Joe Brody's character background. His wife was killed in 1999 in a "natural disaster" at Janjira, and he has been obsessed with finding out what happened exactly ever since. It's really no wonder that he gets angry with Monarch after finding out that they've been covering up the truth.
Even worse: He was the one who had to shut the containment door with his own hand, effectively killing her. He'd ordered his co-workers to set the emergency doors to manual, and very nearly let thousands of people suffer radiation, just to make sure his wife got out. And they failed. And what's worse? That's when the workers reach the door, too late, with Sandra smiling and waving at a devastated Joe before the door fully shuts.
Joe is not only devastated that he doomed his wife, but also her other co-workers. He can see them pounding at the door. Just before Sandra pushes through them to the window, he tearfully apologizes to them through the sealed door for sealing their fates.
"They evacuated us so quickly... I don't even have a picture of her."
Hell, the whole power plant SEQUENCE is a Tear Jerker. They were going to buy a birthday cake, and they get this instead.
Sandra: Joe, it's too late. Joe: [on the verge of tears] No, no! Don't say that! Don't you say that! Run as hard as you can, honey! Sandra: Take care of Ford. Be a good father. Tell him we didn't make it.
It's VERY easy to miss it but Joe in the car told Sandra that he needed her to go straight down into the reactor area, not to come upstairs. Had he not said that she very likely wouldn't have gone down there before the incident and would have survived.
The Navy knows they're going up against beasts that are much bigger than them and are immune to everything they throw at them. In fact, two have the ability to emit an E.M.P. which renders everything except for ballistics, grenades, spring-loaded or small-arms fire obsolete. But even so, they are risking everythingjust to keep the people they are supposed to protect out of harm's way.
The paper cranes next to the nuclear power plant are reminiscent of Sadako Sasaki. Given that the original Gojira had a Tear Jerker moment with a little girl who'd been heavily irradiated, this may have been intentional.
The reaction the Mutos give when Ford blows up their nest. The noises Femuto makes really hit hard.
It's hard not to interpret those sounds as Femuto screaming "MY BABIES!" And then, the moment she sees Ford, she puts two and two together and attacks him for it.
After fighting for their lives, the Mutos finally have Godzilla at their mercy, only to abandon the fight as soon as they notice the explosion. Their first instinct was to protect their children, even if it means giving their mortal enemy another chance to kill them. He does, and their efforts to protect the nest were all in vain anyway.
There's also the fact that while she doesn't know it, Godzilla kills the male Muto while the female is trying to avenge their children. Either she doesn't realize her mate has died, or she does and feels revenge is all she has left. For added icing on the Crying Cake, the male, just before expiring, looks down at the rebar piercing through its chest and wraps one of its smaller arms around it, as if asking "Why...?"
Given that the MUTO can communicate over long distances, it's possible she heard him die, his last screeches of agony. And indeed, after her mate's death, the female MUTO becomes even more violent as she not only pursues the humans, but makes sure to kill every single one, every last one, that she encounters. She has nothing left for her, with her family destroyed and any hope of rebuilding one gone along with her mate, and now there is nothing but grief and rage and anger. Given her degree of intelligence and semi-sapience, her transition from a relatively Non-Malicious Monster to an Omnicidal Maniac may very well be seen as the kaiju equivalent of Sanity Slippage.
Dr. Serizawa's heartbroken reaction to hearing the Muto chrysalis is to be destroyed. And then he accepts it.
Serizawa: ...Kill it.
Later on, his reaction to believing Godzilla is dead.
Let's not forget Serizawa talking about his defective pocket watch with US Admiral Stenz. The frozen date on the watch? 8:15 AM, August 6th, 1945. The nuclear bomb drop on Hiroshima.
Serizawa: It was my father's...
This hits harder, if you consider that it is subtly implied Ichiro's father in this continuity is Daisuke Serizawa.
The death of Joe.
Ford's breakdown following it is tough. He is a soldier who's come back from dangerous situations and shows hints of psychological trauma, but his dad's death is the one thing to cause him to truly break down.
The movie does have some beautiful shots of the aftermath of destruction throughout the film. Then it hits you that this is the aftermath of the stomping and thrashing. We are shown a side of a Godzilla movie we typically never see. Many focus on the fights, the monsters, and the military's futile ways of trying to stop it. This movie shows just how dangerous these creatures are. The shots are just as equally jaw-dropping as they are absolutely heart-breaking. These places, like San Fran and Vegas, are reduced to rubble, collapsing buildings, footprints, and thousands of dead bodies. It cements that Godzilla, in a certain way that harkens back to the 1954 Original, is and always will be a destructive force of nature.
