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Godzilla (2014)


  • On how heroic this incarnation of Godzilla is. Is he concerned with protecting humanity, or is he just acting as a predator against the Muto that sees humanity as a pragmatic ally? The Making-Of volume specifically singles out the MUTO's as the 'dark/evil' side of nature, suggesting that while it might have sounded a little hokey to actively brand Godzilla a 'hero' in-film, this was very much the intention for Godzilla. Also, the film does have a number of instances where Godzilla could cause property damage, but avoids it; the exception is the scene at the bridge, where he's hit in one of his gills and destroys it in an involuntarily reaction to being hit in such a sensitive area.
  • Is Admiral Stenz a reasonable-minded man who is neutral on the matter of whether or not the Kaiju generally should be killed and who only opts for the nuclear plan because it seems to him like the best course of action; or is he ultimately just a narrow-minded General Ripper who conducts himself politely but thinks nukes are the best way to solve a problem he doesn't understand? The sequel and especially its novelization lend a little credence to the latter interpretation.
  • When the male MUTO follows after the female when she rushes towards their nest in a Mama Bear display upon its destruction, is he following due to sharing her concern for their young, or is he merely following his mate wherever she goes? Note that whereas the female MUTO notices the explosion at the nest and immediately switches her focus to reaching it, the male takes a few moments to notice something has happened because his mate isn't by his side anymore.
  • When the female MUTO sees the boat at the dock and charges in an Unstoppable Rage to begin killing the soldiers there, is she attacking solely because she's worked out they're responsible for her unborn young's destruction, or because she's just focusing her grief and rage on the first thing that catches her attention? Additionally, does getting her stolen nuptial gift back from them factor into this?
  • Whilst the film gives the impression the masses amid San Francisco's ruins are cheering as Godzilla departs because they're hailing him as their city's savior, the novelization points out they could alternatively be cheering at thinking they're rid of him as he departs, or a bit of both.

Kong: Skull Island


  • Lieutenant Colonel Packard is characterized as A Father to His Men who has inspired a great deal of personal loyalty from his troopers, something that doesn't just automatically come with rank. His introduction has him staring at all of his medals (which is quite a few, all of them valor awards) and talking to Major Chapman about his son, reflecting on everything he and his men have sacrificed over multiple tours in Vietnam. With politicians (who had already micromanaged the war effort) choosing to end American involvement based on public opinion turning against it (which was due in no small part to unfavorablenote  media coverage), he feels that everything they've done, and all the men that he's lost, is now meaningless. Right or wrong, this opinion is shared by many Vietnam veterans, especially in light of South Vietnam being overrun by the North less than three years later. Having his unit, on what is supposed to be a low-risk joyride of a mission on their way home, suddenly ambushed and slaughtered by a 100-foot-tall ape monster that the expedition's politically-connected leader not only knew about but deliberately didn't tell them, is practically guaranteed to send him over the edge.
    • Is Packard really A Father to His Men, or does he just play the part to foster loyalty that he can use to manipulate them into doing the job he thinks needs to be done? He seems to waffle a bit between very much caring about his soldiers and their futures, and prepared to throw their lives away at the drop of a hat if it accomplishes the objective. Or has he just been "in the shit" way too long?
      • That, right there, is the dilemma of the combat commander, though. No matter how much he cares for his men, he has to send them into situations that will likely get at least some of them killed or crippled. His job is to accomplish the mission with as few casualties as possible, which may very well come down to deciding who lives and who dies when you can’t save everyone. Unless you’re a total sociopath, this will take an emotional and psychological toll. Packard gets thrust into a situation that’s practically custom-made to trigger him the way few other things likely could.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

