In the world of Pacific Rim, Wednesday, January 8th, and Sunday, January 12th, 2025 are days for the history books. Fans are taking this week to re-watch this iconic movie because these are the dates of two of the biggest battles in the story. Read on for a refresher and a bit more, but fair warning — there are spoilers ahead.
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Pacific Rim was released in 2013, and the movie tells us that 2013 is the year the Kaiju first began emerging from an interdimensional portal at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The movie’s timeline then jumped ahead to 2020, which is when Yancy Becket (Diego Klattenhoff) died while fighting alongside his brother Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam). Finally, the movie makes one more time skip ahead by five years, which means the main story takes place in the year 2025.
January 8th: The Battle of Hong Kong
The fictional timeline of Pacific Rim looks a lot different from real life — for better or worse — but that won’t stop fans from holding their breath at every major milestone. January 8th is a big one, starting with Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) using Jaeger technology to “drift” with a Kaiju brain. This seemed to give the Kaiju hive mind a lot of new information, possibly leading to the first “double event.”
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That same day, two Category IV Kaiju attacked Hong Kong at the same time: Leatherback and Otachi. Three Jaegers were deployed to fight them: Crimson Typhoon, Cherno Alpha, and Striker Eureka. In the battle that followed, Crimson Typhoon and Cherno Alpha were both destroyed, and their pilots were killed. Finally, Gipsy Danger was deployed as backup and was able to destroy the Kaiju. Afterward, a baby Kaiju emerged from Otachi, but died by strangling on its umbilical cord.
January 12th: Humanity Fights Back
The next notable point on the Pacific Rim timeline is Sunday, January 12th, when humanity decided to take the fight to The Breach instead of waiting. They found it guarded by two Category IV Kaiju designated Scunner and Raiju, and eventually, a Category V called Slattern. At great cost, the pilots detonated the nuclear core of Jaeger to repel the monsters and seal The Breach, apparently ending the threat once and for all.
These dates are the last significant movie moments for Pacific Rim fans to celebrate until 2035, so it’s no wonder they’re making the most of it on social media. There is a die-hard community around this franchise, though only one theatrical sequel was made (Pacific Rim: Uprising) followed by a Netflix animated series that ran for two seasons. As of writing this, there is another Pacific Rim prequel series in development.
Fans will likely be preoccupied with Pacific Rim all week. It’s streaming now on Hulu, while its sequel, Pacific Rim: Uprising is only available to rent or purchase on PVOD stores. The animated spinoff Pacific Rim: The Black is streaming now on Netflix.
