Memes / Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

As the sequel to the most memetic Kaiju film ever made, it didn't take long for the internet to have fun with this one as well.

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• Serious allegory vs. giant monsters go brrrrr. ^note The ensuing Fandom Rivalry / Friendly Fandoms that ensued with Godzilla Minus One led to many embracing how Godzilla has come full circle, as during the first 1954 movie he was a dark and serious metaphor for the horrors of nuclear war before becoming wacky and endearingly cheesy during the latter part of the Showa Era. Fans thus are happy to see Godzilla once again reflect his duality in both the Japanese Minus One and the American The New Empire, saying that cinematic allegorical drama and fun action-packed popcorn flick are both valid interpretations of Godzilla that pay homage to different points of his history.
• With the first teaser trailer having released in close proximity to Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and the film proper releasing right next to Monkey Man and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, fans have joked at the recent abundance of gorilla-themed films, leading to plenty of primate-related jokes such as "Return to Monke" and ironic comparisons to Harambe.
• "Is that Lanky Kong?" ^note With their long arms, seemingly reddish fur, and, well, lanky build, many were quick to compare the Skar King to Lanky Kong from Donkey Kong 64, with some also joking that Lanky skipped out on being in The Super Mario Bros. Movie to be in this film instead.
  • "Is that King Louie?" ^note  This time comparing the Skar King to another antagonistic giant orangutan monarch, King Louie from The Jungle Book (1967).
    • This as gone as far as photoshopping Louie’s face into the promotional poster released on November 29th over the Skar King's.
• Bisexual Kaiju ^note Likely on accident, the colors in the teaser's title card resemble the Bisexuality flag. Combined this with "X" often being used in shipping fanfiction in the West, and jokes about it being a romance between the title characters flew fast.
  • Homophobic Kaiju ^note Tacking onto the above, jokes that the Skar King was going to be a bigoted Heteronormative Crusader who would attempt to break up Kong and Godzilla by force.
  • Butch Shimo ^note the new ice kaiju who’s apparently Skar King’s dragon, is now being headcanoned as a he/her butch lesbian (in part because of the lighting for her frost breath on a toy leak looked like blue lipstick). This headcanon would later be confirmed with official toy descriptions referring to them using her pronouns.
  • TransGodzilla ^note With the reveal of Godzilla’s new design: a skinnier waist and pink crystal spines, many have congratulated her on her transition.
  • The second trailer releasing on Valentine’s Day of all days only threw more fuel on the fire.
  • The footage of Godzilla tackling Kong through the Great Pyramid (which ends with both on the ground and Goji on top of Kong) has predictably been the subject of many sex jokes.
  • Trapper’s “Aggression is his love language” comment (about Godzilla in the trailer, and Mikhael in the final film) also became tied to this whole meme near-instantly.
• Comparing the Skar King's face paint to the warpaints in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), which had a tie-in with the last movie.
• "It's XYZ in a monkey suit!" ^note  In the months and weeks leading up to the reveal, many fans were tossing around increasingly speculative theories about the villain, usually claiming as fact that it would be a reboot of some classic Toho monster (Destroyah, Biollante, Gigan, and Spacegodzilla being the favorites). Come the reveal that the antagonist would apparently be an original monster called the Skar King, fans promptly mocked the overeager theorists by claiming that it was actually another kaiju in a monkey costume (ranging from the aforementioned monsters to previously deceased Monsterverse antagonists like Hokmuto or Shinomura, all the way to kaiju from other franchises like Pacific Rim, Gamera, or the Ultra Series).
  • "It's X!" ^note  Once again mocking a tendency of people in the kaiju fandoms to toss around opinions, rumors, increasingly speculative theories, and outright lies as facts, fans promptly came up with... improbable theories about the antagonist’s identity, ranging from "the revenant corpse of one of Kong's parents reanimated by the Hollow Earth Energy" to "Ancient Anteverse kaiju left over from the Precursors' attempted invasion during the Cretaceous".
• "Where's Monster X?" ^note In a joke on the prior assumption more Toho monsters would be included, some have jokingly taken the title seriously and supposed Monster X is listed in the title.
• "Your New Empire?" ^note Lifting a meme'd quote from the most memetic Star Wars movie, said incredulously by Obi-Wan Kenobi. Usually aimed at the Skar King who presumably is the ruler of said empire.
