WMG / Pacific Rim

The Breach wasn't created unstable

The Breach wasn't always unstable, but this was the one that opened in the cretaceous and has slowly degraded over time. Allows for them to bring in double or triple events as well as Cat 4s and 5s

Rebuilt/Repaired Jaegers for Sequel

Okay, so we know there will be a sequel (or possibly prequel). Perhaps the PPDC could salvage the older Jaegers that were destroyed. This could lead to some of the fan-favorites/Ensemble Dark Horse Jaegers to return. Examples:

• Crimson Typhoon v2: We see that in the fight against Otachi the only real damage to Crimson is that it's comm-pod was destroyed. This would be an easy fix (and they'd likely but it lower/armor it so it's not so exposed)
• Coyote Tango v2: Fix that radiation shielding issue, and give it better armor and you've got one hell of a long-rage Kaiju killer.
  • According to Word of God, it was put back into service and subsequently destroyed in battle.

Mark VI speculations and Gipsy Danger II

Okay, so, it's been confirmed they're planning a sequel and that we'll see a new Gipsy Danger. Assuming they will restart the Jaeger project (and they should, otherwise there wouldn't be much of a movie), this mean all further Jaeger, barring possibly rebuilding more of them from Oblivion Bay, will be Mark VI. The Mark of a Jaeger both indicate the wave/year it was made but also, to an extent, advances in technology. The movie clearly showed that even the state-of-the-art Mark V Striker Eureka couldn't handle all those Category 4 and that Category 5 Kaiju all by itself, proving that Jaegers of previous marks will soon become obsolete should the Kaijus come back. If the PPDC get it's funding back, then that mean we'll see a new generation of Jaegers and we can speculate about the leaps and bounds of improvement we could see...

• Improved range of motion; The fact Crimson could perform kicks and flips was in itself a large feature of it. Mark VI will improve upon Crimson and Striker's agile design to make even faster Jaegers with an even wider range of motion. Expect full-on Lightning Bruiser compared to the slow tanks of past generations.
• Flight stabilizers; Jaegers probably can't fly (and never will, short of anti-grav technology) but given the Otachi fight, it's clear that Jaegers need to be designed so they can better slow down and control their fall.
• EMP Shielding
• Kaiju brains; They brought up the idea of a Kaiju-Jaeger fusion in the sequel, after all. Two human pilots+a cloned kaiju brain to provide superior coordination and possibly even allow to anticipate what a Kaiju can do as the pilots tap into the hivemind.
• Synthetic Muscle structures using carbon nano-tubes replacing some of the mechanical systems and giving the Jaegers a more organic appearance in certain places that look like black muscle and tendons found on representations of humans without skin.
• A Mark VII Jaeger which uses a successful 1 pilot system by using a pilot with neurological cybernetic implants that allows the pilot to export many of their brain functions into the Jaeger's computer. This will have the effect of almost entirely eliminating any delay between the pilots thoughts and the Jaegers movement and will also cause a reciprocated Cargo Ship between the lone pilot and the PPDC AI.
• One of the Jaegers will have the word Apache in the name and will use a scaled up tomahawk as a weapon. The tomahawk will pump plasma along the blade to heat it up and increase damage while cauterizing Kaiju wounds and the edge will glow orange.
• The ability to switch out weapons for each mission. On the fridge page its stated part of the reason the Kaiju started doing so well against the Jaegers wasn't just because the Kaiju got stronger. They also learned the Jaegers tactics and weapons, and acted to counter them and attack weakpoints. Gypsy Danger does so well because it has new weapons, rendering the old information useless, and Raleigh and Mako are very flexible and improvisational in their fighting style. So keeping the Kaiju guessing by switching weapons, and maybe even pilots will become a major part of the strategy. A Jaeger might be sent out on one mission with missile launchers and a heated sword, or it might be sent out with a flamethrower and electrified whips.
  • So essentially ideas pulled from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED specifically the Strike. Launcher Packs? Sounds cool. And could even help with the EMP problem. Back up powerpacks.
• Emphasis on heavy weapons and firepower, as well as being able to take hits, instead of flashy agility. Given just how long Cherno Alpha lasted and how powerful it was with it's outdated tech, (Equal to Fragile Speedster Crimson Typhoon, a Mark IV Jaeger), It's a good bet it's more effective to build em strong than fast, with heavy weapons intended for the likes of Slattern being part of it.
  • Mk V design actually supports Lightning Bruiser line of thinking. Striker Eureka was not only the most powerful, but also the fastest, Jaeger made. Especially since Cherno Alpha's demise has shown that Kaiju can easily defeat heavy armor.
• Attack Jaegers (also called "Breachers") designed to penetrate the Breach and take the war to the Alterverse. Massive firepower will be their trademark, possibly including nuclear weapons. One Jaeger could easily carry the arsenal of a missile sub.

Stacker will come back in the sequel. Sort of.

At least via Flashbacks when inside the Drift. It was hinted at in the movie. Possibly as some sort of crude Drift-created Spirit Advisor.

• Alternate: Stacker will be resurrected as an AI when they try to repair a Jaeger using parts from Coyote Tango's computers.
  • Alternate alternate: The movie will be a prequel.

Newt's mind was permanently altered by drifting twice with Kaiju

Raleigh is this universe's version of Phillip J.Fry

Has a brother named Yancy, was fascinated by outer space and alien life as a child.

• And his closest companions are an Action Girl and a self-destuctive robot.

"Gipsy" is not an insult in the Pacific Rim-verse

In real life, 'Gypsy' is an ethnic slur regarding the Roma people. But in the Pacific Rim world, it's not. This is because of Gipsy Danger. The Jaeger-Gipsy was so famous that if anyone called anyone else a 'Gipsy', they were very probably referring to the mecha, and so "Gipsy" eventually became a way of saying that someone was a hero.

• Jossed. The Jaeger was, according to Guillermo Del Toro, named after the de Havilland Gipsy Engine.
  • I think that the original troper meant that maybe in the Pacific Rim-verse "Gipsy" was the slur it always was until 2013. But when Gipsy Danger fought his first battle, when she became the beacon of hope that she is, the word "Gipsy" started to be used for design heroics. Much like until some decades, in the fifth of november Guy Fawkes was a demon to be tortured and killed, but now, even the very same fifth of november, he's hailed as an hero
• It will forever be my headcanon that Yancy and Raleigh and/or the most influential creator of GD has/had prominent Romani ancestry, and the usage of "Gipsy" was a homage to that ancestry. Also because it sounds cool.
  • Or maybe the term "Gipsy" was used in the non-race-related sense of, say, "gypsy cab license".

The sequel will feature Kaiju again.

It will still be called Pacific Rim (II); but this time they'll come from the Atlantic ocean.

• Then it'd be pretty much the same plot again.
• Wouldn't it then be called ‘Atlantic Rim’? Or something like, ‘Pacific Rim: Rise Of The Atlantic’? Why would they call it ‘Pacific’ if it has to do with the Atlantic, not the pacific?
  • For the same reason Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan weren't in "The Kung Fu Kid"
  • 'Atlantic Rim' has already been taken by an Asylum mockbuster.

The Kaiju are not conventionally organic.

The Kaiju, made entirely of organic matter, ought to collapse under their own weight thanks to the square-cube law, but regardless can even fly on occasion. This is because they are partially composed of some extra dimensional substance that is light enough and strong enough to allow something that massive to move easily and be actually durable. When humanity slew the first Kaiju using conventional weaponry, they used or reproduced the material to make their own monsters. That's why we don't already have jaeger-like technology today: what's needed to make them is not from this universe.

• This might help explain why they tend to decompose so fast after death.
  • The novelization mentions the Kaiju are silicon based life.

Gipsy Danger will either...

