Godzilla vs Kong

[Spacewolf]

So incase anyone didn't know the newest monsterverse film is out, to give my non spoiler opinion is probably the best. Vastly better than the two Godzilla films and personally I prefer it to Kong: Skull island. The fights are actually allowed to play out while still giving a good feeling of size most of the time.

My only real gripe was the conspiracy theorist guy, I know it's a Hollywood staple but I think we've all had enough of indulging people like the guy in the film after this year.

One thing I did notice was there was no stinger for this film considering the poor returns they've had hopefully they don't pull the plug now they actually have a good monster film under their belt.

So like I think everyone guessed Mecha Godzilla is in the film and looks good, if slightly busy. However the theory that he would be disguised as Godzilla to discredit him isn't correct.

Honestly I think the mega corp guy was right, humanity does need something like Mechagodzilla in this setting. So shame he gets axed off so easily. Maybe using telepathic alien heads was too far though.

I'm guessing Ghidoras heads are the two from the final fight of King of all monsters and the one that Dance reclaims in the stinger is still around elsewhere.

I do like how the fights play out, Godzilla is definitely the more durable of the two and kong has no answer for his atomic breath outside the special axe he gets. Before that the breath is basically treated as an instant loss for him if he were to be hit dead on by it. But when kong gets to use tools he is definitely a danger to the big G. I also liked how mecha focused on G to show Ghidora was in control and still hates him for his last defeat. The Drawing at the foot of the throne implies to me that Godzilla is the original as well which is a nice touch.

After the big axe blast that ends round two I honestly though Godzilla was blind due to the weird way he was moving and attacking which would have been an interesting setup but no just seems like he was super pissed off.

Finally Millie and her scooby gang don't really add much to the film that couldn't be done else where but she's basically the face of the films at this point. Her mother is also apparently being treated as not a terrible person thanks to her sacrifice but I mean she still killed probably tens of millions of people easily so I still find that one hard to swallow.

[Dienekes]

Yeah, I enjoyed this. Quite a bit. It had monsters. It had punching. It had atomic blasts. Things blew up. It did precisely what I wanted out of a Godzilla vs King Kong movie.

That said, if I am going to be critical.

The movie would've been better served focusing on the villain and explaining their plan and reasons, possibly with one of their people being the whiner saying things like "But it's not working, you're going too far, this is inhumane" or whatever, rather than having conspiracy nut, stranger things girl, and... ... the other one in the movie at all. They had the characters all there, the leader as the villain trying to push them past the point where the technology can go, the pilot (son?) who could be used to say things like "I feel Ghidorah's presence fighting against me. We need to scrap this." And the daughter acting as the supportive one to her father's vision, perhaps coming around at the end seeing the problems it's causing. Nice and neat little character drama. I just did not see much of a point of the 'Zilla group of heroes.

It was also one of those movies where the villains don't even seem all that villainous at first, so they have some of them randomly act like jerks for no reason, so we can tell they're the bad guys.

I also think they were doing a thing with Godzilla not having good eyesight or something? I think I missed the explanation, but in Fight One on the carrier they turn off all power and suddenly Godzilla didn't attack them. But they mentioned that if they turn the engines back on Godzilla will just come at them again. Even when Godzilla puts his head above water and is clearly looking at them.

Then when Godzilla looks like he couldn't see Kong at the start of Fight Three (or Fight Two-B maybe?).

I think I missed an explanation somewhere.

Anyway, very enjoyable. Incredibly dumb. The Hollow Earth teleport thing made absolutely no sense and I just don't care. Will probably watch it again at some point. I do think I still rank the first Godzilla and first Kong higher. But it is very enjoyable.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Yeah, I enjoyed this. Quite a bit. It had monsters. It had punching. It had atomic blasts. Things blew up. It did precisely what I wanted out of a Godzilla vs King Kong movie.

That said, if I am going to be critical.

The movie would've been better served focusing on the villain and explaining their plan and reasons, possibly with one of their people being the whiner saying things like "But it's not working, you're going too far, this is inhumane" or whatever, rather than having conspiracy nut, stranger things girl, and... ... the other one in the movie at all. They had the characters all there, the leader as the villain trying to push them past the point where the technology can go, the pilot (son?) who could be used to say things like "I feel Ghidorah's presence fighting against me. We need to scrap this." And the daughter acting as the supportive one to her father's vision, perhaps coming around at the end seeing the problems it's causing. Nice and neat little character drama. I just did not see much of a point of the 'Zilla group of heroes.

It was also one of those movies where the villains don't even seem all that villainous at first, so they have some of them randomly act like jerks for no reason, so we can tell they're the bad guys.

I also think they were doing a thing with Godzilla not having good eyesight or something? I think I missed the explanation, but in Fight One on the carrier they turn off all power and suddenly Godzilla didn't attack them. But they mentioned that if they turn the engines back on Godzilla will just come at them again. Even when Godzilla puts his head above water and is clearly looking at them.

Then when Godzilla looks like he couldn't see Kong at the start of Fight Three (or Fight Two-B maybe?).

I think I missed an explanation somewhere.

Anyway, very enjoyable. Incredibly dumb. The Hollow Earth teleport thing made absolutely no sense and I just don't care. Will probably watch it again at some point. I do think I still rank the first Godzilla and first Kong higher. But it is very enjoyable.


It wasn't that Godzilla didn't have good eyesight, they pointed out early on that when two Alpha titans meet, one bows and the other reigns. At the first battle, the humans basically threw in the towel for Kong, the doctor explained that by turning off all the lights and stopping movie, they'd be communicating a show of submission to Godzilla. And since that's all Godzilla wanted, he stopped attacking and went on his merry way. That's why he looked at the boat but didn't keep attacking it, it didn't seem like the boat (and Kong) were challenging his reign by trying to get away/keep fighting.

And I wouldn't be surprised ig Godzilla's vision was a bit messed up because of how the axe went off against his head, that and Kong staying out of sight (mostly above and behind Godzilla).

Overall, I'm very pleased with this movie. Well worth the wait, made my day a lot better. Just wonderful. I don't rank it as high as Godzilla: KotM for me, but its a close race in my mind, very close.

[BloodSquirrel]

The movie was entirely out of its mind, running on moon logic, nonsense physics, and mountains of "Just trust us, it works this way". Lots of pointless human characters doing dumb things, and the morality of the villains/protagonists is as half-baked as ever.

In other words, it's big monke vs giant luzurd, and on that level, it's a massive step up from the last two 'zilla movies. No cutting away from the giant monsters just as they were about to break things. No covering everything is so much smoke that you couldn't see what was going on. Nice, wide camera shots that show you everything that's happening.

Yeah, the main villain has a hell of a point. Godzilla is not the "good guy" here. Godzilla does not give one **** how many innocent people he killed in Hong Kong just because he smelled a challenge to his rep there. He didn't give one **** about the people he killed during his completely unprovoked attack the fleet that was carrying Kong. Any "protection" he provides to mankind is entirely incidental to his real nature as a giant monster that fights other giant monsters, and he's happy to do that right smack dab in the middle of humanity's largest population centers. If Apex hadn't been cartoonishly irresponsible by putting their facility under one of said population centers and not having sufficient testing and fail-safes in place before activating Mechagodzilla, you'd be hard-pressed to explain why they're the bad guys.

[Dragonus45]

The movie was entirely out of its mind, running on moon logic, nonsense physics, and mountains of "Just trust us, it works this way". Lots of pointless human characters doing dumb things, and the morality of the villains/protagonists is as half-baked as ever.

I know, wasn't it just beautiful.


My biggest complaint is that Kong should have won. Godzilla was absolutely the heel in this setup and I frankly kind of hate that they went with such a generic TechBro villain setup despite him being correct that the Titans are a problem.

[Foeofthelance]

I know, wasn't it just beautiful.


My biggest complaint is that Kong should have won. Godzilla was absolutely the heel in this setup and I frankly kind of hate that they went with such a generic TechBro villain setup despite him being correct that the Titans are a problem.

I'm actually of the opposite opinion. I'm glad they gave Godzilla a legitimate beef with Apex as it would have been too much of a deviation from his characterization in other movies. He'd just been too careful around everything else to sell "Welp, Godzilla smashing for the lulz" in this one.


I watched it last night and plan on seeing it again in theaters on Monday for the full spectacle of it all. That said, I can't help but feel that the last half of the movie needed to be completely reworked for the sake of at least approaching something that made sense.

At first I was completely on board. We'd already been introduced to the Hollow Earth in the previous movies, and the idea of there being some gravity barrier that only Titans can get through naturally, sure totally on board with that, just as I could buy the villains needing some Titan related unobtainium in order to power up Mechagodzilla. These are giant monster movies. They pretty much run on SCIENCE!

Amusingly, then came the scene where they decide to depth charge Godzilla while he's in the middle of drowning Kong because Kong is apparently immune to concussions? And that is where it started falling apart for me. For example...

Turning Ghidorah's skull into a supercomputer? Sure, I'll buy that. But why, why did they have to try to sell with a line as bad as "They hardwired his DNA!" Then we get Godzilla going full Death Star on the planet's crust, followed by the whole energy signature uploading bit which does...what? How? Why? "Yes! We have the blue squiggly lines, now Ghidorah's skull can run amok in our giant death cyborg!" I can't help but feel it would have made far more sense (I know, I know...) to have had them actually obtain a mineral sample from Kong's throne room then just use a back door to the Hollow Earth already built into the Hong Kong facility. Explain as it being tied into the same tunnel network that apparently let them monorail from Florida to Hong Kong. Its called a suspension of disbelief, not a trampoline of disbelief, but the writers felt the need to just jump all over it.

Also would have preferred a bit more of a background on the war between Godzilla and Kong. They had no problem telling us all about it, but frankly, King of the Monsters did a much better job showing us anything about it.

[Cikomyr2]

Really stupid big budget film that manages to stick to its thematic, although almost drops it at certain moment.

I'd argue there was less single cool "Tableau" than in King of the Monster.

I loved Bitopia, and I want to have more adventures in the Hollow World

[Palanan]

Am I reading all of this right?

Is there, in fact, a hollow Earth in these movies?

I'm not even sure which movies are considered part of the franchise, since I thought all the recent Godzilla movies were essentially reboots. Not really my thing, but I'm wondering if they're going full Mystara here.

[Foeofthelance]

Am I reading all of this right?

Is there, in fact, a hollow Earth in these movies?

I'm not even sure which movies are considered part of the franchise, since I thought all the recent Godzilla movies were essentially reboots. Not really my thing, but I'm wondering if they're going full Mystara here.

Yeah, the Hollow Earth was actually introduced in King of the Monsters as a way of explaining how Godzilla could move around the planet so quickly, though its actually hinted at way back in the first Monsterverse Godzilla, when one of the Monarch scientists mentioned that most of the Titans had moved underground as Earth's surface became less radioactive in prehistory and only started to move again on the surface once we started digging up radioactive sources and consolidating them in places like nuclear power plants.

[Starbuck_II]

I kind of want Journey to Center of Earth Rock movies to be part of Godzilla.
I mean, they traveled there.

Meaning Rock or Brandon Fraiser can be part of Godzilla series.

[Cikomyr2]

There was one thing that annoyed me

the big titted evil corporate daddy's girl was so incompetent. So unprepared. So stupid and short-sighted, that I was sure they were setting her up to have some sort of reversal later in the movie.

She seemed surprised by basic mission procedures and expectations. She kept suggesting stuff that would jeopardize the mission she was explicitly sent to achieve ("dump the Monkey", really?!). She was surprised at things that she should have learned first thing when reading the mission briefing.

And ordering to shoot at Kong on their way to escape?! Wtf girl, you know it will do nothing and only risk aggravating him. He wasn't even attacking you, and you decided to SHOOT AT HIM?!

Luckily, they quickly disposed of any such cartoon characters without dragging it.

[Spacewolf]

In other Godzilla news singular point the newest anime based on Godzilla has started airng. So far its a pretty fun show.

[Gnoman]

The movie was entirely out of its mind, running on moon logic, nonsense physics, and mountains of "Just trust us, it works this way". Lots of pointless human characters doing dumb things, and the morality of the villains/protagonists is as half-baked as ever.

In other words, it's big monke vs giant luzurd, and on that level, it's a massive step up from the last two 'zilla movies. No cutting away from the giant monsters just as they were about to break things. No covering everything is so much smoke that you couldn't see what was going on. Nice, wide camera shots that show you everything that's happening.