• "This comes out in ten months and we already have to dodge spoilers..."^note  In the middle of May 2023, the alleged entire plot of the movie suffered a Content Leak online after an extremely early test screening. While some immediately fell to theorizing and debating about the new info, others bemoaned the fact that they already needed to take steps to avoid spoilers.
  • "...Toho’s new Godzilla movie comes out in five months and we couldn’t get info on that if we tried."
• “You never knew it… but I was always there.” ^note  After the reveal that the bloody handprint on the cliffs in Kong: Skull Island belongs to the Skar King rather than Kong or one of his parents, fans immediately made this joke- some went as far as to photoshop images of the antagonist (or of orangutans in general) into pivotal MonsterVerse scenes, such as Serizawa’s sacrifice in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), the final battle in Godzilla (2014), and the Castle Bravo detonation in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
• Handprint Face ^note  New posters for the film showed Godzilla’s, Kong’s, and Skar King’s faces inside painted handprints. Some fans edited/made versions for other characters like Mechanikong and Homer Simpson, while others redrew the Godzilla poster with their Fangojis instead.
• M&M ^note Fanart shipping the version of Godzilla from Godzilla 2000—nicknamed MireGoji—with the MonsterVerse Godzilla began making the rounds on Twitter in the wake of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) and had a resurgence of popularity in 2021 in the wake of Godzilla vs. Kong and Godziban adding MireGoji as Godzilla-kun's mother "Mirei-san". When Godzilla's revamp for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire was revealed, fans were quick to note it took design cues from MireGoji and got to work on a new wave of fanart. Of note, this is also used in-universe by Monarch staff to refer to the Titan Mokele-Mbembe, which can cause some confusion if used in the wrong context.
• Super Godzilla Rosé ^note After Godzilla was revealed to mutate into a new form officially called "Evolved Godzilla"—sporting magenta-hued dorsal spikes and matching glowing eyes—people began comparing it to Goku Black's Super Saiyan Rosé form from Dragon Ball Super.
  • Kaio-Ken Godzilla ^note The new form of Godzilla was actually based on Goku's ability to gain brief power boosts, and the parallels are pretty obvious even without this being explicitly confirmed. The readout on Monarch's monitors even notes a 20x increase in energy output from Godzilla, the maximum output that Goku was ever able to control.
  • Barbenheimer Godzilla ^note The magenta coloration combined with Godzilla's origin from nuclear devastation has also made way to the comparison to the Barbenheimer meme.
  • “FEARSOME GODZILLA HAS EVOLVED! (Ear Rape screech)”^note  A clip of Godzilla in his evolved form breaking free of an iceberg got captioned with this audio
• Infinity Gauntlet Kong ^note Kong's new prosthetic he gets over the course of the film resembling a gauntlet and being colored yellow quickly led to comparisons to Thanos's most infamous piece of gear from Avengers: Infinity War. Jokes his new power for the movie is going to be The Snap or that Skar King sought the infinity stones soon flowed.
• Running Godzilla and Kong^note The shot of Godzilla and Kong running together at the end of the trailer near-instantly went memetic, thanks to Godzilla and Kong's oddly human-like run cycle, with Godzilla especially looking like he's taking a jog. The scene was quickly held up as a crowning example of either Narm or Narm Charm, depending on how one felt about siller Godzilla movies, and many music edits spawned from it as well
• Diddy Kong ^note Matching the meme of Skar King being Lanky Kong, it didn't take long for the internet to dub the similarly named "Mini-Kong" featured in the trailer the moniker of Donkey Kong's sidekick.
• He was forced to eat cement when he was 6.^note Mini-Kong's sad dejected expression in the trailer was quickly compared to the meme of the crying baby seal whose distraught-looking expression led to the caption of him being forced to eat cement, as well as other unsavory experiences joked to be the cause of his sadness.
• “If they kill Mothra again, we storm Legendary HQ” (and variations thereof) ^note  Following rumors that Mothra would return in the film, her fans immediately stated that they would riot if her Born-Again Immortality is used as an excuse to stuff her in the fridge again, or, God forbid, have her only role in the plot be to die for Godzilla to get his Super Mode.