• Be heavily damaged in the beginning, forcing it to be put away and for the pilots to use the older, model mech.
• It IS the old mech. After it gets damaged there will be a timeskip and a second chance for it to prove itself.
  • Confirmed. Gipsy Danger gets damaged in the prequel and brought back late in the game.

At one point, one or more Jaeger pilots will go nuts

Bonus points if they are controlling a Jaeger when it happens and we get a Mech vs. Mech fight.

• Sort of. Raleigh and Mako Mori desync during a calibration test with them Drifting in Gypsy Danger. Raleigh recovers, but Mako Mori gets caught in memory and activates one of the plasma cannons. Mission Control was just barely able to shut down Gypsy Danger before anything bad happened.

The climactic battle was meant to be a suicide mission.

No helicopters were sent until Mako resurfaced, because every character was expected to die.

• Two Jaegers journeying alone to the bottom of the ocean to drop a nuke down an interdimensional portal while fighting multiple Kaiju may have in fact been considered a suicide mission, but I don't think the lack of helicopters has anything to do with proving that none of the pilots were meant to survive. From what we see in the movie, the helicopters serve two purposes: Transporting Jaegers and spotting for their pilots. Keep in mind that, in this case, the Jaegers are deep underwater. The choppers can't see anything for them, and retrieving the Jaegers would be impossible from that location. The Jaegers would have to walk back to the shore until they could be attached to the chopper harnesses and hauled back to base. Remember, the original plan was to have Striker drop the bomb into the breech while Gipsy fought them off. In ideal circumstances, neither crew would have been lost, and neither would have had to escape their Jaegers. The only reason why they sent the helicopters out there in the first place was because changes in the plan meant Raleigh and Mako had to eject, something they hadn't been anticipating before the fight.

The movie is a sequel to Real Steel

• Tak Mashido, the inventor of robots such as Zeus and Noisy Boy, was hired to help scale up his robots to fight the kaiju.

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There's more to the Kaiju than there seems to be...

They're more than just monsters sent to wipe out humanity. Either its a group of humans who are controlling them and/or working with whoever's controlling them, or this is even bigger than the fate of humanity.

• And thus we will get a Kaiju/Jaeger vs Big Bad fight and it will be GLORIOUS!
• Confirmed. There are beings on the other side of the portal who are responsible for creating and sending the Kaiju through the breach.

Kaiju can see on a microscopic level.

Anyone notice how the Crab monster and Otachi went after one person each? There is no way any one of its eyes would be able to detect a human as small as an ant unless their eyes have special properties, allowing them to recognize facial features and dressings.

This may only apply to Otachi.

• Onibaba just had to find the one thing moving at high speed that was a colour other than grey and making an ungodly amount of noise. Not too hard. We can assume that Otachi was connected to Newt somehow mentally due to his Drift, though that really is WMG.
• That's not how eyes work. By that logic, and elephant can't see ants because they're too small, and ants can see individual cells.

AND Otachi COULD tell where Newt was, that's not a WMG, hence "It knows I'm here" and the deliberate tracking of him through the city without line of sight.

The one Japanese pilot will be a Large Ham even by this movie's standards.

That's his secret; none of the others grew up watching mecha anime.

• The Japanese pilot is female and trailers suggest she's probably a Lady of War
  • I assume the OP was referring to the pilot of Coyote Tango who's identity is unknown.
  • I posted this WMG and I just got back from watching the movie. Pentecost certainly gets the best lines, though his taste in anime is unknown.

General Pentecost will join the fight in the climax.

And he will be piloting Coyote Tango when he does it.

• Sorta. Pentecost was Coyote Tango's pilot, but that was in the past, and in the final fight he pilots Striker Eureka.

The Kaiju are made by humans.

Some Jaegers will be sent through the portal to attack the Kaijus at their source, and discover their source is a hidden lab on the scale of a Jaeger base run by a group of humans with the goal of taking over the planet.

• Almost. The portal is inter-dimensional, but there is a plan to go back through it to the source that is a lab. And those beings do want to take over the planet.

Coyote Tango's low kill count

Coyote Tango's official card shows that it has only killed two kaiju, despite being an older model with a consequently longer activity period. The explanation is one or more of:

• Being a model with a single pilot, the resulting mental strain makes it less efficient.
• It is a support unit intended to weaken kaiju for other Jaegers, not to kill them personally.
• Endless kill-steals, deliberate and otherwise, from the newer two-pilot models.
  • This is the most likely explanation. The movie does confirm that it wasn't always a 1 Vs 1 engagement against the Kaiju (Raleigh and Herc Hansen speak of meeting before during a three-Jaeger operation), and thus it is possible that while Coyote Tango fought several times, it only had the kill shot in two opportunities.
• It doesn't have a longer period and only appears in a flashback / earlier scene that takes place prior to its decommission or destruction.
• One or both of it's kills will come in the battle that cripples Gypsy Danger - Coyote Tango's actions are why Raleigh survives the battle.
  • Likely Jossed. The first Jaegers were built in 14 months, and no one thought about stuff like radiation shielding. Coyote Tango and its pilot, Pentecost, were retired with Pentecost (who has radiation-induced cancer) being told he'd die if he piloted Coyote Tango again/was exposed to any more radiation. Coyote Tango is also only seen in a flashback sequence.
  • Very much Jossed. Coyote Tango was removed from service after it's battle with Onibaba (15-05-2016) - this being it's only Kaiju kill. It got remodeled later and joined Striker Eureka in battle (9-10-2021) scoring second kill with new pilots on board. We lack official information on later attacks and if CT engaged any Kaiju till 10-11-2022 when it is destroyed.

Kaiju are piloted.

One of the trailers has a scene where the pilots seem to be exploring the innards of a Kaiju. Imagine how they'll react to discovering that, like the Jaegers, the Kaiju are essentially piloted machines. Who and what the pilots are is best left up to the imagination.

• Jossed, big time. The Kaiju are Genetically Engineered Bio Weapons.
• Variation: Future kaiju will be piloted and/or used as Trojan horses and the pilots/spies will look identical to humans a la Mimic. Newton's accidental(?) resemblance to Dr. Kasukabe will get even more pronounced when he falls in love with one of them. The other, more squeamish doctor would work just as well, and for added hilarity the human-kaiju is an amazonian Statuesque Stunner — not even because kaiju are huge, it's because she's modeled after the Russian pilot.

Horizon Blue will be piloted by at least two of the Wei Tang Triplets

It's hinted that the Chinese-made Horizon Blue may play a role in the film and in a movie still, there are two models being assembled. We don't hear a lot about Crimson Typhoon or its pilots, though it's predicted that Crimson Typhoon will be destroyed in the battle of Hong Kong. So it's not unreasonable to think that maybe two of the Wei Tang Triplets will get a chance to pilot one.

• First, it's Horizon Brave. Second, it is confirmed that Horizon Brave was killed in action, so it's unlikely that any of the Wei Tang Triplets were pilots for it.
  • Pretty much Jossed. The Wei Tang triplets pilot the three-armed Crimson Typhoon. However, the idea that it gets destroyed in the battle of Hong Kong is confirmed.

The film actually did cancel the Apocalypse.

The only reason the world is still standing after December 21, 2012, is because the Powers That Be heard that this film wasn't going to be released until after that date, and even they want to see it.

• Nah, it's because Desmond saved us all.
  • Because he wanted to see the movie.

This is a prequel to Legendary Pictures' Godzilla remake

Godzilla is the King of the Kaiju that are coming through the portal. The Jaegers will seemingly defeat all the Kaiju, and find out that there's one last monster that's on its way.