Yeah, the main villain has a hell of a point. Godzilla is not the "good guy" here. Godzilla does not give one **** how many innocent people he killed in Hong Kong just because he smelled a challenge to his rep there. He didn't give one **** about the people he killed during his completely unprovoked attack the fleet that was carrying Kong. Any "protection" he provides to mankind is entirely incidental to his real nature as a giant monster that fights other giant monsters, and he's happy to do that right smack dab in the middle of humanity's largest population centers. If Apex hadn't been cartoonishly irresponsible by putting their facility under one of said population centers and not having sufficient testing and fail-safes in place before activating Mechagodzilla, you'd be hard-pressed to explain why they're the bad guys.

The issue is that the Apex guy explicitly states that his issue isn't any danger that is posed by the Titans, but it just ticks him off that humans are no longer the masters of Earth. His motivation was no different from Godzilla's. Meanwhile the people against him were not really seeing Godzilla as a protector, just as somebody that was minding his own business until the start of the film.

Had the labs making Mechagodzilla not been under major cities, you would have a "I'm building a superweapon to take down that guy that hasn't bothered anybody in the last decade!" villain, which is still kind of messed up.

[Spacewolf]

The issue is that the Apex guy explicitly states that his issue isn't any danger that is posed by the Titans, but it just ticks him off that humans are no longer the masters of Earth. His motivation was no different from Godzilla's. Meanwhile the people against him were not really seeing Godzilla as a protector, just as somebody that was minding his own business until the start of the film.

Had the labs making Mechagodzilla not been under major cities, you would have a "I'm building a superweapon to take down that guy that hasn't bothered anybody in the last decade!" villain, which is still kind of messed up.

I mean the big G has easily killed 10s of thousands of people during his fights by this point. I don't think leaving the situation as it is is tenable when you have the option to actually do something about it.

[Cikomyr2]

I mean the big G has easily killed 10s of thousands of people during his fights by this point. I don't think leaving the situation as it is is tenable when you have the option to actually do something about it.

These 10s of thousands of people wouldn't have died if Apex hadn't built Mechagodzilla

[BloodSquirrel]

The issue is that the Apex guy explicitly states that his issue isn't any danger that is posed by the Titans, but it just ticks him off that humans are no longer the masters of Earth. His motivation was no different from Godzilla's. Meanwhile the people against him were not really seeing Godzilla as a protector, just as somebody that was minding his own business until the start of the film.

Had the labs making Mechagodzilla not been under major cities, you would have a "I'm building a superweapon to take down that guy that hasn't bothered anybody in the last decade!" villain, which is still kind of messed up.

The last decade? Try "literally during this movie". As I pointed out- Godzilla kills a ton of innocent sailors attacking a fleet of ships just because they're transporting Kong. And even if it was a decade since his last attack, I'm pretty sure the statue of limitations on destroying an entire city is a little longer than that. I don't think most people would be cool with "Oh, he only destroys a city every decade or so".

[Psyren]

So is this a Pacific Rim prequel then?

Because I agree with BloodSquirrel, inventing a way to fight the damn monsters without needing other damn monsters who don't care about breaking our stuff sounds eminently sensible, except the guy doing it was Stupid Evul.

[Spacewolf]

These 10s of thousands of people wouldn't have died if Apex hadn't built Mechagodzilla

I was talking about san fran then I think it was Boston last film? Plus you can add in Las Vegas, Washington DC and a bunch of other cities that where destroyed off screen last film by other kaiju. You think doing nothing and just hoping Godzilla doesn't decide to take a stroll through a city or try to beat down one of the other monsters in one or is able to protect you against currently unknown threats is the best option? When you can build your own defences? Doesn't seem like a good survival strategy.

[Callos_DeTerran]

The last decade? Try "literally during this movie". As I pointed out- Godzilla kills a ton of innocent sailors attacking a fleet of ships just because they're transporting Kong. And even if it was a decade since his last attack, I'm pretty sure the statue of limitations on destroying an entire city is a little longer than that. I don't think most people would be cool with "Oh, he only destroys a city every decade or so".



So is this a Pacific Rim prequel then?

Because I agree with BloodSquirrel, inventing a way to fight the damn monsters without needing other damn monsters who don't care about breaking our stuff sounds eminently sensible, except the guy doing it was Stupid Evul.



Here's the thing though, Godzilla, throughout the Monsterverse has been shown to be pretty benevolent. Not in the same way Mothra is where she went out of her way to avoid killing people, but in the sense that all of Godzilla's casualties (which he does have) are incidental. Its all been because Godzilla has been perusing and fighting other monsters that ARE a threat to humanity. Explicitly so in fact. There isn't 'he only destroys a city every decade or so', its 'he only destroys a city that happens to have his target in it' and even then only once he's gotten to it. The credits for KotM even talk about how he's passive when happened upon in the wild and, more importantly, drove other Titans off before they got to human cities.

What kind of damage happened in the process? It doesn't say, but that's the headline the movie presented which meant the important fact was 'Godzilla is actively protecting human cities'. You can see that in Godzilla (2014) and KotM on a smaller scale, even when he's attacked on his way to San Francisco, Godzilla doesn't retaliate against the US military and swims along peacefully beside them. In KotM, he gets nuked by them, destroying his lair, and just brushes it off. Is obvious he doesn't view humanity as his enemy at that point.

Come GvK? ITs the only time he's shown active aggression against humans and its for a simple reason, humanity is aiding two challenges to his reign. They're openly aiding Kong and they have 'something' to do with Ghidorah's revival, which he does sense. Humanity still isn't the target, they're just in the way. Other titans (barrin Mothra)? I wouldn't een call them malevolent, they just don't care about humanity and will gladly trudge through cities to get where they are going but they are also beneficial. Its pretty explicity that the Titan's presence is restoring and reviving the earth's ecosystems from the radiation coming off them. They are healing the biosphere and so long as Godzilla is the Alpha, they largely aren't bothering humanity as evidenced from the fact Rodan's nest has become a tourist destination. The lava pterodactyl that can level a city by flying over it is a popular tourist spot. Co-existence has largely been attained.

Enter Apex. And why the villain is actually a villain. Cause you both are right, humanity SHOULD be working on a way to combat Titans (aside from the Oxygen Destroyer)..but as a 'just in case'. So why's Apex wrong? Well for one they're raising and containing mega-species like the Skullcrawlers in populated areas. Which..well..if those get out, that's pretty awful on its on but its implied they have other mega-species contained as well. For second, they are well aware of the fact their new weapon draws Godzilla's violent attention and they persist in building their bases beneath cities to turn public opinion against Godzilla when he shows up to attack and without caring for why their new weapon is pissing off Godzilla. They're literally using humanity as a shield to develop an anti-Titan weapon.

Why?

Cause the CEO (and Ren Serizawa) can't stand the fact that humanity is living in the Titans' shadows, more specifically Godzilla's shadow. They aren't responding to some current threat Godzilla is posing. They aren't acting against the possibility or evidence that Godzilla is going to turn on humanity. There's no indication of that whatsoever. Its pure ego driving the CEO's actions and he doesn' care its costing innocent people or even his own employees their lives. They don't care to find out why Godzilla goes berserk whenever Mechagodzilla is activated. They want to kill the Titans that are actively restoring the planet because their existence means humanity isn't top dog anymore.

You two aren't entirely wrong, but Apex and their weapon wasn't the solution.

[Cikomyr2]

I was talking about san fran then I think it was Boston last film? Plus you can add in Las Vegas, Washington DC and a bunch of other cities that where destroyed off screen last film by other kaiju. You think doing nothing and just hoping Godzilla doesn't decide to take a stroll through a city or try to beat down one of the other monsters in one or is able to protect you against currently unknown threats is the best option? When you can build your own defences? Doesn't seem like a good survival strategy.

Humanity awakened the MUTOs. Humanity dug up Monster Zero. Humanity has been the source of 100% of Godzilla's trouble of the past century, and he never attacked a human city without a good reason.

Yhea, once he's on the ground, he don't care about collateral damage. But he won't attack human cities just for the kick of it. If anyhting, you always feel the destruction would have been worse if Godzilla hadn't attacked.

Seriously. What do you think would have happened if Godzilla hadn't attacked Apex? Mechagodzilla would have destroyed everything and everybody in Hong Kong with nothing to stop it. Godzilla's presence in this movie is a net positive for human lives preserved.

[Gnoman]

The last decade? Try "literally during this movie". As I pointed out- Godzilla kills a ton of innocent sailors attacking a fleet of ships just because they're transporting Kong. And even if it was a decade since his last attack, I'm pretty sure the statue of limitations on destroying an entire city is a little longer than that. I don't think most people would be cool with "Oh, he only destroys a city every decade or so".


He killed a bunch of people trying to get to Kong - which happened only because the evil CEO took Kong out of containment to try powering Mechagodzilla. There is not a single human casualty in this entire film that is not 100% caused by Apex's superweapon project..

[Spacewolf]

He killed a bunch of people trying to get to Kong - which happened only because the evil CEO took Kong out of containment to try powering Mechagodzilla. There is not a single human casualty in this entire film that is not 100% caused by Apex's superweapon project..

They were going to have to move kong at some point not like they could have left him alone.
You could just as easily say Mechagodzilla wouldnt exist without Godzilla therefore it's all godzillas fault because you're working backwards from the end. Just because we know it's a film and Mechagodzilla is obviously going to turn evil doesn't mean that Apex arn't 100% right to try and figure out a way to actually let humans have a say in their future as opposed to being at the whims of a giant lizard.

[Cikomyr2]

They were going to have to move kong at some point not like they could have left him alone.
You could just as easily say Mechagodzilla wouldnt exist without Godzilla therefore it's all godzillas fault because you're working backwards from the end. Just because we know it's a film and Mechagodzilla is obviously going to turn evil doesn't mean that Apex arn't 100% right to try and figure out a way to actually let humans have a say in their future as opposed to being at the whims of a giant lizard.

Godzilla is not an active predator of humanity, and if Godzilla wanted to destroy humanity, it would have done it a long time ago.

[Psyren]

You two aren't entirely wrong, but Apex and their weapon wasn't the solution.

I know they aren't. But doing nothing but relying on Godzilla to only slightly smash your city isn't a plan either.

I agree that actively storing things that can also wreck your city AND make GZ go ballistic underneath said city is the height of stupid evil though.

[Gnoman]

Kong containment would have eventually failed, leading Godzilla to attack... Skull Island. Where there were only a handful of humans that could have gotten out of the way easily enough.

[Callos_DeTerran]

I know they aren't. But doing nothing but relying on Godzilla to only slightly smash your city isn't a plan either.

I agree that actively storing things that can also wreck your city AND make GZ go ballistic underneath said city is the height of stupid evil though.

Its the best plan humanity has had so far. The entire Monsterverse's theme can be summed up with a line by Dr. Serizawa in Godzilla 2014.


"The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control... and not the other way around."

The Titans are presented as much as acts of nature as they are animals and KotM poses the idea that co-existence isn't just a path available to humanity but its the most desirable path forward. And whither you agree with that principle will vary from viewer to viewer, but the movies definitely take the stance that its the right idea. That its better to exist alongside the Titans (Godzilla included) than to try and control them or, worse, kill them.

GvK took that it a natural conclusion when a part of humanity decided it was better to supplant Godzilla and subvert the natural order and try to control it, just for that section to be smacked down because they in no way understood what they were screwing with.

Or to take a lesson from Kong: Skull Island, sometimes there isn't an enemy until you go looking for one. Godzilla might have been destructive, but he wasn't an enemy. Objectively so in fact...until Apex went and MADE him an enemy.

[Friv]

Saw this over the weekend, and it was a lot of fun. I like a good punch up, and I liked that Godzilla had the power and Kong needed to be cunning to hold his own.

Definitely, the issue with Apex isn't wanting defenses, it's wanting dominance. They specifically say it - "we want humanity to be the apex predator again" and they will cut whatever corners they need to reach that goal. Would have been interesting to see Apex VS Charles Dance as competing bad guys.

[M1982]

Humanity no longer being the top dog and wanting to reclaim it's spot as the apex predators are fully understandable and desireable goals for me.

Apex may have chose a doomed approach, but the general goal is laudable and humanity im MV should continue to pursue it.

A well stocked arsenal of oxygen destroyers launchable within minutes stationed around every knowns titan's lair is a starting point

[Rater202]

Humanity no longer being the top dog and wanting to reclaim it's spot as the apex predators are fully understandable and desireable goals for me.

Apex may have chose a doomed approach, but the general goal is laudable and humanity im MV should continue to pursue it.

A well stocked arsenal of oxygen destroyers launchable within minutes stationed around every knowns titan's lair is a starting point

Do you know nothing of Godzilla Lore?