Seeing as the film features non-speaking sentient kaiju, there's understandably room for quite a bit of this.
  • Ghidorah's three heads have been subject to quite a lot of this, with fans arguing over which head is the most intelligent, most aggressive, most malicious, most tactical, etc.. It probably didn't help that Ichi (the middle head) and Ni (the right head) getting confused with each other by the audience when Ichi had a couple It Can Think moments caused some Character Misinterpretation.
    • Ni in particular has debatably been given less clear personality than the other heads in the film proper. He's variously seen by fans either as the intelligent one, the aggressive one, or the middle head's loyal enforcer.
    • Looking up Monsterverse Ghidorah fanart and fanfiction demonstrates how San/Kevin (the left head) is basically the Leatherface of the MonsterVerse. He's interpreted as either a childlike Token Good Teammate who is just following his more prominently-sadistic brother heads' leads and doesn't know any better, or just a copy of Ghidorah's standard omnicidal sadist personality with some slow-wittedness and submissiveness slapped on.
    • Kevin's moment of savagery when he bites down on Godzilla's neck with more eagerness than the other two heads and causes Godzilla a lot of extra pain, has been interpreted several ways. They've suggested it's because he's Obsessed with Food (Ghidorah's heads are in the middle of Vampiric Draining Godzilla), or because he holds a grudge over Godzilla previously ripping off his head, and some viewers argue that Kevin overall acted more malevolent after his head was ripped off and regrown.
    • When Kevin's head is regenerating, Ichi rips the protective membrane which forms around the stump off before the skull has even fully re-formed. One has to wonder, is the membrane supposed to be ripped off at that point to make way for the regenerating head's growth, or is Ichi just bullying the brother that he always gets frustrated with?
  • Speaking of Ghidorah in a more overall sense, it's very clear that Ghidorah is unnaturally sadistic and that he enjoys killing humans regardless of whether or not they're trying to pose a threat or challenge to him. But whereas previous incarnations of Ghidorah were Planet Destroyers, the ambiguity of this incarnation's Mysterious Past and the cast's speculation that he might be trying to destroy Earth as part of a Hostile Terraforming process has led to the following among some viewers. Is Ghidorah ultimately an animal (albeit a truly malicious one who is all too happy to Kill All Humans) who's found himself in an environment unlike the one his species are normally found in, and is converting it into a home which better suits his environmental preferences; or is he actually just straight-up driven by malice and hatred to kill as many living things that aren't him as possible? Note that the official novelizations of King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong as well as most Godzilla fans lean towards the latter interpretation of MonsterVerse Ghidorah.
    • When Ghidorah is preparing to kill Madison with all three heads' Gravity Beams in Boston after disabling the ORCA, is Ghidorah doing this when the ORCA signal is no longer a threat purely because he's that sadistic or because he's pissed off with Madison and wants payback for her crossing him?
    • When Ghidorah chomps down on Godzilla and starts Vampiric Draining his excess radiation (causing Godzilla a lot of agony); is Ghidorah performing this vicious act to prevent Godzilla achieving his Burning Godzilla form with the added benefit of taking the radiation for himself (one does have to wonder Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?, since a broken neck would probably kill Godzilla even in that state); or is Ghidorah doing this instead of just shooting him out of sheer sadistic glee?
    • One alternative reading of Ghidorah's campaign to exterminate humanity and his displays of malice towards humans during his screentime is Disproportionate Retribution for previously being crossed by humans. When he first awakens, Ghidorah certainly doesn't mind callously causing mass death and destruction by pulling himself free of the ice anymore than the MUTOs did, but it's only after the G-Team start firing (ineffectual) bullets at him that Ghidorah decides to atomize them and he starts menacing the downed Osprey. Likewise, the Argo had previously fired missiles upon Ghidorah in Antarctica before he maliciously attempted to take it out of the sky while it was sitting above the Pacific Ocean. And logically he had nearly every reason to want Madison dead after she used the ORCA to challenge him and disrupt his global Titan control. Whilst the ancient legends show that Ghidorah was already genocidally hostile to humans and Titans back in ancient times, said ancients feasibly wouldn't have had to do much at all in Ghidorah's presence to provoke him when considering the above analysis of the G-Team's fates.
  • Rodan's Heel–Face Revolving Door status leave a lot of room for speculation. Just how malevolent is he and what are the nature of his fluid allegiances? Is he truly a case of I Fight for the Strongest Side!, is he Loyal to the Position, or was he Brainwashed and Crazy after Ghidorah took control of the world's Titans? As it stands right now Rodan's nest has become a tourist attraction in Fiji so he obviously isn't giving Godzilla any trouble, but it still leaves his true loyalties up in the air.