  • Adam Wingard’s Cabinets^note  Some fans even threatened to break into the director’s house and fill all his cabinets with “live lepidoptera” if Mothra was fridged again.
  • MOTHRA CONFIRMED ^note The second trailer shows a very brief glimpse of Mothra reflected in Jia's eye, as well as some characters triggering a blue glow in what appears to be Mothra's egg or cocoon. Fans were overjoyed to finally see Mothra return, after her absence in Godzilla vs. Kong and Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters.
• RedSpine Goji Confirmed^note  The early toy leaks of Godzilla’s “evolved” form bore an uncanny resemblance to the fairly well-known Fangoji RedSpine from the fanfic Godzilla: Cataclysm, leading to this joke widely circulating in the Fangoji-making community as a case of Hilarious in Hindsight.
  • Picked up again once film creature designer Jared Kaidensky (designer of Evolved Godzilla) said he wanted the film’s design to be appellated as Redsky Goji.
• “Skin him alive”^note  One of the Playmates gimmick toys for the film was revealed to be a rubber model of the old Godzilla design… which you peel off to reveal the evolved design underneath. Black humor ensued.
  • "This is what they expected... and this is what they found."^note  Comparisons to The Man in the Suit have also been made.
  • “Finally, we have MonsterVerse Fake Godzilla!” ^note  One enterprising fan took the rubber covering and stretched it over a Mechagodzilla 2021 action figure to get an “updated” version of the original MechaGoji’s fake Godzilla disguise. The result is hilarious. Of course, it was also immediately used as a jab at one of the Epileptic Trees from the previous film (that said disguise would be in play once more)
• “Sandwiches at a cheap price?!” “Satisfactory.” ^note  The response to the film’s Burger King tie-in was to edit the poster of Godzilla and Kong with this dialogue.
• Visited by Shimo^note  As winter closed in in many parts of the northern hemisphere, fans who posted images of experiencing snow, ice, or winter weather either said things like "Looks like Shimo paid me a visit" or were greeted by comments stating the same.
• Shimo is kaiju Elsa. ^note Shimo is said to be (though not confirmed) to be female and has an ice-themed breath power. Comparisons to Elsa from Frozen were quick to come, as well as "Let It Go" references.
• Woke Godzilla ^note With the reveal of Godzilla's new pink crystal growths, and tweets like this one criticizing it as "woke agenda", it quickly became a meme for artists to depict Godzilla as female, often in a wlw relationship with Mothra.
• The second trailer shows Kong punching the Skar King so hard in the face that one of his teeth comes out and crashes into a street nearby. A wide array of memes spawned from this scene, such as "I like your cut, G", or "vibe check".
  • As the scene immediately preceding this shows Skar King grabbing and attacking Suko Kong is viewed as a protective parent or big brother. Some compare it to the scene in Aliens: ''Get away from him, you BITCH!"
• Crab claw. ^note Many trailer reviewers on Youtube reacting to the second trailer repeatedly mistake Skar King's tooth for a crab claw due to its two pointed roots, despite how nonsensical that would be in context.
• Some shots of Kong in the trailers appear to show that one of his upper canine teeth has been replaced by a silver metal denture. Fans were quick to joke about Kong beginning his rap career, with gold and silver teeth being a fixture of some popular rappers.
• “THINK FAST, CHUCKLENUTS!” ^note A clip in the trailer of Suko throwing a rock at one of Skar King’s goons (which hits the unfortunate ape full in the face) was edited and spread around with this audio.
• “50 IMAGES?!” ^note  On Wednesday, February 21st, over 50 images from the film leaked online throughout the day on Reddit and Twitter. A semi-detailed explanation of the current theory as to what happened can be found here. The fandom proceeded to lose their collective minds as nobody could tell what was real and what was fake and conflicting information was spread about. A reaction image to the whole clusterfuck quickly followed.
  • The Card Cut/The Jaiden Cut ^note  At the end of the day, two very influential fanartists and fanfic writers within the fandom, CardBroBot and CallMeJa1den, claimed that they had managed to acquire a file of the entire movie and were watching it together, even posting an image of the download screen. The act of doing this after a day of leaks was compared to driving a flaming truck into an overflowing gas pump. The fandom proceeded to nearly burn to the ground until both clarified that it was a hoax and that the actual film had not been leaked.
