Walter Simmons
"These are dangerous times."
Portrayed By: Demián Bichir
Appeared In: Godzilla vs. Kong
The billionaire head of Apex Cybernetics who orders and oversees their secret project.
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- Abusive Dad: His treatment of Maia crosses into this in the novelization. Not only does Simmons make a routine out of constantly testing his daughter and heir Maia's wits to ensure that she still meets his standards, he also deliberately left her in the dark about several relevant details of the Hollow Earth expedition before sending her off to join them; an expedition which carries a serious risk of mortal harm for all human parties physically involved. And the darkest thing is, Maia suspects this was merely Simmons' idea of a joke.
- Adaptational Villainy: The movie novelization expands on Simmons' evil, confirming many nasty aspects of him that were only implied in the film. It's revealed that he saw Godzilla's rampage to be a good thing for him since it would justify his Mechagodzilla creation to the world and he does his best to maximize the carnage, not caring for the countless lives lost in process. He also all but casts away any ambiguity that he intends to Take Over the World outright after killing Godzilla. The novel reveals that he listens to Bernie's podcast to get new ideas, and he had Bernie's wife murdered for getting too close to the company's real agenda.
- Allegorical Character: Walter Simmons is essentially the personification of humanity's hubris made flesh. He aspires to own and control forces he has the barest understanding of and treats his fellow human beings like pawns despite several protagonists (and even a few villainous humans) being far wiser than he is.
- Baddie Flattery: In the novelization, when Team Godzilla are captured he says to Bernie's face that he's a huge fan of his Mad Truth podcasts (which by the way are anti-Apex) and that his chemtrail theories gave him some new product ideas.
- Beard of Evil: He has a neat-trimmed goatee, and he's the movie's resident Big Bad Wannabe: a rich, egotistical Smug Snake, and one of the evilest characters the MonsterVerse has seen (particularly in the novelization's expansion).
- The Beautiful Elite: He's a famous, sophisticated corporate billionaire with a trendy fashion sense and a fetish for techno, played by Demián Bichir. Justified, since he's a textbook narcissist who happens to be mega-rich.
- Big Bad Wannabe: He presents himself as a Visionary Villain who will lead humanity into a bold new era, and while his company does successfully create a mecha that's at least as powerful and dangerous as Godzilla, as soon as Ghidorah's remains usurp control of Mechagodzilla, his own creation squashes him like a bug. Furthermore, both times Godzilla senses Mechagodzilla, it's when Apex aren't using it (the second time, it's even after Ren finishes a test run and Mechagodzilla has seemingly powered down), implying Ghidorah may have been pulling the strings from the beginning. Even worse, in the novelization, his own subordinate Ren is planning to kill him the moment he no longer needs him and can follow his own agenda, but Ghidorah's lingering subconsciousness outdoes Ren and Simmons both.
- Big "NO!": His last scream when Mechagodzilla swats him out of existence sounds like this.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: When he approaches Dr. Lind for help entering the Hollow Earth, he presents himself as a charming, compassionate and somewhat eccentric man who believes in ideas that are Crazy Enough to Work and who is concerned about putting a stop to Godzilla's "unprovoked" rampage. When we next see him in his Hong Kong headquarters, privately observing Mechagodzilla's completion and Godzilla's arrival, we see what he really is: an egotistical, smug, and self-destructively reckless asshole who doesn't have a single drop of empathy for the people his plans put in mortal danger.
- Caught Monologuing: Sort of. When a Ghidorah-hijacked Mechagodzilla begins to ambulate behind him, Simmons is too wrapped up in his Evil Gloating at Team Godzilla to notice anything is wrong (even as everyone in front of him is backing away) until the Mecha is right behind him. He turns around just in time to see his impending demise. Hilariously lampshaded by Hayes in the immediate aftermath:"It's unfair. I really wanted to hear the rest of that speech!"