At best, you buy a few years before humanity gets wrecked by a Titan that's worse than Godzilla, (https://godzilla.fandom.com/wiki/Destoroyah) in terms of raw power, destructive potential, and being actively malevolent and oops you killed all the other Titans so there's no one to save your ass.

And it will be all the fault of the people who decided to use the oxygen destroyer.

[Friv]

Humanity no longer being the top dog and wanting to reclaim it's spot as the apex predators are fully understandable and desireable goals for me.

Apex may have chose a doomed approach, but the general goal is laudable and humanity im MV should continue to pursue it.

A well stocked arsenal of oxygen destroyers launchable within minutes stationed around every knowns titan's lair is a starting point

I think if you're coming at it from that angle, you're going to be running headlong into the philosophy of the movie series, which is that cooperation will always win out over wars of dominance. It's even where Godzilla and Kong themselves end up, after spending half the movie pointlessly trying to beat each other half to death.

According to the Monsterverse series, humans trying to be the Dominant Ones Who Destroy All Comers is no different than Ghidorah doing it, or even Godzilla doing it to Kong. It's a plan that is doomed, because you're spending vast amounts of resources and energy in an attempt to destroy things that you could be working with instead.

*EDIT* This actually feeds back to King of the Monsters as well. Godzilla wants to be dominant, but can't beat Ghidorah without Mothra and humanity's help, and as such acknowledges humanity as someone not to mess with unless they start something. Meanwhile, the eco-terrorists in that movie believe that humanity can only exist as a virulent, dominant force that seeks to destroy, and they're proven wrong when people are able to work with Godzilla and Mothra against the titans under Ghidorah's control.

[Mordar]

So is this a Pacific Rim prequel then?

Because I agree with BloodSquirrel, inventing a way to fight the damn monsters without needing other damn monsters who don't care about breaking our stuff sounds eminently sensible, except the guy doing it was Stupid Evul.

Felt the same way - though it is circular because Pacific Rim was really a sequel to decades of other Kaiju movies.

I do think virtually all of the humans presented were Stupid (some Evul, some Idiot Ball, some Just There to Fill the Lip Filler Quota), and that was the overwhelming detraction from the movie for me. The fact that the Titans killed probably millions of people in this film is nearly justified because if the people we see are the cream of the crop...the crop needed to be plowed under.

Given that Godzilla can bore through about half the planet in a few moments with his atomic breath, how far do the atomic breath shots that he aims at Kong/Mecha and misses travel? Are they impacted by gravity or do they shoot off into space?

Why do pilots in these movies feel compelled to engage targets within a body length or two of the target when they have the ability to attack the target from a safe distance?

Why did Jia have her Stuffed Kong all bound up?

- M

[Psyren]

Its the best plan humanity has had so far. The entire Monsterverse's theme can be summed up with a line by Dr. Serizawa in Godzilla 2014.



The Titans are presented as much as acts of nature as they are animals and KotM poses the idea that co-existence isn't just a path available to humanity but its the most desirable path forward. And whither you agree with that principle will vary from viewer to viewer, but the movies definitely take the stance that its the right idea. That its better to exist alongside the Titans (Godzilla included) than to try and control them or, worse, kill them.

GvK took that it a natural conclusion when a part of humanity decided it was better to supplant Godzilla and subvert the natural order and try to control it, just for that section to be smacked down because they in no way understood what they were screwing with.

Or to take a lesson from Kong: Skull Island, sometimes there isn't an enemy until you go looking for one. Godzilla might have been destructive, but he wasn't an enemy. Objectively so in fact...until Apex went and MADE him an enemy.

Edgy crapsack setting, got it. I'll be over here then.

[M1982]

It's even where Godzilla and Kong themselves end up, after spending half the movie pointlessly trying to beat each other half to death. That's not how I understand their ending. I saw Kong dropping his axe and lowering his gaze (after being decisively beaten by Godzilla both on water and on land) as giving Godzilla the sign of submission that he was looking for and Godzilla then walking away as the confirmed Alpha

Kong has desperation in his gaze upon having to face Godzilla a third time while Godzilla looks calm and expectant and after Kong drops the axe just roars in triumph, turns around and confidently leaves without sparing Kong another look

[Friv]

Edgy crapsack setting, got it. I'll be over here then.
I'd honestly say it's more hopeful than most giant monster settings, since it presumes that if you leave the giant devastation-powered monsters alone they will fix most of your problems and you can live happy lives. If it were crapsack, I feel like we'd see Godzilla stomping through cities on a regular basis without the movies taking time to create provocations that draw him in.


That's not how I understand their ending. I saw Kong dropping his axe and lowering his gaze (after being decisively beaten by Godzilla both on water and on land) as giving Godzilla the sign of submission that he was looking for and Godzilla then walking away as the confirmed Alpha

Kong has desperation in his gaze upon having to face Godzilla a third time while Godzilla looks calm and expectant and after Kong drops the axe just roars in triumph, turns around and confidently leaves without sparing Kong another look

Oh, interesting. Yeah, that is a very different read. I didn't read that scene as Kong lowering his gaze, I thought he was just glancing at the humans and then back to Godzilla. Under that impression, I read the scene as "Kong drops the axe but doesn't actually bow down, saying 'I don't want to challenge you, but I'm not going to serve you either" and after a moment Godzilla says, "Yeah, as long as you don't want to challenge me that's good enough for me, peace out, enjoy the Hollow Earth and I'll be up here."

[Gnoman]

That axe had just carved up Mechagodzilla like a Thanksgiving turkey. Dropping it was not a "I cannot beat you, and surrender" moment, it was a "I don't need to kill you" one.

[M1982]

That axe had just carved up Mechagodzilla like a Thanksgiving turkey. Dropping it was not a "I cannot beat you, and surrender" moment, it was a "I don't need to kill you" one. Kong already fought Godzilla with the axe and it ended with Godzila beating him to death. Literally, he lay dying and if the humans had not performed CPR he would have just died there and then. And that was the second time the humans had to save his very life (although the first time was on a battlefield that so heavily favored Godzilla that it was just not a fair competition to begin with).

Maybe it's difficult to paint emotions on a lizzard face, but I just replayed the scene and Kong definately has a look of sadness and desperation while he prepares to face Godzilla again while Godzilla's eyes are just calm. The roar that Godzilla makes as Kong drops his axe also just sounds triumphant to me rather than somehow reconciling. Maybe that's just also due to them having difficulting to convey emotions from a lizzards roar


Edit: Maybe it was not difficulty but rather on purpose and they wanted Godzilla to fir the cold-blooded and emotionless reptile stereotype in contrast to the human-like great ape.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Edgy crapsack setting, got it. I'll be over here then.

It's none of those things to be honest.

[LaZodiac]

Exceptional movie. There is like, one or two things that bgged me and one of them could easily be fixed in whatever comes after this.

One of my personal highlights is how Mecha-G showed off all the tricks we know and love him for, in some degree. And also the sheer... brutality of the fights, especially the final one.

[Psyren]

I'd honestly say it's more hopeful than most giant monster settings, since it presumes that if you leave the giant devastation-powered monsters alone they will fix most of your problems and you can live happy lives. If it were crapsack, I feel like we'd see Godzilla stomping through cities on a regular basis without the movies taking time to create provocations that draw him in.

Except those "provocations" feel inevitable. Even without idiot megacorps breeding monsters directly under cities, the wild MUTOs seem to have no problem randomly going on the offensive and attracting Godzilla's ire anyway. And I get it, the unavoidable collateral damage that ensues is the entire point of these films, because it's poignant/cathartic to watch all our stuff get broken by oversized action figures... but when the tone constantly leapfrogs between "let's focus on the human cost of these unavoidable natural disasters and feel empathy for the survivors" to "PHWOAR CRIKEY, MORE EXPLOSIONS!" I just tune out.

The cynic in me also realizes that Legendary almost certainly wants to wring a cinematic universe out of this, which means cast continuity, which means focusing on the human element even more - which then throws questions like "why the hell would anyone with a brain bother building skyscrapers in this setting anyway" or "how can anyone who does possibly afford to insure them" into even sharper focus. I expect such questions put me in the minority, but it's a minority I expect to increase as this 'franchise' goes on.

[LaZodiac]

Except those "provocations" feel inevitable. Even without idiot megacorps breeding monsters directly under cities, the wild MUTOs seem to have no problem randomly going on the offensive and attracting Godzilla's ire anyway. And I get it, the unavoidable collateral damage that ensues is the entire point of these films, because it's poignant/cathartic to watch all our stuff get broken by oversized action figures... but when the tone constantly leapfrogs between "let's focus on the human cost of these unavoidable natural disasters and feel empathy for the survivors" to "PHWOAR CRIKEY, MORE EXPLOSIONS!" I just tune out.

The cynic in me also realizes that Legendary almost certainly wants to wring a cinematic universe out of this, which means cast continuity, which means focusing on the human element even more - which then throws questions like "why the hell would anyone with a brain bother building skyscrapers in this setting anyway" or "how can anyone who does possibly afford to insure them" into even sharper focus. I expect such questions put me in the minority, but it's a minority I expect to increase as this 'franchise' goes on.

I mean Hong Kong was always tall, it's not their fault they hadn't been knocked down yet to start building smaller instead. If it helps any, the places we've seen that have rebuilt in this film are all small buildings.

The reason the two MUTOs in Godzilla went as they did is because they thought they were good. No one else to bother them. A MUTO shows up in King of the Monsters and bows to Godzilla same as everyone else. It's clear he can corral even those things, which are virulent parasite creatures.

You can have the cool explosions and also focus on the horror of human loss of life. These are two things that can actually co exist. And.. I mean they HAVE a cinematic universe out of it, this is movie four of four so far.

[Cikomyr2]

Except those "provocations" feel inevitable.

Are they?


Even without idiot megacorps breeding monsters directly under cities, the wild MUTOs seem to have no problem randomly going on the offensive and attracting Godzilla's ire anyway.

if a Wild MUTO attack a city.. you do NOT want Godzilla to intervene and stop it? you want to leave it rampaging unchallenged?


And I get it, the unavoidable collateral damage that ensues is the entire point of these films, because it's poignant/cathartic to watch all our stuff get broken by oversized action figures... but when the tone constantly leapfrogs between "let's focus on the human cost of these unavoidable natural disasters and feel empathy for the survivors" to "PHWOAR CRIKEY, MORE EXPLOSIONS!" I just tune out.

No. No, that's not true. There is not a single event in the past 3 Godzilla movie where "Had Godzilla not shown up the death toll would have been lower". Yes, I agree that the death toll is horrendeous, but that's never *because* of Godzilla.

The 2 more "ambivalent" attacks were:

1- The attack on Kong being ferreted to Antarctica.

This was an attack on a *military* convoy, not a civilian operation.

2- The attack on Pensacola

For all we know, Godzilla genuinely believed Ghidora was back and active there, and there were Titan-class lifeforms in the facility. So this is the iffiest of attack, and he contained himself in destroying an industrial facility, not a whole city.

[BloodSquirrel]

He killed a bunch of people trying to get to Kong - which happened only because the evil CEO took Kong out of containment to try powering Mechagodzilla. There is not a single human casualty in this entire film that is not 100% caused by Apex's superweapon project..


This is like saying that it's your fault that the mob boss broke your knees because you didn't pay him protection money on time. You're blaming people for provoking Godzilla when Godzilla can be provoked by doing things that have nothing to do with him (Godzilla didn't know why they were transporting Kong, and neither did any of the sailors involved). At best, you can make a case (as I have) for Apex being criminally irresponsible, but you can't pretend like Godzilla is the victim here. If you're going to disregard him as a moral actor, and treat him merely as a force of nature, then you can't complain about someone looking for a way the neutralize him.


Kong already fought Godzilla with the axe and it ended with Godzila beating him to death. Literally, he lay dying and if the humans had not performed CPR he would have just died there and then. And that was the second time the humans had to save his very life (although the first time was on a battlefield that so heavily favored Godzilla that it was just not a fair competition to begin with).


Yeah, I don't see how there's any ambiguity here. Godzilla won very, very decisively, and the only reason the axe worked against Mechagodzilla was that Godzilla intentionally super-charged it for Kong.


I think if you're coming at it from that angle, you're going to be running headlong into the philosophy of the movie series, which is that cooperation will always win out over wars of dominance. It's even where Godzilla and Kong themselves end up, after spending half the movie pointlessly trying to beat each other half to death.

That's fine with me, because the "philosophy" of the Monsterverse is idiotic and deserves to be criticized.

