When the first trailer for Pacific Rim hit a lot of us thought the voice of the robot sounded very familiar. It looks like many of our readers were right, because Guillermo del Toro confirmed that the voice of the robot is GLaDOS from the video game Portal.
Del Toro is a big fan of the game, and he hired Ellen McLain, the actor that provides the voice of GLaDOS in the game, to do the same exact voice in the movie as well. According to Forbes the director even had her voice run through nearly the exact same alteration process as in Portal, so they would sound exactly alike.
This is a pretty cool shoutout to the fans. It's not new news that McLain was cast in the film, but no one knew that she would be hired to do her GLaDOS voice in the film until we all heard it in the trailer. It seems like fans love it! Del Toro is such an awesome geek. Do you like that GLaDOS will in a way be in the film, or do you think it will be distracting? Because the guy at Forbes says it will be distracting...
No, it’s doubtful the film is actually calling her GLaDOS as that would be a definite overstep, but that voice is so iconic, it almost seems like an overreach to use it. As a fan of both Del Toro and Portal, I’m not so sure about the move. This goes beyond “homage” to the point where it might be a bit distracting for the film if we’re constantly associating the voice with another iconic character every time it utters a word. It’s like if they threw Kratos in Wrath of the Titans, or something similarly out of the blue.
Do you agree or disagree with him?