What a great time to be a Godzilla fan. We have Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, the incredible Godzilla Minus One, and now, we get our first look at Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire. The only thing we need now is a non-cash grab shovel ware videogame. I’m looking at you, Skull Island: Rise of Kong.
The trailer for the latest monster-filled blockbuster was overflowing with details about what’s become of our favorite big monkey and big lizard. The New Empire introduces a new threat to the Earth and will be a direct sequel to 2021’s Godzilla Vs Kong. We see Kong living in his new home in the Hollow Earth; other “Kong” like creatures look to be threatened by the orangutan-like kaiju dubbed Skar KIng. Godzilla has been taking a long spa-cation in some purple radiation to boost his power level. Then, the ever-cool shot of Godzilla and Kong running side by side into battle!
What does this mean for the future of Godzilla, though?
Personally, I’ll take Godzilla over Kong any day, and as awesome as these movies are, I’m always a little disappointed that Godzilla has to share the spotlight. I was also hoping to get another solo adventure for the big radioactive dinosaur before another mashup film. I am seeing a silver lining here, though. After watching the trailer a few times, it dawned on me that The New Empire could be the perfect opening in the Legendary Monsterverse to kick off an ongoing series of “VS” films akin to classic Toho films. I would very much like to see some Godzilla Vs. actually dangerous adversaries; that isn’t Kong movies. Not that it would happen, but I’d love to see this approach given to MechaGodzilla (not the GvK one), where he is the tool for world domination by some evil enemy, say aliens. Well, that’s what happened in the original. Something that could be more in line with the existing narrative could see Hollow Earth versions of classic Toho Kaijus like Megalon or Gigan.
I know most people thought that Godzilla 2014 was slow and took too long to show the monsters. But I’ve always enjoyed its ominous tone and intensity, which made Godzilla feel larger than life. The later films keep speeding things up, lessening the sense of awe at the sight of what are supposed to be gigantic creatures fighting to the death. Then, the strong focus on Kong and making Godzilla feel like a secondary character in GvK never quite sat right with me. They even made his eyes smaller with less detail, making him much duller with less personality. These are small gripes for what are otherwise awesome movies that I am glad we are getting. I just hope to see a stronger focus on Godzilla going forward, and ideally, both Kong and Godzilla will get their own movies with some fun cameos from time to time. But not so much that it turns into the MCU where you can’t keep track of which heroes movie you are even watching.
The new design for Godzilla is really fracking cool, though, and harkens back to 2000’s Godzilla and Shin Godzilla with the magenta-colored spikes and heat ray. This at least has me very hyped for where they are taking the G-man and resembles the redesign Toho took when they retired the Heisei era Godzilla and Introduced 2000’s Godzilla.
Are these the ramblings of one crazed Godzilla fan, or am I not alone? How do you feel about the direction the Legendary films are taking?
Check out the trailer below.
