Godzilla vs Kong (2021)

[Punisher_MAX]

I love KOTM, its basically a Heisei Era movie in English.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

That 2 second promo footage looks great, I will have my 2nd vaccine jab by the time this comes to cinemas and have been going when I can anyway, so if cinema’s are open here when this releases I will be going to see this in one.

 

[Marvolo]

I don't know whether this is a poster or a concept art or a still from the movie. But it give you a good idea about the height and size of the two monsters.

In 2014, a single one of Godzilla's back plates was bigger than the entire superstructure of a Naval Carrier:

You can also see how much they've shrunk him by comparing the helicopters and jets on the deck to 2021 Godzilla. In 2014 jets and helicopters were like flies to zilla. Now his foot is barely wide enough to cover a helicopter.

 

[terry78]

You basically saw how massive it was during the Hawaii attack when his foot stomped down.

 

[Punisher_MAX]

Seems like they shrunk him down to his Showa era size.

 

[Marvolo]

I wonder if they'll justify it in the film and give a reason for him shrinking. Maybe he's been deprived of radiation.

 

[Flash525]

You basically saw how massive it was during the Hawaii attack when his foot stomped down.

Seems like they shrunk him down to his Showa era size.

I wonder if they'll justify it in the film and give a reason for him shrinking. Maybe he's been deprived of radiation.

They probably needed to shrink him down so that they didn't need to make Kong too big.

Skull Island was set in the 80's(?), I'd have a hard time believing that Kong could've grown to Zilla 2014 size in a mere 25-30 years. That said, it's even harder to believe that Zilla shrinks on occasion (if that becomes the case, then if/when Zilla is at 100%, he'd dwarf Kong and could simply stomp on him.

The obvious reason is quite simple, when they initially launched (or rather, relaunched) Zilla, they didn't know they'd be matching him up with Kong, so his size didn't matter so much.

What's the chances the scene we was in the teaser was a flashback; set when Kong and Zilla were younger?

 

[ironwez20]

They probably needed to shrink him down so that they didn't need to make Kong too big.

Skull Island was set in the 80's(?), I'd have a hard time believing that Kong could've grown to Zilla 2014 size in a mere 25-30 years. That said, it's even harder to believe that Zilla shrinks on occasion (if that becomes the case, then if/when Zilla is at 100%, he'd dwarf Kong and could simply stomp on him.

The obvious reason is quite simple, when they initially launched (or rather, relaunched) Zilla, they didn't know they'd be matching him up with Kong, so his size didn't matter so much.

What's the chances the scene we was in the teaser was a flashback; set when Kong and Zilla were younger?

hm ur on to something. Maybe this could be a flashback?

 

[Arachnerd]

Kong Skull Island takes place in 1973, by the way.

 

[Flash525]

Kong Skull Island takes place in 1973, by the way.

That's still an awfully short time to practically quadruple in size.

 

[Arachnerd]

Not really. The movie established Kong was a teenager in that movie, so it's not that far-fetched to assume he could have grown that much in size in 30+ years.

 

[Punisher_MAX]

I wonder if they'll justify it in the film and give a reason for him shrinking. Maybe he's been deprived of radiation.

They never really addressed Godzilla varying in size in all his Japanese appearances, they only do in the Heisei era, and I don't think anyone outside of nerds like us will care.

 

[Marvolo]

Maybe this is some midget Zilla that Alan Jonah created and unleashed, and the real Big G will show up and kick Midget Zilla and Kong's asses in the third act.

 

[MadVillainy]

Let's not even bring up the fact that the universe as a whole was horribly sidelined. Jesus Christ Legendary could've done big things.

Let's list it out. They had Pacific Rim and Godzilla 2014 come out in a brief span of each other. Reigniting the fandom for Kaiju love with a swift move.

They could've easily made sequels for these films advertised the universes and made millions in merchandise and spinoffs. But what do they do?

Release a crap sequel for Pacific Rim and destroy the universe and then pull a Kong movie out of the blue that was also advertised like crap and basically forgotten because no one knew it was in the same universe as Godzilla.

Then they go and horribly advertise the sequel to an already critically splitting film. Adding no sign of the fact that again this is a shared universe with Kong. Other than after credits scenes. But let's be honest, unless it's Marvel or DC only diehard Kaiju fans stay after credits.