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Alan Jonah from the previous film. Whereas Jonah was essentially an international ex-military guerrilla who was comparatively Obviously Evil, Simmons is a well-dressed but definitively amoral Corrupt Corporate Executive who can hide his true colors behind a charismatic façade. Whereas Jonah wants as much of the human race as possible dead and sees the Titans as a means to achieve that, Simmons uses defending humanity against future Titan attacks and elevating us back to the top of the food chain as an excuse for his selfish ambitions. Whereas Jonah was driven to villainy after being exposed to humanity's worst and believed his actions were for a greater good, Simmons is a narcissistic sociopath who has absolutely no tragic backstory nor redeeming qualities that we know of. Although Jonah and Simmons both have a loyal elite underling who looks up to them, Jonah genuinely cared about Asher to the point he was shaken by his death, whereas Simmons shows no signs of being fazed by the death of his daughter (if he's even made aware of it in the brief time window before he follows her to the grave). Furthermore, both Jonah and Packard were willing to get their hands dirty in pursuit of their goals, whereas Simmons prefers to relegate the dirty work to his underlings.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The super-modernist, Caucasian CEO (and founder according to the novelization) of a major tech company with facilities on multiple continents and a ton of Offscreen Villain Dark Matter. He's out to prove he can topple the gods (Godzilla in particular) just for the sakes of power, ambition and satisfying his own ego, and he doesn't think anything of hypocritically committing crimes against humanity
just for the sake of some Engineered Heroics. He's also quick to act like a petulant child with his subordinate Ren when the latter is saying something he doesn't care to hear. To facilitate his plan, Simmons masterminds the construction of Mechagodzilla, a skyscraper-sized mech just as – if not more – dangerous than the monsters it's meant to kill, while showing a blatant failure to consider his actions' full effects by incorporating two eldritch Black Boxes — including an actively-malevolent Draconic Abomination's not-completely-dead neurological remains — into the Mecha. It's implied (especially in the novelization) that after killing and usurping Godzilla, Simmons intends to become the dystopian/cyberpunk "President of the world" variation of the CCE. The novelization further reveals that Simmons has previously used his money and connections to bail himself out of legal trouble, after the spectacular catastrophe caused by the Oxygen Destroyer his company helped the military to build. - Crazy Enough to Work: Subverted big time for him. As if hooking Ghidorah's haunted skull up to a superpowerful mechanical Titan-slayer because Ghidorah's telepathic presence is still in the skull wasn't bad enough, Simmons pretty much invokes the Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway trope with Mechagodzilla when Godzilla is on Apex's doorstepnote ; because Simmons is actually that convinced that fortune always favors the bold and nothing less (that, and he's implicitly just that impatient to see his new toy in action).
- Detrimental Determination: He's been trying to find a way to kill Godzilla and achieve his dream of human supremacy since 2014, and he's more or less ignored how the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters proved that humans and Titans can coexist beneficially if humans stop trying to tamper and overrule nature. It's furthermore revealed in the Godzilla vs. Kong novelization that the military's Oxygen Destroyer (which went horribly wrong via directly almost enabling King Ghidorah to exterminate all multicellular life on Earth) was apparently a previous attempt by Apex to kill Godzilla, yet this catastrophe didn't stop Simmons. Come 2024 - Simmons, dead-set on turning the world against Godzilla and getting all the glory that successfully replacing the Alpha Titans would entail; doesn't think that essentially reanimating the aforementioned - "living extinction event which threatens every non-microbial lifeform on this planet" Ghidorah's surviving neurology is not worth the risks. To say nothing of his plans to use a newly-discovered otherworldly energy source as a second Black Box on top of that. Simmons' last attempt to usurp Godzilla turns out to be one time too many, as mixing Ghidorah's undead remains with the Hollow Earth energy and Apex's Titan-killing Mecha leads to a Ghidorah-possessed Mechagodzilla killing Simmons and destroying everything he's worked towards in less than an hour; nevermind the very real possibility that the rogue Mechagodzilla, if it had won, would have filled King Ghidorah's old shoes and finished what the three-headed dragon started.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Simmons acts as the main antagonist and apparent driver of the plot, but the moment Mechagodzilla is perfected, Ghidorah hijacks it and wastes no time killing him.
- Double Meaning: Implied. His comment to Ren that he intends to make humanity "the apex species", besides obviously referring to his Muggle Power agenda, can also be read as referring to Apex Cybernetics basically ruling all of humanity after killing Godzilla. The art book Godzilla vs. Kong: One Will Fall — The Art of the Ultimate Battle Royale confirms this.
- Evil Gloating: In the final minute of his life before receiving his just desserts, he goes into a long-winded, narcissistic speech about his motives in front of Team Godzilla. While he's talking, Mechagodzilla has gone rogue, and it kills him before he can finish.
