Godzilla Vs. Kong Fans Petitioned For A Reference That Was Already Planned
Modern fandom, to say the least, is very misguided in its sense of entitlement. As proof, look no further than Change dot org, a website where anyone can start a petition for just about anything. Amongst the dozens of joke petitions, the hundreds of political petitions, and other types of requests on the website, you can find many (way too many) petitions regarding the arts and entertainment. More specifically, petitions involving what fans believe should (or should not) be included in their beloved franchises.
Perhaps, if one's feeling charitable, such petitions had some merit back during the days when most filmmakers working on franchise films were only barely aware of any given series and its fanbase. Nowadays — really, for the last 20-odd years or so — studios and producers seek to hire creators who are already self-avowed fans of a given character or source material, the better to hopefully circumvent issues with fan demands.
In other words, it feels like too many fandoms ignore or forget the fact that these filmmakers working today are, by and large, fans themselves, meaning their petitions become fairly redundant. That's exactly what happened when a fan began a petition on Change dot org in 2019 for the then-upcoming MonsterVerse film "Godzilla vs. Kong" to "Make Kong shove a tree in Godzilla's mouth." Little did that fan as well as the 750 people who signed the petition know that "GvK" director Adam Wingard didn't need to be asked to make that moment happen in his eventual movie.
The Godzilla fandom and the scourge of 1998's 'Godzilla'
To be fair, the fandom for Godzilla had learned to be suspicious of non-Japanese filmmakers bringing their beloved kaiju to U.S. shores, thanks solely to Roland Emmerich's 1998 version of the giant lizard. The movie was such a disappointment that even apologists like me can only muster up a "Well, it's not THAT bad" defense. Its most ardent haters, then and now, refer to it with the acronym "GINO," which stands for "Godzilla In Name Only."
One would think that, given the generally positive reception to both 2014's "Godzilla," the first entry in what has become Legendary Pictures' MonsterVerse, and 2019's "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" (which introduced such fan-favorite monsters as Mothra, Rodan, and Ghidorah to the US series), the MonsterVerse had gained enough goodwill with fans that no petitions needed to be made. Yet fandom gonna fandom, one supposes, and sure enough, user Márk Moldován created the petition about "Godzilla vs. Kong" shortly after "King of the Monsters" dropped in theaters.
Granted, the petition itself isn't particularly demanding; it merely says "Do you remember the epic and funny scene when Kong shoves a tree in Godzilla's mouth in 'King Kong vs. Godzilla' (1962)? Do you want it to happen in 'Godzilla vs. Kong' (2020)? If yes, sign this petition." Still, the irony is that, while hundreds of people made their voices heard about wanting Kong to shove a tree in Big G's face, "GvK" director Wingard was already hard at work making it happen.
Adam Wingard was always going to have a tree meet Godzilla's face in Godzilla vs. Kong
In April of 2021, when "Godzilla vs Kong" was about to hit theaters (delayed in its release due to the COVID-19 pandemic), Wingard took to Reddit to participate in an Ask Me Anything interview. During this, he revealed that homaging the original battle between Godzilla and Kong, as seen in director Ishirō Honda's "King Kong vs. Godzilla," was always part of his plan, and had nothing to do with the petition or wave of memes that popped up in its wake:
"I knew right away that I had to have that reference in. It's the best part of the original fight. I did love the petition tho!"
As you can see from this comparison video of each tree-shoving moment from both films, Wingard and his team of effects artists did a pretty wonderful job of homaging the classic bit from the 1962 movie in "GvK." When Wingard returned for this year's "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire," he brought a new slew of homages and references with him, including callbacks to late Shõwa-era Toho Godzilla films. Now that Wingard is leaving the MonsterVerse, with Grant Sputore stepping in to take over the next U.S. Godzilla adventure, will a new batch of petitions pop up on Change dot org? If this tale has a moral, it's thus: fans, fret not.