Godzilla vs Kong

I had a big rant planned, but I think I'm just going to make a review so I don't bog down the thread. But one thing I will say is that both Team Kong and Team Zilla were very incompetent.

An interesting article by the editor of Roger Ebert.com, reflecting on the MonsterVerse and discussing its dim outlook on humans but awe towards nature compared to other blockbusters.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Apr 11th 2021 at 3:21:05 AM

Yeah, in a way, a lot of the these Kaiju disasters are the result of human activity.

If Apex didn't stupidly build Mechagodzilla out of a preemptive fear of Godzilla, Godzilla would have no reason to attack human settlements. Likewise, Ghidorah would have remained contained in Antarctica had the humans not been causing climate change that would melt the ice imprisoning Ghidorah or deliberately let him loose upon the world.

Eh... feels like a bit of a Reed Richards level reach to me.

Having just seen Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) last night, I can say that the franchise's eco-message is... muddled.

The Kaiju are presented as ultimately being beneficial for the planet, but it does so by saying that the radiation they emit is like some sort of miracle cure for the ecosystem. It restores desolate areas and increases the population of endangered species.

I shouldn't have to tell you that in the real world, radiation is pretty fucking bad for the environment. It's the problem of trying to keep the nuclear origins of these monsters, while also trying to make them a natural part of the planet's ecosystem. It's almost like they were inspired by nature returning to places like Chernobyl, without really understanding why it did so.

Well, it's definitely a Space Whale Aesop, yes, but I'd suppose the idea is to make them like real world keystone species by being important for their role in the ecosystem. Except Titans are important because they absorb harmful radiation and (somehow) emit a type of radiation that's actually good for the environment.

I don't think the intended message is that real radiation is a good thing.

This.

As early as Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, we saw the corpse of Godzilla, Jr. sucking up the lethal and potentially world-ending radiation left by the death of his father, so when it came to what Legendary did, I'm pretty indifferent. Franchise Original Sin is what I think I mean to bring up.

DESTROYAH!!!!

-shakes fists at the heavens-

Space Godzilla or Gigan you should just save for the ridiculously human alien plot 'We're from the third planet of the Black hole! And We come in peace'

You could also use the Ghidorah's remains corrupts plot to segway into Battra and Leo appearing

Screw it.

use fucking Bagan.... Poor guys been wanting his turn on the Big screen for so long

Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Apr 11th 2021 at 8:27:31 AM

Not sure if they should bring back Ghidorah/Have Ghidorah involved in the creation of the new bad guy again. Feels like he might not be taken so seriously if he keeps coming back in one form or another, only to die yet again.

Battra, though... You could definitely introduce him. Either as his own Titan, enforcing natural balance like Godzilla and Mothra but considering humans unnatural, forcing them to step in to save humanity. Or even have him as one of Mothra's descendants. She's often had two, right? Could be interesting to have one of them act like normal Mothra while the other goes all Knight Templar. Would need some justification for why it looks different, though... Maybe Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism?

Edited by FGHIK on Apr 11th 2021 at 9:10:20 AM

I think having a pro-green message is a little undercut when the movie is based around radiation monsters that can magically regenerate the areas they live in. Also, I've never been a fan of making a spectacle of human suffering just to prove a point.

It's kinda like Avatar. "Be like these nice tribesman who have a weird, literal symbiotic relationship with their planet. Which is also alive and actively protecting them."

I think Ghidorah can use a break... until they decide to do Keizer Ghidorah or Mecha-King Ghidorah.

In terms of future villains, the introduction of Mechagodzilla would no doubt encourage the rise of cybernetic Titans like Moguera, Gigan and Megalon. If you can build Mechagodzilla on Earth with Hollow Earth energy, anything is possible.

I would also like to see new interpretations of Biollante, Hedorah, and maybe even Spacegodzilla if they feel crazy enough.

SpaceGodzilla could work as a crystalline alien lifeform (Ghidorah already introduced that alien concept) that assimilates living beings by absorbing their DNA or outright absorbing the whole thing and feeds on entire planets as a parasite, displacing the Alpha Titans of them by absorbing their power and killing them. That's kinda my idea

Edited by VengefulBale on Apr 11th 2021 at 9:23:29 AM

The radiation explanation is kinda odd but it’s a condensed description of how natural disasters are sometimes balancing effects to environmental exploitation. It was something that was on my mind a lot over the summer, when I was living within visible sight of a wildfire that raged for months, and thinking about the causes that led us here and the old ways of controlled fires used to minimize damage that were suppressed in favor of more short term gain.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Apr 11th 2021 at 7:26:50 AM

Ya know I'm pretty into the idea of Emma Russel somehow becoming Biollante.

Its fitting really, she's already mass-murdering monster. Its just the ugliness on the inside appears on the outside now.

Oh, my dear no. You see she "learned her lesson" at the end of the film, so that retroactively makes her a hero. I bet all those people killed in the ensuing Kaiju battles threw her a party when she got to heaven.

I mean, did she even get any sympathy or "redemption"/nice words from characters at the end?

AFAIK, she just got killed doing the right thing but she wasn't praised by anyone in-universe not even in the newer film

A newspaper clipping in the film does show that even after 5 years, she is still a controversial figure with many seeing her as a villain for unleashing the Titans despite the environmental benefits they bring under Godzilla's reign.

Amusingly her family makes no mention of her whatsoever in this film.

Shows how "forgiven" she got after her very much horrible death via being melted into ash.

you get burnt to ash not melted

I saw it and.....dear god it was awsome, I mean it was totally dumb, the human chararter are whatever and the villians are supper silly with all that neon(Even the fire on their ship is multicolor) that my friend and I kept saying Appex was a gaming company and mecha godzilla was their godzilla PC master race version, the protagonist sneaking around feel like your typical RPG party inside a dugegon gettnig 20 in stealth and the DM is like "ughhhh outright, outright, you can go" and the death of the villian was like ".....who was their name again?".

But enough of that human bullshit, we all come here for kong and godzilla and it was pretty damn good, the way I describe is pretty much batman vs godzilla in how kong try to use every tactic to overpower godzilla, but I will said is mechagodzilla who steal the show by treating godzilla like a bully threat is prey, and kong arc feel like a fantasy chararter, specially in the end while he sit in the throne like a king.

X8 you do know that if that ends up being the case they’re almost definitely going to go for the Tragic Monster angle right?

Well there's also a chance they'd take a page of the fan reaction and have her take a level in jerkass.

And there’s a chance that they have her be an ally considering the whole realized she was wrong and was willing to die to help Godzilla thing.

Her becoming Monsterverse Biollante would have interesting repercussions considering that the original Biollante was hinted to be connected to Spacegodzilla's creation.

So if that happens with a potential Monsterverse Spacegodzilla too, that would make Monsterverse Spacegodzilla Madison's brother in a way.

Edited by M84 on Apr 11th 2021 at 11:42:53 PM