Kong vs. Zilla - MonsterVerse Fight Animation

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Shots cut from this video: • Deleted and Alternate ...
The MonsterVerse hasn't been getting much love on this channel. So here's this. The idea for this animation came from a chat with another fan where we discussed how Zilla could be made useful again. Godzilla 1998 still remains a highly popular movie among certain international audiences, making Zilla a viable monster design with underutilized market appeal. So I imagined a scene between Kong and Zilla that became the basis for this video... ironically that scene doesn't actually appear in the final animation. I also wanted to use Zilla as a stand-in for the bipedal meat eating dinosaurs Kong has traditionally fought in some of his older films because Zilla is a monster Kong could realistically beat even without his ax.
This video doesn't follow any MonsterVerse continuity, it's just a fantasy scenario that could be set sometime after the events of the film Godzilla vs. Kong, as Kong explores his new home in Hollow Earth. Instinctively, he begins looking for potential threats when he senses the smell of reptilian monsters, one of which could be the Zilla, a species that evolved with the general outwardly characteristics of Godzilla's species in order to fool and frighten tougher but less intelligent monsters. They are Godzilla imitators, but smarter monsters can tell that they are very different.
I imagined they could live around the "gravity inversion" areas of Hollow Earth where their agility and speed lets them take advantage of the low gravity conditions and the rugged terrain to perform stunts no other monsters can do. As they're powerless, they use camouflage and confuse their enemies with flashing colors and swift jumps, and they perform mock attacks to measure up their foes' strengths and weaknesses. But they are at a disadvantage in open spaces where they can't rely on Hollow Earth's inverted gravity.
I also thought the glowing rocks or mountains could store some vague form of energy that certain monsters can absorb. In GVK, when Godzilla fired his breath into Hollow Earth or when Kong charged up the throne room, perhaps they unwittingly ignited some long-dormant energy reserves in the Earth's crust and raised unexpected monsters from their sleep. Perhaps even the nuke detonated in King of the Monsters could have lead to an unforeseen chain reaction that affected an undiscovered pocket in Hollow Earth, and it also disturbed the monsters who lived or hibernated there.
Point is, I wanted to include flashy lights in the animation and this is my justification for them. Both the rocks and even the air around them have become volatile thanks to this burst of energy, causing sparks or lightning-like discharges to erupt, which is also a callback to Kong's electric powers from the original King Kong vs. Godzilla.
One of the awakened monsters could even be a juvenile member of Godzilla's species, thought long lost during the ancient conflict between Godzilla's and Kong's kind. A few eggs have survived, hidden in deep crevices where the Hollow Earth energy kept them alive in suspended animation. With Hollow Earth re-energized, some of these eggs gave life to new Godzillas, like the little purple female seen here. Knowing the threat that adult Godzillas pose, the residents of Hollow Earth have set out to hunt them down while they can.
Kong interacting with a baby Godzilla is a good way to give character to the monsters without making them too human, or without tarnishing the mysterious nature of the adult Godzilla. Their bond could even end the conflict between the species, and eventually her and Kong could establish a "dual monarchy" in Hollow Earth.
My main idea for the video was Kong getting caught in the gravity inversion barrier, desperately trying to "swim" in the air as Zilla lunges back and forth between the bottom and upper grounds and strikes him with each jump. But the fight choreography didn't work out. The monsters' actions guided the course of the fight rather than me, so in the end I didn't get to animate this scene. The monsters' movements and the fight's length also needed to be timed to the music, which complicated things further and forced me to tone down some of my original ideas.
A lot of animation had to be cut or redone, at times I had to delete several weeks' worth of work. A short video like this should only take a one or two months to animate, but it ended up taking nearly four months because I kept going back and forth on several scenes. I also realized giant monsters floating in the air look very silly, so I kept these kind of scenes to a minimum. Some shots still look ridiculous or awkward, but I just didn't want to redo them because I already wasted too much time.
I hope those of you who have been asking for more fight animations will find this at least moderately entertaining and won't experience all the headache and frustration I felt for months while I was making this.