• Probably Jossed because it's mentioned the Kaiju are silicon-based, have acidic blood and release a toxic substance called Kaiju Blue from their decaying carcasses.
• On the other hand... It's mentioned in the film that the Kaiju's controllers wiped out the dinosaurs in their first invasion attempt. It's possible that they kept some specimens in their own world for any number of reasons. Godzilla was a dinosaur mutated by nuclear radiation, and at the end of the film Gipsy Danger detonates inside the controller's universe. Now wouldn't it be great if now that the Jaegers are all decommissioned or destroyed and humanity is defenseless to any other breaches that there might be a really big guy out there with a grudge against the controllers and their own monsters?
• Alternatively... the nuclear blast that creates Godzilla is the one set off by Striker Eureka in the ocean. The humans will, in effect, create their own kaiju by accidentally mixing nuclear radiation and the remains of Scunner, Raiju, and Slattern.
• Now that the Godzilla remake is out, this is possibly Jossed. Godzilla was awakened in the 1950s and not in the 21st Century. Also Godzilla was mutated not by Striker Eureka's nuke. but by nuclear attacks disguised as tests.
• However, both Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla confirm that they kept other Kaiju, like the Skullcrushers and the Mutos in their respective films in check like hunters. Both films establish that humans aren't too bright when it comes to dealing with Godzilla and King Kong so sometime after their big cross-over event, both monsters are killed by humans, thus allowing the Kaiju from Pacific Rim to emerge.
• The problem with all these theories connecting Pacific Rim to MonsterVerse is that there timelines just don't match up. In the Pacific Rim timeline, the first kaiju appeared in 2013 and destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge. In the MonsterVerse timeline, Godzilla destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge and kaiju were already known to humanity. As such if the two series existed in the same universe, there would be severe Continuity Snarl that would require massive retcons. Sorry kaiju fans but this is all Jossed.

The kaiju didn't kill the dinosaurs, they WERE the dinosaurs

It was a possible interpretation of Newt's words in the movie, but I'm mentioning it because most of the reactions I've seen have been "kaiju killed the dinosaurs", so I'm submitting it here.

The film is actually set in an alternate universe version of Half-Life

The film is about monsters invading Earth from another dimension, only this time humanity has giant mechs instead of a mute theoretical physicist with a crowbar. Also GLaDOS didn't go rogue and is helping the humans fight of the monsters.

• We do see the other side of the Breach and it looks like Xen. In this alternate Half-Life, the Xen aliens created the Resonance Cascade purposefully to facilitate the invasion of Earth.
• Gonarch is actually a prototype Kaiju that we see in the closing chapters of Half-Life.
• So are Striders and the other Combine synths.
• The Jaegers are either produced at or were initially designed by Aperture Laboratories, causing Cave Johnson to become rich (for a change), not suffer mercury (or moon-dust) poisoning, not try to put Caroline into the AI system, and thus not have a rampant GLaDOS. We all know that GLaDOS was uploaded as the AI in the earlier Jaegers.
  • Come to think of it, there is a cargo container displaying the Aperture Science logo visible (albeit for about a split second) during the fight with Leatherback....
  • Aperture Science managed to make a human-machine neural link (with the uploading of Caroline), so why couldn't they make a human-human(-machine) neural link?

The Jaegers are powered by an Applied Phlebotinum that's similar to Spiral Energy.

• Jossed; Gypsy Danger is powered by a pair of nuclear reactors, and apparently at least one of the other Jaegers is powered by something like fifty diesel engines.
  • Fifty diesel engines per Muscle Strand...

Gipsy Danger was designed and produced by Stark Industries.

• Nah. If it were, Gipsy Danger would probably be powered by an Arc Reactor instead of nuclear cores.

An older Hogarth Hughes was a consultant on Jaeger design and construction.

After what happened to him with SAMCRO, Clay Morrow went off to Hong Kong and recreated himself just in time for the Kaiju War.

Geiszler and/or Gottlieb studied at Miskatonic University.

• All the better to understand an Eldritch Abomination from another universe.
  • Well, it wouldn't be the first time a two-man robot was used against them.

The Jaegers will not be completely mechanical.

In keeping with the spirit of Mecha anime, and its seeming ties to Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Jaegers will be partially alien/use alien tech/something of the aliens'.

• Jossed - The Jaegers are completely mechanical, and it doesn't seem like anything is reverse engineered from the kaiju. All studies are about understanding them to kill them better.
  • But confirmed for the sequel, according to this interview. The only question is which side will be using the partially-alien machines...

Pacific Rim takes place 2000 years after the Titan invasion.

• Extremely unlikely; even accepting the notion that Attack on Titan's world had defeated the Titans in the intervening time frame and that they had once again spread across the globe, there is no way that a continent's worth of Asians are going to spring forth from Mikasa's^note humanity's last person of Asian descent, only being half-Asian herself lineage in the intervening time frame, let alone divide into both Japanese and Chinese branches to account for both Mako Mori and the Wei Tang Triplets.
  • Alternatively, Attack on Titan takes place 2000 years after Pacific Rim. The Kaiju were awed enough by humanity being the only race to defeat them that they created new soldiers in their image, and tried to retake Earth via the Titans. Walls Maria, Rose and Sina are the remnants of the walls built to defend humanity from Kaiju. The rift in the Pacific was reopened, and countries nearest to the Pacific were destroyed outright; hence why the majority of the cast in Attack are of European descent.
  • Alternatively, the Titans are result of an experimente in which humans tried to fuse the Jaeger's interface with the Kaiju biological armor and dimensions. And it went horribly wrong.

Gipsy Danger will actually perform a full on Rocket Punch

Not just using the rockets in the elbow to punch harder. Rather Gipsy Danger will end up trapped, and about the be destroyed, when it actually detaches, and launches it's fist at a Kaiju, punching it out.

• Jossed.

Chuck Hansen's attitude stems from his neural bridge with his father

He's just perpetually cranky because being mentally linked with his father caused him to have memories of stuff he really didn't want to have embedded in his head. His dad's perception of him being born? Not so bad. The process that caused him to be born, though?

• Partially correct. During the attack on Sydney, Hercules Hansen was forced to make the Sadistic Choice between saving his wife or his son. Chuck would have preferred Herc saved his mother, and Herc hates himself for loving his son more than his wife. They're both perfectly aware of the disconnect, and take their shared anger and self-hatred out on the Kaiju.

The inevitable sequel will feature Drills, Laser Blades and Combining Mecha.

Because not attempting to top the first in some way would be such a waste of good CGI.

Striker Eureka was a "clean-up" Jaeger

If Jaegers were falling one by one, somebody still had to take care of the Kaiju that destroyed said Jaegers. Striker Eureka's high kill count owes to being the Jaeger that typically went to finish the job once it became clear that the other Jaeger was destroyed.

The Kaiju also wanted the war to end

The kaiju seemed very slow and inefficient at killing the scientist, including the baby who had a perfect opportunity to chomp him but didn't. There seemed to be a distinction between the attacking kaiju and their masters. Maybe the kaiju were sick of their masters tossing them away in a series of unsuccessful attacks and held back to give the humans an opening to close the rift.

• The fact that one of the Kaiju is pregnant suggests an existence other than being purely constructed as weapons. Perhaps Kaiju were a victim race the Masters "repurposed."

Hannibal Chau didn't lose his eye in a public shelter — he lost it trying to interface with a kaiju brain.