[Psyren]

if a Wild MUTO attack a city.. you do NOT want Godzilla to intervene and stop it? you want to leave it rampaging unchallenged?

Either way the city is destroyed. Why even have cities?

Pacific Rim put a lot more thought into its world-building - humanity scaled back, moved underground, that sort of thing. So did other kaiju-inspired properties like Attack on Titan.



No. No, that's not true. There is not a single event in the past 3 Godzilla movie where "Had Godzilla not shown up the death toll would have been lower". Yes, I agree that the death toll is horrendeous, but that's never *because* of Godzilla.

The choice between "high death toll" and "higher death toll" is the issue here. Older Godzilla stories glossed this over, because for the most part they were made to sell toys to children. Legendary has grander aspirations than that nowadays, but they have a lot more work to do on the world-building front if they expect their rickety shack to not tumble.

[Cikomyr2]

Either way the city is destroyed. Why even have cities?

That's just an inane argument.

[Rater202]

I'm just gonna throw my hat in and say that I'm on team "trying to control or kill the godlike monstrosities who very existence violates several laws of physics as we understand them with several powers that are blatantly supernatural is an effort in futility that will just get us killed."

Picking fights with or trying to kill or control Big G never ends well. Either you fail and he gets pissed off or you succeed and something worse happens.

The Showa era is the only continuity were killing a Godzilla didn't backfire horribly.

Otherwise, we've got the Oxygen destroyer creating something infinitely worse than Godzilla, Godzilla's ghost possessing the cyborg made from Godzilla's bones to fight the replacement Godzilla, Godzilla's corpse being a convenient vessel for the vengeful ghosts of the people who died in East Asia and the pacific during WWII... Am I missing anything?

[Psyren]

That's just an inane argument.

Great debating technique there :smallsigh:

But if you want something less pithy, how about "why have cities that in any way resemble cities in a world without rampaging kaiju?" At a minimum, continuing to have skyscrapers, especially in coastal settlements, seems like the height (natch) of idiocy.

[BloodSquirrel]

I'm just gonna throw my hat in and say that I'm on team "trying to control or kill the godlike monstrosities who very existence violates several laws of physics as we understand them with several powers that are blatantly supernatural is an effort in futility that will just get us killed."


Only because of authorial fiat, which is a very bad place from which to judge the rationality of the actors in the story. The technology to do it clearly exists. The "bad guys" were an ounce of common sense away from everything going right (even if you can't control 100% power Mechagodzilla, you could still build in a failsafe shut-down that lets you bring it to where Godzilla is, turn it on, and shut it off after the Godzilla has been killed).

[Rater202]

Only because of authorial fiat, which is a very bad place from which to judge the rationality of the actors in the story. The technology to do it clearly exists. The "bad guys" were an ounce of common sense away from everything going right (even if you can't control 100% power Mechagodzilla, you could still build in a failsafe shut-down that lets you bring it to where Godzilla is, turn it on, and shut it off after the Godzilla has been killed).

Dude, the simple fact that Godzilla hasn't been crushed to death by his own bulk and doesn't cook himself to death every time he charges up a blast of nuclear hellfire means that Big G isn't even playing by the same rules as humans.

It's better to just stay out of his way.

And, granted, I'm speaking from a position of metaknowledge, but the "leave Godzilla alone" route has the weight of history on its siide.

[Cikomyr2]

Great debating technique there :smallsigh:

But if you want something less pithy, how about "why have cities that in any way resemble cities in a world without rampaging kaiju?" At a minimum, continuing to have skyscrapers, especially in coastal settlements, seems like the height (natch) of idiocy.

The technique was on par with the argument.

Why have firemen intervene and damage a burning building; the building will be damaged by the fire anyway.
Why have an army throw bombs on the Nazis; the countryside will be damaged anyway.

Unchallenged rampaging Kaiju is worse than Godzilla's collateral damage, any day, any week, any year.

[Rater202]

As for why people live in cities when Kaiju exist...

How many people in real life knowingly and willingly live in places that regularly suffer hurricanes and earthquakes?

Oh, hell, my family still lives in the town where a tornado tore off the roof of the building we were in at the time.

[BloodSquirrel]

Dude, the simple fact that Godzilla hasn't been crushed to death by his own bulk and doesn't cook himself to death every time he charges up a blast of nuclear hellfire means that Big G isn't even playing by the same rules as humans.


And yet, somehow, Apex was still able to build a robot that could 1v1 him. Probably because they have technology that also violates the laws of physics as we know them.

[The Glyphstone]

I think it is a good point to note that we don't see any new-build skyscrapers. It's all stuff that existed prior to the Titans awakening.

[M1982]

A MUTO shows up in King of the Monsters and bows to Godzilla same as everyone else.
Which clashes with their portrayal in first movie. There they were simply animals who actually laid eggs inside dead Godzillas and then they suddenly belong to a meta titan society bowing to a potential egg host as their king

[Psyren]

Why have firemen intervene and damage a burning building; the building will be damaged by the fire anyway.


If a certain type of structure is more prone to catching fire, causes greater loss of life and property than other types of structure when it does catch fire, and fires can much more easily reach those structures when they are constructed on certain locations (coasts), I would expect the people of this world to take that into account. I'm not blaming the firefighters, I'm blaming the idiots who don't change their building practices in such a world.

But such a world wouldn't offer the same level of poignancy for watching a giant action figure stomp all over a famous skyline we can visually recognize, so sense takes a back seat to spectacle. Michael Bay would be proud.

[M1982]

This is like saying that it's your fault that the mob boss broke your knees because you didn't pay him protection money on time. You're blaming people for provoking Godzilla when Godzilla can be provoked by doing things that have nothing to do with him (Godzilla didn't know why they were transporting Kong, and neither did any of the sailors involved). At best, you can make a case (as I have) for Apex being criminally irresponsible, but you can't pretend like Godzilla is the victim here. If you're going to disregard him as a moral actor, and treat him merely as a force of nature, then you can't complain about someone looking for a way the neutralize him. To be fair both of those attacks were really provoking him.

He didn't show up because they build a mech, he did show up because they build their mechs control system based on Gidorah's neural system which caused Godzilla to show up looking for Gidorah and probably leave very confused as to why he could not find him there.

And transporting Kong straight to Godzillas backyard was a provocation. They even said that would mean trouble if Godzilla discovered them. It's basic animal behaviour to defend their territory. So they knowingly provoked him as opposed to Apex who might not even have predicted that partly reanimating Gidorah on such a low level would even be noticed by Godzilla



Yeah, I don't see how there's any ambiguity here. Godzilla won very, very decisively, and the only reason the axe worked against Mechagodzilla was that Godzilla intentionally super-charged it for Kong. Godzilla also got this idea due to first inadvertently charging it during his fight with Kong and even the charged axe was

[Rater202]

And yet, somehow, Apex was still able to build a robot that could 1v1 him. Probably because they have technology that also violates the laws of physics as we know them.

You're missing the point.

You can't take for granted that anything you try on Godzilla would work the way you'd expect it to on a normal being.

you can't even take on faith that he can be killed. Yeah, there are the bones of a previous Godzilla, but we don't know for sure how it died. We can infer, but since basic physics doesn't apply we can't trust those inferences. Godzilla might be unable to die except by natural causes.Also that "robot" was a Cyborg made in part from the remains of King Ghidora, including apparently enough of its the nervous system that it was effectively KG and followed KGs plans when outside of APEX's controls.

I seriously doubt a fully mechanical structure would have been as effective.

[BloodSquirrel]

You're missing the point.


No I'm not. Your "point" is objectively wrong- humans *can* build technology that can fight Godzilla. It was demonstrated to be possible. Everything else you're saying is in stark denial to that fact. We don't have to "take it on faith"- we can see it happen.


To be fair both of those attacks were really provoking him.

As I said- you're using a definition of "provoking him" that already gives up all of our moral rights to Godzilla and accepts that we only live at his whim. What's next, Godzilla deciding that building a city near the water is "provoking him"? That us having any technology beyond the stone age is "provoking him"?

I can declare that anybody disagreeing with me on this forum is "provoking" me if I want, but that doesn't give me the right to murder them.

If anyone gets to defend their actions by saying they were "provoked", it would be humanity after the titans turned a bunch of our cities to rubble.

[Rater202]

No I'm not. Your "point" is objectively wrong- humans *can* build technology that can fight Godzilla. It was demonstrated to be possible. Everything else you're saying is in stark denial to that fact. We don't have to "take it on faith"- we can see it happen.

That technology amounts to strapping armor plating and guns on the reanimated corpse of something that could fight Godzilla.

Literally. The Novelization flat out states that one of Ghiddora's heads is in there.

It'd be like trying to kill Chuck Norris by making a Frankenstein out of Bruce Lee and then giving him a gun.

When they build a "robot" that isn't literally just a cyborg zombie Titan with guns powered titan Energy, then we'll talk.

And preferably it shouldn't go horribly wrong.

[M1982]

As I said- you're using a definition of "provoking him" that already gives up all of our moral rights to Godzilla No, I say he's an animal that behaves exactly as we know such animals behave. He attacked Gidorah for existing and he attacked Kong for actively entering his territory (whith the humans already assuming he would eventually attack Kong for existing anyway)

[Rater202]

Also, you're still missing the point. Ignoring everything in my spoiler, Apex still took a huge gamble assuming that something that demonstrably doe not give a crap about physics could be harmed by anything that wasn't 100% another Titan.

I mean, Oxygen Destroyer worked... Kinda. A little. Not enough to be practical, even ignoring the stuff we know but they don't. But Apex's plan didn't use Oxygen Destroyer, it used something else, something untested, something with no reason to suspect it would work.

[Spacewolf]

That technology amounts to strapping armor plating and guns on the reanimated corpse of something that could fight Godzilla.

Literally. The Novelization flat out states that one of Ghiddora's heads is in there.

It'd be like trying to kill Chuck Norris by making a Frankenstein out of Bruce Lee and then giving him a gun.

When they build a "robot" that isn't literally just a cyborg zombie Titan with guns powered titan Energy, then we'll talk.

And preferably it shouldn't go horribly wrong.


What? I'm honestly having difficulty formulating a reply because of how much you're twisting the facts. I mean Ghidora provided nothing to the suit beyond a wireless control system and eventually overriding the human pilot. The skeletal head didn't give the mech it's strength, speed or lazer beams. The power source doesn't matter it's just a power source. And again your working backwards in your logic, humans should never try to do anything ever again because it might go wrong would be the only outcome of your logic.

[Rater202]

What? I'm honestly having difficulty formulating a reply because of how much you're twisting the facts. I mean Ghidora provided nothing to the suit beyond a wireless control system and eventually overriding the human pilot. The skeletal head didn't give the mech it's strength, speed or lazer beams. The power source doesn't matter it's just a power source. And again your working backwards in your logic, humans should never try to do anything ever again because it might go wrong would be the only outcome of your logic.

It's still taking something that you know to be able to fight and potentially kill Godzilla and giving it weapons.

And the only power source in the world that can power those weapons is, essentially, Titan energy. Comes from the same place as the Titans.

That's what we call a critical design failure.

[Delicious Taffy]

I wonder if, inside the fictional world of these movies, there are forum threads like this one, with people arguing the morality and rationality of trying to not get killed by Godzilla or some other kaiju. I wonder if their conversations are all that different, aside from the added factor of actually mattering to their literal survival.

[Cikomyr2]

No I'm not. Your "point" is objectively wrong- humans *can* build technology that can fight Godzilla. It was demonstrated to be possible. Everything else you're saying is in stark denial to that fact. We don't have to "take it on faith"- we can see it happen.


I am going to point out that it wasn't proven that humanity can build a machine that can actually fight and beat Godzilla 1 on 1.

Its only achievement was to beat heavily spent and crippled Kong and Godzilla


I wonder if, inside the fictional world of these movies, there are forum threads like this one, with people arguing the morality and rationality of trying to not get killed by Godzilla or some other kaiju. I wonder if their conversations are all that different, aside from the added factor of actually mattering to their literal survival.

I don't think anyone here say that "getting killed by Godzilla or a Kaiju is a good thing". What we are seeing is that seeing ways to kill Godzilla, and causing human casualties in that process, is more morally wrong than letting Godzilla be.

Now, if there were regular Kaiju attacks around the world and Godzilla did nothing? I'd argue finding ways to fight them would be fair enough. And the big G would be in the moral wrong to prevent us from defending ourselves from things that he does nothing about.

