The highly-anticipated Godzilla Vs Kong features an epic clash between King Kong and Godzilla. Apart from the mighty titans, another powerful force was introduced in the film, the mechanical monstrosity Mechagodzilla. In an interview with Inverse, the director of the film, Adam Wingard revealed that he wanted the design for Mechagodzilla to hold up better than the main characters in the Transformers franchise.

"I just always loved the simplicity of the Transformers designs. 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... I remember watching the third Transformers movie in the theater. 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. 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's observations regarding Transformers have been echoed by many critics over the years. Oftentimes, watching a fight between the franchise's various Autobots and Decepticons feels like you are seeing a bunch of metal parts being thrown together in the trash compactor.

When it comes to the MonsterVerse, Mechagodzilla does not have to fight other mechanical beings, but rather flesh and blood monsters. The character first appeared in Japanese cinema in 1974 and has posed a unique challenge to Godzilla over the years.

Godzilla vs. Kong puts a new twist on the origins of Mechagodzilla, where the creature is created by Apex Cybernetics as a means of challenging Godzilla's dominance. This proves to be a convenient method for Kong and Godzilla to put aside their personal differences to fight the common enemy.

Given the grounded nature of the MonsterVerse in comparison to previous Godzilla movies, fans had long wondered whether as outlandish a creation as a mechanical Godzilla would even fit into the franchise. But clearly, Wingard and his team put a great deal of effort into making sure Mechagodzilla's appearance helps rather than hinders the storyline.

It will be interesting to see if future movies in the franchise take things one step further, and introduce the character known as Mechani-Kong, which actually debuted years before Mechagodzilla, and prompted the creation of the latter. Who knows, the entry of multiple giant mechanical monsters might bring us one step closer to a MonsterVerse/Pacific Rim crossover movie.

Directed by Adam Wingard and written by Eric Pearson and Max Borenstein, Godzilla vs. Kong stars Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, and Brian Tyree Henry. The film is currently in theaters and on HBO Max. This news originated at Inverse.