History Franchise / MonsterVerse

* Untitled series (TBA) - Live action series premiering on Creator/AppleTVPlus featuring Godzilla and the Titans, centered on a family discovering secrets about their history linking them to Monarch.

* SleepDeprivation:

* MustMakeAmends: The movie {{novelization}}s have a couple cases. In the ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'' novelization, [[Characters/MonsterVerseFamilies Madison]] wants to make up for her own part in helping the [[EcoTerrorist eco-terrorists]] to unleash a [[OmnicidalManiac King Ghidorah]]-led army of {{Kaiju}} on the world when she takes matters into her own hands [[spoiler:by stealing the ORCA and risking her life to help the heroes put an extra dent in Ghidorah's plans]]. In the ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' novelization, Dr. [[Characters/MonsterVerseMonarch Ilene Andrews]] admits during the mission to find Kong a new home that she feels guilty about Monarch's role in Skull Island's destruction by Camazotz.

* ''Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire'' (2024)

* Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024)

* Godzilla X Kong the new empire (2024)

* Untitled Godzilla VS Kong Sequel (2024)

*** Admiral Stenz's narrow-mindedness makes him unable to wrap his head around the idea of the Titans being anything more than a threat to civilians, and this has made him directly complicit in unwittingly [[FromBadToWorse making the situation even worse than it needed to be]] in both his movie appearances as well as hindering his recognition of the GreenAesop which the franchise runs on.
*** With Mark Russell, it would probably be easier to say that he has ''several'' crippling fatal flaws: he's [[HotBlooded hot-headed and impulsive]], he can't separate his emotions from doing his job unless his life is immediately on the line, he thinks more about the past instead of clearly seeing what's happening in the present, he's prone to [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centeredness and pity parties]], and he refuses to confront his own personal baggage head-on. All of which limit his competence and potential when it comes to using his Titan-predicting skills for good, and have led to him tarnishing his relationships with his family (twice with his daughter as of ''Godzilla vs. Kong'').
*** Dr. Nathan Lind is implied in the movie, and confirmed in the novelization, to have a tendency towards tunnel vision when he becomes fixated on an end-goal, neglecting to make adequate intellectual and organizational preparations to get there. This trait contributed to the spectacular failure of his and his brother's first attempt to enter the Hollow Earth, and it shows again when he becomes focused on helping Apex to get Kong to the Hollow Earth, making him the perfect UnwittingPawn for Apex.

*** Lieutenant Colonel Packard's [[GeneralRipper obsessive thirst for revenge on Kong]] ultimately leads to him putting his own beloved men at unnecessary risk, and it gets him killed in the end... though not before it's driven everyone else who was once loyal to him to desert and abandon him.
*** Ghidorah is possibly the most powerful Titan introduced in the entire setting, rivaled only by Godzilla, as well as one of the more intelligent; but his sadism is so great that he ends up drawing out his targets' and enemies' deaths too long just to indulge himself, enabling Godzilla to catch him off-guard multiple times while he's distracted.
*** As competent and intelligent as [[FromCamouflageToCriminal Alan Jonah]] is, especially comparative to the other villains; his [[MisanthropeSupreme hatred of humanity]] is so great, it overrides his intelligence once he realizes King Ghidorah has the potential to exterminate humanity completely. He overlooks the certainty that he and his men will also sooner or later die in that scenario, and the ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' novelization states more explicitly than the film that Jonah genuinely thinks against all logic that he and his troops will be able to eke out a worthwhile living after Ghidorah has been allowed to complete its global rampage.
*** Emma Russell's pride and arrogance means that once she's set her mind on solving a problem in a certain way, [[DetrimentalDetermination she'll keep pursuing the end through that specific means, no matter how many people get hurt by her actions]]. She thinks she's ultimately helping the world and giving her child a better tomorrow with her plan to manipulate the Titans, but her [[spoiler:amoral]] methodology and sloppy execution traumatizes and alienates her child instead, and it leads to her unwittingly unleashing a certain three-headed OmnicidalManiac that tries to destroy the world entirely.

* GiantEyeOfDoom: In the 2014 film, Femuto's eye... slit-thingy passes eerily over Ford Brody and Tre Morales in one shot where the two are trying to avoid being noticed by her. In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', Ghidorah's heads glare into Fenway Park's press box when they locate Madison and the ORCA there, prompting an OhCrap from Madison. In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', Maia Simmons shits bricks when Kong grabs the HEAV she's inside, [[spoiler:''after'' she pissed him off by having the HEAV shoot at him,]] and he peers directly inside at her with one eye.

* GoodColorsEvilColors: Godzilla's Atomic Breath produces [[BlueIsHeroic blue light]], whereas a couple of his enemies -- the [=MUTOs=] in ''Film/Godzilla2014'' and Mechagodzilla in ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' -- instead produce [[RedAndBlackAndEvilAllOver red]] [[RedIsViolent light]] with their powers. Even the fire-themed Rodan [[AdaptationalVillainy functions as an antagonist]] in ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019''. ZigZagged, as Godzilla himself briefly turns red via his Burning mode in the aforementioned movie. Taking this association further, [[Characters/MonsterVerseMonarch Monarch's]] bases tend to be lit with blue and green light. Yellow is also mainly an evil color, associated with [[BigBad Ghidorah]] and with the base of the eco-terrorists whom are opting to ''let'' Ghidorah destroy the world entirely.

** In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', the humans heroes consist of scientists who are ambivalent (to the point of inaction) about whether or not the Titans they study are the key to humanity's salvation or the gateway to its destruction, and a TragicBigot with multiple {{Fatal Flaw}}s under his belt. The human antagonists are eco-terrorists who believe they can set the Titans loose on the world and then try to control them using an experimental device, without expecting it to spiral out of their control.
** In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', there are ambivalent human heroes on both Team Godzilla and Team Kong: Madison Russell is struggling with a shell of a father who neither believes in nor listens to her, and she's trying to convince people that Godzilla has been EasilyCondemned at a time when almost no-one is willing to listen to her; while Nathan Lind is a ScrapHeapHero trying to achieve Team Kong's mission via completing and perfecting [[HisStoryRepeatsItself the same failed venture which previously claimed his brother's life and destroyed his career]]. The human villains are a CorporateConspiracy whose members are so arrogant, they don't anticipate their plan to [[MugglePower conquer the Titans and prove humans' superiority]] running into problems because they hinged it all on hooking ''Ghidorah's'' lingering neurology up to a HumongousMecha (before they added some untested GreenRocks in for good measure), and they don't anticipate that threatening Kong's charges while Kong is standing several feet (meters) away will lead to Kong attacking them before they're equipped to deal with him.

* ItsPersonal: Quite a few examples occur over the franchise. Amid Godzilla and Ghidorah's feud for dominance, their interactions indicating they truly ''despise'' each-other because of their past history. Kong's hatred of the Skullcrawlers implicitly comes from them killing the rest of his kind including his parents until he was the last ape standing. In the 2014 movie, Joe Brody has been obsessed with uncovering the truth about Monarch and the male MUTO for years, after his wife died amid the destruction of Janjira as an indirect consequence of his actions before the MUTO attacked. Packard's insane obsession with killing Kong in ''Kong: Skull Island'' starts with Kong killing several of his men and Packard latching onto that as justification for his vendetta. The ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization confirms the movie's vague hints that Ren Serizawa has a personal fixation on killing Godzilla because of his father's death while saving the Titan, and it furthermore reveals that Bernie Hayes is trying to expose Apex because they apparently silenced his wife to hide their dirty secrets.

