<P> Pacific Rim Uprising is a 2018 American science fiction film directed by Steven S. DeKnight (in his feature - film directorial debut), and written by DeKnight, Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder, and T.S. Nowlin . It is the sequel to the 2013 film Pacific Rim, with Guillermo del Toro, the director of the original, serving as a producer . The sequel stars John Boyega (also making his producer debut), as well as Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Jing Tian, Adria Arjona, and Zhang Jin, with Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, and Burn Gorman returning from the original film . Set in the year 2035, the plot follows humanity again fighting Kaiju, the giant monsters set on destroying the world . </P> <P> Principal photography began in November 2016 in Australia . The film was released in the United States on March 23, 2018, by Universal Pictures, in 2D, Real D 3D, IMAX 3D, and IMAX, and has grossed $288 million worldwide . It received mixed reviews from critics; with some calling the film inferior to del Toro's first film, criticizing the scope, pacing, story, as well as the absent characters from the previous film and underdeveloped new characters, while others praised the visual effects and performances of Boyega and Spaeny . </P> <P> In 2035, ten years after the Battle of the Breach (as depicted in 2013 film Pacific Rim), former Jaeger pilot Jake Pentecost--son of Stacker Pentecost--makes a living by stealing and selling Jaeger parts on the black market in the Los Angeles area . After he tracks part of a disabled Jaeger's power core to the secret workshop of fifteen year old Jaeger enthusiast Amara Namani, both are arrested by the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps after an altercation between Amara's small, single - pilot Jaeger Scrapper and the Jaeger November Ajax . Jake's adoptive sister and PPDC Secretary General Mako Mori gives Jake a choice between the prison or return to PPDC as an instructor with Amara as his recruit . </P> <P> Upon arriving at a Shatterdome in China, Jake starts training Jaeger program cadets with his estranged former co-pilot Nate Lambert . Nate and Mako reveal to him that the Jaeger program is threatened by Shao Corporation's drone program, which offers to mass - produce Kaiju - Jaeger hybrid drones developed by Liwen Shao and Dr. Newton Geiszler . Mako is due to deliver a final assessment to determine the authorization of the drones at a PPDC council meeting in Sydney, but is killed by rogue Jaeger Obsidian Fury before she can report . Her death prompts the PPDC council to authorize the drone program and order their immediate deployment . Moments before her death, Mako transmitted the location of a defunct Jaeger production facility in Siberia but Jake failed to save her . Jake and Nate travel to the area in their own Jaeger, but Obsidian Fury destroys the complex and engages them in battle . Upon destroying its reactor, they find that Obsidian Fury was controlled by a Kaiju's secondary brain, which testing shows was grown on Earth . </P>

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