Summary

• Raleigh Becket, the key protagonist of Pacific Rim, meets a tragic end from cancer in the sequel's prequel novel.
• Connection to toxic Kaiju world leads Raleigh to a battle with cancer, ending his life post-Pacific Rim.
• The movie sequel, Pacific Rim Uprising, doesn't explain Raleigh's absence, leaving room for a potential Charlie Hunnam return in a future installment.

Raleigh Becket is the key protagonist in Pacific Rim, and yet he is nowhere to be seen in the 2018 sequel, The Pacific Rim timeline expands out from the original 2013 movie and, despite taking place in the same universe, characters rarely reappear. The original Pacific Rim covers the events of the first appearance of Kaiju from the interdimensional portal and ends with the destruction of that rift. Pacific Rim 2 follows closely behind with the reveal that the monster gate was not entirely destroyed.

One of the Jaegers responsible for destroying the rift in Pacific Rim, Gipsy Danger, was piloted by Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam), the protagonist of the first film. Becket and his brother were two of the original Jaeger pilots, but after a Kaiju attack, Becket had to relearn how to pilot Gipsy with a new recruit, Mako (Rinko Kikuchi), and together, the pair helped end the Kaiju threat. The end of Pacific Rim sees Raleigh and Mako very much alive, ready for the next adventure, but for some reason, Raleigh is absent from the sequel set only a decade later.

Raleigh Becket Died Of Cancer In The Pacific Rim Uprising Prequel Novel

Raleigh And Mako Develop Cancer From Their Time In The Rift

Raleigh Becket is not in Pacific Rim Uprising, nor is he even mentioned. However, the novel set between Pacific Rim and Pacific Rim Uprising, Pacific Rim Uprising: Ascension, released in March 2018, for Raleigh's fate to be revealed. This novel by Gregory Keyes, along with the production companion book, The Art and the Making of Pacific Rim Uprising by Daniel Wallace, reports that Mako and Raleigh returned from the Anteverse, the planet-like world where the human resistance found the Kaiju creating alien Precursors operating from, with cancer.

If the creatures that come from there are toxic in nature, it's not too much of a stretch to understand that exposure to the world itself would have deleterious effects, such as cancer.

While Mako ends up surviving her cancer diagnosis, Raleigh es away from it. Pacific Rim makes special note of Kaiju blood, referred to as "Kaiju Blue". It's a previously unknown phosphorescent and toxic substance that is a contaminant and can even kill humans if they are exposed to it for too long. The Kaiju are created in the Anteverse, as shown in Pacific Rim. If the creatures that come from there are toxic in nature, it's not too much of a stretch to understand that exposure to the world itself would have deleterious effects, such as cancer.

The Pacific Rim Uprising Didn't Address Raleigh's Disappearance

The Director Wanted To Leave Open The Possibility Of Raleigh Becket Returning

However the novels address Raleigh's death, the fact is that Pacific Rim Uprising does not explain what happened to the supposed lead of the franchise. There's only a quick mention of his name along with Mako's and others as examples of old heroes of the war. The director of Pacific Rim Uprising, Steven S. DeKnight, gave his explanation as to why Raleigh doesn't appear in the sequel, via Collider,

"There was a version that was shot where what happened to him was explained and talked about. We tested it, and people had more questions with it in than without. We also decided we didn’t want to lock ourselves into anything like, 'Oh, Raleigh’s dead,' or 'Raleigh’s retired,' which seemed a little cheap. We wanted to leave it open for the third installment of the movie in case we needed Charlie Hunnam back. The only reason Charlie Hunnam’s not in this movie is a scheduling problem. He had his dream project, a remake of Papillion —we had just finished the script with him in it, and it was announced he was doing Papillion , his ion project, and unfortunately the dates were exactly the same as ours, right in the middle of when we would shoot. So very sadly he couldn’t be a part of this one, but hopefully in a future installment he will be."

Hunnam did get his Papillon movie ade, but it was probably for the best that his character was not mentioned at all in Pacific Rim Uprising, considering the reaction from test audiences. Despite Raleigh being pronounced dead in the novels, Charlie Hunnam could very well return for Pacific Rim 3 as his character's whereabouts are left open-ended in the movie universe.

PC3 could also use an idea from Pacific Rim Uprising that saw Newt (Charlie Day) mind-merge with the Precursors, giving him some sort of telepathic powers. Perhaps Raleigh is involved with a similar sort of merge, one that saves his life and gives him the power to control a Kaiju or pilot a Jaeger alone. There are plenty of directions a film with alien technology can go when it comes to reviving characters, so hopefully, if PC3 does happen, Raleigh Becket will be back in action.