‘Pacific Rim’ Featurette: Meet the Giant Jaeger Bots

Now that 'Man of Steel' is on the verge of opening, we can turn all of our anticipation in the general direction of 'Pacific Rim,' which still looks like the film to beat this summer. Guillermo del Toro's robots-vs-monsters epic has built a unique mythology from the ground up, and a new featurette gives us a behind-the-scenes look at creating this world ... with a special emphasis on the giant robots, of course.

Called "Jaegers" (German for "hunter"), the 250-foot-tall robots of 'Pacific Rim' are something that has never been seen before in American cinema. Sure, we've had our fair share of 'Transformers' movies, but we've never seen so much money spent on something so big, weird and foreign. In the featurette, del Toro and his crew discuss the design process and how they conceptualized these man-made monsters, starting with instantly recognizable silhouettes and adding details as they went along.

As we've seen in the trailers, the results are pretty breathtaking, especially since each individual Jaeger appears to have a completely unique design and personality. Especially interesting is how del Toro discusses influences; nothing was off limits, but everything had to make sense in the world of the film. Every nod to a favorite anime, film or comic had to properly fit into this meticulously designed universe.

'Pacific Rim' opens on July 12, 2013.