All 3 Pacific Rim Movies in Order
With the advancement in the technology that movies are using today, it has become more possible for filmmakers to produce larger-than-life movies that focus on special effects and CGI to produce equally large creatures and robots. This is where we look at Pacific Rim, a film series that brings kaiju wars to life, as we get to see larger-than-life robots taking on equally large monsters. So, if you’re interested in watching the Pacific Rim movies and shows, we have the complete watch order.
How Many Pacific Rim Movies And Shows Are There?
While the Pacific Rim franchise isn’t as vast as some of the other franchises in fiction, it has still created its own series that’s composed of two movies and a Netflix animated show that you can stream online. In that regard, there are two different Pacific Rim movies that you can watch and one Pacific Rim animated series that’s available for streaming. Here is the complete list of Pacific Rim movies and shows:
- Pacific Rim (2013)
- Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)
- Pacific Rim: The Black (2021 – Present)
Is Pacific Rim: The Black Canon?
We do know that Pacific Rim has two movies. However, in 2021, an animated Pacific Rim series was released on Netflix. Called Pacific Rim: The Black, this series doesn’t follow the two movies in the sense that there are hardly any characters from the films present in the series. So, is Pacific Rim: The Black canon?
There is no exact confirmation whether or not Pacific Rim: The Black is canon because there are only minimal connections to the movies. However, there are plenty of reasons to believe that this series is canon because it is the story that continues the entire Pacific Rim franchise following the less-than-stellar box office returns that Pacific Rim: Uprising had.
Of course, while they may be minimal, there are connections between Pacific Rim: The Black and the movies. It refers to events that happened in the first two movies, and that’s why we can safely say that this series is canon, although it doesn’t feature characters that were present in the films.
Pacific Rim The Complete Chronological Watch Order
One of the things that Pacific Rim is known for is that it takes place in a futuristic timeline where humans are able to produce gigantic robots powerful enough to take on beasts that are several hundreds of feet large. But in what order should you watch the movies? Well, the good news is that the films are pretty straightforward in their timeline, and that’s what we’re here to look at.
Pacific Rim (2013)
Pacific Rim is the movie that started the entire story as it takes place at a time when monstrous creatures called kaiju began rising from the sea to attack populated cities. The kaiju began destroying cities one by one and were seemingly unstoppable until humanity built their own monsters in the form of the Jaegers, which are giant robots that are designed to be operated by two humans who share a neural bridge. The film opens up with an ex-pilot who left the war against the kaiju when his brother died in battle while they were still sharing a neural bridge.
Years later, mankind was now on the brink of extinction because not even the Jaegers were enough to stop the seemingly unstoppable assault of the kaiju. The pilot was brought back to battle and was forced to team up with an untrusted trainee in an old Jaeger, which proved to be the difference-maker in the war against the kaiju.
Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)
Pacific Rim: Uprising takes place ten years after the events of the first movie, and that means that it takes place in 2035. This film follows the story of Jake Pentecost, the son of one of the top Jaeger pilots of the first movie, who ended up sacrificing himself to close the bridge that the kaiju were using to cross over to the planet. Struggling to live up to his father’s legacy, Jake abandoned his training as a pilot but ends up getting drawn into the war once more when his adopted sister, Mako Mori, gives him one last chance to become a Jaeger pilot once again at a point when the kaiju have become seemingly unstoppable.
The movie is much more ambitious in terms of its robot-kaiju battles as there are more Jaegers involved. On top of that, the monsters are bigger than they ever were, and this makes it a treat for those who love watching movies that allow you to enjoy some good battles between things that are larger than life.
Pacific Rim: The Black (2021 – Present)
Pacific Rim: The Black is kind of confusing when it comes to where it falls in the timeline. While the first two movies are very much straightforward because they take place in 2025 and 2035, respectively, The Black seems to be quite ambiguous in where it falls in the timeline because there wasn’t anything mentioned about when the series takes place.
We do know that the start of the movie takes place at a time when Herc Hansen, who was a prominent character in the first Pacific Rim movie, was still alive because he was shown in a flashback where he was fighting in Australia before the events of Operation Blackout. Meanwhile, the Travis siblings, the main characters of the show, were aged five years from the time when the flashback about Hansen happened. From there, the timeline was already ambiguous because there was no indication of when this series happens.
But there are some clues that would point to the fact that The Black does indeed take place after Uprising. That’s because there are some references to the Uprising Wars, which is the war that took place during Pacific Rim: Uprising. There were also scenes that were shown about the Travis siblings discovering destroyed Jaegers that took place in the Uprising Wars, and that means that this series is the farthest point in the Pacific Rim timeline.
That said, it is possible that Pacific Rim: The Black takes place in 2040 because the Uprising Wars happened in 2035, and there was a five-year gap between Operation Blackout and the main story of the series. Whatever the case may be, what we can assure is that this series takes place right after Pacific Rim: Uprising.
