It’s been almost an entire week since “Godzilla vs. Kong” debuted in theaters and on HBO Max, so it’s about time we can talk about the elephant in the room, err, maybe the Mecha in the room. By now, you probably know Mechagodzilla shows up as the big bad at the end of the monster slugfest, forcing Kong and regular Godzilla to team up and take it down. And according to a new interview with director Adam Wingard, his design for Mechagodzilla was influenced by “Transformers.” But definitely not Michael Bay’s version.
Speaking to Inverse, the filmmaker explained the origins of Mechagodzilla’s design in the film. For those that have seen “Godzilla vs. Kong,” you know that the robotic bad guy has a fairly simple design that doesn’t feature an absolute ton of superfluous CGI bells and whistles. Wingard said that choice was influenced by his love of the classic “Transformers” cartoon series.
“I just always loved the simplicity of the [classic] ‘Transformers’ designs,” Wingard explained. “So I tried to create a look to the character that was punchy and just had a bit more simplicity. There’s an immediacy to his shape and outline.”
Of course, when you talk about “Transformers” nowadays, you can’t help but mention the film series from Michael Bay that has earned billions of dollars and has become the default way people think of the Robots in Disguise in 2021. But Wingard wants film fans to know, without any ambiguity, he does not look to Michael Bay’s designs for inspiration with his Mechagodzilla.
“I remember watching the third ‘Transformers’ movie in the theater,” Wingard recalls. “It was one of those things where I was with a date, and we got there late, and the only seats that were available were literally in the front row. And so I’m sitting there watching ‘Transformers 3’ in the front row, and I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on.”
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He continued, “The Transformers, they just looked like metal. They looked like a plane crash. So I thought, that’s the thing I wanted to avoid. They were too complex. There are too many moving parts, and I couldn’t latch on to anything. Nothing felt iconic with that Transformers design.”
Wingard concluded his thoughts about “Transformers” by referencing the 1986 animated “Transformers” film and how that shaped his movie interests at a young age.
“The ‘Transformers’ animated movie from the ’80s with Orson Welles was one of the best movie experiences for me as a kid growing up,” Wingard said. “Period.”
You can see Mechagodzilla in “Godzilla vs. Kong,” which is in theaters now and streaming on HBO Max.
Here’s the trailer for the aforementioned “Transformers: The Movie” that Wingard (and myself) holds so dear:
