Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a huge sequel for a wide variety of reasons, and fans are looking forward to see what new takes on Toho’s famous Kaiju will be brought into the MonsterVerse. But like the rebooted take on Godzilla, there has to be a balance between honoring Toho’s original imaginings of the franchise while being sure to offer new imagery.
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Director of the sequel, Michael Dougherty, understands the pressures of maintaining this balance and spoke with ComicBook.com at a press event about his attempt to honor the originals while presenting something new.
Dougherty spoke about how important it was to get the details right. This especially goes for their silhouettes, and how they need to be identifiable, “Similar to the sounds of the creatures, to me it’s really important that the silhouettes of the creatures honor the originals. Like, that’s always the basis for any good silhouette of a creature, that’s always the basis for any good creature design is the silhouette. In the same way that you need to be able to listen to creature noises and identify it without seeing it, you need to be able to look at the silhouette of your monster, whether it’s the Alien, or Godzilla, or Rodan, or whatever, and you need to identify it.”
His approach to nailing this seems certainly out of left field, but made a lot of sense once you sit and think about it, “I don’t know if [you all] are fans of ancient aliens, but I love it, and there’s a certain approach there. Primitive man saw these creatures, you want to give them a presence that would make them drop to their knees and bow to this god.”
But while the approach seemed to start from a unique origin, the goal is concrete and sound, “Same thing with Rodan, they can’t just look like gigantic dinosaurs, Jurassic Park has that covered, these have to be distinct, they have to be their own thing, they’re Titans.”
So by making sure that every detail of the new additions such as Rodan, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and potentially many more, Toho’s original Kaiju will hopefully look and feel like their original incarnations while also been distinct and different. Directed by Michael Dougherty, Godzilla: King of the Monsters stars Millie Bobby Brown, Vera Farmiga, Sally Hawkins, Kyle Chandler, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Ken Watanabe, Bradley Whitford, among many other talents. The film is currently scheduled to hit theaters May 31st with Godzilla vs. Kong scheduled for a 2020 release after.
The synopsis for Godzilla: King of the Monsters reads as such, “The new story follows the heroic efforts of the cryptozoological agency Monarch as its members face off against a battery of god sized monsters, including the mighty Godzilla, who collides with Mothra, Rodan, and his ultimate nemesis, the three headed King Ghidorah. When these ancient superspecies, thought to be mere myths, rise again, they all vie for supremacy, leaving humanity’s very existence hanging in the balance.”
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