• Hence why when he tugs down Newt's eyelid he immediately recognizes his bloody sclera/what he did and wants nothing more to do with it. His comment about how he did that once too isn't about going to the shelter at all, it's about doing something damned reckless.
  • Alternately, when he said he 'tried it once' he didn't mean just using a public shelter, he mean using one after he'd drifted with a kaiju. He tried it once, and a kaiju came specifically for him, the same way Otachi did with Newt.
  • If he attempted to drift with a kaiju that could explain how they knew to start targeting the pilots and exploit the Jaeger weaknesses. He does mention the Drift going both ways.
  • Despite me remembering Word of God saying somewhere that Newt was the first to try drifting with a Kaiju, it would make a lot of sense. Hannibal knows a lot about the Kaiju anatomy, and while that could be attributed to years of running his black market operations, I'd imagine hooking your brain up to a Kaiju would help with that too. I could imagine Hannibal, not realizing the Kaiju have a hivemind, thinking that drifting with a Kaiju would give him just enough knowledge of their biology to improve the efficiency of his business.

Slattern didn't survive the point-blank nuke

The Cat-5 Kaiju that looked like him was an identical or near-identical separate Kaiju that came through the rift afterward. He avoided detection by the ground-bound scientists because their sensors would've been briefly scrambled by the nuke. ...Because c'mon, there's no way that even a Cat-5 Kaiju could not be atomized by a point-blank 1.2-megaton thermonuclear explosion.

• He had the exact same wounds as Striker had inflicted before, on top of the burning from the explosion. Apparently Slattern really was just that tough. Those aliens sure do know how to make a hardy monster.
• Slattern wasn't the first Kaiju to survive a nuke. In 2014 Kaiju Scissure (which was at best Cat III) took not one but TWO tactical nukes before going down - this event convinced people it's time to look for an alternative.
• Trespasser, Kaiju numero uno, took three.
  • Three tactical nukes, after six days of continuous bombardment with every conventional weapon the United States Armed Forces could throw at it. Hardy monsters, indeed.

Hannibal Chau was not human.

Even if a baby Kaiju lacks the toxicity of adult Kaiju Blue or stomach acid; it chewed a few times swallowing him; and shook him back and forth while doing so. (Why do creatures do this? To break the necks/spines of their prey.)

• Word of God says that Hannibal has a "constructed persona." ...this is more literal than it appears; he's an interdimensional Kaiju flesh dealer. Being a native "placebo" black market organ dealer is the perfect cover. The Kaiju Masters have tried this stunt on other worlds in other dimensions. Hannibal sells flesh to worlds to wrap around bombs to send through rifts. "Meat Bombs" are a pretty effective deterrent.
  • Earth, however, is not a paying customer in whatever interdimensional currency he uses. (And he has to harvest Kaiju flesh somewhere)
  • This also explains how he understood the nature of the Kaiju hive-mind so quickly.
• Or he could be Hellboy, in disguise as a human, doing a deep cover operation for the BPRD, perhaps to root out the conspiracy behind the shutdown of the Jaeger program.

It wasn't "lack of pollution" that repelled the Kaiju from the Dinosaur Age.

That was his own feelings mixing in. (It's hard to seperate) It was whatever killed the dinosaurs; be it a meteor dust cloud, an ice age, or Phlebotinum. They could foretell it was coming.

The Cloverfield Monster was an offspring of a Kaiju that was dormant since the dinosaurs.

They can have children, after all. And we know the Kaiju visited Earth back then but it was "uninhabitable at the time".

• The Cloverfield Universe is one Alternate Universe across from the Pacific Rim one. The Cloverfield Monster's awakening was the signal to the hivemind that worlds in the multi-dimensional neighborhood were ready for colonization.

The sequel will feature human villains and/or man-made monster

In order to keep things fresh and not make the sequel just 'the first movie but bigger'. Beside, it happenned in Godzilla; there have been human-made monsters.

Kaiju pregnancy was the next step in the invasion

The kaijus are likely capable of self-fertilizing. Basically, after destroying Jaegers and going on a rampage they would spawn baby kaijus. No need to send out new ones out of the portal for a while after that. They would spawn troops on the human dimension by themselves.

The Kaiju were an attempt by the Ceph to invade.

Making planetfall on Earth during the dinosaur age, using an initial attack wave of Hive Minded organic weapons to destroy human resistance, and then colonizing the planet through the use of a wormhole? The Ceph wrote the book on Alien Invasion using those exact same tactics. The icing on the cake would have been if the film had called the breach an Einstein-Rosen bridge.

• And naturally, after the film's conclusion, the Jaeger program is scrapped (because of, you know, all the Jaegers being destroyed) while the United States & North Korea use Nanosuits to search for any other traces of aliens on the planet and make an interesting discovery on a certain island archipelago in the Pacific Ocean...

The entire story is set in the Warhammer 40K universe.

While the references to various mecha-style anime are all well and good, what stuck out the most to this troper was how similar running the Jaegers seems to be how Titans are operated in Dan Abnett's novel Titanicus. But instead of Imperator and Warlord classes, we have basic, essentially prototype Warhounds taking out similarly-sized kaiju. But beyond that, we also have an alternate dimension where physics operate in no way, shape or form the manner in which they do on earth, full of funky colors and a giant sun that looks like an eye that looks awful terrible.

• Also, Hannibal Chau is The Emperor. Why him? Because we know The Emperor had many guises in his past lives, and Hannibal, we find out, somehow knew from the get-go how to neutralize and dissect and clean up kaiju corpses in a relatively short amount of time. He also has apparently an intimate familiarity with how the neural handshake works. Seems like an immortal guy that has a hand in founding both The Imperium AND The Mechanicum would be familiar with giant chaos-beasts AND how to build the Titans needed to fight for his armies on a larger scale.
• Possibly in the future it becomes possible to have a single pilot for a Jaeger by replacing the second pilot with an AI 'pilot' in the form of the Machine Spirit.
• To add to this, the Kaiju seem awfully similar to Tyranid Bio-titans, and, considering the Tyranids have apparently eaten other galaxies and can absorb the DNA of their victims...
• Just a minor issue OP. Jaegers are a lot bigger than Warhound Titans. Warhound Titans are 14 meters tall, the shortest Jaeger on record (Horizon Brave) is 72.5 meters tall. Unless you're talking about weaponry, then yes. Jaegers seem to fall somewhere between Warhound and Warlord Titans in terms mobility/damage output however.
  • In that case, they could be considered a generalized Titan prototype — over time, more specialized models were developed, including physically smaller Warhounds for scouting and skirmishing, and larger and more powerful Warlords and Emperors for increasingly large and powerful foes (the Kaijus/Tyranids would hardly stop at Category V beasts, after all).
• They could be early Imperial Knights.

The kaiju's master's didn't know that there was sentient life on the other side of the portal.

This is a long-shot. It requires you to accept that the Kaiju don't have the kind of telepathy implied in the film, and coming after the scientist was just coincidence (he happened to be there), or else that the telepathy is limited in what it can send back. The Master's did, evidently, have ways of checking environmental factors for settlement, and the EMP weapon could be a good sign that they were intentionally trying to counter the Jaeger's, but I don't think there's a smoking gun to show that they really intended to kill other sentient beings. Yes, the scientists drifted with the Jaeger's, but so what? How much did the Jaeger's really know about their own purpose? Beyond "the invasion will escalate until all life is exterminated," what they said was probably just speculation.

• Considering the very next assault after one of their kaiju had to spend an hour busting through a wall included the first ever flying kaiju, and one that could spit corrosive to demolish barriers no less, it's pretty clear the Masters were making deliberate countermoves to overcome the humans' defenses. Unless they have some really, really smart wildlife on their home dimension, it's pretty clear they realized Earth's natives were methodically and deliberately opposing them.

Hannibal Chau is a former PPDC Scientist

He isn't an underworld figure who became a Kaiju expert, he's a Kaiju expert who became an underworld figure. The powers that be didn't just wake up one day and decide to ashcan the Jaeger program, they've been siphoning away resources to build the Wall of Life for years, and Chau was one of the guys who got handed their walking papers when a lab got shut down. Going underground, and likely taking a healthy chunk of equipment and cashiered personnel with him, he turned his expertise to the task of commercial exploitation of the Kaiju. When the PPDC finally completely pulled Marshal Pentecost's funding, Chau offered him the cash needed to continue the fight half out of self interest (if the government starts nuking Kaiju again, he'll have no product to sell) and half because he knows the Jaegers are Earth's best shot of winning. Pentecost, remembering Chau and knowing him to be a professional, accepts the offer and plays along with the "Hannibal Chau" deception to give himself a bit more plausible deniability.

