Pacific Rim: The Black – Season 1 review

Netflix’s Pacific Rim: The Black – which serves as a sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim and 2018 sequel, Pacific Rim: Uprising – is both a YA adventure and a darker, deadlier version of the franchise. Fast forwarding into the past of countless Kaiju encounters and many (hopeless) wars and a ravaged future reminiscent of Mad Max (aside from being set just in Australia), The Black is a fiery fable. and fierce that is beautifully animated and creatively cool. The Black Back, Just A Little Bit, in its first season, is the story itself that takes a while to completely gel. That, plus many sci-fi tropes swirling together (mute mysterious child, siblings looking for parents, the emotionally scarred loner, etc.), makes the saga sink in one fell swoop. Especially since if a series takes three or four episodes to start and the season is only seven episodes in total, the awkwardness takes almost half the time. Once The Black finds his legs, it’s a good dark time.

The mere fact that The Black takes place on an abandoned continent that was completely crushed by the Forerunner’s Kaiju already makes it look darker than the movies. Although the world is brutally assaulted by monsters in the movies, the story is still about humanity trying to defeat these interdimensional enemies once and for all. To end the siege. It’s not even an option in The Black, as the main focus here, at least in this first season, is a young brother and sister duo Taylor (Calum Worthy) and Hayley (Gideon Adlon) trying to make it through the Australian badlands. on a quest to find their long lost mom and dad. There is no question of defeating the forerunners or ending the plague of Kaiju. It’s a smaller, more intimate family story set in the ruin.

The transition from the myth and chaos of live action to 3D animation is hauntingly handled by Polygon Pictures, which gives us the same colorful vibrancy seen in the movies while creating a world of its own, with new Kaiju designs and a wasteland paradise to explore. The story is heavy and it sometimes moves a little too quickly beyond part of its granularity (the two teenagers are used to a lot people killed, um, inadvertently), but once you realize that burying guilt and fear deep is just a basic survival mechanism for these kids, it makes more sense.

Plus, all of this psychological baggage runs deep into the concept of “drift,” which is as important here as it is in the movies. All the more so, in fact, since one of the strengths of the series is that it presents us with a set of heroes who are crippled in every way possible. They haven’t been tested, are only partially trained, don’t know what their next movie is, and come with an unarmed Jaeger – Atlas Destroyer – which is only used for cadet training. Add in scheming thieves, roaming monsters (a Kaiju named Copperhead is a constant and cruel bane) and all-new life forces born out of the “Uprising Wars” (yes, the sequel is important, it turns out), and The Black becomes quite a captivating climb for our protagonists.

Pacific Rim: The Black maintains a high level of action and devastation, as you would expect from this franchise, while also keeping the fragile family drama alive, which was important in the movies as well. It’s actually a bit better explored in The Black, naturally, as it’s an ongoing series, and that helps blend the desolation and gloom that often prevails here. Taylor and Hayley both blame each other for many mistakes, but they also help each other carry that emotional weight, as well as help others they take on their way to cope with their trauma. Nothing, and no one, is unscathed in The Black.