Godzilla versus King Kong, the two greatest beasts in film history, the two Kings of the monster verse, battle it out to decide who is King of them all. Godzilla a 100,000 ton, nuclear behemoth, King Kong, a big monkey; at first glance this should be a blowout, but looking closer at the matchup, King Kong might have the better chance of walking out victorious.
Godzilla is coming off defeating King Ghidorah, a massive three-headed dragon, and taking his throne as King of the monsters. Around this time, Kong is on Skull island fighting off Skull Crawlers, an ancient race of killer lizards, trying to eat him for dinner. Both Godzilla and Kong know that each other exist, but to this point have never made contact or fought.
“I think Godzilla will win because Kong is a monkey and Godzilla is a God,” sophomore Lucas Henry said.
And Godzilla basically is a god. In his latest movie, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, he “is 393 feet and one half inch tall” and weighs just over 100,000 tons (per NewsWeek). As for Kong, in his most recent movie, Kong: Skull Island, he’s 100 feet tall and weighs around 1,500 tons. This is a huge difference, but in the trailers released for Godzilla vs. Kong, both fighters are around the same size. Even scaling Kong up to Gozilla’s height, Godzilla still has a massive weight advantage, giving him the edge on size.
As for weapons and special traits, “I’d give the edge to Godzilla because [the] energy blast that comes from his mouth destroys anything in its path,” self-proclaimed movie expert Ben Vernick stated.
Vernick could be correct in his prediction. Godzilla’s atomic blast is his main weapon; it absolutely obliterates anything in front of it and is incredibly hard to stop.
“[Godzilla] can whack his tail but Kong doesn’t have any special abilities,” freshman Jasmin Kirkland explained. Kong just fights with his fists and body and doesn’t have any sort of extra powers.
Everything so far has been in Godzilla’s favor, but when moviegoers look at agility and speed, Kong starts to take the edge. Although we have seen Godzilla demonstrate his athleticism charging at high speeds, Kong’s lightweight, muscular, and humanlike build grants him greater agility, jumping, and running speeds. These attributes could be used to dodge attacks or change lanes, making it hard for Godzilla to press his attacks and maybe even leaving his flank open.
Where Kong really starts to gain an edge is intelligence.
“I think King Kong is going to win because monkeys are very strong and smart,” freshman Jackson Komin said.
Although very blunt, his statement is valid. Intelligence is a key attribute and could play a huge role in this fight. Godzilla doesn’t put on many displays of high intelligence, but it is well known that he’s been around longer, so he would have more battle experience, and thus more fighting knowledge. As for Kong, he proves his intelligence in Kong: Skull Island. In one scene, he uses a boat propeller as a ball and chain to help defeat the largest Skull crawler, literally nicknamed “the Big One.” In this fight, he also crafts what is basically a bat by stripping down a tree. Furthermore, Kong makes great use of his terrain, smashing Skull crawlers with giant boulders and launching them into mountains.
All of these actions take high levels of intelligence, not to mention emotions.
“Kong [has] emotions, which is something people forget about,” Vernick states. “Rage and anger are emotions, and powerful ones at that.”
Not only will emotions help Kong in the fight, but are also further signs of high intelligence. Godzilla might have more experience, but his overall intelligence and brain capacity are no match for Kong’s.
All this information given, it is time for the decider of this match-up. Everything before has been pretty even, but the trailer gives away Kong’s biggest advantage yet, an axe. Knowing that Kong is very skilled using weapons and tools, this axe could potentially be deadly. The best shot of the weapon is from 2:15 to 2:20 in the movie’s trailer. It’s seen countering Godzilla’s atomic blast, absorbing the energy, and redirecting it back at Godzilla. Godzilla’s most lethal weapon countered like that, and even used against him. The axe is made of a Godzilla species dorsal plate and a massive titan bone. This explains its ability to absorb that much energy.
The axe is so powerful that,“[it] just might be the most lethal weapon in the monster verse,” YouTube channel Goji Center states in their analysis of the axe.
No matter how the fight resolves, it is certain that students are excited for this new chapter in this iconic kaiju’s tale.