Now with two dying universes. They don't release comic series to keep the hype up. They just now released the anime for Pacific Rim which was announced YEARS ago. I remember the FIRST report. And they fail to advertise the upcoming crossover between the two biggest monsters in cinema history.

This was a massive botch of a huge potential shared universe. Could've easily had a Pacific Rim and Godzilla and Kong series going with other monster spinoffs and crossovers. But nope, they just...this.

-----

TL;Dr: Legendary has botched the hype for three franchises in the past few years(Pacific Rim, Kong and Godzilla). And it's honestly disappointing.

To be fair they didn't do that with Pacific Rim because it didn't do what they wanted at the box office

 

[MadVillainy]

I’m just wondering though...how bad could this movie be and if it is..why?! What is so hard about this. This movie literally has one job, make the clash between these two epic and exciting. Thats what we’re here to see. Story isnt as important in something like this as opposed to something like “Batman v Superman.” I’m just wondering what could be so disastrous about this film unless the big monster films are poorly filmed and underwhelming.

Eh I think that thinking is part of the reason this universe didn't really work. Story and character.

Every defender always said something along the lines of "I go to these movies for the kaiju action. Not for the story (or characters or humans" But that ignores the fact that a majority of the screen time is spent on the story and humans. You were never gonna get the GA on board with those aspects being as bad as they were in the Godzilla movies.

Now personally I liked the story and the humans (save for Reilly, Larson, and Hiddleston) in Kong Skull Island. The whole Nam and Moby Dick allegories and analogies were cool to me. But I think I'm in the minority on that.

 

[MadVillainy]

I couldn't agree with this more honestly. I mean just look at how they treated the later seasons of the Netflix Marvel shows among many others like Narcos and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

Yeah other than Stranger Things and Hoc, Netflix stops pushing their own shows after 2 or 3 seasons. At least in the traditional marketing ways. Hell most of their recent hits only spread due to the memes they created or through WOM. But even that eventually dies out

Netflix marketing isn't that good. And also people have to remember that GvK is a 200m movie not a show. You need to market it a lot. Even just for a streaming release.

But they don't care about marketing these movies. Just marketing HBO Max itself

Although to be fair I thought the marketing for WW84 was poor until like 2 weeks out and they they promoted the hell outta it. Lots of digital ads on Twitter, Reddit, etc.

 

[flickchick85]

What amuses me about Netflix's tendency to give up on their shows early on in their runs is that, when they started to become big, Netflix was THE reason so many network shows started getting (often truncated) final seasons ordered instead of being cancelled outright - because Netflix was more interested in licensing shows that had proper endings. Because they said that's what their viewers wanted and the key to success of the binge model. Nobody wanted to binge a show without an ending. So I guess that only applied when they weren't the ones having to foot the bill to get the shows to their endings.

 

[MadVillainy]

I don't really care about the scale of Godzilla. I don't see why it matters. It doesn't make the movie and better or any worse and seems pretty nitpicky

Honestly, and of course we haven't seen the movie yet, but complaining or even noticing the character scale reminds me of the story from the filming of A New Hope. They were filming a scene that was chronologically after the trash compactor scene. Hamill remarked that shouldn't their hair be more messed up since they were coming out of garbage and Harrison Ford said "If people are looking at your hair, we're all in big trouble."

But to each their own

 

[Sithborg]

Eh I think that thinking is part of the reason this universe didn't really work. Story and character.

Every defender always said something along the lines of "I go to these movies for the kaiju action. Not for the story (or characters or humans" But that ignores the fact that a majority of the screen time is spent on the story and humans. You were never gonna get the GA on board with those aspects being as bad as they were in the Godzilla movies.

Now personally I liked the story and the humans (save for Reilly, Larson, and Hiddleston) in Kong Skull Island. The whole Nam and Moby Dick allegories and analogies were cool to me. But I think I'm in the minority on that.

I think it is less "caring about the story" and more "we have low expectations". I love this genre. But this genre gets really, really stupid at times. When we get a good human story, it is a pleasant surprise, and helps elevate the movie. KOTM's story didn't bother me and I enjoyed it, because it isn't that different than one you would see in a myriad of other kaiju movies. There are very, very few movies in the genre that elevates it.