But that's not the case. Godzilla has, AGAIN AND AGAIN, proved to be a defender of humanity. He will literally cross the world to intercept Kaijus that are destroying human cities. He's stepped up against the MUTOs that humanity awakened. He's stepped up against Ghidora that humanity awakened. He's stepped up against Rhodan that humanity awakened. Godzilla does not start fights in cities, but he will not sit by and let a city be destroyed unchallenged.

Yhea, that means that the battlefield will be a city, and that people will die because Godzilla fought the creature that tried to kill everyone.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Exceptional movie. There is like, one or two things that bgged me and one of them could easily be fixed in whatever comes after this.

One of my personal highlights is how Mecha-G showed off all the tricks we know and love him for, in some degree. And also the sheer... brutality of the fights, especially the final one.

I'm sorry, but we must have been watching different movies, cause I didn't see a single instance of rainbow colored breath weapon/eye beams. :smalltongue: ...Legit though, I'm actually sad they didn't give Mecha-G his rainbow energy attacks, they're pretty iconic t him.



This is like saying that it's your fault that the mob boss broke your knees because you didn't pay him protection money on time. You're blaming people for provoking Godzilla when Godzilla can be provoked by doing things that have nothing to do with him (Godzilla didn't know why they were transporting Kong, and neither did any of the sailors involved). At best, you can make a case (as I have) for Apex being criminally irresponsible, but you can't pretend like Godzilla is the victim here. If you're going to disregard him as a moral actor, and treat him merely as a force of nature, then you can't complain about someone looking for a way the neutralize him.

Sure you can complain about someone looking to neutralize him. Both A) For wanting to neutralize an entity that has not proven overtly hostile to humanity but has protected it on numerous occasions i.e. picking a fight where there isn't one to begin with and B) for doing it in a way they KNOW provokes Godzilla in the first place. On multiple levels, such as transporting another alpha Titan across Godzilla's domain to making a weapon they figure out very quickly riles Godzilla up and lures him to their location.

You can absolutely complain about them and point the finger at them for being the bad actors in this situation, not Godzilla.



That's fine with me, because the "philosophy" of the Monsterverse is idiotic and deserves to be criticized.

That's cool, that's your opinion. You'd also better be ready to complain, not criticize, that philosophy each time one of these movies come out. Cause you're not criticizing it, you're just pointing at it and saying 'I don't like this'.


Either way the city is destroyed. Why even have cities?

Pacific Rim put a lot more thought into its world-building - humanity scaled back, moved underground, that sort of thing. So did other kaiju-inspired properties like Attack on Titan.

Well for one, because they're already built. Second, titan attacks are NOT a regular incident. We only see eight instances of Titans attacking cities, not counting the mass awakening event in KotM. All of which can be grouped up into two incidents. Hell, they even point out that there hasn't been a confirmed Titan sighting in THREE YEARS before the start of Godzilla vs. Kong. Two: As someone else pointed out, the cities that are attacked by Titans? We don't see them rebuilt at all or anywhere near the same scale. A least two of them (Janjira and Las Vegas) were simply left as they were. Pacific Rim did put more thought into its world building as did AoT from what I've heard, want to remember the big difference between those and the Monsterverse though?

Its time. The opening monologue in Pacific Rim implies that the kaiju have been attacking for at least twenty+ years. AoT takes place after years of living with the Titans and needing to survive them. The Monsterverse? Humanity at large has only known about Titans for maybe ten years. Maybe. And in that time there was two incidents with the Titans. The MUTOs and Ghidorah. The MUTOs and the time frame after them did NOT warrant a full scale reshaping of human city and infrastructure to accommodate them...because the MUTOs were killed, Godzilla had seemingly disappeared, and any other Titans were dormant or at the very least in active. After Ghidorah? Its been three years-ish. But I will agree with you there, KotM left some very big implications that need to be dealt with world-building wise that GvK never picked up on because it wasn't about that. Cause Ghidorah didn't just cause the destruction of numerous cities across the globe, he's also proof that alien life exists that does not operate by the laws of physics/reality/biology as we understand them. Hostile life even.

Hell, if THAT had been Apex's motive, I could see where you were coming from that Apex had the right idea if they wanted a tool of some kind to battle against another Ghidorah like monster, to help out Godzilla, etc. They'd still be stupid for continuing with their weapon when it obviously sets Godzilla off but they'd be more morally dubious then. As it is, they're not stupid, they're just plain wrong. Which, you know, is a good trait for flat out fillains.



The choice between "high death toll" and "higher death toll" is the issue here. Older Godzilla stories glossed this over, because for the most part they were made to sell toys to children. Legendary has grander aspirations than that nowadays, but they have a lot more work to do on the world-building front if they expect their rickety shack to not tumble.

Older Godzilla stories did NOT gloss over this, it just wasn't the focus. The entire reason the trope of 'Godzilla Threshold' exists is because of those movies, wherein...well...the situation is so bad that massive collateral damage (aka Godzilla's arrival) is necessary to save the day and turns a figure like Godzilla into the 'hero' because of it. Ghidorah could NOT be stopped by humanity. That's bad enough on its own. Ghidorah was actively malevolent and seeking to terraform the planet for his liking which would have lead to the extinction of humanity. That's flat out worse case scenario. So yeah, Godzilla destroying the evacuated city of Boston is an acceptable cost to killing the world-ending space dragon trying to destroy the world as we know it.

Legendary has SOME work to do with their worldbuilding sure, but its not nearly as rickety as you're making it out to be and not nearly as big of a problem. And considering Godzilla has been around and beloved for 60+ years in a variety of incarnations, maybe don't dismiss them as simply existing to sell children's toys. It wasn't why the character was started, it isn't how he's been portrayed through the majority of his existence, and its needlessly dismissive.


Also, you're still missing the point. Ignoring everything in my spoiler, Apex still took a huge gamble assuming that something that demonstrably doe not give a crap about physics could be harmed by anything that wasn't 100% another Titan.

I mean, Oxygen Destroyer worked... Kinda. A little. Not enough to be practical, even ignoring the stuff we know but they don't. But Apex's plan didn't use Oxygen Destroyer, it used something else, something untested, something with no reason to suspect it would work.

I mean...the Oxygen Destroyer totally worked enough to be practical, especially for a prototype. It almost killed Godzilla if Big G didn't have his lair to heal himself up in. A lair that no longer exists. And if it ALMOST killed Godzilla it'd certainly kill other Titans, doesn't seem to require water like the oxygen destroyer of old, and at the very least could be used to keep Titans away from civilized areas...the problems being its cataclysmic side effects of killing everything in a two mile radius and potentially spawning something much worse than Godzilla, but no one in the Monsterverse knows about that.

[LaZodiac]

Which clashes with their portrayal in first movie. There they were simply animals who actually laid eggs inside dead Godzillas and then they suddenly belong to a meta titan society bowing to a potential egg host as their king

I don't think it clashes. The mating pair Muto were defiant, this one is alone and realizes that if it doesn't kneel it'll die, flat out. The Titans are clearly shown to be very intelligent. You an be a parasite AND genuflect to avoid dying.


What? I'm honestly having difficulty formulating a reply because of how much you're twisting the facts. I mean Ghidora provided nothing to the suit beyond a wireless control system and eventually overriding the human pilot. The skeletal head didn't give the mech it's strength, speed or lazer beams. The power source doesn't matter it's just a power source. And again your working backwards in your logic, humans should never try to do anything ever again because it might go wrong would be the only outcome of your logic.

They put the bottom jaw in Mecha Godzilla to be a receiver to the top jaw. It's also clear based on how it acts and how it literally does Ghidorah laugh noises, that it's clearly got more Ghidorah consciousness in it than is explicitly realized.


I'm sorry, but we must have been watching different movies, cause I didn't see a single instance of rainbow colored breath weapon/eye beams. :smalltongue: ...Legit though, I'm actually sad they didn't give Mecha-G his rainbow energy attacks, they're pretty iconic t him.

I mean...the Oxygen Destroyer totally worked enough to be practical, especially for a prototype. It almost killed Godzilla if Big G didn't have his lair to heal himself up in. A lair that no longer exists. And if it ALMOST killed Godzilla it'd certainly kill other Titans, doesn't seem to require water like the oxygen destroyer of old, and at the very least could be used to keep Titans away from civilized areas...the problems being its cataclysmic side effects of killing everything in a two mile radius and potentially spawning something much worse than Godzilla, but no one in the Monsterverse knows about that.

In my defense I forgot about the rainbow beams, and I figured the Photon Scream was comparable to the eye lasers.

It's actually talked about in the post credits for King of the Monsters, and shown during credits, that people are 100% aware the Oxygen Destroyer completely eradicated the ocean life near that island, ending their fishing industry entirely. The Oxygen Destroyer is known to be FAR to destructive to the environment to use.

[Callos_DeTerran]

It's actually talked about in the post credits for King of the Monsters, and shown during credits, that people are 100% aware the Oxygen Destroyer completely eradicated the ocean life near that island, ending their fishing industry entirely. The Oxygen Destroyer is known to be FAR to destructive to the environment to use.

Bad phrasing on my part.

I meant 'the problems being its cataclysmic side effects of killing everything in a two mile radius and potentially spawning something much worse than Godzilla, but no one in the Monsterverse knows about that second part.'

[Rater202]

What are the odds that if they do another Monsterverse/Godzilla movie that Destroyah's gonna be in it?

You only need to use the Oxygen Destroyer once to justify it and Destroyah is considered to be one of Godzilla's greatest and more iconic foes in spite of only being in the one movie, appearing in pretty much every Godzilla videogame or comic book/manga adaption since his movie.

They've effectively done King Ghidora twice via compositing Mechighidora with Mechagodzilla, just cutting out that middle stage, and a rematch of Godzilla vs Kong.

If they want to keep escalating, when it comes to Big G's iconic foes/rivals it's either Destroyah or Gigan.

[Friv]

Except those "provocations" feel inevitable. Even without idiot megacorps breeding monsters directly under cities, the wild MUTOs seem to have no problem randomly going on the offensive and attracting Godzilla's ire anyway. And I get it, the unavoidable collateral damage that ensues is the entire point of these films, because it's poignant/cathartic to watch all our stuff get broken by oversized action figures... but when the tone constantly leapfrogs between "let's focus on the human cost of these unavoidable natural disasters and feel empathy for the survivors" to "PHWOAR CRIKEY, MORE EXPLOSIONS!" I just tune out.

It's been a while since I watched Godzilla 2014, but my memory is that the wild MUTOs were also awakened by reckless use of nuclear weaponry, at which point one of them attacked a poorly-shielded nuclear facility to feed, and the other one was deliberately taken by scientists to a place where it could feed happily until it broke out of chrysalis and went to mate.

And even then, we have a total of three major Titan events taking place over a seven-year period, each of which was prompted by humans deliberately doing something to cause problems. That's not inevitable provocations unless people are absolutely determined to get themselves killed. (Skull Island could qualify as a fourth Titan event, but it also covers a situation in which people provoked a bunch of monsters through a reckless bombing campaign and then got eaten until one of the monsters saved them, and the death toll for that one was pretty low.)

[LaZodiac]

What are the odds that if they do another Monsterverse/Godzilla movie that Destroyah's gonna be in it?

You only need to use the Oxygen Destroyer once to justify it and Destroyah is considered to be one of Godzilla's greatest and more iconic foes in spite of only being in the one movie, appearing in pretty much every Godzilla videogame or comic book/manga adaption since his movie.

They've effectively done King Ghidora twice via compositing Mechighidora with Mechagodzilla, just cutting out that middle stage, and a rematch of Godzilla vs Kong.

If they want to keep escalating, when it comes to Big G's iconic foes/rivals it's either Destroyah or Gigan.

I've actually got an idea for this; Serezawa the younger didn't die on screen. Sure his brain got ****ed, but they could easily write that away as "oh he lived just got coma'd". Then have him go to where the OXYD was used, and with the psychic powers he got from Ghidorah porking his brain and his implicit Alpha-ness from being a human, he can start creating his army of Destroyah pieces. Gives the humans AND Titans something to do, a two fold attack, befitting a creature who is made of man made sized creatures.

[Spacewolf]

What are the odds that if they do another Monsterverse/Godzilla movie that Destroyah's gonna be in it?

You only need to use the Oxygen Destroyer once to justify it and Destroyah is considered to be one of Godzilla's greatest and more iconic foes in spite of only being in the one movie, appearing in pretty much every Godzilla videogame or comic book/manga adaption since his movie.

They've effectively done King Ghidora twice via compositing Mechighidora with Mechagodzilla, just cutting out that middle stage, and a rematch of Godzilla vs Kong.