- Evil Is Hammy: Dear God, is he ever! Once the mask of a well-meaning businessman comes off, Simmons loves hearing the sound of his own voice as he gloats about his perceived present and future triumphs. Watching his scenes out of context, one could be forgiven for thinking he was the Big Bad of a James Bond film rather than a movie about giant monster battles.
- Evil Old Folks: He's a man in late middle-age with silvery hair. Though he can seem on the surface like a charming, well-meaning businessman, this pleasant façade hides a very dangerous sociopath who is willing to commit crimes against humanity so he can upstage Godzilla for the sake of his own delusions of grandeur.
- Evil Wears Black: Downplayed. He's usually wearing at least one black garment such as a jacket or coat in nearly every scene.
- Fatal Flaw: Hubris. Walter Siimon views himself as a visionary who will lead humanity to retake their place as the apex species on Earth from the Titans, though in truth he's nothing but a Glory Hound out to satisfy his own ego. He's so blinded by hubris, he seems to be cognitively incapable of processing the mere idea his actions might seriously backfire on him and that he might lose control; rationalizing his more reckless or impulsive choices as necessary gambits, "fortune favors the bold" or Crazy Enough to Work. Thinking he could use Ghidorah's undead neurology as Mechagodzilla's neural network, and then throwing a second eldritch Black Box into the mix as a power source without first conducting even basic testing, bites him in the ass: instead of retaining complete control through it all as he expected, Simmons ends up falling victim to his own creation when it's hijacked by Ghidorah's subconsciousness with a lasting power source at its disposal, having unwittingly unleashed the opposite of what Apex were aiming for on the world with no way to get it back under control.
- Faux Affably Evil: When meeting with and manipulating Dr. Lind, he's quite charming and smooth-talking with a flare of bravado, belying his true colors as a selfish and empathy-devoid egotist. After his true colors are revealed; Simmons remains quite cheery while he's gleefully watching Godzilla cause havoc in Hong Kong, and he's almost chummy towards Team Godzilla whilst Evil Gloating about his perceived impending victory and casually brushing off all the harm he's caused.
- Flat Character: Unlike most of the MonsterVerse's other human antagonists, Walter Simmons has no hidden depths, no humanizing backstory to explain why he's the way that he is, and no redeeming qualities to speak of. He's just a mega-rich narcissistic sociopath who shows up one day aspiring to kill Godzilla and literally millions of other people for his own self-aggrandizement and for the sake of perpetuating his delusion of human superiority. All of this without a drop of shame or remorse, and what arguments Simmons does make to justify his actions all but completely fall flat within the setting and narrative.
- Freudian Excuse: Notably averted in his case. Whereas Packard, Jonah, Emma and Ren all have fairly human reasons in their backstories for turning to villainy in the ways that they did, Simmons is given no such backstory, and he's shown to be a self-centered sociopath who's motivated to commit his heinous actions solely because of egomania and ambition. The novelization even slightly lampshades this when Mark Russell wonders if Simmons is acting out of grief at losing a loved one in a past Titan attack, a contrast to the explicit reality of the man.
- Glory Hound: He hopes to become a Fake Ultimate Hero through Apex's Engineered Heroics, having Mechagodzilla kill Godzilla after millions of civilians are killed in Hong Kong so the world will hail Simmons as a hero. In the novelization, this is something which sets Simmons apart from Ren: Ren shares Simmons' delusions of human advancement and serving a noble cause, but he doesn't really care if he's remembered for his achievements and holds contempt for Simmons' egotism. This isn't just limited to Simmons' plans with Mechagodzilla either: if Ren in the novel is to be believed, Simmons only really understands the business and visionary sides of his company and not the workings of his products, yet he takes credit for his chief engineers' achievements.
- Hate Sink: Don't let Simmons' charming demeanor fool you, he is nothing but an egotistical, idiotic Psychopathic Manchild who caused all the conflict in Godzilla vs Kong merely to satisfy his own pride. It's impossible not to feel satisfaction at seeing his own creation about to kill him while his smugness instantly vanishes.
