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The ongoing joke leading up to the release of Godzilla vs. Kong was that nobody really cared about the human characters, we just wanted to see the big scary monsters punch each other. And at the end of the day, it has to be said that whether or not the movie worked for audiences probably came down to just how much you enjoyed seeing the giant monsters duke it out. The battle scenes are a big part of the movie, and director Adam Wingard has revealed that of the three fights between Godzilla and Kong, there are two that he really wanted to make because there were certain elements that he really wanted to see in them.
Filming the massive fight scenes between two entirely CGI creatures gave the filmmakers freedom to make these battles take place just about anywhere they wanted, and have the creatures do just about anything. Director Adam Wingard recently told the Popcorn Podcast that there were some specific elements that he wanted from the battles, which helped to inform everything else. In the case of the movie's climactic battle, which takes place in Hong Kong, Wingard wanted to see the two creatures fighting in a neon-soaked city. The director explained,
It evolved really organically. There were certain things that I knew from the get go that I wanted to see. One of the first images I knew that I wanted was I wanted Godzilla to chase Kong around a neon-soaked, futuristic looking city with his atomic breath. There were certain things like that where I was like, ‘Oh, I HAVE to see what that would look like.’
And to be fair, that sequence looks pretty cool. Seeing Godzilla's atomic breath light up the sky like the neon building around him looks just as amazing as it probably did in the director's head. It's clear that everybody knew that Godzilla vs. Kong had to live up to its title and bring the battles to life and the movie certainly does that.
Godzilla Vs. Kong is available for a limited time on HBO Max. You can use this link to sign up for the streaming service.
While the big fights in Godzilla vs Kong may have included creatures the size of skyscrapers, their epic clash wasn't necessarily all that different than other movie action sequences. We like to see our heroes given difficult odds to overcome, which is apparently where the first fight scene between Godzilla and Kong came from. According to Adam Wingard, putting the fight on the water put Kong at a significant disadvantage, which was something he wanted because it made the scene more intense.
But what I like is that the script really offered us so many really inspiring environments to put the monsters in. Because it’s kind of what makes the battles so interesting in this movie. For instance, the ocean battle -- our first major fight between the characters -- it’s in an environment we’ve never seen them in before. Kong’s on the ocean, jumping from battleship to battleship. It’s kind of like playing off the disadvantage that he has, you know, against Godzilla, which he kind of has anyways, but even more so in the ocean. I always like seeing heroes pushed against the wall.
Of course, the one problem with the action scenes in Godzilla vs. Kong is that they've set the bar pretty high. If we see more movies in this universe, and a lot of people seem to want that, they'll have to find ways to keep the action just as exciting.