** Mark Russell is happy to use his grief to throw pity parties in both his film appearances while acting spiteful, and he's extremely rude to his allies in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' before his character development reaches its turning point (even when his allies are the people charged with rescuing his kidnapped ex-wife and daughter). Not even his family is safe from him using his grief to indirectly hurt them while he wallows in his own self-centeredness: he [[GriefInducedSplit abandoned his wife and daughter so that he could mope alone]] after Andrew's death, leaving them to deal with their own grief alone when they needed him more than ever before; and in his second appearance, he doesn't hesitate to guilt-trip Madison to make her shut up and do what he wants instead of arguing.
** Maia Simmons in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' is a JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: she's a sarcastic RichBitch who sees Kong as little more than an overgrown dumb animal and acts demeaning towards the rest of Team Kong, but she [[PetTheDog briefly rushes to Jia's aid in a life-threatening situation]]. She seems to tone down her jerkassery as the movie goes on and it becomes clear that she's out of her depth, but it doesn't stop her from betraying Team Kong, threatening their lives (Jia included), and leaving them all to die once she has what she accompanied them for and they start protesting to her actions.

* MalignantPlotTumor: The titular fight in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' is made out to be a huge deal that the first three films have been leading up to, even though the mere ''notion'' that Kong and Godzilla have any relevant relationship with each-other isn't introduced until the third film (and even then, it's only explicitly revealed that the two Titans' species were once rivals in the very last shot of that film's CreativeClosingCredits).

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: In the 2014 film, ''King of the Monsters'', and the graphic novel ''Skull Island: The Birth of Kong''; several monster fights occur entirely offscreen. Including the entirety of Godzilla's first ever brawl in this incarnation, which is also the first time that the [=MonsterVerse's=] StarterVillain gets seriously pushed on the backfoot, and a good chunk of the global destruction that [[BigBad King Ghidorah]] causes after he [[TyrantTakesTheHelm rises to supremacy over the monsters]].

* SaveTheWorldClimax: In both the first two films, the Kaiju crisis isn't revealed to be truly world-threatening until around the mmidway point. The [=MUTOs=] in ''Godzilla'' (2014) are ExplosiveBreeders that are seeking one-another out so they can flood the world with a tidal wave of technology-disabling, city-terraforming creatures like themselves. And the Skullcrawlers in ''Kong: Skull Island'' are an [[IntroducedSpeciesCalamity invasive species]] that could wipe out all animal life on Skull Island and then threaten the civilized world if Kong isn't around to keep killing them.

* SequelNonEntity: When a new film is released, chances are that most of the characters from the preceding film won't reappear, nor will they even get a mention, regardless of their importance to the setting or any appearance they had in the movie's [[TheStinger Stinger]]. James Conrad and Mason Weaver have yet to reappear in any capacity as of this writing; six years, two movies and four graphic novels after ''Kong: Skull Island'' set them up to join Monarch. Almost all of the characters from ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', including most of Monarch's top scientists, are completely absent from ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' during Monarch's investigation into Godzilla's rampage.

* StrawCharacter: Admiral Stenz is quite a genial portrayal of the GeneralRipper: compassionate, reasonable, and genuinely committed to the protection of the public, he tries to listen to the experts on the monsters; but he primarily thinks in terms of military strategy and not in terms of the franchise's GreenAesop, meaning that he only sees the Titans as monsters, and he [[FromBadToWorse ends up making a bad situation even worse]] while trying to destroy them. The U.S. government and military get even more reckless in ''King of the Monsters'', ignoring all of the warnings that they're making a mistake, and dropping a deadly prototype FantasticNuke in extranational waters rather than broach the idea that this ''isn't'' necessary to neutralize several awakened Titans.

* SwissCheeseSecurity: The human antagonists in the two most recent movies have lax and completely useless security in their evil lairs, enabling people that might be up to stuff diametric to the villains' goals to slip around and do what they want undetected, as Madison Russell can attest in both cases.

[[folder:A-H]]

* AntiVillain: The [=MUTOs=] in the original 2014 film are by far the least malevolent kaiju antagonists in the franchise, being motivated solely to reproduce and carve out territory, and Godzilla himself ultimately becomes this in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' when he [[spoiler:goes on a rampage trying to find Ghidorah's NotQuiteDead remnant]]. Admiral Stenz with his WrongGenreSavvy stance on the Titans and inability to learn his lesson coupled with his genuine well intentions can be seen as this.

* FatalFlaw: Amongst the heroes (or at least non-villains); Admiral Stenz's narrow-mindedness with his inability to wrap his head around the Titans as anything other than a threat to civilians has made him directly complicit in unwittingly [[FromBadToWorse making a bad situation even worse]] via NukeEm style military intervention in both his movie appearances and it also prevents him from learning his lesson, whilst Mark Russell has a ton of issues including [[HotBlooded Hot-Bloodedness]] and fixating more on the past than the present, and Dr. Nathan Lind has a tendency to go far out on thin limbs. Amongst the villains; Packard's obsessive thirst for revenge and Simmons' sheer hubris gets both of them killed, and [[spoiler:Emma]]'s pride and arrogance leads to her unwittingly unleashing the total opposite of what she wanted to achieve as a WellIntentionedExtremist, whilst Ghidorah's senseless bloodlust leads to him drawing out his targets' deaths for too long or getting distracted from the bigger picture when he wants to kill something for sport.
* FauxAffablyEvil: All three of the human {{Big Bad Wannabe}}s in the movies -- Colonel Packard, Alan Jonah and Walter Simmons -- at some point each present themselves as AFatherToHisMen, polite with some WickedCultured, and/or charismatically chummy, but it scarcely if ''at all'' veils their true colors as self-absorbed assholes willing to get anyone killed if it'll get them what they want.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Quite a few of the human villains implement a lot of hypocrisy into their agendas; such as Packard putting all his remaining men at risk in pursuit of his vendetta against Kong for killing his men and refusing to take responsibility or understand why Kong committed the actions he did, Jonah pretty much using any excuse in InsaneTrollLogic to justify letting King Ghidorah do what it wants to the world if it'll see humanity taken off the top of the food chain, never mind ''[[spoiler:Emma]]''[='s=] idea of the best way to honor their dead son's memory. [[GoodIsNotNice Mark Russell]], being the piece of work he was at the start of ''King of the Monsters'', is quite ObliviousToHisOwnDescription when he's scorning Serizawa for allegedly "kid[ding] himself" and Emma for putting her grief before her health and her family in a HolierThanThou tone of voice.

[[folder:I-P]]

* ItsPersonal: Quite a few examples occur over the franchise. There's Godzilla and Ghidorah's feud for dominance with their interactions indicating they truly ''despise'' each-other because of their past history, and Kong's hatred of the Skullcrawlers implicitly comes from them killing the rest of his kind including his parents until he was the last ape standing. Leaning more solely in the villainous side with human borderline {{Unknown Rival}}s; Packard's insane obsession with killing Kong in ''Kong: Skull Island'' starts with Kong killing several of his men and Packard latching onto that as justification for his vendetta, whilst the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization confirms the movie's vague hints that Ren Serizawa has a personal fixation on killing Godzilla because of his father's death while saving the Titan.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Godzilla comes across as the PrehistoricMonster equivalent of a GrumpyOldMan overall but has a genuine fondness for humans. Mark Russell can be a hotheaded asshole who thinks [[ItsAllAboutMe it's all about him]], but he genuinely loves his daughter and he does have his compassionate moments. [[spoiler:Emma Russell]] used to be this in ''Godzilla Aftershock'' as a highly arrogant but truly committed member of Monarch, before their FaceHeelTurn.

