PACIFIC RIM: Creature Designs For Kaijus & Costume Designs For Mako Mori

"[Director] Guillermo del Toro wanted original designs that would redefine the genre," says Barlowe, whose creature design has been featured in Avatar, the Harry Potter films, Galaxy Quest and tons of other films. In particular, del Toro really wanted the team of creature designers to steer clear of homages to earlier monsters or other films.

When del Toro was trying to make a movie of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, Barlowe spent a couple of months working on creature designs, and had a lot of fun "digging into Lovecraft," something he'd also done in his book Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials. But none of that work made its way into Pacific Rim, and "I did not superimpose any Cthulhu madness into my designs," says Barlowe.

Thanks to Deanna for the heads up!

PACIFIC RIM SYNOPSIS - When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes-a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)-who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.