Guillermo del Toro
©2013 Gabriel Rodriguez
A recent post on the sci-fi web site io9.com tells us even more about Guillermo del Toro and his Latino heritage
“Embrace your inner Mexican.” That’s what Guillermo del Toro told the designers at Industrial Light and Magic when they kept pouring more light and less shadow into their designs for Pacific Rim.
A recent post on io9.com, gave us a couple of great Latino tidbits:
- There was a Mexican Robot…at least in the first drafts. “In the early stages of this film,” says i09 editor Charlie Jane Anders, “they had a Mexican Jaeger named Matador Fury that they just couldn’t fit into this movie.” She says del Toro says if they make a Pacific Rim 2, Matador Fury will definitely be there. He also said a sequel would be even crazier than the first. “We will make the first one “look like Howard’s End. We’re going to do nuts.” Screenwriter Travis Beacham agreed. “Seriously, it’s going to be badass.”
Matador Fury
- Even the color palette is Latino. “I love ancient technology,” Guillermo del Toro told a group of reporters. “He wanted gears and pipes and the look of steam engines.” At the same time, Charlie Jane says, the ILM guys were giving del Toro shots that had a very “Anglo” sort of saturated color, and del Toro kept telling them, “embrace your inner Mexican.” He wanted more bright, macho colors in the big action scenes
- We haven’t had a chance to mention it, but Latino character actor Clifton Collins, Jr. has a substantial role in the film, as a chief tech-guy who somehow manages to keep the hideously complex (and aging and injured) giant robots fight-ready (for the most part). In his early scenes, Collins doesn’t seem to be much more than a button-pusher (or more accurately touch-screen toucher), but as the movie evolves so does he, to become one of the more vivid (and well-dressed) supporting characters in the rag-tag group of the “Yageer Underground” who helps lead the world to victory.
Del Toro’s Pacific Rim is playing in every second theater across the country now.