    • When Rodan decimates the Isla de Mara village, massacres the Gold Squadron and tries to destroy the Argo, is he merely being territorial or is he just extremely ferocious and merciless at the smallest provocation? Note that the novelization explicitly points out that the missiles fired at Rodan when he was atop his volcano would logically be interpreted by an animal as a direct challenge for their territory.
    • And what about when Rodan initially challenged Ghidorah. Was he merely being territorial? Is he just that hot blooded? Or was he actually loyal to Godzilla from the start and once the Argo led him to Ghidorah he tried to stall him until Godzilla could arrive, but quickly got overwhelmed and only gave his subservience because Godzilla was seemingly killed?
    • Also, Rodan's initial reaction to Godzilla in the final scene before Godzilla snorts at him — with the way Rodan spreads his wings and screeches, it seems like he could be showing defiance before Godzilla shuts him down, or he could be doing that thing Starscream does where he hails and praises Megatron when it's clear the big mech's staying large and in charge today.
  • A particular point of Rodan's Heel–Face Revolving Door also applies to all the other Titans that fall under Ghidorah's control when the latter usurps Godzilla's position as the reigning alpha. Are the other Titans rendered Brainwashed and Crazy by Ghidorah, or is it a case of Smart Animal, Inconvenient Instincts where the Titans follow their alpha regardless of what that alpha is going to do to the natural order?
  • Is Godzilla and Mothra's companionship entirely down to species symbiosis, or is there a current of individual emotional companionship running underneath? Their cooperation, Mothra's Heroic Sacrifice and Godzilla's brutal slaying of Ghidorah afterward could be them displaying genuine concern for each-other as individuals, or it could be their awareness of the need to win the fight against Ghidorah at any cost (Mothra's sacrifice unlocked a weakened Godzilla's Super Mode, and Ghidorah's Healing Factor made destroying every last piece of him a necessity).
    Jackson Barnes: So, her and Godzilla, they like, they got a thing going on?
    Sam Coleman: Symbiotic relationships between two different species aren't all that uncommon.
  • Though the general implication in the film is that Godzilla came to the Hollow Earth city to heal using its radiation, some fans have provided the alternative interpretation that he came there to die, which would make sense if he knew how much of a threat Ghidorah really posed to the planet and that the three-headed monster had free reign while Godzilla was incapacitated.
  • On the human side: does Alan Jonah let Emma leave to find Madison when she pulls a gun on him because he doesn't want to risk his own life, because he's vaguely amused and doesn't consider stopping her worth it, or because he has a pang of empathy due to his Backstory when she declares she won't lose a second child?
    • Also, at the end of the film, does Jonah retrieve Ghidorah's decapitated head because he's had a complete Ignored Epiphany response to Godzilla repairing the planet's ecosphere from manmade damage without genocide and Jonah is looking to see humanity destroyed; or is Jonah just retrieving the head so he can sell Ghidorah's DNA on the Titan DNA market to get himself and his operations by? The Godzilla vs. Kong novelization lends a bit of credence to either interpretation.
  • While Admiral Stenz obviously knew about the Oxygen Destroyer before he contacts Monarch to warn them to withdraw from the blast zone, how involved was he in the project? Fans have argued over whether Stenz believes the Oxygen Destroyer's deployment is a stupid-ass decision and just doesn't show it or he fully supports the reckless move. Note that Stenz seems regretful when telling Monarch about the Oxygen Destroyer's launch, but is he regretful about the untested weapon's less than reasonable usage, or is he disappointed that Monarch couldn't (in his eyes) stop it from coming to this; or does he merely feel bad about hurting Dr. Serizawa's feelings?
  • Although the interpretation that the film mostly seems to be going for is that Emma Russell is so oblivious to Godzilla's importance to keeping the other Titans in check due to her mental instability, viewers who really hate Emma's character took away another possible reading: that not unlike Mark, Emma wants Ghidorah to kill Godzilla out of spite towards the Big G over Andrew's death, before she realizes just how dangerous Ghidorah is as Godzilla's replacement.
    • One also has to wonder: does Emma leave Mark to die despite their daughter being forced to watch because she's that out of her gourd/that fixated on saving the world the way she believes it needs to be saved; or does she actually do so out of veiled spite towards him for not being there for her when she needed him?
  • It's unclear how Andrew Russell died in the San Francisco battle (namely which Titan killed him — Godzilla or one of the MUTOs), which begs a question about Mark Russell's Misplaced Retribution. Does Mark somewhat understandably hate Godzilla more than any other Titan for directly causing his son's death, or was he so desperate for something to hate in his grief that when the MUTOs were killed, he put all the blame on the very same Titan who saved humanity from further destruction?