* LethallyStupid: In both the 2014 film and ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', it's the military's intervention born of naivete, pride and stupidity that's directly responsible for things with the Titans going FromBadToWorse, whereas otherwise Godzilla could have resolved the threat on his own with far fewer people put in mortal peril. In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', Apex Cybernetics end up unwittingly [[spoiler:bringing Ghidorah back into the world and giving it a chance to pick up where its previous identity left off with razing the entire planet, because Apex were stupid and arrogant enough to think they could incorporate Ghidorah's NotQuiteDead remains and a practically-unknown energy source into Mechagodzilla and ''not'' expect it to liably backfire on them]].

** Likewise downplayed in ''Kong: Skull Island''; the military is not so much useless, so much as they're completely out of their element, which leads to them doing more harm than good.
** Played straight in ''King of the Monsters'', where not only are they completely helpless against the Titans (beyond just irritating them) but they end up actually making the situation ''worse'' when they deploy the Oxygen Destroyer, which cripples Godzilla, giving Ghidorah a chance to usurp his position as Alpha Titan.

[[folder:R-Y]]

* WhatTheHellHero: Mark Russell receives a few for his biased behavior and shoddy judgment (particularly in regards to Godzilla); first from Dr. Serizawa for holding a toxic and fallacious AnimalNemesis grudge against Godzilla, then from Madison for jumping to a highly-questionable conclusion about Godzilla's rampage. In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, Jia calls out Dr. Andrews and Monarch for saying they're drugging and restraining Kong for his own good when their actions only feed Kong's distrust of them.

** In ''Kong: Skull Island'', Kong rips out the Skullcrawler's guts by shoving his hand down the kaiju's throat, finally killing the kaiju.
** In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', Ghidorah finally dies when Godzilla grabs the only surviving head in his mouth and vaporizes it entirely.

** In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', Godzilla is the rightful King of the Monsters who fights for the natural order, while one of his opponents, Rodan, is a HotBlooded WildCard with shifting allegiances. On the humans side, Dr. Serizawa is a stoic and professional scientist, while Mark is a rugged and experienced field zoologist.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Dr. Serizawa also listens to others' advice on how to best handle a Titan situation Serizawa is overseeing at Monarch, as does the military's commander Admiral Stenz (mostly). Joe Brody in the 2014 film used to be a reasonable nuclear power plant engineer when keeping an eye on approaching tremors -- in the present, the master sergeant in charge of transporting the nukes lets Ford hitch a ride only once FFord makes a decent case. Shaw in ''Godzilla: Awakening'' gives Eiji Serizawa the time of day regarding his concerns about Godzilla. Miles Atherton in ''Godzilla: Aftershock'' is concerned about Monarch's jurisdiction but does everything in his political power to help them combat the apocalyptic threat posed by Jinshin-Mushi. Admiral Wilcox in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' listens to Team Kong on how best to combat the threat.

* SealedEvilInACan: The original MUTO pair's eggs were sealed away in Adam/Dagon's subterranean grave for thousands of years before a mining company breached the underground pocket, accidentally setting off the eggs' awakening. [[AlienInvasion Ghidorah]] was dormant [[MonsterInTheIce within the]] [[MysteriousAntarctica Antarctic ice]] since ancient times, until [[EcoTerrorist eco-terrorists]] forcibly broke him free and awakened him without knowing [[OmnicidalManiac what he really was]].

* UnblockableAttack: In ''Godzilla'', Hokmuto's {{EMP}} blasts are practically a OneHitKill for all of the US. military hardware that they deploy against the [=MUTOs=]. In ''King of the Monsters'', Burning Godzilla's fiery Nuclear Pulses are able to power through Ghidorah's [[WingShield wings]] and cripple him as if the dragon is made of nothing.

* WhyWeCantHaveNiceThings: Dr. Brooks' and Monarch's recurring visits to/harassment of [[IsleOfGiantHorrors Skull Island]] eventually lead to ([[DownplayedTrope or at least assist]]) the island's terminal extinction in the graphic novel ''Kingdom Kong'', when Camazotz reaches the island's surface due to Monarch's seismic surveys and he permanently enshrouds the island's surface in a PerpetualStorm. Skull Island is the single most unique and alien ecosystem ever discovered outside of the HollowEarth, populated by {{planimal}}s and other bizarre creatures found nowhere else on Earth, but ignorant and cocky if well-meaning scientists harassing and trampling over a beautiful piece of land one times too many accelerated its and its precious contents' permanent erasure from the world.

* YouCantThwartStageOne: All four films have the cast being warned that "this monster-related thing" can't happen, and before the movie's climax, it happens and the stakes elevate.

** ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'': The first half of the film is the cast trying to stop the eco-terrorists from awakening all the dormant Titans that are being monitored around the world. King Ghidorah proceeds to do exactly that and have a biblical NearVillainVictory.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Humans who've stood out for their ''quirky'' personalities include Zamalek in the ''Godzilla Awakening'' graphic novel, [[FishOutOfTemporalWater Lieutenant Marlow]] and [[FantasticallyIndifferent Captain Cole]] in ''Kong: Skull Island'', and [[ConspiracyTheorist Bernie Hayes]] in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''. And there's Ghidorah's [[GeniusDitz quirky, childish]] [[MultipleHeadCase left head]].

** ''Godzilla vs. Kong'': Godzilla is so focused on destroying or beating any threat to his dominance into submission that his sheer aggression turns an oblivious human race against him, and he ends up wasting his own precious energy on brutalizing and crippling an Alpha Titan who could've helped him neutralize the real threat (Mechagodzilla) earlier. [[BigBadWannabe Walter Simmons]] is so overconfident and so obsessed with proving humanity superior to Godzilla and conquering the Titans, he's more or less ignored all the aesops of the previous films in favor of pursuing his warped dream, and his sheer recklessness in harnessing Ghidorah's telepathic skull to that end and in ignoring his subordinate's cautions out of impulse leads to a Ghidorah-possessed Mechagodzilla killing him, and destroying everything he worked for. Mark Russell, having learned next to nothing from the previous film, is too dogmatic and close-minded in his insistence that he knows what's right (which he blatantly doesn't): he {{easily condemn|ed}}s Godzilla without any real proof which helps Simmons to endanger millions, and he can't see that his own effort to keep Madison safe while reconnecting with her is only driving her away from him all over again.

* ElementalPersonalities: The various {{Kaiju}} (Titans), especially the ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'' ensemble, tend to have elemental power alignments, and personality traits to match them.

*** Na Kika/Kraken is a gigantic, vaguely cuttlefish-like, ocean-dwelling cephalopod, whose abilities to [[ChameleonCampuflage camouflage]] and [[MasterOfYourDomain mimic organ failure]] makes them one of the single most biologically-adaptive Titans around. Like most Titans, they have fluid allegiances to a fault, submitting to either Ghidorah or Godzilla depending on which Alpha Titan takes the reins.