This is the past of a Mass Effect AU.

Quoted from this SpaceBattles post: "[T]he Reaper's idea of turning multiple organisms into a single organism was an evolution of the Neural Bridge concept taken to the extremes. If two can stabilize a giant Jaeger, why not have more to stabilize larger machines? Then things went horribly wrong from there..."

• also:If those were not early model omni tools the pilots used in the Jeager cabins, I'm Trope Tan's mother.

Jaegger's partially run on Magic Powered Pseudo Science.

Especially the older ones. "Gipsy Danger isn't digital, it's analogue!" ....analogue....nuclear. With electronic displays and GLaDOS. HA HA HA—No. By his own admission, Raleigh wasn't an expert on electronics. But when you're hooked into the mental link; it doesn't matter; especially if one is driven by sheer will. Hercules unfortunately knew enough about modern electronics that the EMP wave could effect Striker Eureka; his broken arm was painful enough to interfere with his will. (Chuck didn't know enough about electronics, and Pentecost and Mako were driven enough that it didn't matter.)

• Essentially, Gipsy Danger is a Super Robot with a Real Robot retrofit. Access the Neural link deep enough; and you access the SR parts.
• It was probably because Gipsy Danger was off. EMPs don't actually damage equipment that's not running an electrical charge.
  • Um, yes they can. The damage might be less, especially if there were a lot of physically opened circuits, but anything with wires can be damaged by an EMP. On the other hand, Gipsy Danger's circuits might have been less miniaturized and less sensitive, both of which would make it less vulnerable. It might even have been built before "everyone knew" that Kaiju couldn't generate EMP and had hardened electronics.
  • I'd rather guess that because Gipsy Danger is powered by nuclear reactor whole installation is shielded from radiation - it is perfectly doable - along with Conn-Pod being shielded as a whole to protect the pilots - it would allow digital display inside. The point Raleigh made about it being "resistant because analogue" was on the other hand his mistake as he's not an expert - he just remembered about shielding and tried to make a point.
  • The line bothered me at first too, but then I remembered something interesting about Gipsy Danger. In particular, the strange mechanisms on the floor of the cockpit that Raleigh and Yancy's boots attach to. It's quite possible that "Analogue" is shorthand for a Jaeger with fully or semi-analogue motion input, as opposed to a completely digital one. Much in the same way we call a car with manual transmission a "Manual". Radiation shielding on the Jaeger would have been built up around the reactor, but it's possible the cockpits were a noticeable weak point for an EMP blast. When the blast struck, Striker's unit was completely knocked out because it didn't have proper shielding and the pilot input was completely digital, so even if the Jaeger had been semi-functional, it's possible they wouldn't have been able to maneuver it at all. In that case, what Raleigh is really saying is that Gipsy Danger is both an "Analogue" input Jaeger with a nuclear reactor and therefore radiation shielding, meaning it can operate without much trouble even after the blast.

The Aliens sent Leatherback and Otachi to retrieve Dr. Geizler...

Because he was the first being on our side of the rift that ever contacted them. It was the first sign of sapience we'd shown that they're capable of acknowledging or understanding. Those two Kaiju were sent to see if it was a fluke or not.

Identical twins and triplets will become a lot more common in this Verse.

Drifting technology offers so much promise for other future technology — brain-controlled vehicles, machinery, computer networks, etc — that couples undergoing IVF will start seeking monozygotic multiple births rather than singletons, in hope that their children will get high-paying jobs as drift-pilots. At least, once the Kaiju War's end is confirmed and they aren't afraid of them being drafted and slaughtered by monsters, that is.

• Not Necessarily, you need two or more pilots because of how huge and complex a Jeager is. Controlling an excavator or any other piece of equipment is probably simple enough for a single person to do it.
• True, there'll be singleton pilots for simpler machines. Drifting teams will probably still be in high demand, though, as complex higher-end equipment is bound to be more taxing to operate than low-end.

This movie will be included in future Super Robot Wars games.

Heroes from multiple Alternate Universe with there many Humongous Mechas soon realize that this world is in great danger and so they cross far and wide just to save it.

Possible future technologies/plot lines for any sequels:

In addition to the Drills, Laser Blades and Combining Mecha mentioned in a previous WMG, I can think of some new features that can come into play in the Pacific Rim Universe after the events of this film (may or may not include a tag-team by the return of the Kaiju from another portal in the ocean):

• Transforming Mecha: Not only a gratuitous way to Troll the Michael Bay Transformers Film Series, but also can be handwaved as attempting to give Jaegers more mobility than a slightly clutzy Humongous Mecha (along with opportunities for Combining Mecha, a la Power Rangers), either to reduce collateral damage from knocking around in city centers, or to fight equally more "streamlined" Kaiju (who, in this idea, are a bunch of smaller creatures that Zerg Rush as either a prelude or support force for the gigantic Kaiju). These Jaegers will be smaller to allow them the ability to transform into vehicles, and thus will only need one pilot (albeit one who's good syncing in both Mecha mode, and Vehicle mode). Assuming a vehicle "team" can transform into one Combining Mecha, all of the pilot minds sync up when they combine.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion homage: In an effort to harness various advantages of Organic Technology, from Healing Factor to Unstoppable Rage, future Jaegers will be cyborgs partly cloned from the Kaiju themselves but clad in armor to keep the public in the dark (the armor also doubles as a Power Limiter). Interfacing with them, however, will require being able to withstand drifting with a Kaiju brain and tends to mangle one's psyche somewhat. Regardless, Newt obviously Jumped at the Call and insisted upon becoming a pilot.
• Tropes in Space (I.E. Orbital Bombardment (particuarly with a Kill Sat), Cool Starships and Drop Ships, SpaceStations and off-planet colonies, etc.): basically, after the Pacific region is completely trashed, and the future of humanity remains uncertain if the Kaiju decide for another go, somebody gets the bright idea to use some of the technological research put into the Jaegers into building sustainable colonies on the Moon and other planets. A possible plot point for a new Big Bad is to have a traditional alien incursion coming from outside the solar system, (starting with the extraterrestrial colonies before getting to Earth), or have one or more of these extraterrestrial colonies "rebelling" against Earth (think the Helghans and ICA from [[Video Game/Killzone]] - with Humongous Mecha!!!). The latter is particularly interesting as it allows inter-human conflict, pure mecha-on-mecha battles, and possible low gravity fights on the Moon or Mars.
• Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: In this case, either a government agency or financial entrepreneur decides to figure out more of this "Living Weapon" business with the Kaiju, and tries to integrate their brain matter into replicating the "Hive Mind" in a human body (a misguided attempt to strengthen a human psyche to sync with a Jaeger solo at best, an insidious attempt at making a Hive Mind of humanity at worst). "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?", right? Naturally, this would make whoever is unlucky enough to get the treatment get Psychic Powers, and batshit insanity as well: either these psychic psychos are Brainwashed and Crazy for whoever made them, the original Hive Mind takes over the psychic and uses them as their own agent on Earth, or the psychic simply Turned Against Their Masters, and humanity in general (or at lest racks up A LOT collateral damage trying to get those they have a grudge with).
• A more general addition would allow for Artificial Limbs, Cyborgs, and Ridiculously Human Robots - no plot point for them, per se (they're more for filling in new Rule of Cool stuff along with the plot hooks I could think of).
• Callback to Mimic with humanoid kaiju spies. Heck, for all we know there could've been human-kaiju spies since the second one came to earth.
• Another Rift opens, but this time, the Kaiju are actually Humongous Mecha for their creators, having decided that it's probably most cost-effective to send sapient pilots. At least one will be a Worthy Opponent disgusted with his race's ambitions of conquest when they can just colonize another, uninhabited planet, and communicating with him (and his Heel–Face Turn) will be a major plot point. The main villain will be a General Ripper who apparently doesn't understand the concept of Sunk Cost Fallacy.
• Remember the offhandedly mentioned group of people who worshiped the Kaiju, thinking that they were a divine sign of the gods being dissatisfied with humanity? After the drift is closed, they organize a revenge effort and decide that is their divine mission to continue to the kaiju's missions. Whether they somehow clone the Kaiju or start making Jaegers to mimic the Kaiju doesn't matter. What matters: Humanity is once again its own worst enemy, and the Jaeger program has to be reinstated to combat this new home-grown threat. And the twist will be that those who are funding the cult are actually the people who manufacture the Jaegers. It was a multi-billion dollar industry, and they weren't willing to let it die. This can add a whole new level of espionage sub-plots and more traditional action. Or...
• The above mentioned humans with robots against humans with robots, but—as mentioned above—a result of space colonies declaring independence. This will allow Deltoro to pay homage to an entirely different area of the mecha anime genre, the area that Mobile Suit Gundam established.
• The kid who was there when Gypsie Danger first hit shore after its defeat by Knifehead grows up and becomes a Jaeger pilot, most-likely citing Raleigh as either inspiration or a source of doubt.
• A future film will show the Kaiju as genetically engineered bioweapons are as much as victims of the Masters, as the very humans they're ordered to exterminate. They're none too happy about it. Eventually a mutant strain in the Hive Mind starts to manifest, and spread out to where the creatures have effectively Turned Against Their Masters. Said Precursors, are furious at their own bioweapons openly defying them, and decide if the uprising cannot be quelled, then the Earth invasion is a lost cause that must be purged. So the Masters opt to destroy the entire planet along with the rebelling Kaiju. The PPDC will be faced with a dilemma: Do they extinguish this anomaly in the Hive Mind, to continue the war and save Earth from annihilation by the alien Precursors? Or do they assist the Kaiju rebellion, knowing if they win together, the creatures will call Earth "home" and become a Master Race over humanity?