 

[MadVillainy]

I think it is less "caring about the story" and more "we have low expectations". I love this genre. But this genre gets really, really stupid at times. When we get a good human story, it is a pleasant surprise, and helps elevate the movie. KOTM's story didn't bother me and I enjoyed it, because it isn't that different than one you would see in a myriad of other kaiju movies. There are very, very few movies in the genre that elevates it.

This is true. But this is different than a standard Kaiju movie in that you're trying to get a much bigger audience and you're spending more money so you can just rely on what other Kaiju movies are like.
The large movie portion audience expects something outta the characters when the Kaiju aren't on screen and imo, and from looking at the response to the Godzilla movies, I think audiences feel the same way.

They don't need to be mutually exclusive. You can have a decent story and at least entertaining humans and good action and Kaiju stuff. And I think among other things is they delivered in that the franchise wouldn't be where it is now

 

[kguillou]

Eh I think that thinking is part of the reason this universe didn't really work. Story and character.

Every defender always said something along the lines of "I go to these movies for the kaiju action. Not for the story (or characters or humans" But that ignores the fact that a majority of the screen time is spent on the story and humans. You were never gonna get the GA on board with those aspects being as bad as they were in the Godzilla movies.

Now personally I liked the story and the humans (save for Reilly, Larson, and Hiddleston) in Kong Skull Island. The whole Nam and Moby Dick allegories and analogies were cool to me. But I think I'm in the minority on that.

Sure and lol i dont wanna downplay the importance of story in, well, any film. Any film needs to have at least a simple coherent narrative going. Even the Fast and Furious films-which i love- have ...decent enough plots to push the action along. But the main draw of GvK is to see a hopefully big, giant, well shot brawl between these two icons. That is the main thing they need to deliver on.

 

[MadVillainy]

Sure and lol i dont wanna downplay the importance of story in, well, any film. Any film needs to have at least a simple coherent narrative going. Even the Fast and Furious films-which i love- have ...decent enough plots to push the action along. But the main draw of GvK is to see a hopefully big, giant, well shot brawl between these two icons. That is the main thing they need to deliver on.

True

But I'm starting to wonder if Godzilla and King Kong are in the same territory as King Arthur, Robin Hood and Superman. These character that are iconic but most audiences don't care about them actually. So these studios try and sell these movies and think they'll sell on these characters' icon status.

I wonder if in 2014 or even 2013 if you did a survey how many movie goers would actually care about Godzilla fighting King Kong. They really needed to make the movies good enough so the audience would care

 

[Marvolo]

I don't really care about the scale of Godzilla. I don't see why it matters. It doesn't make the movie and better or any worse and seems pretty nitpicky

Honestly, and of course we haven't seen the movie yet, but complaining or even noticing the character scale reminds me of the story from the filming of A New Hope. They were filming a scene that was chronologically after the trash compactor scene. Hamill remarked that shouldn't their hair be more messed up since they were coming out of garbage and Harrison Ford said "If people are looking at your hair, we're all in big trouble."

But to each their own

This isnt the equivalent of hair continuity. This is the equivalent of Han Solo coming out of carbonite in ROTJ and being played by Warwick Davis.

I didn't much care for some of the changes to Godzilla in KOTM and I dont like this. Godzilla 2014's scale and physical mass was one of the best aspects of him, and with each movie they've tried to "fix" what wasn't broken and have made it worse each time.

And honestly if the only way to make this fight plausible was to shrink Godzilla then they shouldn't have contrived this fight in the first place. I would have much rather had a proper sequel to KOTM that dealt with the fallout of the apocalyptic global destruction caused by the monsters and whatever Alan Jonah is doing with Ghidorah.

 

[Punisher_MAX]

The only things I didn't like about 214 Godzillas design was the feet, arms too close together, and its small ass head.

I watch Pacific Rim every so often and its a damn shame they didn't properly continue it, or even give us a look into the early years of the Kaiju War, cause the world building and backstory was absolutely fantastic.

 

[Gold Samurai]

Bringing up old grudges from the 2014 movie. It would be more fun to watch if I could actually SEE Muto and Godzilla fight

Muto's encounter with the nuke was nothing more than pitch black with some red eyes moving around.