Godzilla vs Kong

[Spacewolf]

Spoiler

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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.

Spoiler

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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. ...Legit though, I'm actually sad they didn't give Mecha-G his rainbow energy attacks, they're pretty iconic t him.

Spoiler

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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.

Spoiler: Godzilla's Morality

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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. ...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 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 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.