Birds, reptiles, and at least some fish are descended from ancient kaiju

Kaiju controllers send "dinosaurs" as scouts to earth; dinos report that the atmosphere's no good so the controllers leave them here; dinos evolve over millions of hears into modern animals — Knifehead etc. doesn't just "look like a shark", it is a shark — and eventually lose their connection to the kaiju hive mind. OR DID THEY!?

• Its scientifically impossible for the original dinosaurs to have been our birds and reptiles. As genetically designed clones, they would be incapable of breeding sustainably enough for enough genetic variance to take hold andnevolution to work. More likely the Kaiju just fought the dinosaurs. Which incidentally, sounds like an awesome idea for a prequel

Pentecost raised Mako to be more Japanese than the Japanese as a form of honoring the dead.

She was 10 when she left Japan. Usually children who leave their culture at that point naturalize elsewhere quickly. Granted, the trauma may have solidified things. She and Pentecost must have ritualized it. He spoke Japanese, yeah, but when he adopted her, he also did his best to raise her Japanese fashion. His dialogue does indicate he knew Japanese philosophy. This combined with her being a loner and living a military life crystalized her personality.

• It's very possible that even if Pentecost didn't do this, Mako primarily had (or sought out) interactions with older more traditional Japanese people, a lower-key version of what seems have happened with Hermann judging from his flashbacks. (Awkward child prodigy whose only peers/intellectual companions were stodgy adults of an earlier generation; voluntarily adopts a painfully-British, painfully-academic presentation as a result.) Her identity isn't completely depersonalized and homogenized — her hair dye, boots, personalized living space, etc. She could have voluntarily sought out that kind of discipline herself, in the same way Pentecost relies on his framework of military discipline/hierarchy even no longer formally in the military.

Mako's "Chasing the RABIT" scene

I wondered why Mako falls into this, seeing as she's 1. The adopted daughter of an ex-Ranger, who would have no doubt told her about this when she expressed her desire to become a Jaeger pilot, 2. Having a really high score in the simulation, which would probably have a Drifting segment and 3. Having read a lot about the Jaegers and their pilot. Then it hit me: When you're Drifting with someone, you're sharing your memories, instinct and emotions with them. If they're not careful, one of the Jaeger pilot might lost his/her own identity in the process. When Mako was Drifting with Raleigh for the first time, she wasn't just Drifting with him. She was also Drifting with Yancy, or whatever left of him in Raleigh's brain. Raleigh has 5 years to deal with having part of his brother inside of him. Mako didn't. She was almost lost in there, so she latched onto her strongest - and perhaps the one most defining - memory: Pentacost saving her with Coyote Tango.

• This is actually what happened in the Novelization.
• Also, remember Raleigh "went out of synch first." He unexpectedly flashed back to Yancy's death, but he was experienced enough in the Drift to get back under control. That traumatic memory triggered Mako's own traumatic memory, and she wasn't experienced enough to rein it back in.

The PPDC is the equivalent of X-COM

They pulled funding and built the wall, so it's now their equivalent of Cydonia or Bust, T'Leth, Mothership assault, and interdimenso

Pacific Rim is set in the past relative to The Big O

Come on, I'm not the only one who thought that Jaegars look an awful lot like megadeuses (spl?), am I? The big monsters which occasionally show up in Big O are "wild" Kaiju which have lost purpose since their creators are no longer there to instruct them. At some point in the future following the destruction of the breach, mankind falls back into old habits and, eventually, most of the world is reduced to a wasteland, with Paradigm City being an island of civilization where the remains of several different Jaegars have either been collected or laid to rest.

The sequel will have extraterrestrial Kaiju attacks

How did the Breach get under the Pacific in the first place? Either it was put there by another race before the dinosaurs died out - in which case, the Kaiju creators can probably space travel - or the Kaiju creators can choose where it opens. And since they know humans are too powerful to defeat with just what they can send through like they did, the best option could be to open another breach somewhere humans can't get to. Somewhere that could potentially support life, or be made to support life. Such as another planet. Mars?

The sequel...

Will see terrorists stealing and rebuilding the destroyed jaegers and used to plunge the world into chaos. Now the only hope lies with Newt and the young kaiju who has imprinted upon him. But can Tachi Jr. mature fast enough to defeat the rogue jaegers, or will it simply be the latest kaiju to fall at their hands?

In the sequel, the Kaiju will not only reopen the Pacific rift, but will also attack through the Arctic.

Because the Atlantic and Indian oceans have too many nations that were untouched. Three of the Arctic nations - America, Russia, and Canada - will already be strained combating the second Pacific incursion. Unfortunately for the Kaiju, that still leaves Norway, Denmark, and Iceland... who will promptly name their mechs Thor, Odin, and Loki.

• Considering that the US was only able to construct four Jaegers, it seems really unlikely that any of the Scandinavian countries would be able to construct one solo, especially since they would presumably already be helping with the construction of Jaegers in the Pacific zone. A Norwegian/Danish/Swedish/Finnish collaboration stationed in Norway and a British/Icelandic jaeger stationed on Iceland seems more likely.

The sequel will feature a revitalization of the Jaeger program to face the growing Kaiju infestion in the Pacific

Otachi was the first pregnant Kaiju ever discovered, not because it was the first pregnant Kaiju, but because the others had already given birth before reaching their target cities. Next to a full-sized Kaiju, its easy for a blue whale sized baby to slip away from the PPDC's radar. The portal is destroyed, but the Kaiju have become a full-blown invasive species.

