angle; the Precursors are framed as these sci-fi creator gods who regard humanity as an inconvenient accident. Basically, they created this universe for their own use, and they need to get rid of us before they can move in. (Why they can’t just decide to move literally anywhere else in his this unfathomably vast universe... who knows, lol.) This also makes the inclusion of these names in PRU a bit odd, since for all appearances PRU didn’t go and revive this backstory, and there’s no reason these beings would be using these names themselves. (This is also why I don’t use these terms in my fanfiction - I go with the idea that they’re the far-future descendants of humanity.) So yeah - the terms “Anteverse” and “Precursors” are holdovers from a much earlier version of the story, one that had very different worldbuilding and a very different tone from the Pacific Rim most of us know.

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So last night, I read Travis Beacham’s draft for Pacific Rim. I’m not going to go into each and every way the draft was... umm... pretty dodgy (turns out my suspicions that the concept of drifting was invented by the kind of guy who’d sit around wishing he could telepathically interface with women instead of actually working on his communication skills was right on the money), but instead, I’m going to focus on the draft’s extremely small-minded and boring perspective on theology. In the original draft, it turns out that our universe was created by the precursors, so they’d have somewhere to go when their own universe was no longer able to sustain them. Only, we just so happened to evolve and now that they want to move on in, we’re kind of in the way. At this point, characters talk about the precursors as if they are gods. One dude has basically just given up entirely because he’s decided that this means we can’t possibly do anything against them. Another character has basically the same opinion, but hasn’t given up because apparently he doesn’t know how to do anything but fight. Both of these characters just accept that if the precursors are the creators of the universe, then they must be gods, and therefore we must essentially project every trait we tend to associate with the God of modern Western Christianity onto them. The character Newt Gotlieb (yes, that’s his name) comments, “I don't care if they are the creators of the universe. I like the universe. And I'm not a creationist.”  This is a very odd thing to say because the concept of creationism that Newt would be referring to simply does not apply here. Even though he’s rejecting the idea that just because they’re gods means they’re all-powerful and entitled to do anything with our universe that they please, he’s still viewing them as gods in a way that forces them into a modern Western Christian framework. The script does not establish why we should consider them gods aside from the fact that they created our universe. It’s implied that they did this with a particle accelerator, which is of course a kind of technology that we already have, which implies that they might just be a bunch of people who have had time to develop more powerful technology than we presently have. It’s an absolute leap that only makes sense from an extremely narrow-minded point of view.  One could, for example, conclude that while the precursors did create our universe, they are merely just advanced people, and that God is a much greater entity who wanted humanity to be here. This version of God might have been perfectly happy to let the precursors move in, if only they’d been willing to move literally anywhere that wasn’t this little speck of dust in particular. One might take the position that gods as we understand them are in fact an emergent phenomenon of this universe, developing either before or alongside us, with no origins or existence outside of this universe. In such a case, the precursors might have their own gods. One could take the position that the precursors are gods in the sense that any being with a certain amount of power beyond ours could be considered a god. Of course, this would also mean that godhood is relative and subjective, which means that humanity as it is now could already be considered gods in some sense. Of course, if we grant that the precursors aren’t entitled to take over our universe just because they have superior power over us, then we also have to ask ourselves what we aren’t entitled to simply because we have superior power over other people and other aspects of nature. There are probably a ton of other possibilities that I’m not thinking of right now, but hopefully this is enough to demonstrate how unimaginative this kind of writing is, and how weird it looks if you don’t subscribe to a very specific worldview.