After a very, very long wait, the official trailer for the next installment in Legendary’s MonsterVerse franchise, Godzilla Vs Kong has finally arrived. The teaser promises an epic showdown in which the giant ape Kong acts as humanity’s protector, taking on the monstrous Godzilla after the giant lizard goes rogue and starts attacking cities. While the storyline seems pretty cut and dried, the director of the movie, Adam Wingard, hinted that there was more going on than meets the eye while promoting the trailer on Instagram.
“The GVK trailer is finally here! I’m beyond thrilled to be able to share the insane epic mayhem. I know it looks like it shows alot but this is only the tip of the monster iceberg 😉 Let me know if you are team Godzilla or team Kong!”
Wingard’s comment only serves to underline certain oddities that eagle-eyed fans have already noticed in the trailer. The biggest oddity is with regards to Godzilla’s size. It is well known that Godzilla traditionally is a much larger creature than Kong. Yet, in the trailer, the two are shown to be very clearly the same height, indicating the giant ape hit a massive growth spurt since his solo movie Kong: Skull Island.
But did Kong really grow immeasurably bigger, or was it Godzilla who shrunk? In the trailer, there are a couple of points that support the latter theory. First of all, we see Kong and Godzilla duking it out on top of an aircraft carrier.
Now, aircraft carriers are no strangers to the MonsterVerse. They first showed up in 2014’s Godzilla. At that time, the giant lizard was shown to be much, much bigger than the carriers. If that version of Godzilla had stood on top of a carrier, it would have sunk immediately. Yet, in the new trailer, Godzilla is small enough to stand on the carrier along with Kong to duke things out.
The second hint with regards to Godzilla’s smaller size appears in the scene in which Kong and Godzilla attack each other inside a city. The two monsters are shown to be around the same height as the skyscrapers around them. Yet, again, if we go back to 2014’s Godzilla, the giant lizard in that movie easily dwarfed the skyscrapers.
So now the question is, if this new, smaller version of Godzilla is in fact not the real King of the Monsters that we saw in previous movies in the MonsterVerse, what is this dangerous new creature? There are two possible options.
We already know Mechagodzilla will be appearing in the upcoming movie, and the trailer even gave us a brief glimpse of the giant mechanical creature at the start when it appears to be attacking a city. In past movies, the character of Mechagodzilla started out looking like the real Godzilla, before the artificial skin is torn off its body, and it’s true form is revealed. In this movie also, it is possible that the Godzilla that has turned against humanity, and whose rampage Kong is brought in to stop, might turn out to be Mechagodzilla.
Considering the small size of the giant lizard, it is possible that it could be a spawn of the original Godzilla. Godzilla Jr. is a beloved part of Godzilla’s mythology, and bringing him into the MonsterVerse would add new depth to the character of Godzilla.
A younger, smaller, and more inexperienced child of Godzilla would also explain the creature’s erratic behavior in attacking humanity since it is not as well-versed in the way the world works as the original Godzilla. If Godzilla Jr. was to attack humanity out of fright, and Kong attacks Godzilla Jr. in response, that would be more than enough reason for the real Godzilla to lumber into action and lay a brutal smackdown on Kong.
Directed by Adam Wingard and written by Eric Pearson and Max Borenstein, Godzilla vs. Kong stars Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, and Brian Tyree Henry. The film arrives in theaters and on HBO Max on March 26.