This will massively raise the stakes for the sequel, as there's no portal to target to put a stop to it, and there aren't single events anymore, its a constant, exponentially escalating attack. This will lead to the world's governments dumping every resource available into dozens of new Mark 6 Jaegers. And that will lead to battles of a dozen Jaegers versus a dozen Kaijus all at once. It is going to be fucking awesome.

• highly unlikely, as Trespasser was little bigger than a blue whale and the PRDF detects not just size but also ambient radiation.
  • The opposite - Trespasser was big even by Kaiju standards - Knifehead was only 5% bigger and was the biggest Cat III Kaiju recorded in his time (we lack precise data on Cat IV which emerged three months before Knifehead).

The/a sequel will focus on the Atlantic

The plot will focus on Atlantis re-emerging after eons of dormancy, and feature British and European Jaegers.

Mako subconsciously deactivated the safeties on Gipsy Danger's plasmacaster during her first Drift.

They did actually soft-deactivate the plasmacaster before the test. However, since Mako was involved in the reconstruction of Gipsy Danger, she knew the codes to turn them back on, and accidentally used them to un-safe the plasmacaster.

Pacific Rim takes place in the same universe as Team Fortress 2

The Jaegers' Super Robot qualities come from being partially made from Australium and built by Mann Co. As for why nobody has a moustache... Erm... Unreliable Time Lord Narrator.

Cloverfield was the result of greedy Kaiju merchants trying to transfer a baby monster of their own

It was being transferred on that ship in the harbor. They wanted their own parts factory.

• It makes sense, with all the Jaegers destroyed Nuking Clover was the last option that was certain to work.

The sequel will feature a Jaeger...

with lots and lots of Gatling GunsIt'll have to face off against a category II or III centipede Kaiju and will simply riddle it with rocket-propelled Neutronium Carbide rounds

Tropers make the best Jeager pilots

let see, used to filtering vast amounts of data, used to being part of a larger collective, have full weaponized knowledge of every super robot and monster trope, and therefore the best ideas and tactics for both super robot VS monster fights all by default with no additional training.

Gentlemen: we the evidence is clear. Every Jeager Pilot is one of us.

The sequel will feature Jaegers built with Kaiju body parts

Kaiju skeletons are some of the most resilient materials around. The PPDC's next wave of Jaegers will feature at least one that's built around a Kaiju skeleton. Also, there will be one that uses a Kaiju's secondary brain to act as a substitute for a co-pilot, eliminating the need for drift-compatible pilots in the selection process. Unfortunately, like Mechagodzilla, the Kaiju brain will cause the Jaeger to go rogue.

The sequel will feature handheld weapons for Jaegers

Obviously, giving weapons that can be dropped to slow, clumsy giant robots isn't a good idea, but how awesome would it be to see a Jaeger pull out a railgun shaped like a flintlock, or the mother of all battleaxes? Or seeing a Jaeger throw a weapon to a teammate to use just in time to avoid destruction?

• Variation: Jaeger weapon caches will be set up in and around threatened Cities with a variety of mech-sized to grab mid-fight. This will happen for two main reason:
  • So the Jaegers can adapt to the apparently-infinity-variable Kaiju quicker and more easily. Bugger won't stay still? Grab a net of meter-thick carbon-nanotube rope and let fly. Blades and blasts glancing off a shell thicker than a teenager's skull? Drop the hammer and crack it open like a walnut.
    • Firearms will likely not be field-reloadable, but one- or few-shot BF Gs that Jaegers can use up and toss aside/club the ugly somebitch.
    • Jaegers will still have their own built-in weapons, but they will probably be either unorthodox custom attacks like Crimson Typhoon's Thundercloud Formation, or too energy-intensive to power without a full Jaeger's power source like Gypsy Danger's Plasma Caster.
  • So pilots like Raleigh have an alternative to breaking the tanker your company spent half a million dollars on over some kaiju's skull. Someone has to pay for that stuff!

The Kaiju War was the Biblical Armageddon.

One of the Kaiju (maybe Slattern) was the Beast.

Mako and Raleigh bang on the escape pod

Because of the implication.

Hermann and Newt will pull a Big Damn Heroes moment in the next movie

Hermann and Newt are Drift-compatible, so when the shit hits the fan they'll get a neural bridge ready and kick ass... but they'll do so by mindjacking a kaiju through a collected brain and get a kaiju to defect.

The Kaiju would have invaded our world if James Cameron hadn't gone to the Challenger Deep and done something that stopped the rift from opening.

XKCD was sort of on to something... he did build his sub in order to reach "a mysterious door", he just wasn't trying to OPEN it...

• And then he helped produce this movie so that people would know about the horrors that were averted.

The sequel will open with Jeager's fighting each other in a sporting event

Let's face it, the World council seem like the sort to just assume the breach is closed forever, and there would be no need to fund new Jeagers. So the surviving members of the PDC will need to find a new source of funding. And Hannibal Chau will have the perfect suggestion.

• Not only will this be a source of income in a world that thinks the threat is gone, but the PDC will be glad to have the opportunity to keep the Jaeger program up to date with technology (though the actual weapons would likely be toned down for sporting events) and have a wider pool of potential pilots already trained. It would be like the real military putting the war games they run for training purposes on pay per view.
  • Does... Does this mean potential Mobile Fighter G Gundam homages?

Hannibal Chau

will be part of the PPDC in the sequel.Being the Obstructive Bureaucrats they are, the UN will refuse to back the reborn PPDC, saying that the Wall will still work! In response, and just to stick it to them, the PPDC will openly ally with Chau. For that matter, he's smart enough that he might end up in a command position. And no one will be stupid enough to try to tax an organization that possesses 250-foot tall robots.

The sequel(s) will show an escalation of threat and awesome

The facility we see at the end is only the Masters’ equivalent of a single shatterdome and the steady progression of Kaiju incursion is their standard operating procedure; send Kaiju at an increasing rate to destroy local populations and stabilize the rift, then begin colonization/mining resources. Humanity was the first to fight back hard enough and get lucky enough to take out a Kaiju “shatterdome”. The sequel will see the Masters get pissed and focus on our Earth exclusively (even stopping ongoing efforts in other dimensions) and hit us with multiple rift openings connecting to different Kaiju “Shatterdomes” eventually leaving us with a downer ending where extinction seems inevitable. A third film will have the residents of other dimensions, with the pressure off their homeworlds come help us in a Big Damn Heroes moment with their own variations of Jaegers/other Kaiju countermeasures.

Crimson Typhoon and possibly Cherno Alpha will be recovered

Sure, CA was badly damaged by the acid, flooded, and rendered inoperative somehow underwater, but Gipsy Danger had an entire arm severed, the cabin ripped open, and major damage to the chest cavity (the point that it also was taken off-scope) and was rebuilt. Crimson Typhoon just needs a new cockpit. And new pilots, but the point stands.

Herc Hansen and Stacker Pentecost Drifted together

The two were both Mark 1 Jaeger pilots, it's unclear who Herc Drifted with before his son, and when Stacker suits up to get back into the game, he uses Chuck's compatibility with his father as evidence that he and Stacker will be Drift-compatible.

• Possible, but the background material indicates that Herc originally partnered with his own brother (Chuck's uncle). Then he saw something in the drift - a secret from his brother's past - that not only shattered their compatibility, but caused them to be estranged.

The Masters will attack Earth in the sequel because Newt drifted with a kaiju...twice.

They know humans know how to preserve the brains, and interface with them. They're now afraid that Earth learned how to create a breach from his drift(s), and are going to attack to prevent Earth from attacking their homeworld.