- His Own Worst Enemy: The heroes fail to do anything to stop Apex, and ultimately, the only person who kills Walter Simmons and ruins everything he's worked towards is Walter Simmons. His pride, ego and immaturity lead to his own death twofold when he: (1) decided before the movie's start that it was somehow not a monstrously-dangerous idea to use Ghidorah's undead skull as the main part of his artificial Titan's brain, and when he (2) foregoes basic testing on the synthesized Hollow Earth element out of desire for instant gratification and a belief that fortune favors risk-takers, directly shooting down Ren's pragmatic cautioning. Both of which together lead to Ghidorah's subconsciousness possessing the empowered Mechagodzilla and killing Simmons, before it goes on a rampage which almost-surely burns Apex's name and its Muggle Power agenda to ashes. What's more, Simmons' actions against Godzilla with his secret project were entirely unnecessary and he ultimately acted solely out of a combination of wounded pride and a desire for acclaim and power. If he'd just left well enough alone after the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the world would still be enjoying an all-round beneficial peace between man and Titan, and Simmons would still be alive and could have profited off the Titans' existence through far more legitimate ventures.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Simmons was killed by his own Mecha, entirely as a result of using Ghidorah's skull as its brain and throwing the Hollow Earth element in as a power source, enabling Ghidorah's subconsciousness to reincarnate into the fully-powered Mechagodzilla, making Simmons and his company a Self-Disposing Villain. What's more, with numerous eyewitnesses seeing Mechagodzilla emerge from an Apex base, his company's reputation would be utterly destroyed.
- It's All About Me: Big time. Though he justifies his actions by claiming Godzilla can't be trusted to protect humanity and that he's giving humanity a more efficient defence against Titan attacks, about 80% of his dialogue between his meeting with Team Godzilla and his death is him boasting about how this is no-one's accomplishment but his alone (not his company's, his, despite the novelization confirming he couldn't have done any of this without his underlings' contributions); and waxing quite lyrical about his creation. Showing how his core motivation for starting a war against Godzilla and trying to upstage all the Titans on Earth is to satisfy his own ego by being the one to break new ground and establish new frontiers before anyone else could beat him to it. Even making humanity "the apex species" of Earth again is just an extension of making himself the sole most praised and powerful lifeform on Earth.
- Karmic Death: After engineering Godzilla's attacks which put thousands of innocent people in the agitated Titan's warpath and wholly planning to put eight million people in Hong Kong in the crossfire between Godzilla and Mechagodzilla, Simmons himself becomes the first casualty of his own Mecha when a sentient Mechagodzilla goes on a rampage against Apex. What's more, this would never have happened if Simmons hadn't had the unfathomable stupidity and arrogance to think he could turn Ghidorah's remains into the Mecha's damned nervous system and just expect it to remain under his total control without any side-effects, being paid for his stupidity and narcissism just as much as he is for his crimes against millions of people. When Mechagodzilla moves to kill him, Simmons lives just long enough to realize what's about to happen, causing the smugness and hubris which so characterized him to drain right out of his face for that last moment.
- Knight Templar: He justifies his actions with the argument that he's returning total control of the planet to humanity and giving the world a more secure way to defend against Titan attacks, insisting that there's only room for one Alpha Titan species (despite all evidence to the contrary) and that he'll be damned if that species isn't humanity, on his terms. That being said, Simmons isn't fazed when Madison points out he's doing much more harm than good by provoking Godzilla and disrupting a completely-beneficial coexistence between humans and Titans, and he doesn't really try to hide how much of an egotistical Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist he really is.
- Lack of Empathy: He never shows any empathy for the people his actions have harmed, and for all his talk, his motives are completely self-centered and egotistical. If he was made aware of his daughter's death during the last hour of his life, he doesn't show any signs of being fazed.
M-W
- Man of Wealth and Taste: In contrast to the rugged, military human antagonists of the previous movies; Simmons, being a self-spoiled, narcissistic corporate billionaire, is always dressed head-to-toe in sharp, expensive-looking and tailored clothes.
- Misaimed Fandom: In-universe. In the novelization, he tells Bernie that he's a big fan of his conspiracy podcast, despite the fact that the podcast specifically attempts to shame and expose the shady activities of people exactly like him. This fact seems to be entirely lost on him, and he tells Bernie his podcast episodes on chemtrails gave him lots of ideas for future projects.
- Narcissist: He definitely shows signs of narcissistic personality disorder.
- Overbloated sense of grandiosity and superiority over others? Just look at how much he loves hearing himself talk and lording his perceived victory over Team Godzilla when they confront him. Even when he's manipulating Nathan with his benevolent façade earlier in the movie, he can't mask his cocky undertones.
- Self-absorbed to the point of prioritizing his own desires at others' expense? Just ask the thousands of displaced survivors whom he knowingly placed in Godzilla and Mechagodzilla's crossfire in Hong Kong, all just to make himself look like a savior.