Godzilla vs. Kong


  • Godzilla: A ruthless bully who takes time off from his much more important hunt for Mechagodzilla to track down Kong and beat him into submission (or preferably, straight-up murder him) because he's a "rival" to Godzilla despite Godzilla being on a whole other power level? Or angry, frustrated, and confused by the intermittent Ghidorah signal he's getting and attacking Kong simply to blow off some steam?
  • Godzilla notably seems to cause a lot more callous damage to surrounding human settlements than in the previous two Godzilla movies when he rampages on Florida and Hong Kong respectively, looking for Ghidorah. Is this because he expects Ghidorah to be present at each location and therefore he can't afford to worry about causing collateral damage that Ghidorah wouldn't cause; or is it because Godzilla knows that Ghidorah's signal is resurging because humans are meddling with Ghidorah's remains, and Godzilla understandably has no intent to be lenient on humans who were stupid enough to do that after everything that happened in King of the Monsters because of Ghidorah.
  • Did Godzilla intend to spare Kong after defeating him, satisfied his "staying down" was good enough as far as submitting went, or did he leave him to die? The latter admittedly would require him to recognize Kong's heart was failing and what that meant, as well as for him to forgo his usual style of making sure something he wants dead is dead before he leaves.
  • Kong: Hotheaded ape who keeps getting in Godzilla's way when Godzilla doesn't care about him and only wants Mechagodzilla and its Ghidorah remnant? Or gentle giant who just wants to be left alone but keeps defending himself from Godzilla's relentless antagonism? In the carrier battle, it's noted they've been specifically avoiding Godzilla's territorial waters, so he's deliberately gone out of his way to find Kong, and attacks with a relentless brutality that nearly ends the Eighth Wonder then and there. Though the humans did open fire first, so Godzilla may have been provoked. . . but he's utterly ignored human weapons' fire before. Godzilla attacks Kong in the Ocean after attacking Florida; it's arguable that Godzilla is confused by the Mechagodzilla experiment in Florida and is wrongly blaming Kong for the challenge issued by the energized Ghidorah skull. So maybe he's the real idiot?
    • Saying that Kong kept getting in Godzilla's way is a bit of a stretch, as the first time he's in chains and being transported in waters that aren't Godzilla's territory, yet Godzilla stills hunts him down and tries to unambiguously kill him. Even after almost dying it takes his ancestors' home being destroyed for Kong to truly get in Godzilla's way for once, and only because of Godzilla unintentionally provoking him. So it's safe to say that rather than Godzilla or Kong being the villains, it's more that Godzilla's too prideful and relying on his instinct to properly seek out the real threat, while Kong's emotionality leads to further conflict. Notably, while Kong does a more emotional gesture of burying the hatchet by dropping his axe once Mechagodzilla's destoyed, Godzilla still gives him a glare before leaving.
    • It's made clear Kong is angry when he's throwing makeshift tree spears at the containment dome's roof, but what is he really expressing anger about? Frustration at the cramped, fake artificial environment, or despair that his former-kingdom outside the dome is no longer habitable to him?
  • The novelization's prologue opens up a question: why would Alan Jonah sell Ghidorah's skull(s) to Apex Cybernetics, considering their agenda of humans dethroning the Titans is diametric to Jonah's Titans-over-humans agenda and it's completely anathemic to Jonah's motivating misanthropy on a personal level. Did Jonah do it solely because he was desperate for money and was bluffing when he said he had other prospective buyers? Or was it entirely a Batman Gambit on Jonah's part, wherein he knew that Apex's hubris would lead them to do something with the skull(s) that would surely destroy themselves and, if luck was on Jonah's side, also wipe a couple million other humans off the Earth too?
  • Mechagodzilla and Ghidorah's skull have room for quite a lot.
    • Just how much of Ghidorah was there controlling Mechagodzilla when Ghidorah took over? Was Mechagodzilla a straight case of Man in the Machine with Ghidorah's mind/s fully intact inside and directly controlling it, or did the Ghidorah skull merely override Mechagodzilla's programming and Mechagodzilla's A.I. handled carrying out that new programming? Note on one hand that Mechagodzilla has none of the almost Affably Evil personality traits that San/Kevin (the head which half or all of Mechagodzilla's Ghidorah-parts came from) originally exhibited (Mechagodzilla takes one look at humans and then immediately attempts to obliterate them all, whereas Kevin would've likely taken a curious closer look at them first)..