** Electricity: Ghidorah has [[PsychoElectro bio-electric powers]] which basically make him a living superstorm. He's completely AxCrazy to a point far beyond the instincts of other hostile Titans, actively slaughtering any humans he sees for the fun of it, and actively seeks to usurp Godzilla's global domination and radically change the planet's entire environment according to his own wants.

** [[GeneralFailure Admiral Stenz]], for all his reasonability and well intentions, doesn't manage to do anything meaningful except to make a bad monster situation so much worse and endanger even more of the people he's trying to protect. His plan to nuke the kaiju in the 2014 movie gives the [=MUTOs=] the means to reproduce ''and'' it nearly causes a nuclear fireball to consume 100,000 people, leaving the military's hands tied. And his ambiguous support of the Oxygen Destroyer's usage in ''King of the Monsters'' not only fails to kill either of the Titans it hits, it enables King Ghidorah to wake up and galvanize a global Titan army unopposed, leading to the destruction of multiple cities and [[NearVillainVictory almost enabling Ghidorah to strip away all life as we know it]].

* ForTheEvulz: Ghidorah kills people because he can, not because we're a threat or in his way, as does [[spoiler:his reincarnation in]] Mechagodzilla. It's even speculated in the novelization that Ghidorah isn't really motivated by [[HostileTerraforming turning the Earth into a more suitable environment for himself]] at all so much as he is by murdering every living thing that isn't him.

* HeroAntagonist: In the 2014 film and ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', Stenz is genuinely just trying to keep as many people as he can safe, but his GeneralFailure methods put him at odds with the heroes that ''know'' Godzilla is our ally. Godzilla himself slips into this territory in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', serving as an antagonist who threatens Kong and acts more destructive than he previously did but is ultimately only really out to stop Ghidorah's unnatural new reincarnation from awakening.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Humans who've stood out for their ''quirky'' personalities include Zamalek in the ''Godzilla Awakening'' graphic novel, [[FishOutOfTemporalWater Lieutenant Marlow]] and [[FantasticallyIndifferent Captain Cole]] in ''Kong: Skull Island'', and [[ConspiracyTheorist Bernie Hayes]] in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''.
* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: More often than not. The biggest instance is in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', when Dr. Serizawa's open beliefs that Godzilla is ultimately the world's protector rather than its destroyer, dating back in the 2014 movie, are finally vindicated. Dr. Brooks and Bill Randa in ''Kong: Skull Island'' have been dismissed as loonies by the government and ''even by other Monarch operatives'' in the past for believing in Skull Island and HollowEarth theory (both of which are proven to be 100% real). Bernie Hayes in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' is a very ''wacky'' ConspiracyTheorist who's 100% right that Godzilla is GoodAllAlong and that Apex Cybernetics are up to something sinister.

* ForTheEvulz: Ghidorah kills people because he can, not because we're a threat or in his way, as does [[spoiler:his reincarnation in]] Mechagodzilla. It's even speculated in the novelization that Ghidorah isn't really HostileTerraforming Earth to his own liking so much as simply looking to murder every living thing that isn't him.

* MoralDisambiguation: In the first couple of movies, [[AdaptationalHeroism Godzilla]] and Kong are on humanity's side more due to circumstance than anything else. Godzilla causes mass destruction in his own right, and it's ambiguous how much he is out to destroy the more hostile [=MUTOs=] because they're disrupting the balance of nature at large, and how much he's just out to kill his natural enemy. In his debut in ''Film/KongSkullIsland'', Kong is an AntiHero and not above massacring U.S. military forces when they unwittingly disturb and threaten his kingdom. Meanwhile, Godzilla and Kong's kaiju foes in early installments are [[NonMaliciousMonster doing what nature built them to do rather than being deliberately malicious]]. In subsequent movies, Godzilla becomes more heroic and pathic to humans, and Kong becomes exclusively heroic, whilst the antagonistic kaiju get more petty and malicious, to the point of King Ghidorah being an OmnicidalManiac who displays ''true'' malice and wants to wipe out humanity just because he can.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Joe Brody in the 2014 film used to be this. Dr. Serizawa is also this, as are Admiral Stenz ([[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 most of the time, anyway]]), Shaw in ''Godzilla Awakening'', and Admiral Wilcox in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''.

* StoicSpectacles: Dr. Serizawa in ''Film/Godzilla2014'' and ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'' fits this trope with his stoic and intelligent personality and his narrow, thin-rimmed choice of spectacles, though he's a little bit older than most examples. It's even slightly {{lampshaded}} in ''King of the Monsters'', when he has his glasses off while mourning [[spoiler:Dr. Graham]]'s death, but puts them back on once he recollects his resolve for the time. In the prequel graphic novel ''Godzilla Awakening'', Serizawa's father Eiji has traded his youthful self's NerdGlasses for a pair of thin-rimmed spectacles which give off this impression.

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: {{Justified}}. Practically all of the Alpha Titans have a RedBaron calling them a King/Queen (King of the Monsters, Queen of the Monsters, King of the Primates, etc.), and they at times have to fight other Titans to maintain their positions of dominance due to the creatures' AsskickingEqualsAuthority.

** ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' and ''Godzilla: Dominion'' do this to the mass awakening of the other Titans in ''King of the Monsters''. ''Godzilla Dominion'' depicts Godzilla travelling the world managing the newly awakened Titans, but ends with him commanding them to return to hibernation before the events of ''Godzilla vs Kong'',[[spoiler: as it's implied he has sensed Ghidorah within Mechagodzilla and wants to avoid another global rampage.]] .
** The ''King of the Monsters'' closing credits mentions that Titans are mysteriously converging on Skull Island after the ending. An early script of ''Film/GodzillavsKong'' would have addressed this, but it ended up being scrapped, and the ultimate fate of Skull Island is explored in ''Kingdom Kong''

* AxCrazy: Ghidorah will murder anything that moves if it isn't a Titan, often with a SlasherSmile or three on his [[MultipleHeadCase faces]], and he wants to create global extinction. [[spoiler:His {{reincarnation}} in Mechagodzilla likewise slaughters several city blocks' worth of fleeing civilians the moment that he sees them]].

* BigGood: Godzilla is the known world's main line of defence against hostile Titans by circumstance, due to him considering the world his global territory and maintaining its ecological balance. Kong serves the same role within Skull Island's borders [[spoiler:until the island is destroyed by HostileTerraforming]].

* BloodKnight: Several of the {{Kaiju}} clearly enjoy themselves when fighting to the death. King Ghidorah's [[MultipleHeadCase right head (Ni)]] is described by the ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'' director as the head that's constantly itching for a fight, Godzilla shows ambiguous signs of smiling when he's brawling with other monsters ([[SlasherSmile not so ambiguous]] in ''Film/GodzillaVsKong''), and Mechagodzilla once it's possessed by Ghidorah's subconsciousness looks like it's enjoying literally and figuratively throwing Godzilla around much more than it needs to. This isn't just limited to the Kaiju: Lieutenant Colonel Packard in ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' is a ColonelKilgore who is well and truly at home in a God-forsaken war zone away from civilization.
* BrokenTears: Joe in the 2014 film is reduced to tears when he's forced to [[ShootTheDog seal his wife inside with a lethal radioactive cloud]], which traumatizes him for the rest of his life. And in ''King of the Monsters'', Madison is tearing up once she realizes that her mother is a madwoman who's willing to commit global genocide by proxy and that ''Madison herself'' is complicit in her crimes.

* TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight: More often than not. The biggest instance is in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', when Dr. Serizawa's open beliefs that Godzilla is ultimately the world's protector rather than its destroyer which date back in the 2014 movie are vindicated. Another example is Dr. Brooks and Bill Randa, who have been dismissed as loonies by the government and ''even other Monarch operatives'' in the past for believing in Skull Island and HollowEarth theory (both of which are proven to be 100% real). There's also Bernie Hayes in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', a very ''wacky'' ConspiracyTheorist who's 100% right that Godzilla is GoodAllAlong and that Apex Cybernetics are up to something sinister.

* DenserAndWackier: The franchise has been getting increasingly zany and further from its grim, semi-realistic roots which each new film: the further a movie is from ''Film/Godzilla2014'', the less recognizable it is as part of the same universe. ''Godzilla'' was grim and dead-serious, it was fine with suddenly killing off a DecoyProtagonist and hosts of minor characters, and it tried to be as grounded in reality as a movie which features dai{{kaiju}} big enough to break the square cube law could hope to be. ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' introduced more exotic monsters and an outright EldritchLocation as the main setting, and some of the new characters upped the hamminess, quips and black comedy, but it was still a fairly dark and serious film, and it maintained the 2014 film's choice to give the kaiju slow and weighty movements befitting their size. ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'' retained the previous films' dark and apocalyptic tone and [[AnyoneCanDie the killing off of significant characters]], but it also widened the WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief: Monarch was changed from the moderately-funded and somewhat dusty organization of the previous movies to the [=MonsterVerse=] version of [[Characters/{{MCUSHIELD}} S.H.I.E.L.D.]], complete with tens of billions of dollars' worth of hi-tech and its very own institutionalized military division, ''despite'' the fact the organization is on trial in this film; the human characters spout considerably more jokes and humor, the kaiju start to get more agile for their size (though still mostly maintaining a weighty pace); and kaiju which are much less close-to-human than [[GentleGorilla Kong]] get more anthropomorphically expressive and emotive than the creatures in previous films (one of these monsters even includes an actual extraterrestrial that's supposed to be even more otherworldly than the other kaiju). ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' takes the wackiness further; it all but ditches the weighty pace and makes the kaiju move like seven-foot people, it all but removes the apocalyptic atmosphere of the previous films in favor of a LighterAndSofter treatment where [[OnlyEvilCanDie nobody who's both good-aligned and a significant character EVER dies]]; more of the new human cast including the antagonists are [[ConspiracyTheorist goofy]] and [[{{Narcissist}} hammy]], the newer hi-tech gadgets and the featured Eldritch Location are now on the verge of reaching ''Franchise/StarTrek'' levels of fantastical, and both Kong and (to a much lesser extent) Godzilla are further anthropomorphized.

* EvilGenius: Emma Russell in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' uses her technical prowess to build a device that can manipulate the Titans via bio-acoustics, so that she can set them all loose on the world. Ren Serizawa in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' uses his [[GadgeteerGenius engineering and electronic skills]] to build a HumongousMecha so that he can frame Godzilla for killing millions of people and then kill Godzilla himself.

* {{Facepalm}}: Dr. Brooks facepalms in dismay when he realizes his son disappeared because he went to Skull Island after their last argument over their differing views in the island, in ''Skull Island: The Birth of Kong''. Dr. Serizawa facepalms in ''King of the Monsters'' when he realizes that the eco-terrorists are planning to forcibly awaken all the dormant Titans because Emma has taken Serizawa's [[TheXenophile Xenophilic]] views on the creatures to the extreme.

* ForTheEvulz: Ghidorah kills people because he can, not because we're a threat or in his way, as does [[spoiler:his reincarnation in]] Mechagodzilla -- it's even speculated in the novelization that Ghidorah isn't really HostileTerraforming Earth but is really just motivated by hatred for every living thing that isn't him.

** In the 2014 film, Serizawa clearly only resorts to attempting to have the incubating MUTO killed once he realizes the threat that it poses. Admiral Stenz, unlike the usual GeneralRipper, is hinted to be reluctant to resort to [[NukeEm using nukes]] but believes there's no other way, and when ''that'' plan [[EpicFail fails spectacularly]], Stenz reluctantly concedes to holding out hope that Serizawa is right about Godzilla being our ally.
** In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', the threat posed by King Ghidorah is so great and the circumstances so dire that Serizawa defies his own preaching against human intervention and against the use of nukes so that Godzilla will be able to stop Ghidorah.

* GoodAllAlong: Kong at first appears to be a bloodthirsty monster in his debut, but it's revealed later that he's quite passive and protective when not provoked, and he only attacked the cast earlier because from his point of view, a bunch of tiny alien jerks popped up on his land out of blue and started carpet-bombing everything immediately. In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', Godzilla is EasilyCondemned as a rabid monster after he attacks an Apex Cybernetics factory out of the blue and he continues to act aggressive toward humans, [[spoiler:but the reason he's acting this way is because he can sense that humans' meddling with King Ghidorah's remains is reanimating the evil hydra's consciousness]].

* HisOwnWorstEnemy: Emma Russell in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' wants to save the world and make her daughter proud of her, but her methods [[spoiler:and her insanity]] completely traumatize and alienate her child whilst unleashing an even worse threat to the world than what Emma was trying to avert. Walter Simmons in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' should be a frigging '''poster boy''' for SelfDisposingVillain, wanting to conquer the Titans and be hailed as a hero whilst shooting himself in the foot multiple-fold with his Titan-sized levels of arrogance.

* HotBlooded: Mark Russell is practically a simmering tea kettle of bitterness and spite, mixed with enough bull-headedness to give any even-tempered person a headache. In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', Rodan is a MagmaMan who responds to jets firing missiles at his home by relentlessly flying after and exterminating ''every last'' one of them, before he charges at an Alpha Titan that ''severely'' outclasses him; Ghidorah's right head is a PerpetualFrowner that tries to take on Godzilla ''with nothing but its jaws'' whilst the other two heads and their entire body are incapacitated; and a soldier named Hendricks screams like a maniac while shooting his gun at Ghidorah's heads.

* IntroducedSpeciesCalamity: Whereas Godzilla and Kong are compared to keystone species and guardians of nature which act to restore the ecosystem's equilibrium if it's been disrupted, their rivals and foes are compared to invasive species. The [=MUTOs=] are ancient parasites which lethally fed on Godzilla's kind and cause mass extinctions just by reproducing, the Skullcrawlers are invaders which crawl up to Skull Island from the HollowEarth and will overrun the entire ecosystem without Kong keeping them in check, [[spoiler:and Ghidorah is a literal alien whose plans threaten to sterilize the entire Earth]].

* {{Mangst}}: Dr. Serizawa and Lieutenant Ford Brody both present themselves as TheStoic, but it's apparent that just under the surface, Serizawa is still haunted by the shadow that the Hiroshima bomb cast on his motherland's history, while Ford is still haunted by his mother's death which (supposedly) caused his dad to lose his marbles. Both men are also clearly devastated by the loss of a loved one: [[spoiler:Dr. Vivienne Graham for Serizawa, Joe Brody for Ford]].