- Extreme self-consciousness about how others perceive him? It's heavily implied in the movie that in addition to proving to himself and others that he can upstage the Titans' power, he wants to be hailed by the world as a hero and glorified for his company's achievements.
- Very low tolerance of criticism and blatant unwillingness to take responsibility for any wrongdoing? He doesn't exactly behave like a grown man when Ren is cautioning him against integrating the Hollow Earth energy into Mechagodzilla immediately, and when Madison points out how flat his argument that Mechagodzilla's creation is good for the world falls, he just casually brushes it off by painting the mere existence of any Alpha Titan as an us-or-them situation for humanity.
- Insatiable appetite for acclaim and power? He's already a renowned and successful corporate billionaire, yet ever since the world first became aware of the Titans, he's wanted to have even more by becoming the one to find a way to upstage the Titans using technology, and he's all too happy to paint himself as humanity's savior when his secret actions instigate Godzilla's rampage. Ren in the novelization explicitly observes Simmons' inability to be content with the power he already has.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Instead of ensuring that Apex will win exactly as they planned and Simmons will have everything he's after, Simmons' reckless decisions only enable Ghidorah's subconsciousness to take control of the Mecha from its builders; at which point Simmons is killed by his own rogue creation, which in turn proceeds to go on a rampage - being witnessed emerging from an Apex-owned base - that will likely nuke Apex's reputation and ensure that everything Simmons was working towards gets buried in the dirt. His actions also end up uniting Godzilla and Kong.
- Non-Action Big Bad: Non-Action Big Bad Wannabe, anyway. Unlike Jonah and Packard before him, Simmons mostly has his underlings do the dirty work for him while he watches from on high in his pristine command center: he sends Maia to represent him on the Hollow Earth expedition and seize the energy source he needs if Team Kong falter in their objective, and he has Ren Serizawa do the work of piloting Mechagodzilla in order to realize Simmons' ambition of killing Godzilla. Instead, Simmons uses his tact for manipulation as a sociopathic Corrupt Corporate Executive to manipulate Nathan Lind into aiding him and to frame Godzilla as a menace, and he uses his billionaire resources to maintain and fund Apex's Corporate Conspiracy.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: In light of the calamity the Titans caused under King Ghidorah's control, Walter Simmons claims he's acting to find a way to create a more secure and human-controlled line of defence against future Titan attacks. Although his egotistical dialogue makes it clear that at heart he's purely motivated by validating his ego. As Madison points out, by all but actively firing the first shot which provoked Godzilla — the creature who was keeping the Titans from causing harm — and then knowingly continuing to provoke Godzilla into causing mass destruction as a False Flag Operation against him, Simmons is doing much more harm than good. The way Simmons casually and promptly just dismisses Madison's callout only proves her point. Simmons admitting he started work in 2014 on finding a way to put humanity on top also means he began work on a weapon of mass destruction well before King Ghidorah's rampage and before the world at large had any evidence to suspect there were other living Titans besides the savior of San Francisco in the world; further showing that a big motivator was less safety and more wounded pride at realizing there were things out there bigger than himself.
- Oh, Crap!: He has one in the very last seconds of his life, when he turns around and realizes Mechagodzilla has come online but is about to kill him – the smugness drains right out of his face and he can only muster an "Oh, shit".
- One-Steve Limit: He shares a first name with Walter R. Riccio, the main human antagonist of the graphic novel Skull Island: The Birth of Kong. Ironically, Riccio is the polar opposite of Simmons as a fanatical Psycho Supporter of Kong.
- Opportunistic Bastard: The novelization's expansion reveals that Simmons is this trope. Godzilla being driven to his first attack on Apex's Pensacola factory was a genuine accident on Apex's part, but once they realized what they'd done; Simmons was all too happy to take advantage and paint Godzilla as a monster that needs to be put down, before deliberately engineering a repeat of the incident in one of the most densely-populated cities in the world, so that everyone will assume Apex are saving mankind from Godzilla once they set Mechagodzilla on him. Simmons also has the self-centeredness as a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist and the extreme reckless streak befitting this trope.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Not by very long, but his daughter Maia dies shortly before him. It's unknown if he ever discovers this.
