One of the moves Kong used on Gojira in Godzilla vs. Kong was a recreation of an iconic moment from their original fight. The fourth MonsterVerse movie isn’t being considered a remake, but there are some interesting parallels between it and their first meeting.
The epic grudge match that played out in Legendary’s Godzilla vs. Kong was only the second time these two pop culture icons have fought each other on the big screen. The first time was over 50 years ago in Toho’s King Kong vs. Godzilla. Released in 1962, the movie gave a massive size boost to King Kong and pitted him against Godzilla, who was once again on a destructive rampage against Japanese cities. Though King Kong was challenged by Godzilla’s physical might and his devastating blasts of atomic breath, Kong managed to save Japan from his wrath. The MonsterVerse has now revisited the idea of a Godzilla vs. King Kong fight, but with a few added twists, such as a powerful axe for Kong, a vast underground world called the Hollow Earth, and Godzilla’s robotic counterpart, Mechagodzilla.
Godzilla vs. Kong is very much a new story, but it did contain some notable connections to the original, one of which being the inclusion of Kong’s signature move from King Kong vs. Godzilla. During their battle in Hong Kong, Godzilla was about to fire off a blast of atomic breath when Kong stuck the axe handle in his mouth. The move allowed Kong to successfully stifle his opponent’s greatest weapon. This instantly drew comparisons to the scene from their final fight in King Kong vs. Godzilla. After getting supercharged by lightning, an energized Kong put Godzilla on the defensive and shoved a large tree down his throat, leaves and all. Surprised, Godzilla stumbled back and tried to shake free of it.
Due in large part to Godzilla’s humorous reaction to it, Kong putting a tree in the King of the Monsters’ mouth became one of the Toho movie’s most memorable moments. For this reason, a large number of fans called for it to be implemented in one way or another into the MonsterVerse version of their fight. The only problem was that with both Titans being well over 300 feet tall, there was unlikely to be a tree around tall enough for it to work. However, Godzilla vs. Kong was able to sufficiently pull it off with the Titan-bone axe hilt.
It amounted to a fun Easter egg reference to the 1962 Toho classic, which has for too long been the only movie to be released that features the two monsters facing off against one another. Since it was their only film together so far, it served as the basis for most of the comparisons between the two during debates over who would win in the months leading up to the new film's release. And thanks to the newly released MonsterVerse’s Godzilla vs. Kong, this pressing question has finally been answered in a satisfying way. Plus, it gave audiences several brand-new Godzilla-Kong moments to talk about for years to come.