• Behemoth’s Reaction^note  Ensemble Dark Horse Titan Behemoth is absent from the film, despite a significant portion of events going down in Rio De Janeiro, where his Monarch Outpost was located near. Fans immediately joked about him watching the final battle from the sidelines, usually with a reaction akin to “yeah, I’m staying out of this one.” Cross-pollination with the “da fuck they doin ova der” meme is common.
• Footage of Kong and Godzilla tag-teaming Skar King by Kong throwing Skar to Goji, only for Goji to Tail Slap Skar and send him flying, has lead to a glut of baseball jokes along the lines of “HOME RUN!”
• "Shell-shocked Shimo" ^note  a meme created and used usually on Reddit as a reaction to the furry-related posts about the Titans.
• This freeze-frame of Trapper whooping and shaking in his seat as the HEAV descends into the Hollow Earth sees some use as a reaction image denoting excitement.
• Kong failed the Owen Pose. ^note A still frame of Kong trying to communicate with an irate, charging Godzilla to no avail. Kong's shocked face and clear body language drew a lot of laughs, especially given it was quickly compared to Chris Pratt's character, Owen Grady's, infamous 'Eyes on me!' pose from Jurassic World. Only this time it clearly didn't work
  • Post-release, animations showing the scene turning from Godzilla charging Kong to the two dancing to Closer by Ne-Yo.
• The Skar King demands your soul. ^Explanation A gif of a (female, actually) orangutan standing on her hindlegs and holding her hand out to the viewer, palm up, got captioned with this (previously it had been associated with the “return to monke” meme)
  • Post-release, a still of the same gif got edited to show the orangutan holding the crystal that Skar King uses to control Shimo, since Skar takes a similar pose in the movie whenever ordering Shimo to attack someone.
• Godzilla disrespecting women ^{Explanation(spoilers)}Godzilla kills Scylla and Tiamat (both female Titans) by blasting them through the mouth with his atomic breath, in what fans dubbed the Kiss of Death, which first debuted against yet another female titan, Femuto in the 2014 film. Fans thus joked about Godzilla's misogynistic tendencies or that Mothra is the only woman he respects.
• Sopa de macaco, uma delicia.^{Explanation(spoilers)}The Skar King is killed after Shimo freezes him, allowing Kong to shatter him and pound his frozen remains to bits. It became a bit of a joke about the resulting disgusting mess when the ice thaws out, with references to the Brazilian meme of monkey soup being made due to both the battle's location in Rio and the assumed state of Skar King's mashed remains.
• POV: Karen is talking to you/Apejak vs Chadkong ^{Explanation(spoilers)}When Kong first finds the Kingdom of the Apes, he stops one of the Skar King's enforcers from further abusing an ape slave labourer who is too tired to keep on mining stone. Kong is given a severe tongue lashing by the enraged, ranting ape seen from his perspective, including Kong shutting up the Ape with a punch to the face that knocks them across the pit and puts them out cold. Comparisons to stereotypical Karens and the responses people wished they could give them immediately followed suit. Others noted the ape ranting at Kong carries themselves like the typical loser side in a Fan vs Enjoyer/Virgin vs Chad meme, madly ranting while Kong keeps his jaw clenched save for a brief sneer of contempt, leading to it being used as a new Soy Wojak vs Gigachad template.
• The most awesome instance of child abuse. ^{Explanation(spoilers)}Suko is initially a nasty piece of work, attacking Kong and trying to bite his face. In one of the most bizarre scenes of the film, Kong then proceeds to grab Suko and use him as an Improvised Weapon against Skar King's goons, literally wielding the little ape like a bludgeon to strike his opponents with.
• "Bruh, look at this dude."^{Explanation(spoilers)}Upon his arrival at Skar King's palace, Kong is immediately scrutinized by the tyrannical ape who then proceeds to ridicule him, of all things, his silver denture tooth. The Skar King's exaggerated mocking laughter and pointing fueled comparisons to the "Look at this Dude" meme, where a narrator jokes about the images of people and calls out the silliness of the "top of their head".
