Spoilers for Pacific Rim Uprising below!

　　Pacific Rim Uprising takes things in a very different direction from the original, leaving humanity's future in the hands of a young generation of up-and-coming pilots. If you've seen it, you might have some questions.

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　　Now Playing: Pacific Rim Uprising Review: A Kaiju-Sized Step Backward

　　How did the world get where it is in Uprising following the events of the original Pacific Rim? Why was it important to the movie's director, Steven DeKnight, to hand the reins to the younger generation? How did Newt sneak a massive Kaiju brain into his apartment, and why did he think it was his wife?

　　We sat down with DeKnight and asked those questions and more. Read on for the answers, then check out our Pacific Rim Uprising review, interview with star Cailee Spaeny, and ranking of the series' Kaiju.

　　GameSpot: So what's the state of the world when Pacific Rim Uprising starts?

　　Steven DeKnight: It's 10 years after the end of the first movie, after the Breach was closed. There's been peace and world building, the PPDC has rebuilt from the ground up. So they've had a chance to redesign their Jaegers and their program. They learned from the first movie that Jaegers really are the best defense against the Kaiju, so they've been preparing for a possible second attack. And that's where we find the state of the world when we open this movie.

　　So they're not resting on their laurels.

　　No, no, they very much--there are people that believe the war is over, that's it, they closed the Breach, it's finished. And there are other people, like Scott Eastwood's character, Nathan Lambert, that believe sending giant monsters to stomp on a few cities is not a tactical plan to destroy humanity, and they think something else is coming.

　　So one of the conflicts in the first movie was that the government was going to shut the Jaeger program down. Now the conflict is between the government, the PPDC, and the private sector, the Shao corporation. The PPDC has the base in China that we see in the movie. Are there other bases?

　　Yes, all over the Pacific Rim, there are multiple Shatterdomes and many Jaegers.

　　So when the Breaches open in Uprising, are they attacking the other Shatterdomes or just the one we see?

　　Yes, we only see three Breaches opening, but there are multiple Breaches all around the Pacific Rim being opened by the drones--spoilerJohn Boyega and Scott Eastwood--and the cadets are the last men and women standing. So that's the reason the cadets have to go in action.

　　There could be more elsewhere technically, but the characters we know are also the ones that happen to be at the base where they're developing the rocket jets that will get them there in time?

　　Yes, they're the only ones that can intercept in time. There's a little bit in the movie that talks about there were a few Jaegers left that tried to intercept, and were destroyed. And they're on their own.

　　So why did you want to focus on this younger generation of pilots?

　　A couple of reasons. I wanted to advance the story forward with the idea that it's the next generation of Jaeger pilots, and also explore the idea that when you're young you make more intense emotional connections with other people. The older you get, your walls come up, and it's harder to make those connections. And also just the positive message in the world today, that, you know, every generation says, 'The youth is going to change the world.' And I think it's particularly relevant now.

　　We made this movie before what happened in the United States with Parkland and everything, but it really shows that's true. And the message I really wanted to get across was that it doesn't matter where you're from, it doesn't matter who your parents are, it doesn't matter the color of your skin, your religion, none of that matters--anybody can stand up and be a hero. And that particular message really lent itself to this younger generation coming in and helping to save the world.

　　And you couldn't have known how relevant that would be.

　　Exactly, yeah.

　　I wanted to talk about the twist with Newt, and the thinking behind that, and then working with Charlie Day on being evil.

　　I'll work backward. I've been a fan of Charlie Day for many, many years. My wife and I watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia religiously, and he just astounds me with his comic timing. And getting a chance to work with him was fantastic, and he's everything you would hope he would be. He is just the sweetest, funniest, most professional guy, always showed up prepared and ready to go. I remember early on when I met with him and had breakfast and walked him through what I was thinking--and Charlie Day being a villain is also something that Guillermo had talked to him about when he was still involved, before he had to leave to do Shape of Water.

　　And Charlie was very interested in that turn, and when I sent him the finished script we got together, and his biggest concern was to make sure that turn wasn't goofy or over the top, and I said, 'No no no, I want it to be really grounded, particularly in your relationship with Burn Gorman, with Gottlieb, that's really to me the key of that whole turn. And when we shot it, we were both very much aware that we wanted to make it feel as real as possible. And Charlie just gave it his all. And when he saw the final product he was very happy with what he saw.

　　But for me it's much more interesting than--obviously, spoilers--we set up Shao Liwen to be the villain, very obviously, overly obvious, because I wanted to misdirect into that direction, and then reveal that it's actually Newt. Because I thought--there were previous drafts of the script, before I came on, where the billionaire industrialist--it wasn't Shao Liwen, it was a whole different story--but where the billionaire industrialist was the villain. And from the start, it's villain, very clearly villain. And also with Charlie being the villain, I think you get one, a lot more fun, and a lot more emotion, and especially setting up for a third installment, if we're so lucky to do it, we've set up this great thing where you have Charlie Day with things in his head controlling him, but Gottlieb, Burn Gorman, loves him as his best friend, and will do anything to help protect him and save him.

　　So there's room for him to be good again?

　　There's absolutely room for him to try to come back from that.

　　So the idea to have him be evil initially came from Guillermo?

　　Yeah, you know, I didn't realize that until I talked to Charlie. When I came on board, there were three completely different versions of three completely different sequels that I read through, and I took a little bit from here and a little bit from there. I think in one of those, at one point, I want to say Burn Gorman was the villain. So there were different possibilities, and for me it just seemed like Newt was the perfect character to go down that path since he was drifting with the brains to start with in the first movie, and Ron Perlman warned him not to.

　　That did kind of set it up. Do you think they had the seed of that idea back then deliberately?

　　I don't know, but apparently Guillermo must have, because he told Charlie something about being the villain in the next movie.

　　After I watched Uprising, and I went back and watched the original, and it was like, oh yeah. It's all there.

　　Yeah, it's definitely all laid in.

　　So how did he get a Kaiju brain into his apartment?

　　How'd he sneak one in?

　　Yeah.

　　Those are always the questions. You know, I always go back to Empire Strikes Back, when they don't have the hyperdrive up and running, and they find Lando Calrissian in a system, obviously not that system--how the hell did they get there so quick without light speed? It's one of those things. In my mind, he took a piece and he grew it, so it wasn't like he was carrying a full brain into his apartment.

　　Can you explain exactly what's going on with the thing where he thinks it's his wife or whatever? Does he have a romantic relationship with the brain?

　　Yeah, it's a little twisted. Honestly, that first came about because I didn't want to just throw this alien brain in without some kind of setup. So when Newt says, you know, 'Come over and meet dinner, you can finally meet Alice,' you know, there's a bit of a thing--is it something weird like that? Is it just a name he gave it? And also, when he was inviting Gottlieb over, if you think about it, obviously it was to infect Gottlieb.

　　I was going to ask what his intention there was.

　　Yes, it was to bonk him on the head, hook him up, and get inside his mind.

　　Thanks Steven! Pacific Rim Uprising is in theaters now.