* MyGreatestFailure: Dr. Nathan Lind's greatest failure which he tries to fix is getting his brother and several other people killed during his failed first attempt to pioneer manned travel into the HollowEarth. Mark Russell's greatest failure which he feels the need to amend for is being absent from Madison's life for years while she was growing up and while her mother went insane. In the ''Kong: Skull Island'' novelization, Conrad is ashamed and disillusioned because of a disastrous clandestine rescue mission which ended with the young rescuee and Conrad's own men dead.

* NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist: Every human BigBadWannabe in the movies is this; presenting themselves as going to extreme lengths in the name of a just cause, whilst it becomes clear as things go on that they're really just committing their every evil act for themselves:
** [[GeneralRipper Packard]] in ''Kong: Skull Island'' presents his vendetta against Kong for killing several of his men as being entirely justified and as Packard being a soldier getting his hands dirty so that his country won't have to live in fear of the knowledge that such things as Kong exist, but he refuses to take responsibility for leading his remaining men to their deaths all to satiate his own insane obsession.
** [[MisanthropeSupreme Alan Jonah]] in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' says he's doing everything he is with releasing the Titans and slaughtering everyone in his way because his plan is the only way to prevent the human race from destroying their own planet, but once King Ghidorah begins creating an even worse extinction event than the one humanity was causing, Jonah uses increasing InsaneTrollLogic and a MaddenIntoMisanthropy rant to justify it, showing that [[EcoTerrorist eco-terrorism]] was nothing more than an excuse and Jonah is willing to let practically ''all life on Earth'' die so long as it'll satiate his all-consuming hatred of the human race.
** [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Walter Simmons]] in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' paints his and his company Apex's machinations with Mechagodzilla as them giving humanity a secure line of defence against the Titans and a way to retake dominance of the planet, but [[spoiler:they fired the first shot which disrupted a peaceful human-Titan coexistence by creating Mechagodzilla, they have been ''knowingly'' putting millions of people in Godzilla's warpath on purpose as part of EngineeredHeroics, and the art book states that they would've ultimately sought corporate world domination after conquering the Titans]]. It becomes clear during Team Godzilla's confrontation with Simmons that he's just using MugglePower as an excuse, having committed his evil actions because in truth he can't stand the thought that '''he''' isn't the top dog on the planet with forces bigger than himself out there.

** In ''Kong: Skull Island'', Packard has multiple dog-petting moments with his men due to his strong comradery with them, even midway into his SanitySlippage, until he's completely gone.
** In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', the human antagonists have a couple moments. Jonah at one point attempts to assuage Madison's understandable terror with a hand trick, although this doesn't mean he's above threatening Madison or giving her a savage verbal dressing-down later on. [[spoiler:In a RewatchBonus, Emma tries to [[InvokedTrope invoke]] SerendipitousSurvival on one of her Monarch colleagues before Jonah's forces launch their massacre, by innocently encouraging him to take a break]].

* ReclaimedByNature: In ''Godzilla'' (2014), the abandoned city of Janjira is overgrown with vegetation and wild dogs are roaming the streets. ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' (2019) reveals that after the first film's events, rich vegetation overgrew the ruins of the trashed cities (one of which is located in the middle of Nevada) at a rapid and anomalous rate, cluing Emma Russell in that Titans like Godzilla and the [=MUTOs=] have FertileFeet which cause life to flourish once the dust has settled after their calamitous passages.

* {{Retcon}}: ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'' places considerable emphasis – the novelization even more so – on the awakening Titans reclaiming the Earth, and the ending makes it clear that {{nothing is the same anymore}} and [[DawnOfAnEra a whole new world has begun]] with humans and Titans now forced to cohabit the planet; plus the HollowEarth is discovered by Monarch and the public to be real. ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' ignores or rewrites all of this, making the events of ''King of the Monsters'' out to be little more than a dramatic global hiccup instead of a bittersweet permanent turning point in history: the Titans have gone back into hibernation, things in the world have gone back to the way they were before, and the Hollow Earth for some reason is once more treated by the public as an unproven quack theory. It's almost as if ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' takes place in an {{alternate continuity}} from its predecessor entirely.

* SanitySlippage: In ''Kong: Skull Island'', the titular IsleOfGiantHorrors and all the nasties it throws at the cast gradually brings out Packard's inner ColonelKilgore, and by the time he dies, he doesn't care if he gets everyone including his own beloved men and even himself killed in the name of taking down Kong. Walter R. Riccio in the graphic novel ''Skull Island: The Birth of Kong'' similarly loses his marbles amidst his [[MaybemagicMaybeMundane visions which might or might not be real]], although he ironically goes down [[PsychoSupporter the opposite path]] [[ContrastingSequelAntagonist to Packard]] while being even more of an active danger to the humans. Emma Russell in ''King of the Monsters'' evidently isn't all up there after the death of her son (even if she's the only one who won't acknowledge that fact), [[spoiler:what with her plan to honor his memory involving millions more dead kids and grieving mothers being created on a global scale]].

** Hokmuto and Femuto are the franchise's {{starter villain}}s, killed off in their debut. However, their rampage directly [[TheUnmasquedWorld exposes the existence of Titans to the public]], and it has lasting ramifications across the graphic novel and film sequels: without them, none of the events of these stories would have likely come to pass.
** The prequel graphic novel ''Godzilla: Awakening'' reveals that the real reason Monarch was founded was because of a Kaiju named Shinomura, and Monarch didn't learn of Godzilla's existence until afterward.

* SmugSmiler: Two of them: Riccio in ''Skull Island: The Birth of Kong'', and Simmons in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', just ooze smarminess and self-assuredness when they smile their cocky little smirks. And despite their diametric world views, [[OneSteveLimit they both share a first name]]!
* SmugSnake: Packard in ''Kong: Skull Island'' greatly overestimates his ability to harm Kong, whilst Apex Cybernetics in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' see themselves as visionaries but are TooDumbToLive to an ''insane'' degree. Alan Jonah also crosses into this territory in the ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' official novelization's expansion, which portrays him as having a genuine OriginalPositionFallacy in the face of the existential threat King Ghidorah poses to all life as we know it.

* StreetSmart: Mason Weaver in ''Kong: Skull Island'' is savvy at working around the patriarchal norms of the decade that the film takes place in in pursuit of what she wants, and has good intuition. In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', Josh Valentine, [[NerdGlasses off all people]], is the most people-savvy and danger-conscious member of Team Godzilla.

** Type 1: Alan Jonah's paramilitary, G-Team, Emma, Mark and Madison Russell.

* SwissCheeseSecurity: The human antagonists in the two most recent movies have lax and completely useless security which enables people who might be up to stuff diametric to the villains' goals to slip around and do whatever they want unnoticed, as Madison Russell can attest in regard to both cases.

* ThereCanBeOnlyOne: Emma theorizes in ''Godzilla: Aftershock'' that if the [=MUTOs=] ever successfully reproduce and overrun the environment, then they'll ultimately turn on each-other until only the strongest of their kind is left alive. In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', Dr. Ilene Andrews and Walter Simmons firmly believe (in their own very different ways) that there can only be one alpha predator at any given time: Andrews believes that Godzilla will stop tolerating Kong and will try to kill him for dominance if Kong ever leaves Skull Island, while Simmons uses this mentality as justification for his plan to murder Godzilla and conquer all the Titans.

