"Pacific Rim"

by Ran Britt

While Cloverfield provided a civilian take on a seemingly unstoppable monster's rampage through New York City, Pacific Rim details the world's military response upon learning that a lone Kaiju (PR's term for giant extra-dimensional monsters) that blazed a path of destruction through San Francisco was only the tip of the spear.

It's revealed that the Kaiju originated in an alternate dimension and make their way into ours via an interdimensional doorway, called "the Breach", located on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Besides San Francisco, the initial attacks are directed at Sydney, Hong Kong and Manila.

Realizing that campaigns against the creatures using conventional weaponry are too costly, an alliance of world governments institutes a program in which enormous robots are constructed to battle the Kaiju. Each robot, called Jaegers, is nuclear-powered and operated by at least two pilots who control its movements from the inside.

Scientists studying the Kaiju discover that the monsters' rampages are prompted by aliens from the dimension connected to ours via the Breach. The aliens, intent on invading the planet have been using the Kaiju as an early strike force.