- Pride: He oozes this like a carcass oozes with maggots. Part of his motivation and how he justifies his crimes is a sense of humanism-based entitlement and wounded pride that mankind can't call themselves the dominant species on Earth anymore. He's fully convinced himself that he and his company, with their previous technological advancements, are absolutely going to be the ones who will upstage the Titans and prove humanity's superiority. Hooking Ghidorah's skull up to his 466-foot artificial Titan and then using an eldritch material which he knows just as little about as a power source, instead of fully realizing his vision with himself at the helm, leads to whatever's left of Ghidorah's consciousness gaining a new body and killing Simmons, reducing his entire Evil Plan to tatters.
- Profane Last Words: He gets out an "Oh shit" right before Mechagodzilla swipes him to his death.
- Psychopathic Manchild: He doesn't exactly act like a grown man when the mask is off, while he's overseeing the Mechagodzilla project into which he's poured his pride and dreams. He looks like a giddy child when the test run is about to start, he shouts like one too when Godzilla blasting Hong Kong with his Atomic Breath makes Simmons realize Maia has found the energy source. And when Ren protests to Simmons' impulsive, impractical decision to skip over basic testing and integrate the energy source into Mechagodzilla immediately, Simmons' entire demeanor screams of an eight-year-old who's eager to open his Christmas present and annoyed at an elder interrupting him. Underneath the superficial charm, he's basically an evil kid who sees the whole world and everything in it as his own personal playground, which makes the fact that the Ghidorah skull he's using came from the Psychopathic Manchild head quite poetic.
- Psychotic Smirk: He has a small, devious grin on his face when Mechagodzilla's test run is about to begin, just before Mechagodzilla, in all its frightening glory, is revealed to the audience and (unbeknownst to Simmons) to Team Godzilla.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Madison isn't impressed by his posturing that he's acting in humanity's best interests when Team Godzilla confronts him, responding so:"Godzilla had left us in peace! You provoked him into war!"
- Smug Smiler: He frequently has an arrogant, smug little smirk on his face when he's in the control hub overseeing Mechagodzilla.
- Smug Snake: Underneath that superficial charm is an egotistical sociopath who's brimming with hubris. Simmons sees himself as a visionary leading humanity into a bold new era, and whilst Apex are cunning enough to dupe Monarch and the world into helping their Engineered Heroics, Simmons believes that no matter how crazy or risky his ideas and actions are, they will always work out in his benefit with him remaining in complete control because they're crazy and risky. In reality, he's nothing but a delusional, power-hungry, entitled hubrist, and one of the most Too Dumb to Live characters in the entire MonsterVerse. His self-destructive recklessness and inability to process the notion his plans might backfire on him, causing him to unwittingly engineer his downfall all on his own, without any input from the heroes. He even lives just long enough to have an Oh, Crap! when Mechagodzilla turns on him. Simmons gets extra points towards this trope in the novelization, where Ren is revealed to be a Dragon with an Agenda who intended to dispose of Simmons as soon as their partnership served its usefulness. If not for Ghidorah's subconsciousness hijacking Mechagodzilla for itself, Ren would've apparently been in the perfect position to use the fully-charged Mecha to kill Simmons and then continue his own agenda, yet Simmons shows no signs of being aware of this let alone of having installed any counter-measures. The fancy glass of alcohol that Simmons carries in several scenes accentuates his Smug Snakey-ness.
- The Sociopath: He has many signs of a high-functioning sociopath. He's able to feign empathy to manipulate people but seems to completely lack it, he can present a charming, false affable persona, and he possesses a grandiose sense of self-worth and gigantic ego. He also has the inherent lack of impulse control, as he wilfully completely rushes through powering up Mechagodzilla the second he gets his hands on the Hollow Earth energy source, and he doesn't take being questioned well. He has a daughter whose capabilities he thinks highly of, but he doesn't think anything of sending her on a life-threatening mission with an incomplete briefing just to see if she's worthy to succeed him, and he shows no signs of being fazed by her death if he was ever made aware that she died. Notably his 'well-intentions' ultimately amount to inflating his ego rather than actually helping anyone.
- Take Over the World: In the novelization, he outright states "the world will bow to [him]" after he kills Godzilla in a case of Engineered Heroics.
- Too Clever by Half: He (or at least the people in his company who helped him form his plan) are cunning and deceptive enough to succeed in Apex's machinations to turn the world against Godzilla by driving him to act destructive in major population centers, and then get Monarch to guide Apex to the Hollow Earth energy readings they need to activate Mechagodzilla under the illusion that both organizations are trying to stop Godzilla's seemingly-unprovoked rampage. However, Simmons is completely incapable of heeding his own limitations, to the point where he apparently doesn't see anything remotely wrong with turning a malevolent, man-hating Draconic Abomination's still-partly-alive remains into his Mecha's control system, and he foregoes Pragmatic Villainy in favor of risking everything when he needlessly invokes the Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway trope for immediate gratification.