** In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' (2019), Dr. Stanton says in disbelief that it's impossible for any storm to change direction and move as sharply as the typhoon which their scanners lost sight of Ghidorah in has done, at which point Dr. Chen realizes that's because Ghidorah himself is generating the storm around his body. Commander Crane quotes the trope when informed that Monarch's submarine has suddenly been transported 600 miles in a matter of minutes [[spoiler:due to slipping down a Vile Vortex into the Hollow Earth]].

* UndignifiedDeath: The final death of King Ghidorah's [[MultipleHeadCase middle head]] in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' is darkly comical, being reduced to a severed, frantic head which Godzilla flails around like a chew toy and then burns from the inside-out with his breath. [[spoiler:This trait carries over to Ghidorah's reincarnation in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', when the possessed Mechagodzilla's limbs are hacked off one at a time by Kong until it falls over, before Kong decapitates the Mecha (for bonus points, this is how the Ghidorah head whose skull gave the Mecha consciousness previously died, and Word of God says decapitation was a RunningGag for that particular head throughout Ghidorah's life)]]. Ren Serizawa's death in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' is also quite humiliating, especially when contrasted against his father's HeroicSacrifice, being electrocuted to death by his own superweapon gone rogue before he even gets a chance to square off against Godzilla.
* UngratefulBastard: Packard in ''Kong: Skull Island'' goes as far as pointing a gun at the face of the same journalist who earlier saved his and his men's lives for trying to talk him down. The Russell parents really are a match made in... a place where toxic, dysfunctional and broken or downright unpleasant people go: Emma treats Tarkan like dirt after he saves her from [[FearlessFool getting herself killed]] rather than acknowledge any of her own wrongdoing in ''Godzilla: Aftershock'', while Mark in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' treats Monarch like dirt even though they're the people whom are currently trying to track down and save his kidnapped ex-wife and daughter. Apex Cybernetics in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' want to KillAndReplace Godzilla and don't give a damn that he's the main reason why they along with every other human being on Earth haven't all been wiped out by King Ghidorah.

** This is also present among the main human antagonists. Preston Packard in ''Kong: Skull Island'' is an AxCrazy GeneralRipper who becomes more and more willing to sacrifice the lives of everyone around him in pursuit of his vendetta, but he is framed as a bit of a TragicVillain with how his backstory influences his descent into madness. In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', the FromCamouflageToCriminal MisanthropeSupreme Alan Jonah, though in possession of a tragic backstory of his own (which only gets mentioned in the novelization), is a nasty piece of work who not only slaughters people left and right in cold blood in pursuit of his goals, but who is willing to let the three-headed monster he helped release condemn ''almost all life on Earth'' to certain extinction so long as he gets to see the human race that he despises wiped off the board. ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' has Walter Simmons, a {{narcissist}}ic utter egotist who has ''no'' tragic backstory to explain his actions, and whose arguments are presented as being even more hollow than the eco-terrorists: he's simply a self-spoiled industrialist who puts millions of people's lives in mortal danger by [[spoiler:instigating and knowingly continuing to instigate Godzilla's rampage]], all to satisfy his own ego.

* VillainHasAPoint: In ''Skull Island: The Birth of Kong'', Aaron acknowledges at the end that despite Riccio's dangerous insanity and the harm he caused, he did prove in the end whether Kong is a monster or a protector and he made his point. In ''King of the Monsters'', the eco-terrorist [[spoiler:Emma Russell]] makes some legitimate arguments about the Titans' potential to restore balance to the world without destroying humanity and also about the government's looming intent to try exterminating the Titans in their sleep: arguments which the novelization notes the heroes can't completely refute.

* {{Workaholic}}: Joe Brody in the 2014 movie [[ForgotTheirOwnBirthday forgot his own birthday]] while he was on the phone at work first thing in the morning, and he immersed himself into investigating the cause of his wife's death after the Janjira meltdown. According to Mark, Emma Russell in ''King of the Monsters'' drowned herself in her work on trying to understand the Titans in the aftermath of [[OutlivingOnesOffspring her son's death]].

** ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' and ''Godzilla: Dominion'' unfortunately do this to the mass awakening of the other Titans in ''King of the Monsters''. After all the DawnOfAnEra / NothingIsTheSameAnymore build-up and drama that was present in ''King of the Monsters''; ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' and ''Godzilla Dominion'' state that Godzilla commanded all the awakened Titans to return to hibernation not long after, and thus the long-term consequences of the events of ''King of the Monsters'' are minimal.
** The ''King of the Monsters'' closing credits mentions that Titans are mysteriously converging on Skull Island after the ending. Subsequent installments have done absolutely nothing to explain this and it seems to have been forgotten about.

[[folder:A-M]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder:N-Y]]

* AgentMulder: Serizawa's grandfather Eiji firmly believed in Gojira at a time when the rest of the fledgling Monarch thought the creature only existed in stories, Dr. Rick Stanton alone among the Monarch brass believes the HollowWorld theory to be true, and Bernie Heyes is a CloudCuckoolander ConspiracyTheorist who's entirely ProperlyParanoid about Apex Cybernetics.

* BigBadWannabe: The human antagonists in every film. They could all pose a genuine threat in a setting which ''didn't'' hold borerline-EldritchAbomination ancient Kaiju who represent forces of nature. As it stands, these human antagonists often at best end up on the losing end of an EvilerThanThou or at worst get squashed by a Titan like the bugs they are, often as a direct result of thinking they can control the Titans.

* BigRedButton: Monarch's Titan containment sites in the 2014 film and ''King of the Monsters'' have Big Red Buttons which activate emergency procedures designed to kill the captive Titans (or rather ''try'' to kill them). Ultimately, they only serve a very minor role in the plot of either film, as they either don't get pressed or they dramatically fail to so much as make the Titans bleed.

* HeroicLineage: The Serizawas consist of wise naturalists with a profound respect for Godzilla (the exception is [[AntagonisticOffspring Ren]] who's the latest in the lineage), and Kong's duty of fighting back the Skullcrawler hordes on Skull Island started with his parents before him. There's also Ford Brody and Admiral Stenz in the 2014 film's novelization being the sons of men who themselves served in the military.

* HitAndRunTactics: Both [[GiantFlyer Mothra and the male MUTO]] respectively use this approach to dealing with their larger Titan foes respectively.

* LackOfEmpathy: Among the human {{Big Bad Wannabe}}s, Jonah in ''King of the Monsters'' and Simmons in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' both in particular display ''zero'' signs of concern or empathy for the people who are hurt or killed by their {{Evil Plan}}s, even when those plans ultimately involve putting ''millions'' or '''billions''' of people in harm's way.

** In the graphic novel ''Kingdom Kong'', there are some hints with Camazotz that Mothra might not be the only superatural Titan on Earth, the strongest being that Tam who was put into a coma by encountering Camazotz in 2019 just ''happens'' to come out of said coma around the same time that Camazotz resurges and is defeated two years later. One has to wonder, are Captain Burns' flashbacks and waking nightmares of Camazotz, and even her fear and despair almost crippling her during the battle, merely her PTSD or are they also signs she's sensitive to and being affected by Camazotz' PsychicPowers?