    • Continuing from the above, note on the other hand that Mechagodzilla displays a Kill All Humans attitude once it goes rogue which matches up with Ghidorah, and it also seems to actively prioritize fighting and killing Godzilla while generally regarding Kong as more of a nuisance in the Final Battle. Is the latter a sign that Ghidorah's influence inside Mechagodzilla recognizes and remembers Godzilla, or is it just because Mechagodzilla was built mainly to kill Godzilla and therefore its A.I. prioritizes killing Godzilla over killing Kong? Confusing things is Mechagodzilla let's out an Evil Laugh after leveling part of Hong Kong, implying he actively enjoys causing death and the destruction for the fun of it.
    • Regarding the above two points, the director in an AMA on Reddit favors the interpretation that Ghidorah's consciousness merged with Mechagodzilla's A.I. to create a new personality, and the movie novelization explicitly describes Mechagodzilla's new consciousness thusly: "It did not know who it was or what it was, but it was full of rage and the black joy of finally being, and having teeth and limbs."
    • As mentioned above, Mechagodzilla's behavior is much more vicious than San/Kevin individually was in his previous life when compared to Ghidorah's other two heads. Does this mean that San/Kevin was always just as much of a vicious monster as the other two heads even without Ichi and Ni to encourage him, is it a sign that Ghidorah's skull only retained the monster's base desire to kill everything it can and has effectively lost Kevin's individual personality traits, did Kevin's mind inside the skull experience Took a Level in Jerkass during its effective captivity, or, since it's only got the one head to work with, did the process only regenerate the gestalt Ghidorah rather than any individual member of the literal Freudian Trio? Is Ghidorah or Kevin outraged from his Unwilling Roboticisation or a case of Cybernetics Eat Your Soul?
    • Was it Kevin's personality that awoke in Mechagodzilla, or Ichi's? Does the severed Ghidorah head hold all of Ghidorah's personalities, or just the one of that head, and if it contains them all, did the Healing Factor prioritize restoring the dominant personality? Or are they all there, clashing together in a single skull, making Mechagodzilla insane?
    • When Mechagodzilla turns against Apex and one of the very first things the now-rogue mech does is take one brief look at Hong Kong and raze half of it in one move, is Mechagodzilla merely acting on Kill All Humans just like Ghidorah exhibited a delight in inflicting, or is it Ghidorah's mind controlling the mech basically taking revenge for being imprisoned and exploited by Apex?
    • When Mechagodzilla is throwing Godzilla around before it attempts to execute him, is it doing this to wear Godzilla down so he can't fight back against the killing blow, or is Mechagodzilla just sadistically brutalizing its opponent for no logical reason and just For the Evulz?
    • Assuming that all of Ghidorah's or Kevin's consciousness was there in the decapitated head when it reprogrammed Mechagodzilla, did Ghidorah only fully awaken when the Hollow Earth energy was pumped into Mechagodzilla, or was Ghidorah aware all the time just waiting for Mechagodzilla to be completed?
    • When Ren suffers a High-Voltage Death directly caused by Ghidorah's consciousness awakening and overtaking Mechagodzilla, was the electrocution just a side-effect of Ghidorah hijacking the Brain/Computer Interface or did Ghidorah deliberately cause it to kill him?
  • When Ren Serizawa made a Cheshire Cat Grin while using Mechagodzilla to kill a Skullcrawler, was he smiling because he was delighted by his weapon's success, because he was enjoying the power he was wielding, or because he was taking sadistic joy in killing the Skullcrawler? Does the fact the he's basically Drifting with Ghidorah influence this equation? The novelization indicates the middle interpretation, but also suggests the last one had a role.

Skull Island (2023):


  • In the finale, Kong throws the Kraken's remains in Skull Island's shoreline's direction (where Annie and Dog are) with enough might to cause a tsunami that engulfs Annie, Dog, and a huge stretch of the island coastline. Did Kong simply forget his surroundings and momentarily neglect the smaller creatures he was endangering with this act, in the heat of battle and his rage against the undying Kraken? Or, a darker possibility; did Kong deliberately endanger Annie and Dog in revenge, because he mistook Annie holding the Island Girl's pendant up towards him (which enabled the Not Quite Dead Kraken to get the drop on him while he was distracted) for Annie deliberately trying to help the Kraken kill Kong? Bear in mind that the only reason Kong was drawn into a stalemate-breaking battle against the Kraken was because Annie and Dog deliberately stole the Island Girl's pendant, and all he knows is that they used it to deliberately lure him into a close clash with the Kraken.
    • This however implies that Kong was still holding onto some anger despite rescuing Dog for Annie, and hearing Annie be ready to apologize

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