#Mechagodzilla in Godzilla Vs. Kong Was Inspired by the T-800 Terminator

One of the biggest surprises of Godzilla Vs Kong, which was not really a surprise at all because the news had been spoiled online long ago, was the entry of Mechagodzilla. Concept artists Jared Krichevsky, who did creature designs for the film, posted on Instagram about the process of creating the look of the giant mechanical monstrosity. Krichevsky mentioned how the VFX supervisor on the project, Legacy Effects studio Co-Head John Rosengrant told him, “It has to be a Terminator,” regarding the appearance of Mechagodzilla, which Krichevsky took up as a challenge.

“Being @legacyeffects, theres lots of T-800s about and so I studied what made them terrifying. So that became my main source of inspiration. The skeletal structure, the eerie but uncanny similarity of man with the cold steel of machine. Mechagodzilla had to look different than any other previous versions So I knew RPO was off the table. He couldn’t look like an exact machine version of Godzilla, which was my first attempt.”

RELATED: Godzilla Vs. Kong Fights Its Way Past $400M at the Worldwide Box Office
When it comes to iconic and menacing machines, the T-800 is pretty much unbeatable. Past versions of Mechagodzilla had stuck to basically being a mechanical version of their respective Godzillas. According to Krichevsky, he made a conscious effort to make this version of the metallic behemoth the opposite of Godzilla, design-wise, while still looking like a credible threat to the combined might of King Kong and Godzilla.

“I went to opposites, Godzilla has a thick body, so I went with a lean, fish-ike body and skeletal tail, Godzilla has stubby arms, so I gave him extra reach. The claw hands were something I pitched in the room, but I knew they needed to see it to understand it. One note was that the hands needed to be unique. I decided the claws could have a range of flexibility and possibilities, So I based this off of something called mirror-hand syndrome. I wanted this Mecha to be fast and maneuverable has built like a tank.”

Considering the gritty, grounded approach to world-building that Legendary Studios had adopted to building their MonsterVerse ever since the start of the franchise with 2014’s Godzilla, many fans believed the series would never introduce Mechagodzilla, one of the most far-out concepts in Godzillalore from the Japanese films that kickstarted the whole thing.

The fact that not only was the mechanical creature introduced, but fans are loving its look and backstory means the franchise has opened itself up to include even more risky stuff from the lore, like alien invaders who can control Godzilla and his ilk, or even a crossover with the Pacific Rim franchise.

For now, the director of Godzilla vs. Kong, Adam Wingard has hinted that a possible sequel could delve deeper into the distant past, when Godzilla, Kong, and others of their species roamed the Earth freely and waged war on each other. Directed by Wingard and written by Eric Pearson and Max Borenstein, Godzilla vs. Kong stars Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, and Brian Tyree Henry.

Topics: Godzilla Vs King Kong, Terminator