If they want to keep escalating, when it comes to Big G's iconic foes/rivals it's either Destroyah or Gigan.

They still have the dance head around somewhere I think since the two skulls seem to be from the Boston heads. I've been thinking about who I'd like next, Destroyah is the obvious one but feels abit early for him. Gigan on the other hand is about the right power level and could be teamed up with MechaGhidora although that would make 3 films where Ghidora was the main antagonist Gigan also feels like it would need Aliens to be introduced which hasn't been setup at all. Aliens could lead to Orga and other beasties though.

I'd quite like to see Biolante next have them use a mix of Godzilla cells, Cells from Ghidoras head and plants. We know Las Vegas was over taken by weird plants due to "Radiation" so the plants could come from there as well.


It's been a while since I watched Godzilla 2014, but my memory is that the wild MUTOs were also awakened by reckless use of nuclear weaponry, at which point one of them attacked a poorly-shielded nuclear facility to feed, and the other one was deliberately taken by scientists to a place where it could feed happily until it broke out of chrysalis and went to mate.

And even then, we have a total of three major Titan events taking place over a seven-year period, each of which was prompted by humans deliberately doing something to cause problems. That's not inevitable provocations unless people are absolutely determined to get themselves killed. (Skull Island could qualify as a fourth Titan event, but it also covers a situation in which people provoked a bunch of monsters through a reckless bombing campaign and then got eaten until one of the monsters saved them, and the death toll for that one was pretty low.)

Nah that was just a random mine (as in digging not exploding) that set off the mutos.

[Mystic Muse]

I'm genuinely confused how anyone's takeway from any of these movies was

"We need weapons to fight Godzilla with."

Godzilla has only been shown to be antagonistic towards us when we actively provoke him in this series. Trying to create another Alpha absolutely counts as actively provoking him. As far as Kong goes, there seems to be some sort of ancestral war thing going on between his species and Godzillas.

I'm fine with the general policy of "We need weapons to be able to fight titans ourselves." Because of things like Ghidorah. Who, by the way, showed that the Oxygen Destroyer is a really bad way to fight titans that are actively hostile to humanity. You know, aside from all of the fallout, and the fact it might create Destroyah or something similar.

But the problem with even that is, let's ignore Rater's point about just how much the Titans absolutely flip Physics the bird for now, though it's a good one.

Apex was able to create a device that could power Vegas for a week. They were only able to get Mechagodzilla running at 40% for about a minute, prior to finding the special Hollow Earth energy.

Even when they were able to get Mechagodzilla up and running at full power without issues, even if Ghidorah hadn't taken it over, it lost to a Kong and Godzilla who were both on their last legs. The axe that Godzilla was able to deal with no problem for an extended period basically fatalitied Mechagodzilla.

It seems like it would take at least another generation before something resembling usable jaeger-suits would be created that could actually fight against something like Godzilla or Ghidorah. And there's no good reason to challenge Godzilla as the Alpha.

In-universe, it would be a different matter I admit. However, nothing that the audience is shown in any way implies that Godzilla will ever be actively hostile to us.

[Callos_DeTerran]

They still have the dance head around somewhere I think since the two skulls seem to be from the Boston heads. I've been thinking about who I'd like next, Destroyah is the obvious one but feels abit early for him. Gigan on the other hand is about the right power level and could be teamed up with MechaGhidora although that would make 3 films where Ghidora was the main antagonist Gigan also feels like it would need Aliens to be introduced which hasn't been setup at all. Aliens could lead to Orga and other beasties though.

I'd quite like to see Biolante next have them use a mix of Godzilla cells, Cells from Ghidoras head and plants. We know Las Vegas was over taken by weird plants due to "Radiation" so the plants could come from there as well.

Vegas and the Sahara has a whole rain forest now. Both could be locations of Biolantte..honestly, I'd love to see some of the more rare monsters take the spotlight, but given the Monsterverse treatment. Battra, Megalon, Hedorah, Orga, King Ceasar, Titanosaurus, Manda, Kumonga, Ebirah, and especially Gigan who might be my favorite kaiju.

Destroyah to but not until the Monsterverse...well...ends. Anything less would be a disservice to Destroyah and they've already diminished the Oxygen Destroyer a bit so I don't want to see the same happen to Destroyah.

[Rater202]

They still have the dance head around somewhere I think since the two skulls seem to be from the Boston heads.

All three skulls were used, two in the control unit and the third actively incorporated into Mechagodzilla. There's a reason why I've been calling it a cyborg or a Frankenstein with a gun.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah, I don't have much knowledge of these franchises so I'll just make the TFS joke:

*Godzilla appears*
People scream in fear: GOJIRA!!
Police Officer: Attention! Gojira! Gojira, Gojira.
People nodding in understanding: oh, Gojira, gojira....
*people walk about mildly interested*

and then make some of my own...
Super Robot Pilot: boss, why am I not being deployed!?
Boss: Gojira is relatively docile son, and these robots are expensive. if another city gets destroyed while Gojira defends it that saves us money even if they pay for it, the threat is still taken care of. what your here for is in the dark possibility that two of the aggressive kaiju attack two different places so that if Gojira goes after one, you go after the other. you probably won't do much of a better job and may in fact just be someone to hold the line until Gojira gets there to finish the fight because your probably will never be the protagonist, we don't know yet, but the narrative time this buys is invaluable even if you don't turn out to be a finisher kind of hero. but who knows, maybe you get good enough we'll be in a spin off with you as the protagonist actually defeating them, so keep your head high and keep preparing for your debut.
Super Robot Pilot: but isn't super robots around going defeating kaiju a genre we already have? Like a genre thats pretty old actually?
Boss: Yeah. But then Gundam happened. then Neon Genesis Evangelion. Stupid whiny brat and his father issues making the rest of us look bad....

Super Robot Pilot: wait why is the mecha's fuel gauge "hopes and dreams"
Engineer: ah yes, you see the kaiju are complete nonsense that make no sense, so our best minds had to figure out how to make something just as nonsensical and ridiculous to fight it to have any hope of working, so of course we decided that the only human thing capable of such physics defying absurdity is the pilots own hopes and dreams! its why the darn thing can even move, otherwise the mecha wouldn't be operable. the mecha itself is such a physics defying absurdity that has no explanation, you can't minovsky physics mad engineering of this caliber so we just got to make a single prototype we haven't tested and hope it works for 100% guaranteed effectiveness.
Super Robot Pilot: Wait do you even know how this works?
Engineer: no, we all blindfolded ourselves and just put in whatever we thought cool into it without rhyme or reason and it just somehow works, then wiped our own memories after all if even we can't replicate these designs, then your mecha is practically guaranteed to the heroic untested prototype we need that will save the day, and saves us our lives by making sure we don't die so that we can't make more.
Super Robot Pilot: this.....doesn't seem logical.
Engineer: well of course it isn't, your living in a super robot/kaiju universe! normal science and logic are useless here. now hurry up and become hotblooded badass who yells a lot, that makes our chances of success go up by a few more percentages.
Super Robot Pilot: I think I'm beginning to understand why people just let Gojira handle it....

Super Robot Pilot: Wait what about King Kong?
Boss: Eh, worst he's done is kidnap a woman and got killed by normal human weaponry for it. guy is getting real powered up in this universe just to cross over and not die easily, probably. if he does it again we may have to call you in for a rescue op but your primary objective will be saving the woman over killing him, so you'll have to be careful. got to leave things open for sequels you see.

[Foeofthelance]

Except those "provocations" feel inevitable. Even without idiot megacorps breeding monsters directly under cities, the wild MUTOs seem to have no problem randomly going on the offensive and attracting Godzilla's ire anyway. And I get it, the unavoidable collateral damage that ensues is the entire point of these films, because it's poignant/cathartic to watch all our stuff get broken by oversized action figures... but when the tone constantly leapfrogs between "let's focus on the human cost of these unavoidable natural disasters and feel empathy for the survivors" to "PHWOAR CRIKEY, MORE EXPLOSIONS!" I just tune out.

The cynic in me also realizes that Legendary almost certainly wants to wring a cinematic universe out of this, which means cast continuity, which means focusing on the human element even more - which then throws questions like "why the hell would anyone with a brain bother building skyscrapers in this setting anyway" or "how can anyone who does possibly afford to insure them" into even sharper focus. I expect such questions put me in the minority, but it's a minority I expect to increase as this 'franchise' goes on.

I think the major thing that has been left out of the argument so far is both a more detail look at the timeline and the fact that the current Earth can't really support the Titans.

MV-Godzilla establishes that the Titans need radiation as a primary energy source and the since the planet stopped naturally glowing in the dark they all retreated underground or went dormant for the most part. Prior to the MUTOs the only active Titan is Godzilla himself and he only surfaced after World War 2; its then established in King of the Monsters that he has his own underwater lair that is highly dosed in radiation.

Now, let's look at the timeline as established:

-WWII and the development of atomic weapons. Godzilla is sighted soon after

-1950s with nuclear testing in the Pacific, with the intention of killing Godzilla. Godzilla does...nothing. Monarch is established to monitor Godzilla

-1970s see Monarch discovering Skull Island. Kong is active on the island, living as a sort of guardian for the natives. 20+ years of Godzilla not caring about Kong.

-1999 sees the MUTO eggs discovered. Human mining efforts disturb them, causing the male to seek out Janjira. The female gets relocated to a nuclear waste disposal site. They spend the next 15 years absorbing radiation. 50+ years of Godzilla not caring about Kong

-2014 sees the MUTOs hatch and start hunting down nuclear subs and missiles to build their nest. For some unfathomable reason the military decides to try and bait them to San Francisco to get them out to sea. Godzilla shows up and puts them down. 60+ years of not caring about Kong, whose established as getting bigger. Once done, Godzilla retreats back to his underwater radiation sources.

-2019 sees the ORCA developed and Ghidorah released. Godzilla shows up for the first time in five years, deals with Ghidorah, shrugs off almost getting killed by the Navy, then goes home. Its established that humanity has some sort of resonance with Titans such as Godzilla and Mothra. The other Titans are briefly active. Still doesn't care about Kong

-2021 sees Ghidorah hardwired into a cyborg body. Other Titans have gone dormant. Godzilla attacks the Apex facility. Despite nearly 70 years of Godzilla either not bothering humans or coming to save us from our mistakes, everyone starts thinking Godzilla has gone rogue rather than wondering what was at the one very specific factory he attacked. Kong gets pulled off Skull Island and only then does Godzilla care...just long enough to prove who is in charge. Humans continue to be dumb about Apex, leading to the destruction of Hong Kong. Once Mechazilladorah is dealt with Godzilla heads back home.

So while I agree that building anti-Titan weapons is probably a good idea in a self defense perspective, the idea that cities are constantly at threat from Godzilla or even other Titans isn't borne out by the setting itself. The world just can't support them being active on the surface long term and as long as we don't go carelessly waking them up then they haven't shown an interest in stirring themselves. Even then, developing the weapons seems like they should be deployed more so that Godzilla can go home early rather than from any need to protect against him.

[Calemyr]

-1950s with nuclear testing in the Pacific, with the intention of killing Godzilla. Godzilla does...nothing. Monarch is established to monitor Godzilla

Not exactly. Apparently there are comic books that tell additional stories canon to the MonsterVerse. Haven't read them myself, but the basic synopsis is that the nuke testing that woke Godzilla up also woke up a rival of his, a parasite swarm thing. The two fight for a while until they drop a nuke right on them. Both of them absorb radiation, but only Godzilla is sturdy enough to tank that level of explosion, so he survives pretty easily while the parasite swarm just gets wiped out. They watch the big guy swim away and say "Uh, we should probably study that thing."

There's a second book after the first Godzilla movie as well. A third MUTO, actually the mother of the previous two, surfaces because she likes killing Godzillas (apparently she killed one that was known as Dagon and laid her eggs in its corpse, and that's where the other two MUTOs came from). Big G fights her and wins, but the battle wrecked him pretty bad. Killing the first pair only required a cat-nap to rest up from, the third required five years and wrecked his dorsal plates enough to justify the art upgrade for King of Monsters.

I know this because someone here posted a link to a wiki and I apparently don't have enough self control when I'm bored to stop reading up on random subjects...

[LaZodiac]

On that note with comic tie ins and novel adaptations; Godzilla tells the other Titans to go into slumber in the lead up to Godzilla vs Kong, because of him sensing Ghidorah still being around. So, actively preventing damage.

[The Glyphstone]

Does humanity in-universe know Godzilla is fully intelligent? He's certainly portrayed as such in the tie-in comics from his PoV, at least, but as far as the movies it seems they treat him and the other Titans are simply very large and powerful animals, with certain instincts like territoriality but not truly sapient.

