Jaeger Designer
About
The Jaeger Designer is an online application created by Warner Brothers to promote the 2013 science fiction film Pacific Rim directed by Guillermo del Toro, in which humans pilot gigantic humanoid mechas called Jaegers to fight against colossal monsters. Following its release and coverage by various websites in May and June of 2013, many fans used it to generate non-serious Jaegers using a variety of humorous phrases and nationality stereotypes.
Origin
Pacific Rim[3] is a 2013 American science fiction film directed by Guillermo del Toro and released by the American film production company Legendary Pictures, which was first premiered in London on July 4th and later followed by an American release on July 12th. The film is set in the 2020s, when Earth is under attack by colossal monsters called Kaiju. To fight these monsters humanity has created gigantic humanoid mechas called Jaegers. To promote the film, Warner Bros added a Jaeger Designer app[1] to the official site[2] on May 11th, 2013, which allowed users to customize their own Jaegers alongside given them a name and a country of origin.
Spread
On May 11th, the same day as the release of the app, it was covered by various websites such as CrunchyRoll,[5] MovieViral[9] and Collider.[10] They were followed in late May and throughout June by other websites such as ComicbookMovie,[12] Hitfix,[13] Slashfilm,[7] ThisIsInfamous[14] and Mashable[19] when Warner Bros expanded the features of the designer such as with the addition of a custom game. A page for the designer was also added to the Pacific Rim Wikia[20] on May 27th. On June 18th, IGN[6] announced a Jaeger design contest in cooperation with Guillermo del Toro, the director of the film, in which the winner would win a 3D-Printer valued at $2,500 (shown below).
On July 9th, 2013, the 4th String Jaegers[15] single topic blog was created, which focussed on posting custom made non-serious Jaegers. On July 8th, Tumblr user Kris Straub[16] made a post showing a collection of 3 Jaegers with vulgar names including "Diarrhea Touchdown" and "Padawan Dickshark". On July 9th, the 4th String Jaegers blog created a post[17] using a GIF animation of a dancing Jaeger called "Bust A Move" which was created by Twitter user @CantWearHats.[18] The same day Tumblr user Fadeintocase also made a post[8] containing 6 Jaegers using a collection of pun jokes based on country names (shown below). As of July 17th, 2013, the 3 posts gained respectively more than 3,500; 3,000 and 5,800 notes.
On July 12th, 2013, Uproxx created an article[11] covering the custom Jaegers made by Kris Straub[16] and expanded on the idea with some of their own creations. Uproxx made additional follow-ups to this article on July 13th[21] using ideas made by the site's commenters and on July 17th[22] using posts made by the 4th String Jaegers[15] blog. On July 16th, Buzzfeed[23] and GiantFreakingRobot[4] also made articles covering the various custom Jaegers made by fans.
Notable Examples
Additional examples can be found through the Tumblr tag "#jaeger-designer".[24]
Search Interest
External References
[1] Pacific Rim Movie – Jaeger Designer
[2] Pacific Rim Movie – Homepage
[3] Wikipedia – Pacific Rim (Film)
[4] GiantFreakingRobot – Pacific Rim Gets Goofy With Fanmade Fourth-String Jaegers
[5] Crunchyroll – Build Your Own Mecha with “Pacific Rim’s” Jaeger Designer
[6] IGN – Enter IGN and Pacific Rim's Design Your Jaeger Contest
[7] SlashFilm – ‘Pacific Rim’ Featurette Explains Jaeger Design
[8] Tumblr – Fadeintocase
[9] MovieViral – Pacific Rim: Design Your Own Jaeger
[10] Collider – Design Your Own Jaeger
[11] Uproxx – Meme Watch: The Giant Robots Of ‘Pacific Rim’ Get Vastly Improved Names
[12] ComicbookMovie – New Features in the Pacific Rim Jaeger Designer
[13] HitFlix – Design your own 'Pacific Rim' Jaeger
[14] ThisIsInfamous – New Pacific Rim Featurette Highlights Some Awesome Jaeger Designs
[15] Tumblr – 4th String Jaegers
[16] Tumblr – Kris Straub
[17] Tumblr – Bust A Move
[18] Twitter – @CantWearHats
[19] Mashable – 'Pacific Rim' Game Pits Custom Robots Against Monsters
[20] Pacific Rim Wikia – Jaeger Designer
[21] Uproxx – The Giant Robots Of ‘Pacific Rim’ Get Even More Improved Names
[22] Uproxx – Meme Watch: We Weren’t The Only Ones Giving ‘Pacific Rim’s Robots Improved Jaeger Names
[23] Buzzfeed – 18 Rejected Pacific Rim Robot Names
[24] Tumblr – Tagged: '#jaeger-designer'
Top Comments
Cyphon
Jul 17, 2013 at 07:29PM EDT
Legendario13
Jul 17, 2013 at 10:09PM EDT