• And what's more, they will be right. Especially if we send Jaegers armed with nuclear weapons. Imagine something like Striker Eureka's chest missile launcher, but loaded with sub-launched ICBMs.

The aliens were this universe's version of the ones from Independence Day

• Most major cities destroyed: check.
• Take all the resources and move on: check
• Have been to earth before: check
• Hive mind: check.
• Controlling aliens look the same as the ones in ID4: check.
• Aliens staring at the nuclear device about to kill them: check.

The group shutting down the Jagaer program had dollar signs in their eyes

The companies behind the construction were probably making megabucks.

The Loch Ness Monster was a kaiju, and the alien's way of linking back to Earth

The aliens would need some kind of way to monitor the earth's atmosphere to know when to strike, some kaiju to know when Earth would be worth attacking. Nessie has been around a long time, it could be a kaiju created simply to tell its masters when to strike.

The villains in the sequel will be humans that remotely pilot kaiju.

They're going to steal Newton's kaiju drift technology and use it to destroy the Jagaers.

Yancy is still alive.

He's however, been captured by the Precursors. The sequel will feature a kaiju-ized, Brainwashed and Crazy Yancy-esque humanoid kaiju.

• This WMG is made of win.

The PPDC will face the political repercussions of attacking the Breach

Related to the one a few WMGs up about how the group shutting down the PPDC were doing it to get rich, they'll put pressure on the UN or whatever it's called to make the command and pilots pay for what they did — they closed the Breach, thereby making the walls, which the taxpayers put money into for their safety, completely useless. This will only lead to mass rioting and the PPDC going independent.

The Precursors were stopped the last time, not because of the lack of a pollutive atmosphere but because of the asteroid impact

Back during the very late cretaceous there was a civilization of sentient Troodons, that had faced the previous Kaiju invasion. The Troodon's probably made their own Kaiju as their equivalent of humanity's Jaegers. These Dino-kajiu fought the alien Kajiu for a long time but thing grew increasingly desperate overtime and the Trodoons had gotten to the point they were pretty much being overrun by the Precursors's creation, which would of have been the same fate, humanity would have suffered had PPDC's plan had failed. As a last resort the Troodon had dropped the asteroid onto the Breach that existed back during the Cretaceous periodd invasion, which the Precusors most likely never saw it comming.

Stacker Pentecost is Heimdall in disguise

Idris Elba played Heimdall in the Thor film. Heimdall blowing his horn is part of Ragnarok. Perhaps Heimdall decided to "cancel Ragnarok" by changing his identity.

• Given the Norse view that War Is Glorious, that Stacker raised Mako, whose Japanese background would mesh quite well with Nordic ideals, and how Stacker received the best death that a Viking could think up by going down fighting the enemy, this theory is awesome.

The animated series will air on Toonami

It would be a nice return of the favor after Toonami helped promote the movie, and Toonami would really be the best option for such a show. Of course, this is assuming two things...

1. The show will premiere on television instead of being released on a digital outlet like Netflix
2. The show will be aimed towards mature audiences as opposed to younger audiences, a la Thunder Cats 2011 and Sym-Bionic Titan

The Kaidonovsky's death will be retconed in the sequel

Since the first movie came out, the crew of Cherno Alpha has seen an increasing amount of popularity inside the fandom. Gulhermo del Toro himself is pretty aware of this, so it's not totally impossible for them to reappear in the sequel of the upcoming animated series. They were not dead. Just couldn't find the way to the beach in time for the end of the movie.

Donald Trump succeeded Barack Obama as president of the United States in the Alternate Timeline of this movie.

He decided that Humanity should build a wall and make the Kaiju pay for it. His plan didn't get underway until 2020, during the end of his first term, because the public loved the Jaeger program, which started before Trump entered office.

The incompatible atmosphere is pure fraud

Because this theory needs to be brought up three times. But it wasn't that the Earth's atmosphere was incompatible back then, it's that the dinosaurs were kicking kaiju ass! Rather than admit to their superiors or their workers that the new speed grown adaptable kaiju were being defeated by beings less than a thirtieth of their size, a supervisor desperate to hold onto his position made up something about air quality and insisted the time was not right. In truth the air quality actually got worse, but the supervisor sees that the average size of planet 23.3's dominant terrestrial macro fauna became even smaller and wants to hurry up with the project before he gets caught in a lie. Suffice to say, someone is getting fired when the general manager discovers that not only has a docking bay been blown to pieces but the smoldering crater where it used to be is now radioactive and several employees are filing for worker's compensation.

The atmospheric pollution comment was a misunderstanding

The rift looters didn't have trouble in the dinosaur age because of too few carbon emissions but because of too many. If they wanted a lot of green house gases nothing was opposing them on Venus. The looters actually think the sudden spike in carbon emissions are an effort by humanity to thwart their own industrial efforts and are therefore rushing underdeveloped kaiju towards human production centers in an effort to keep the atmosphere at desirable levels. The one human scientist who did a neural drift with a damaged kaiju brain? He got it wrong, specifically because his areas of expertise were physiology and the nervous system. He was not a climate scientist and likely only knew "climate change bad".

Pacific Rim is an alternate version of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia where the intelligence enhancing pills in Flowers for Charlie were actually real

The unnamed scientist is Gottlieb. After Charlies intelligence is increased he loses interest in the waitress, and finds himself unable to connect with the Gang, so he leaves to pursue a career as a Scientist. However still being haunted by his numerous crimes in his life as Charlie Kelly, he manufactures a false identity, renaming himself Newton Geizler.

Eventually Gottlieb begins to correspond with Geizler, unaware of their existing connection. And when they meet in person he realizes that the brilliant scientist he has been communicating with is the uncultured ignorant trash that he had met during his experiment, causing the divide between them. Over the course of the movie Charlie/Newton manages to prove to Geizler that he is genuinely a different person now, and shows him how much he can contribute, mending their divide.

Raleigh and Chuck are drift-compatible

During Drift testing, the idea behind it seems to be finding someone who can read your moves, and be in-sync enough to fight to a standstill, When Chuck and Raleigh fight, notice that it fits almost that exact criteria, neither one is dominating the fight, and they block each others hits more often than hits finding their marks, if they got on and it was a testing scenario rather than a fight full of anger, they would have been found to be almost perfectly drift-compatible.

Vanessa Gottlieb is really Hermann's Girlfriend in Canada

Hermann got sick of people joking that he and Newt are a couple, or something like that, so he invented the perfect, ideal, made-up girlfriend. She's a model! And she's having his baby! And she looks kind of like the hot fighting lady from Firefly, but also kind of like the cute lab assistant from Fringe. Sounds made-up to me...

Pacific Rim is a sequel or alternate universe of Hellboy

The kaiju are really Ogdru Hem. They’re both gigantic Eldritch Abomination monsters that breathe blue or green flames. Both are also nearly unstoppable by normal means. They even have the same frog men in the form of the smaller creatures on the other side of the Rift, both the frogs and the smaller creatures seem to be meant to inherit the new world after the Ogdru Hem destroy it. The Rift was opened by occult means and the Ogdru Jahad will come through once the kaiju have made the Earth ready for them. Also Guillermo del Toro directed both movies. Maybe in this universe the BRPD and Hellboy were destroyed or never existed.

If two Jaeger pilots that have been piloting their Jaeger for an extended period of time end up KIA, there is an unusual tendency for the Jaeger to "reject" any further attempts to pilot it.

This builds on the idea that a Jaeger carries a limited degree of sentience as implied by the novelization. Essentially, if both a Jaeger's pilots end up KIA but the Jaeger itself is still intact, it's not an uncommon occurrence for consistent Drift errors and malfunctions to occurr whenever another pair attempts to pilot it. The people who do try will often report that they involuntarily end up reliving the moment that the previous pilots were killed.