- Too Dumb to Live: Way too dumb, for all his posturing. He's so recklessly arrogant in his beliefs that any Black Box he utilizes can never turn on him and so convinced that the Crazy Enough to Work trope will always be in effect around him so long as he remains bold, he doesn't see anything blatantly risky about incorporating a malevolent, human-hating Draconic Abomination's not-entirely-dead neurology as his Ultimate Destroyer's brain; only seeing his own narcissistic vision coming true. This ultimately gets him killed once Mechagodzilla is empowered by the Hollow Earth energy, with the heroes not having to do anything to stop Simmons himself. Simmons also has no problem bullying Ren when he gets annoyed with the latter, even though Ren is the one he's putting in direct control of the 466-foot Mecha just outside Simmons' observation room, a machine which could flatten Simmons' room and squash him like a bug even if Ghidorah's subconsciousness didn't hijack it.
- Tough Love: Somewhat. The novelization reveals he's regularly setting up mind-games for his daughter on her assignments, such as keeping Maia in the dark about Kong's presence on Lind and Andrews' mission to the Hollow Earth, apparently to test her wits and ensure she's worthy to inherit his corporate empire.
- Unwitting Pawn: According to the novelization, Walter is this to Ren, as Ren's real reason for creating Mechagodzilla was to use it to become an artificial god and kill Godzilla for personal reasons, and he was likely going to kill Walter the moment he no longer needed him.
- Viler New Villain: Zig-Zagged:
- Compared as Alan Jonah from the previous movie (also a selfish Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist), Simmons' motivations and provocation are considerably shallower, pettier, and less humanizing. Whereas Jonah is a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds whose backstory implies he used to care about making the world a better place, and Jonah genuinely cared about at least some of his troops (namely Asher, to the point of being shaken by the latter's death); Simmons is a narcissistic sociopath who has no known Freudian Excuse to speak of (something which the novelization briefly lampshades), he's putting millions of people in mortal peril solely so he can feed his own ego, and whilst he does have some pride in his daughter's (alleged) capabilities, he overall doesn't show signs of genuinely caring about her nor anyone else.
- On the other hand; whereas Jonah actively sought the extinction of humanity and was fine with sacrificing potentially all life on Earth to achieve that end, Simmons at least wanted there to still be a world with humans and some form of civilization in it at the end of his plans.
- Villainous Valour: In the novelization, it's stated that despite Simmons' sheer overconfidence and lack of common sense, he knows that he's staking his own life with his secret project and his insistence on risking Godzilla destroying his HQ in Hong Kong, and he's at peace with that.
- Villainous Widow's Peak: He has a well-groomed widow's peak courtesy of being played by Demián Bichir, and he's one of the MonsterVerse's evilest and hammiest human antagonists.
- Wicked Cultured: He's living proof that trendy attire, fondness for a fancy glass of alcohol, suave demeanor, superficial charm, and being able to found and run a billion-dollar company do not make a human being with basic decency, nor a human being with the most basic common sense and survival instinct when deciding what he'll do with the not-entirely-dead remains of an omnicidal Draconic Abomination from space that he's gotten his hands on.
- Wise Old Folk Façade: When Simmons and Ren approach Dr. Lind for help accessing the Hollow Earth, Simmons presents himself as a caring, soft-spoken and grandfatherly man who just wants to help the world, and he appears to connect with Lind over their shared proclivity for crazy ideas. Once Simmons heads to Hong Kong to oversee Mechagodzilla's completion, he's revealed to be a manipulative, amoral Psychopathic Manchild who is just using the Hollow Earth expedition for his own ends and doesn't care what happens to them.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: On top of possessing all of Apex's general points listed under the General folder (see above), Simmons firmly believes he's James T. Kirk within a setting where the Crazy Enough to Work and Million to One Chance tropes are constantly in full effect around him so long as he keeps testing his luck with crazy ideas. In reality, Simmons exists in a Jurassic Park-style setting, where man using cutting-edge technology to mess with primordial and little-understood powers for the sakes of pride and ambition leads to man being devoured by the monster he created and erroneously thought he could control.