[Rater202]

Does humanity in-universe know Godzilla is fully intelligent? He's certainly portrayed as such in the tie-in comics from his PoV, at least, but as far as the movies it seems they treat him and the other Titans are simply very large and powerful animals, with certain instincts like territoriality but not truly sapient.

Well, the "we would be his (pets)" line suggests that at least one human thinks that big G is capable of sentimentality or affection for a species other than his own.

[Calemyr]

Does humanity in-universe know Godzilla is fully intelligent? He's certainly portrayed as such in the tie-in comics from his PoV, at least, but as far as the movies it seems they treat him and the other Titans are simply very large and powerful animals, with certain instincts like territoriality but not truly sapient.

Human arrogance is alive and well in this universe, despite them knowing that they're not the top of the totem pole. There will always be some who insist they're dumb brutes and others that insist they're fully thinking beings, but most seem to assume they're high-functioning animals - like dogs and cats. Smart, maybe, but more prone to letting instinct drive them than actual thought. I haven't seen GvK myself (don't have HBOMax, I'll wait for it to be available for purchase), but I've heard there's even a scene where Kong (who's just assumed to be intelligent by virtue of being simian) catches his human companions off guard by using sign language right back at them. And they still assume he's a big, dumb monkey they can pull the wool over.

That said, those that actually survive meeting a Titan, that actually look one in the eye, usually are convinced that they're dealing with legitimate intelligence, albeit not necessarily human intelligence. Especially Kong, Godzilla, and Ghidora - the three headed xenotitan clearly thinks, and it thinks it doesn't like you.

[Spacewolf]

All three skulls were used, two in the control unit and the third actively incorporated into Mechagodzilla. There's a reason why I've been calling it a cyborg or a Frankenstein with a gun.

Actually I was going off what you said where there was a head in the control centre and a head inside the machine. Looking online there was actually only the one head we saw. There wasn't one inside the machine. So the only Ghidora head that survived Boston was the one that never got there and that dance sold off. Apparently somehow Ghidora DNA was incorporated into the controls of the mech which is so insane I'm not sure how it works.

[Rater202]

Actually I was going off what you said where there was a head in the control centre and a head inside the machine. Looking online there was actually only the one head we saw. There wasn't one inside the machine. So the only Ghidora head that survived Boston was the one that never got there and that dance sold off. Apparently somehow Ghidora DNA was incorporated into the controls of the mech which is so insane I'm not sure how it works.

The novelization explicitly says that one of the heads was inside Mechagodzilla. Essentially, one of Ghiddora's brains was used as a wetware CPU in the robot proper while the other heads were used to build the control mechanism, which worked via the same mechanics as the telepathic communication between the heads when they were alive.

[M1982]

+XX years of not caring about Kong,

Early on Kong was to young/small to be considered a rival and the movie stated that they kept him hidden in the enclosed dome for years while he matured and grew


The novelization explicitly says that one of the heads was inside Mechagodzilla. Essentially, one of Ghiddora's brains was used as a wetware CPU in the robot proper while the other heads were used to build the control mechanism, which worked via the same mechanics as the telepathic communication between the heads when they were alive. How did they get three heads? Only two survived Boston (one was eaten by Godzilla) and the one that was severed way earlier ended up with the eco terrorists who want humanity to be drastically decimated and don't seem very willing to sell it to a corporation working on arming humanity

[LaZodiac]

Early on Kong was to young/small to be considered a rival and the movie stated that they kept him hidden in the enclosed dome for years while he matured and grew

How did they get three heads? Only two survived Boston (one was eaten by Godzilla) and the one that was severed way earlier ended up with the eco terrorists who want humanity to be drastically decimated and don't seem very willing to sell it to a corporation working on arming humanity

I could easily imagine Jonas selling these guys the head so they can fund their war machine against civilization. "Their money is as good as anyone else's, we can't do anything with the head ourselves, and what're they really going to do? You can't tame a tornado. They're idiots."

Which we see to be true. Jonas a smart guy for an idiot, he'd take advantage of Apex's own special brand of stupid to get rich.

[Spacewolf]

The novelization explicitly says that one of the heads was inside Mechagodzilla. Essentially, one of Ghiddora's brains was used as a wetware CPU in the robot proper while the other heads were used to build the control mechanism, which worked via the same mechanics as the telepathic communication between the heads when they were alive.

Yea I can't find anything that supports that. And it doesnt really make sense. We know for a fact one head survived, we're shown one head. Seems pretty sensible there's one head.

[LaZodiac]

Yea I can't find anything that supports that. And it doesnt really make sense. We know for a fact one head survived, we're shown one head. Seems pretty sensible there's one head.

Going purely by the outright text of the film; they said there is a receiver in Mecha Godzilla, and we see only half of ghidorah's skull, so process of elimination tells us the bottom jaw/spine cord area is in Mecha-G.

[Rater202]

Also, there's a creator Tweet (https://twitter.com/Mike_Dougherty/status/1136281731349323776) that says Ghidora's neurons are distributed through his body and back up the minds of the three heads. Considering that Octopus tentacles are sometimes capable of individual cognition and that's what it's being compared to...

...Even if they didn't have a second head, between that and the telepathy if there's literally any piece of KG in MG then there's effectively a Ghidorah brain in there. His toe could be in there and that's just as good as a brain.

[Spacewolf]

Also, there's a creator Tweet (https://twitter.com/Mike_Dougherty/status/1136281731349323776) that says Ghidora's neurons are distributed through his body and back up the minds of the three heads. Considering that Octopus tentacles are sometimes capable of individual cognition and that's what it's being compared to...

...Even if they didn't have a second head, between that and the telepathy if there's literally any piece of KG in MG then there's effectively a Ghidorah brain in there. His toe could be in there and that's just as good as a brain.

Yea like I said they used the skin and neurons from the Dance head to act as the controllers receiver, which is inline with what we've seen. As opposed to there being three heads kicking around the place.

[Calemyr]

Yea like I said they used the skin and neurons from the Dance head to act as the controllers receiver, which is inline with what we've seen. As opposed to there being three heads kicking around the place.

It'd honestly be pretty dumb to integrate all three heads into one prototype, both from a design standpoint and a movie making standpoint. You can only make one Mechagodzilla that way, when you should at very least expect the first one to fail and teach you important lessons on what you need to do to improve the second one. Mecha is grand fodder for a sequel, as long as they don't pretend (badly) that he's a surprise. (Although the level of stupidity required to recreate something that went rogue like that would be impressive, it's hardly out of character for this franchise.)

Honestly it would be hilarious if they built him two more times and he took on the traits of the other heads. Put old righty in, and it just becomes raw, unfocused aggression. Then put lefty in, and it just wanders off to bird watch and the evil human overlord just hangs his head in disappointment.

Of course, we may not get any sequels. Toho sounds like they're pulling a Sony: they can't make money on it, so they let someone else use the license; the other guys make a pile of cash on the license and now Toho wants its ball back.

[Rater202]

It'd honestly be pretty dumb to integrate all three heads into one prototype, both from a design standpoint and a movie making standpoint. You can only make one Mechagodzilla that way, when you should at very least expect the first one to fail and teach you important lessons on what you need to do to improve the second one. Mecha is grand fodder for a sequel, as long as they don't pretend (badly) that he's a surprise. (Although the level of stupidity required to recreate something that went rogue like that would be impressive, it's hardly out of character for this franchise.)

Honestly it would be hilarious if they built him two more times and he took on the traits of the other heads. Put old righty in, and it just becomes raw, unfocused aggression. Then put lefty in, and it just wanders off to bird watch and the evil human overlord just hangs his head in disappointment.

Of course, we may not get any sequels. Toho sounds like they're pulling a Sony: they can't make money on it, so they let someone else use the license; the other guys make a pile of cash on the license and now Toho wants its ball back.

San/Kevin is the head they used this time.

[Calemyr]

San/Kevin is the head they used this time.

THAT was Kevin? Slow, disinterested, chilled Kevin? Holy carp. I can't imagine what Mecha would be like with Ichi's focus or Ni's bloodlust.

[Tyndmyr]

So, finally got to watch this, and yeah...it was fun. Smart? Hah, no, but look, this movie advertised exactly what it was. Big Monster go smash.

And yknow? That's okay. I can forgive some insane grabbing of the idiot ball by most of the humans in the film, because ultimately, they're not the thing we're mostly there to see. The actual fights look pretty awesome, at least in the theater. Probably worth seeing on the big screen instead of the small, there's no shortage of actually good CG for the fights.

I'm also happy that this is an actually money making movie, so the theaters are doin' a bit better, and maybe studios will feel confident about releasing the films they've been holding back. Even if you hate this movie, finally getting to see all the other films that have been stalled for a year, well, that's a big win.

More spoilery stuff:

I like the whole hollow earth conceit. It's a hearking back to the pulpy adventure roots of these sorts of things. It's something they can explore later, without having to be overly constrained by any sort of realism, because this really isn't the sort of universe that considers carefully the realistic consequences of changes. It's less hard sci fi, and more a pulpy romp.

I do agree that, had the bad guys not been so blindingly stupid, they might have had a point. Godzilla almost died previously, and was again threatened in this film. If in both films a plucky band of requisite human heroes hadn't performed kaiju CPR, welp, no Godzilla, with a resulting grizzly fate for humanity.

Yeah, Godzilla is obviously set up as humanity's protector, but even given that, it's a dangerous world, with who knows how many more titans out there somewhere. This movie being profitable, I'm gonna guess quite a few. Having actual weapons, rather than just firing stuff that mostly just gets the monster attention enough for it to kill you....well, that seems obvious. So, they could have been extremely sane and well justified, but Apex approached everything in as stupidly evil a fashion as they could. Oh well.

I just wish I could figure out how such stupid people routinely manage to amass such wealth, power, and technology. Seems to be something of a trope at this point, and it honestly doesn't make that much sense.

[LaZodiac]

In both cases where Godzilla was in serious help and needed saving by humans, other less smart humans are directly responsible for ****ing him up. So... yeah, while it is true we may need defenses of our own, we don't REALLY need them straight away.

Also with regards to "how do stupid people get so much money", well... take like half a second to look at some of the richest people on Earth. You'll have your answer.

[Friv]

Having argued against Apex's goals, I'm going to flip a bit here - arguably, if you're thinking about defenses, one thing that you should take into account is the reasonable possibility that other, more short-sighted humans are going to interfere with Godzilla trying to show how cool they are.

In that sense, anti-Titan defenses, especially ones that can work in tandem with friendly Titans, are a good idea. I'd be willing to bet that if you were willing to work slowly and carefully, you could even build those without pissing Godzilla off. One thing you would want to have is a way to power down your systems when the big lizard comes over to see what's going on, to make it clear that they're not trying to threaten him. Another thing you would want is not to use any parts of any Titan alpha, especially one that nearly killed him.

[Rater202]

Having argued against Apex's goals, I'm going to flip a bit here - arguably, if you're thinking about defenses, one thing that you should take into account is the reasonable possibility that other, more short-sighted humans are going to interfere with Godzilla trying to show how cool they are.

In that sense, anti-Titan defenses, especially ones that can work in tandem with friendly Titans, are a good idea. I'd be willing to bet that if you were willing to work slowly and carefully, you could even build those without pissing Godzilla off. One thing you would want to have is a way to power down your systems when the big lizard comes over to see what's going on, to make it clear that they're not trying to threaten him. Another thing you would want is not to use any parts of any Titan alpha, especially one that nearly killed him.

Considering that the thing that seems to attract Godzilla to the Mecha was a noise that the Mecha was making when not in active use, it's entirely possible that Ghidorah was conscious the entire time and doing it on purpose.

The obvious thing to do would be to make small-scale weapons—ships and planes and the like, at most something like the Gotengo or the Supah X, that can be used to drive off or kill lower-level titans and provide support to Godzilla and his posse against bigger Titans. Don't actively hunt Titans out, just short of shoot at them if they start approaching human cities in a way that seems threatening and there's no sign of Big G showing up to stop them before they make landfall.

And preferably should be capable of something that Godzilla would recognize as a sign of submission just in case.

Maybe, maybe, once Big G gets used to having support from human-made machines, then you can scale up to a Mecha. Maybe something like Mogura.

[LaZodiac]

Having argued against Apex's goals, I'm going to flip a bit here - arguably, if you're thinking about defenses, one thing that you should take into account is the reasonable possibility that other, more short-sighted humans are going to interfere with Godzilla trying to show how cool they are.