* MisplacedRetribution: Mostly along the same or similar lines to RevengeMyopia. In ''King of the Monsters'', Mark Russell hates Godzilla for his son's death in Godzilla's battle against the [=MUTOs=] even though the [=MUTOs=] were to blame and Mark's son was just an accidental casualty, never mind that Mark is too blinded by emotion to remember that Godzilla is an animal who bore no ill will. In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization's expansion, Ren Serizawa wants to kill Godzilla because he blames the Titan for the ParentalNeglect Ren suffered while his father devoted his life and time to his work studying Godzilla, not caring that Godzilla as an animal likely has no idea of this or that he's trying to undo the very thing his father gave his life for.

* MysteriousAntarctica: Antarctica is where [[SealedEvilInACan Ghidorah]] was found by Monarch before ''King of the Monsters'', the ancient evil creature having been frozen in a glacier millennia ago, and Ghidorah was notably at the time considered a particularly mysterious Titan by Monarch. It's also revealed in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' that Antarctica is home to a gigantic Vile Vortex leading into the Hollow Earth, and the film's novelization notes that the vortex is much too close to Ghidorah's former prison to be coincidental.

[[folder:N-W]]
* NatureIsNotNice: Everything humans thought they knew about the creatures they share the Earth with is really just the ''insect kingdom'', which humans are a part of; and there was once an entire world of gigantic, radiocative, borderline-supernatural beasts who will fight and kill each-other for dominance and survival (as Godzilla does to the [=MUTOs=], but fortunately these creatures are mostly indifferent to humans the same way we're indifferent to the ants we see in our garden. Somewhat ZigZagged, as some of the Kaiju such as Godzilla, Mothra and Kong are capable of higher intelligence and even displaying benevolence towards humans, and ''King of the Monsters'' establishes the Kaiju have a cross-species hierarchy amongst themselves which enables them to coexist.

** [[GeneralRipper Packard]] in ''Kong: Skull Island'' presents his vendetta against Kong for killing several of his men as being entirely justified and as Packard being a soldier getting his hands dirty so that his country won't have to live in fear of the knowledge that such things as Kong exist, but he refuses to take responsibility for leading his remaining men to their deaths all to sate his own insane obsession.

** [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Walter Simmons]] in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' paints his and his company's machinations with Mechagodzilla as them giving humanity a secure line of defence against the Titans and a way to retake dominance of the planet, but [[spoiler:him and his company fired the first shot which disrupted a peaceful human-Titan coexistence by creating Mechagodzilla, and they've been ''knowingly'' putting millions of people in Godzilla's warpath on purpose as part of EngineeredHeroics]]. It becomes clear during Team Godzilla's confrontation with Simmons that he's just using MugglePower as an excuse, and has solely committed his evil actions because he can't stand the thought that '''he''' isn't the top dog on the planet with forces bigger and more powerful than himself out there.

* PreciousPhoto: The Russells in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' have copies of a family photo which includes [[PlotTriggeringDeath Andrew]], whilst Nathan in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' has a photo of himself and his late brother David (Bernie Hayes also has a photo of his [[DeathByOriginStory late wife]] in the novelization).

* SmugSnake: Packard in ''Kong: Skull Island'' greatly overestimates his ability to harm Kong, whilst Apex Cybernetics in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' see themselves as visionaries but are TooDumbToLive to an ''insane'' degree.

* SoftReboot: ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'' is a soft reset. ''Film/Godzilla2014'' and ''Film/KongSkullIsland,'' though very different from each other in tone, both presented the universe as fairly realistic and grounded aside from the presence of giant monsters. Monarch is depicted as a fairly small outfit in both films, relying extensively on the U.S. military to get anything done. ''King of the Monsters'' ups the ante considerably with the addition of more monsters (one of whom is [[spoiler:an extraterrestrial]]) and reimagines Monarch as a massive organization with incredibly advanced technology and seemingly endless resources. ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' follows the same direction but takes it even further, moving the setting into the near-future and adding even more advanced tech via Apex Cybernetics, and going much further into the pseudoscience of the "Hollow Earth" the previous films had only alluded to. The end result is a barely recognizable as the same universe that the 2014 film established.

* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Emma's teamwork with Jonah in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' is this kind of strained, and the {{novelization}} of ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' confirms that DragonWithAnAgenda Ren Serizawa feels similarly about working with Simmons.

* UngratefulBastard: Packard in ''Kong: Skull Island'' goes as far as pointing a gun at the face of the same journalist who earlier saved his and his men's lives for trying to talk him down, and Apex Cybernetics in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' want to KillAndReplace Godzilla and don't give a damn that he's the main reason why they along with every other human being on Earth haven't all been wiped out by King Ghidorah.

** This is also present among the main human antagonists. Preston Packard in ''Kong: Skull Island'' is an AxCrazy GeneralRipper who becomes more and more willing to sacrifice the lives of everyone around him in pursuit of his vendetta, but he is framed as a bit of a TragicVillain with how his backstory influences his descent into madness. In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', the FromCamouflageToCriminal MisanthropeSupreme Alan Jonah, though in possession of a tragic backstory of his own (which only gets mentioned in the novelization), is a nasty piece of work who not only slaughters people left and right in cold blood in pursuit of his goals, but who is willing to let the three-headed monster he helped release condemn ''almost all life on Earth'' to certain extinction so long as he gets to see the human race that he despises wiped off the board. ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' has Walter Simmons, a {{narcissist}}ic utter egotist who has ''no'' tragic backstory to his actions: he's simply a self-spoiled industrialist who puts millions of people's lives in mortal danger by [[spoiler:instigating and knowingly continuing to instigate Godzilla's rampage]], all to satisfy his own ego.

!!Tropes appearing in multiple instalments of the [=MonsterVerse=]:

* TwoFistedTales: The movies mix some of this flavour in with all the {{kaiju}} action, particularly in the films featuring Kong. ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' is a LostWorld adventure set in TheSeventies, and in ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'', the big ape travels to an even ''lost-er'' world BeneathTheEarth where he finds [[AnAxeToGrind a gigantic axe]] that basically turns him into a 335-foot tall BarbarianHero.

* * Untitled Godzilla VS Kong Sequel (2024)

* ''Godzilla and Kong'' (2024)

* Untitled Godzilla VS Kong Sequel (2024)

* ILoveNuclearPower: In the original Japanese films, Godzilla (and by extension many of the other Kaijus) acted as a metaphor for Nuclear Annihilation, many of the monsters a product of radiation and nuclear weaponry. Here, it is the other way around, the Kaijus (here named "Titans") originating from an irradiated ecosystem, their massive bodies feeding on radiation and mankind's splitting of the atom being one of the catalysts for their return. [[spoiler:In ''King of the Monsters'', it is even revealed that the radiation they exude ''improves'' the planet's ecosystem, plant-life sprouting like crazy everywhere Godzilla and the [=MUTOs=] went.]]

* GaiasVengeance: One of the core themes of the franchise, with the Kaiju generally being depicted not as [[NuclearNasty Nuclear Nasties]], but as powerful and ancient beasts who embody aspects of nature or act as invasive species, and whom humanity is almost powerless against once antagonized. Adding to the GreenAesop is that human activity such as strip mining, seismic charges and atomic testing are directly responsible for the Kaiju's emergences from long dormancy.

* ''Film/TheJungleBook2016'': The animals follow rules to ensure the overall health of the jungle, such as the Water Truce in which prey and predators are not allowed to kill at the watering hole during a drought. The villainous Shere Khan distinguishes himself from the other animals by how he doesn't obey the laws of the jungle and kills for sport.