8 Mistakes From Previous Versus Movies That Batman V Superman Should Avoid

By Ben Bussey /

8. Don€™t Ignore The Characters€™ Physiology

Offending €˜Vs€™ Movie: King Kong vs Godzilla Surely the most common complaint ever since Batman V Superman was first announced has been the inherent disparity between the would-be pugilists. Superman is the last son of Krypton, whose alien DNA in conjunction with Earth€™s atmospheric conditions grants him the power of flight, superhuman strength, heat vision, X-ray vision, and almost-complete invulnerability. Batman, meanwhile, is a rich guy who works out, wearing a rubber-eared suit. How fair a fight can it be when one opponent could flick the other€™s head off like it was a dandelion clock? Batman V Superman is by no means the first €˜vs€™ movie to face such a problem. 1962€™s King Kong Vs Godzilla had a similar obstacle to overcome when it cast RKO€™s legendary giant ape, roughly 20-25 feet tall in the 1933 original, against Toho€™s ferocious radioactive dinosaur, who in the 1954 original was an estimated 164 feet. At those proportions, any fight between the two great monsters would have been a real David and Goliath set-up. So how did Toho get around that when they licensed the great ape for their third Godzilla movie? Simple €“ they cheated. Kong€™s height was massively increased to 145 feet, making it a fairer fight. The character was also brought to life not via stop-motion animation as in the RKO movie, but by Toho€™s somewhat cheaper and easier man-in-suit approach. The results may still be fun to watch, but may result in headaches if you're a stickler for chronology. Of course, given the advance glimpses of Ben Affleck€™s Batman in a heavily armoured (possibly Kryptonite-powered?) batsuit, this is obviously something Warner Bros/DC have taken into account; the stakes are seemingly evened, without granting Batman sudden abilities he never had before. It remains to be seen how Warners and Legendary will tackle the problem with their new take on Kong Vs Godzilla, scheduled for 2020.