Synopsis:

Big monster fight! Watching the film in cinemas, I realised how expendable the Millie Bobby Brown character and her subplot were, as the entire side mission was completely disconnected from the main story. Doing some very simple cuts to remove the sideplot ended up with a much simplier and to-the-point film, focusing on Kong's journey to Hollow Earth and his clash with Godzilla in less than 80 minutes. Strap in for a tighter and much faster ride as the two titans go head to head!

Intentions:

Sitting in the cinema, it slowly dawned on me how seperate the MBB story was in relation to the real bones of the film, being the Hollow Earth trip and the big monsters fighting. Her sideplot culminated with her stopping MechaGodzilla for all of one second which proved to be pointless, as I was able to cut it out without any difference. Watching the film, you assume her gang would end up meeting with the Skarsgard bunch but they stay completely seperate and never know of each others existance. Its so strange, so I just lifted the less important one out.

Change List:

Editing Details: The process for this honestly was pretty straight forward, cut all the MBB scenes, Kyle Chandler, and any scene with the characters from the B-plot, and then tighten anything else. Ended up with a lean 73 minutes before credits, reminded me more of the 60s and 70s Godzilla films which was great Cuts and Additions: - missing cast members, removed from credits - Cut Godzilla attacking Apex opening and Bernie trying to get to the secure levels, all references to this has been cut throughout the film - cut Maddison in school, going to see her dad and then listening to Bernie's podcast - cut the reference to the GZ attack on Apex when Simmons approaches Nathan at the university - cut Jai calling Nathan a coward - cut Maddison and Josh going to find Bernie (4 or 5 scenes in a row here) - cut Rebecca "no one could take the reigns on kong" - cut Maia "Him? Then dump the monkey" - cut the sideplot gang breaking into Apex and hitching a ride to Hong Kong - cut Maia calling Kong gross after he drinks the monster blood - cut the sideplot gang sneaking around the Hong Kong Apex site and stumbling into the MechaGodzilla testing room - cut the guys in the HEAV pointing out where they were going - cut the sideplot gang walking around Apex again, and - added Hong Kong location card to GZ approaching the city - cut Mark reacting to GZ approaching the city - muted exposition about Kong's axe drawing power - cut and muted the exposition about what the drone is doing when extracting the energy from the glowing rock, visually we can tell whats happening - cut the Apex goons pulling guns on Rebecca and Jai because they are suddenly opposed to the exact mission they agreed to come along to - cut the sideplot gang getting caught by the Apex guys - cut "looks like round 2 goes to Kong" - cut the sideplot gang being brought in front of Simmons and most of his evil monologue to him - recut MechaGZ activating, using footage and dialogue from the cut testing scene, and the previous evil monologue but with no trace of the subplot gang - cut any shot or scene of the sideplot gang during the fight, they don't mess around the control room and don't impact anything or cheer - cut the callback to the bad coward joke from Jai since it no longer happened earlier - cut Maddison reuniting with Mark in HK under inexplicable circumstances - recut ending so it all is centred around Nathan, Rebecca and Jai - removed any cast members from the credits that were cut from the film

Additional Notes:

- Mini-Podcast introducing the Hollow-Earth Edition - Alternate Opening - Unused Edit