In that sense, anti-Titan defenses, especially ones that can work in tandem with friendly Titans, are a good idea. I'd be willing to bet that if you were willing to work slowly and carefully, you could even build those without pissing Godzilla off. One thing you would want to have is a way to power down your systems when the big lizard comes over to see what's going on, to make it clear that they're not trying to threaten him. Another thing you would want is not to use any parts of any Titan alpha, especially one that nearly killed him.

Honestly I think it's that particular end fact that made Godzilla as mad as it did. Ghidorah making the ORCA sound is what pissed him off, not this disingenious take I've seen elsewhere that "Godzilla was jealous of us building a titan to replace him". He can clearly work together with people, he's smart.

I'm 100% in agreement that if we built something to protect against Titans but also work WITH Godzilla, specifically, he wouldn't mind, and would totally get it. At worst, if he makes an intimidation display at our Mogera or Jet Jaguar, just have it take the knee. Make it clear he is the boss and we're assisting. It's that simple.

[Draconi Redfir]

on the subject of building titans, how about a genetically engineered "Zilla" that was intended to be a human-side titan, but a whole lot of stuff went wrong and the prototype got out. It's smaller, frailer, and lacks atomic breath, but faster, stealthier, and capable of reproducing to give the humans something to fight as well.

Maybe it's mostly made up of mundane animals or dinosaur DNA similar to that dinosaur from Jurassic World, but with a small bit of Godzilla DNA giving it the same rough body plan as Godzilla.

Being 100% serious here. #PutZillaInTheMonsterverse

[Callos_DeTerran]

It'd honestly be pretty dumb to integrate all three heads into one prototype, both from a design standpoint and a movie making standpoint. You can only make one Mechagodzilla that way, when you should at very least expect the first one to fail and teach you important lessons on what you need to do to improve the second one. Mecha is grand fodder for a sequel, as long as they don't pretend (badly) that he's a surprise. (Although the level of stupidity required to recreate something that went rogue like that would be impressive, it's hardly out of character for this franchise.)

Honestly it would be hilarious if they built him two more times and he took on the traits of the other heads. Put old righty in, and it just becomes raw, unfocused aggression. Then put lefty in, and it just wanders off to bird watch and the evil human overlord just hangs his head in disappointment.

Of course, we may not get any sequels. Toho sounds like they're pulling a Sony: they can't make money on it, so they let someone else use the license; the other guys make a pile of cash on the license and now Toho wants its ball back.


San/Kevin is the head they used this time.

Okay Rater, I need some clarification since I'm guessing you have the novelization. You said all three of Ghidorah's heads were recovered and they used San for Mecha-Godzilla, right? Which would mean you're referring to the heads from the battle in Boston when Godzilla went nuclear I imagine. So do they explain what happened to the San head that the ecoterrorists bought from the fishermen or is it still at large? And does that mean there's an Ichi and Ni head still kicking about somewhere?


Honestly I think it's that particular end fact that made Godzilla as mad as it did. Ghidorah making the ORCA sound is what pissed him off, not this disingenious take I've seen elsewhere that "Godzilla was jealous of us building a titan to replace him". He can clearly work together with people, he's smart.

Not the ORCA sound, Ghidorah was making his alpha call, the one that roused all the Titans from hibernation and set them to hibernating. It wasn't even the ORCA noise which Godzilla had no issue with, it was Ghidorah making his presence as the False King known in a 'I'm still going to supplant you' way.


on the subject of building titans, how about a genetically engineered "Zilla" that was intended to be a human-side titan, but a whole lot of stuff went wrong and the prototype got out. It's smaller, frailer, and lacks atomic breath, but faster, stealthier, and capable of reproducing to give the humans something to fight as well.

Maybe it's mostly made up of mundane animals or dinosaur DNA similar to that dinosaur from Jurassic World, but with a small bit of Godzilla DNA giving it the same rough body plan as Godzilla.

Being 100% serious here. #PutZillaInTheMonsterverse

Legitimately, the problem with Zilla was entirely the fact she was nothing like Godzilla in theme, appearance (kinda), or abilities. It was the disrespect to Godzilla by Tristar that makes Zilla so reviled but...yeah, there's nothing WRONG with Zilla as a monster. Its fantastic threat for human characters in a Titan filled world and could make a great nemesis for Kong in the Hollow Earth for example, just don't pretend that Zilla is Godzilla, that's what riles people up, lol.

[Draconi Redfir]

Legitimately, the problem with Zilla was entirely the fact she was nothing like Godzilla in theme, appearance (kinda), or abilities. It was the disrespect to Godzilla by Tristar that makes Zilla so reviled but...yeah, there's nothing WRONG with Zilla as a monster. Its fantastic threat for human characters in a Titan filled world and could make a great nemesis for Kong in the Hollow Earth for example, just don't pretend that Zilla is Godzilla, that's what riles people up, lol.

Oh yeah for sure. Just make sure they're separate entities and one isn't passing for the other, maybe give Zilla a new name or something, and i don't see why it wouldn't be okay.

I could even see the "People think it's Godzilla" thing being parodied or subverted in some way. Zilla's origin was a mutated Komodo Dragon egg, and Komodo's are land (albeit island) based reptiles. So perhaps this incarnation is designed as an inland creature rather then an oceanic one, so it escapes far from the ocean where people haven't seen Godzilla firsthand. So those people might be understandably confused and think it's Godzilla for a bit before being proven wrong in some hilarious way like the real Godzilla showing up, or the main character calling them an idiot.

Honestly i don't even care if she dies like she did in that one animation against Godzilla, i just think it'd be fun to have her included. Maybe one of her kids escapes and gets taken in by humans to mimic the cartoon spinoff of Zilla's movie, and that offspring could have a future role of some kind.

[Calemyr]

I could see Zilla working as a Godzilla-side version of Kong's Skull Crawlers. Not as dangerous as a full-on titan, possibly something a properly equipped/trained human faction could combat, but pack focused and coordinated in a way that they'd be very dangerous for a Titan to take on solo. Give them a need for a alpha but an inability to accept Godzilla, so that any time a potential rival alpha shows, the Zillas are quick to follow - unlike most titans that need to have alpha status proven before they listen. Then the humans can do something other than trip up Godzilla and then attempt to fix their own mistakes while Godzilla focuses on the actual job.

I could even see the name Zilla working for similar reasons to real life:
Scientist: I call it Zilla.
Assistant: Why not Godzilla 2, or Godzilla junior, or...?
Scientist: We made this, Carl. We made this. I see no god here.

or

Military General: (After seeing a Zilla for the first time.) Have you ever seen such a godless creation in your life...?

Yeah, it would still count as humans cleaning up their own messes, but I would prefer human involvement to sometimes take forms beyond "I'm doing something stupid", "Thirteen hundred honorable servicemen and women just died ignominious deaths because you wanted to take a big monkey to the south pole" and definitely "For some reason our director thinks cribbing off Michael Bay for our human sideplots will make us relatable rather than irritatingly pointless".

As for Mechagodzilla, I have to admit, thinking about it, that using Kevin as your prototype makes sense. All footage (movie clips) we've seen of Ghidorah show Kevin being unfocused and the last to take offensive action. It would be sensible to assume that, of the three potential heads, he would be the most likely to be docile, even controllable. If nothing else, the least likely to create trouble if it's even possible to create trouble. Then you remember that even the least aggressive side of Ghidorah is still Ghidorah, and thus still clever, cruel, and very very evil, and you realize that entire thing was doomed from the start.

[Cikomyr2]

I wouldn't mind seeing humanity building it's own Jaeger or growing its own monster with the actual objective of supporting and helping Godzilla during his fight, and that going very wrong.

Would make more sense than just insisting on fighting King Arthur after he proved he can cut off both your arm and your right leg.

[Draconi Redfir]

Both of those sound really cool actually, i could definitely see a situation where Zilla (or Zillas, depends) were originally intended as a "Hold them off" measure until Godzilla or some other freindly titan / jeager / force arrived. if a portal in spacetime opens up in Nevada and lets out a giant Kaiju, Godzilla isn't going to be there right away. Zillas are faster and more agile though, and could get there and keep the thing distracted long enough for the big guns to show up. As is traditional in media though, something goes horribly wrong.

At the same time though, i wouldn't be opposed to a fully benevolent Zilla like in the old Zilla cartoon series. Perhaps save that for a second movie though, first one sets up Zilla(s) as a thing, second one has one of the young grow up to be a protector of a small area similar to Kong and Skull island or something.

Assuming Zilla is man-made via genetic tinkering, i would hope that they'd also be able to show the science in a positive light as well somehow through the film. Perhaps the company that made Zilla also made various antibiotics and plague or environment resistant plants / animals that can help combat climate change. Maybe if Zilla was made with a small bit of Godzilla's DNA, they can use he information they got from that to help Godzilla recover from a bad wound, like quickly re-grow or re-attach an arm or something. idk, the science doesn't get enough positive representation IMO, so having some of that would be nice.

[Tyndmyr]

In both cases where Godzilla was in serious help and needed saving by humans, other less smart humans are directly responsible for ****ing him up. So... yeah, while it is true we may need defenses of our own, we don't REALLY need them straight away.

Also with regards to "how do stupid people get so much money", well... take like half a second to look at some of the richest people on Earth. You'll have your answer.

This is a setting in which betting on all the other humans to be smart is, well, not great odds. Maybe someone in your city will do something blitheringly idiotic.

This isn't really "humans are innocent" cause that's not how the setting is portrayed, but there's substantial good human vs bad human sideplot going on in these. If you're in such a world, you've got to expect that humanity isn't going to always do the smart thing. So, you need weapons capable of plastering whatever titans they wake up or build or attract. Or at least contributing.

Godzilla honestly doesn't seem at all bothered by humanity using weapons against other titans. He only gets a bit annoyed when they shoot at him, which is kind of fair.

The human side plots are definitely the weakest part of these films.

[Catullus64]

Been a bit since people were talking about this film, but I didn't watch it when it first came out, and decided to save it until I got my shots so I could see it on the big screen (definitely a good choice). I liked it. Better than Godzilla 2014, better than Kong: Skull Island, comes in a little behind King of the Monsters.

In terms of the spectacle, I thought it was wonderfully inventive, and it never stopped putting fun new twists on its main premise, the battles. These two monsters have such a cool dynamic when played against each other: Godzilla the implacable, grizzled warrior, stubborn, fierce, yet with a strange, primitive sense of honor. Kong, the young up-and-comer, cunning, fast-learning, adapting to his environment, more emotional. And Mechagodzilla, efficient, calculating, and brutal. Anyone who says these films don't have good characters are looking in the wrong place: it's just that most of the best and most subtle characterization goes to the monsters rather than their human supporting characters, and exists in the realm of animation and visual design rather than human acting and dialogue.

The score for this film is probably the best in any of these kaiju-verse affairs. The way the music in the hollow earth scenes blends established orchestral motifs with Blade Runner-esque synth phrases was actually very stirring. Don't think I heard the classic Godzilla motif anywhere, though.

My only major disappointments are thusly: first, that the two teams of human supporting characters never interacted or came together at the same time that their respective big boys become allies. That would have really topped things off for me.

Second complaint is (Googles character names) Maia Simmons. Her entire role in the film is to act snotty, be wrong about virtually everything, execute a sudden betrayal, and then die. I'm not opposed to flat, stock characters (I though Bernie the lovable conspiracy nut was fine, despite being an equally thin character) but what a criminal waste of Eiza Gonzalez. Correspondingly, I got the sense that Ren Serizawa's character got absolutely thrashed on the cutting room floor. We couldn't have cut some of Maia Simmons (or, god forbid, Madison) to flesh out this guy's motives? Unfortunately, Maia and Madison are played by established Hollywood names who draw crowds, and this guy ain't.

Everything else negative about the movie is more in the realm of nitpicks that didn't get in the way of my enjoyment, like some jarring editing towards the back half of the film, or the fact that Kong never used his newly acquired language powers to spout action one-liners.

Like everyone, I think it is odd the way in which people in these movies are shocked when Godzilla destroys cities (that's, like, his whole thing.) But I get it as a story choice; we the audience are going to root for the monsters, so the human characters need to have emotional investment in them as well. But the line "Godzilla is hurting people and we don't know why" actually made me laugh aloud in the theater.

Did anyone pick up on what seemed to be some Neon Genesis: Evangelion references? I think some of the monster fight moves were similar (though they could just be staples of monster fights by this point). When the CEO of APEX says to his reluctant mecha pilot "Get in the g-damned chair", I figured that had to be deliberate.