  • Skar King Schaudenfreude ^{Explanation(spoilers)} The scene has also been compared to the infamous Schaudenfreude taunt from Team Fortress 2, with the King's goading on the other apes to laugh being compared further to the "Every TF2 class laughing at you" meme.
• Monkey Sex Cartel^{Explanation(spoilers)} In what's a surprisingly dark moment for an otherwise lighthearted film, several female apes, kept under guard and visibly whimpering and trembling in fear, are shown carrying orange-furred babies, with the implication that they're a harem of unwilling sex slaves forced to bear the Skar King's children. Fans latched on to the idea to make the Skar King even more of a Hate Sink.
• GhidorahStan64 ^Explanation The name of the troll who’d been harassing Bernie online became quite the joke, with multiple people changing their screen names to it, saying it was Alan Jonah or Metphies, or saying that multiple semi-well known Ghidorah fans within the fandom were now canon to the MonsterVerse.
• Rocker Skar King ^{Explanation(spoilers)} Fans noticed that at one point in the final battle, Skar King strikes a pose with his whip that looks rather like he’s holding a giant air guitar. Edits of him actually holding a giant guitar (usually of the two-pronged electric variety) and some also placing him on a giant stage followed, as well as comments of Shimo being forced to endure Skar’s horrible playing.
• Pocket sand! ^Explanation During Kong and Godzilla's fight in Cairo, Kong hurls a fistful of sand in Godzilla's face. Comparisons were drawn to Dale Gribble's signature technique.
• Bear McCreary walked so this new soundtrack could trip and fall.^ExplanationWhile the film was thoroughly enjoyed by audiences, one major point of debate was the soundtrack, which is widely regarded to be inferior to previous Monsterverse soundtracks, especially King of the Monsters. Special mention goes to Mothra's iconic theme being replaced by a generic melody that feels far less impactful than McCreary's version.
• Suko being a small, wide-eyed creature that is both endearing yet surprisingly vicious has drawn more than a few comparisons to Gollum, especially the scene where he munches on a chunk of meat from the giant eel.
• Madison is off fighting dragons. ^ExplanationMadison from the previous two films is absent in this movie, as Millie Bobby Brown was filming Damsel, where she plays a princess being sacrificed to a dragon. Many fans hence joked about her character there, Elodie, summoning Godzilla to fight the dragon.
• Kong of War^ExplanationWhile Kong using a boat propeller as a blade on a chain in Kong: Skull Island was widely compared to Kratos of God of War, the later entries have just made that comparison even more evident, giving him a beard, a battle axe, and now a younger companion frequently compared to Atreus. Some of the shots are even evocative of actual God of War scenes, having fans wondering if they were intentional, subtle shout-outs.
• Doug: The Movie^ExplanationAscended Meme Doug the Foetodon was widely celebrated with his reappearance, with some fans joking about him getting a solo movie of his own. Some have suggested Jack Black to provide a voiceover narration, or that the Doug movie plays out like Lion King 1½ where Doug was actually involved in all the previous events in the Monsterverse.
• Shimo vs. The Harkness Test^ExplanationFans are divided about Shimo's supposed intelligence, as she is treated and portrayed almost like a Big Friendly Dog once Kong frees and befriends her. This gained traction due to Youtuber Alteori pointing out how it would be weird if people shipped Godzilla (an established intelligent Titan) with Shimo (a creature portrayed more like a dog), prompting discussions of the Harkness Test, a test on whether romancing a non-human creature would be bestiality or not depending on its intelligence and ability to communicate (For the record, to pass the test, a creature must be as smart or smarter than an adult human, able to fluently communicate with the human, and be of maturity for it’s species).
• Ape not kill ape.^ExplanationMany comparisons to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes abound in the Kong-centric scenes, with Skar King killing Suko's caretaker being compared to Koba killing Ash, or Kong saving an ape soldier from falling only to push him off anyway when said soldier is an Ungrateful Bastard being compared to Koba's death.
• Zeuszilla^ExplanationOn Twitter, one fan's video compared the Monsterverse lore to The Gospel Truth with Godzilla in the role of Zeus. This instantly led to drawing Godzilla in the same style featured in the musical number which led to an avalanche of fanart of Godzilla as Zeus, in the Grecian art style, or a combination of the two. Some arts even depict the other monsters as the Greek Gods or the Titans themselves.

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