{"id":4625,"date":"2021-04-03T15:20:42","date_gmt":"2021-04-03T21:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/?p=4625"},"modified":"2021-04-03T15:20:42","modified_gmt":"2021-04-03T21:20:42","slug":"godzilla-vs-kong-is-the-tower-of-babel-all-over-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2021\/04\/godzilla-vs-kong-is-the-tower-of-babel-all-over-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Godzilla vs. Kong is the Tower of Babel All Over Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>
Godzilla and Kong in Warner Bros. Pictures\u2019 Godzilla vs. Kong. Photo courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Godzilla vs. Kong<\/em> isn\u2019t a great work of art. It\u2019s not even a great movie. But it does feature two great big monsters, and everything else\u2014both in scale and in plotting\u2014is really beside the point. And that, in a way, is<\/em> the point. If there\u2019s one thing the movie makes abundantly clear, it\u2019s that these titans don\u2019t like it when we humans get uppity.<\/p>\n

Titan<\/em>, by the way, is the generic name such massive creatures are being called here. (Kaiju<\/em> was just not good enough, I guess.) Godzilla is a titan who generally lives under water and five years ago saved the world from the three-headed King Ghidorah. Kong, another titan, begins the movie still hanging out on Skull Island in his very own high-tech bio-preserve.<\/p>\n

Oh, and they\u2019re both roughly the same size now\u2014even though in their most recent stand-alone movies, Kong was roughly a third \u00a0the size of Godzilla (104 feet vs. 328 feet, according to Wired<\/a><\/em>.) Now they\u2019re both nearly 400 feet tall.<\/p>\n

They also hate each other\u2014or so cave paintings and the movie\u2019s experts tell us. Kong and Godzilla are the Alabama\/Clemson rivalry of the titanic primeval world, locking horns (though neither of them actually has horns) every time they see one another. And no spoiler to say they see each other plenty here.<\/p>\n

But the movie\u2019s title is a little misleading. And to learn why, we\u2019re going to dive into some spoilers. (Consider yourself warned.)<\/p>\n

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Godzilla and Kong in Warner Bros. Pictures\u2019 Godzilla vs. Kong. Photo courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The real villain here isn\u2019t Kong or Godzilla, but rather a massive robot called Mechagodzilla\u2014the behemoth brainchild of Walter Simmons, CEO of Apex Cybernetics (and played by Demi\u00e1n Bichir). As Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown), Godzilla\u2019s favorite teen, says, Simmons is trying to replace Godzilla. How\u2019s that for gratitude?<\/p>\n

Simmons is the bad guy, but you can understand why. In a world of wildcards, Godzilla and other titans are literally gigantic ones. Sure, Godzilla saved the world from King Ghidorah, but what\u2019s to stop him from paying a destructive visit to Philadelphia, just for kicks? Nothing, that\u2019s what.<\/p>\n

But Simmons also wants humanity<\/em> to be at the \u201capex\u201d of creation: He\u2019s tired of these massive critters getting all the press. And, oh, by the way, if he owns and controls the biggest titan on the planet, he\u2019s probably got a leg up on any discomforting business negotiations, too.<\/p>\n

Godzilla, though, somehow knows what Simmons is up to. The whole movie begins with the big lizard taking down Apex\u2019s Pensacola operations\u2014to stop Simmons\u2019 project in its tracks.<\/p>\n

Naturally, it reminded me of the Tower of Babel.<\/p>\n

Stay with me: The stories are more similar than you might think. In Genesis 11, we read about man\u2019s first architectural push into the territory of God.<\/p>\n

Then they said, \u201cCome, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.\u201d (Gen. 11:4, ESV)<\/p>\n

God didn\u2019t like that, so He gave the human race\u2014which, until then, had enjoyed one common language\u2014a plethora of tongues, so that no one could understand what another was saying. That was the end of this monumental building project, according to the Bible\u2014but not the end of humanity\u2019s desire to reach the heavens with their own power.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Kaylee Hottle as Jia in Warner Bros. Pictures\u2019 and Legendary Pictures\u2019 Godzilla vs. Kong. Photo courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You could argue this began way back in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve were promised god-like knowledge by taking a little nibble of fruit. The Bible is filled with stories of how those who humble themselves before God are raised, and those who think they\u2019re all that are humbled (and often humiliated).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a big theme in other storytelling arenas, too. In Greek mythology, Icarus crashed to earth for flying too close to the sun. In Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein<\/em>, the not-so-good doctor tries to create life from a bunch of dead body parts and a bit of electricity\u2014infringing on God\u2019s sacred territory. In Titanic<\/em>, the headlining boat was called \u201cunsinkable,\u201d which really is just tempting fate. A good many superhero movies feature villains who want, or claim, to be like a god\u2014and they need someone just as powerful but a little more humble to cut them down to size.<\/p>\n

In many stories\u2014even stories that feature 400-foot-tall monsters\u2014hubris is the biggest monster of them all. And stories that warn us of hubris\u2014where characters want to become as gods themselves\u2014always come with a hint of spirituality.<\/p>\n

Godzilla vs. Kong<\/em> is obviously not a Christian movie. Here, the titans are the gods: We are to them as ants, but they\u2019re still loved and almost worshipped as protectors. They, like many mythological gods of old, can be unpredictable and jealous. And we even see a small hint of a more Christian-style element, when one of these titans steps into the brink and shows a willingness to sacrifice himself for someone far weaker than himself, but someone who loves him.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to go too far down this road. Godzilla vs. Kong<\/em> is pretty much what we think it is: a fun, shallow, CGI spectacle. But even such movies can carry just a whiff of a lesson if we look hard enough. Here, our Godzilla is a jealous Godzilla\u2014and that serves as a faint reminder that our God is a jealous God. And we\u2019re at our best not when we exalt ourselves, but when we humble ourselves. Our constructs of hubris, be they towers of Babel or Mechagodzillas, almost always come to bad ends.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Godzilla vs. Kong isn\u2019t a great work of art. It\u2019s not even a great movie. But it does feature two great big monsters, and everything else\u2014both in scale and in plotting\u2014is really beside the point. And that, in a way, is the point. If there\u2019s one thing the movie makes abundantly clear, it\u2019s that these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2036,"featured_media":4630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[365,3],"tags":[276,889,5],"class_list":["post-4625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-choice","category-movies","tag-monsters","tag-pride","tag-science-fiction"],"yoast_head":"\nGodzilla vs. Kong is the Tower of Babel All Over Again<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In many stories\u2014even stories that feature 400-foot-tall monsters\u2014hubris is the biggest monster of them all.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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