Ties in with a CMOA, the final minute of the film, with Godzilla walking towards the ocean, roaring one last time, then swimming off. It's magnificent in every aspect, how it's filmed, how it's synced up with the music. We really don't want him to go.
The movie makes no bones about just how devastating the monsters are, and how hundreds of thousands of people are dying every minute. These aren't spiteful, culpable people who are suffering and dying, but innocent civilians who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, through no fault of their own.
Ford and Joe's argument earlier in the film. Especially the part where Ford asks, in a tearful sounding voice, "Why can't you let her [Sandra] rest?" To which Joe responds, "Because I sent her down there, son." It really hits hard when Ford refuses to listen to his father.
Ford: [choking] I don't want to hear this! Joe: [sympathetically] I know. I know you don't.
Joe coming across a picture of him, Sandra and a younger Ford; before seeing the birthday banner Ford made him on the day of the meltdown.
When Ford is about to bail Joe out, he refers to his father as a "crackpot" and a "cuckoo". Then there's this line which is a subtle Tear Jerker as it shows just how far gone Ford and Joe have become as father and son ever since Sandra died.
Elle: He lost everything that day! Ford: [coldly] So did I... But you know what? I got over it.
The bedtime conversation between Sam and Ford, in all the child innocence Sam has, and the weak smile on Ford's face in response, just hits it home of how Ford's own mother wasn't there "tomorrow".
Sam: Will you be here tomorrow? Ford:[smiling weakly] Yeah... I'll be here tomorrow.
Even worse, Ford ISN'T there tomorrow. Not for several days. Yes, they all get reunited at the end, but think about it from Sam's point of view...not to mention the bridge escape....
The fact that apparently Ford is the only one of the warhead-retrieval unit to make it out alive. Those other soldiers most likely had families of their own...
The Mutos might be monsters, but Femuto's howl of sorrow, when she finds Ford has torched all her eggs, is still sad.
Unlike the 1998 film, where depressing music plays when Zilla sees their dead children, Femuto howls over her young ones as soul-crushing silence takes over.
The tone of its howl and its body language all add up to make it sound like a very human cry of "No!".
When Ford calls Elle at the hospital she works at via phone. Prior to this, Elle seems like she's completely calm when her friend tells her that her husband is on the phone. However, as soon as Ford talks to her, she utterly breaks down.
Any time Elle is worried about Ford is a Tear Jerker in and of itself. You can really tell they both love each other very much.
Elle giving up Sam in a city-wide evacuation. Imagine her reaction if she saw Godzilla plow through the Golden Gate Bridge where her son's bus was.
It's even worse in the novel, where Elle and Sam get separated in a mass of evacuating citizens.
Speaking of the buses, consider this: moments before Godzilla crashed through the Golden Gate Bridge, you get a glimpse at the dozens of buses still stuck on the bridge, held up the by the traffic jam and the military cordon trying to get everyone through. Sam’s bus was primarily filled with kids, and one can only assume so were a lot of the school buses that never made it off the bridge. All those children were lost, alongside all the older generations that were simply trying to get away from the impending carnage to come. Sam’s bus made it through, but the way those children wailed and screamed for their lives in fear, even as they cleared the danger zone? Imagine how much worse it was for those kids who were run through and didn’t make it. They had been put there under the guise of getting away safely and they didn't make it on time.
The premise of Godzilla being the Last of His Kind in general. Sure, he's a frightening and exceptionally massive "alpha predator", but at the end of the day, he's still a living animal, no different from anything (and anyone) else on this planet. Furthermore, with his implied intelligence and perhaps semi-sentience, it's likely that as any other animal would, Godzilla can feel pain, frustration and confusion, and that's what he really is: a poor, confused and lost animal, suddenly awoken to a time where everything has changed so much. At least the MUTO pair have a chance to rebuild their kind's population. Even when Godzilla defeated the MUTO's, as much of a happy victory it was for mankind, it was a bittersweet one for Godzilla; and the way he just calmly walks off, tired yet confident, was enough to make induce sympathy for the big lad—because, where else can he go?
The scene where Godzilla and Ford lock eyes with each other. These two have been through a lot in the past few days— perhaps to a certain extent, they understand each other's pain.
There are a lot of scenes in the late parts of the film that reminds us just how old Godzilla is...and how that'sa negative thing. Several points in the conflict Godzilla appears flat out exhausted from everything. Heck, he passed out for hours after killing Femuto, and Serizawa had silently feared that he had died. It's another thing that is rarely touched on in other Godzilla films, but here, Godzilla is eons old, and we get to see how far he is past his prime.
. Given that the original Gojira had a Tear Jerker moment with a little girl who'd been heavily irradiated, this may have been intentional.