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U.S. Government
Senator Willis
Portrayed By: Richard Jenkins
Appeared In: Kong: Skull Island
A U.S. senator and old ally of Bill Randa, who authorizes the trip to Skull Island. He is skeptical about the existence of giant monsters.
- Agent Scully: He doesn't believe in Kaiju, and only finances Randa's trip to Skull Island to avoid letting anything valuable fall into the hands of the Soviets.
- Deadpan Snarker: He manages to consistently maintain a serious-sounding tone, while not missing a chance to deride Brooks and Randa's monster-hunting as conspiracy theorist nonsense.
- I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: He says something like that when Brooks points out that it would be best for them to go explore Skull Island before the Russians discover its existence in case it contains something valuable.Senator Willis: I don't believe I'm saying this, but that almost made sense.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He doesn't believe that any of the superspecies Monarch was founded to hunt are real, and with that in mind he initially refuses to do Bill any more favors helping Monarch to investigate Skull Island when the U.S. Senate currently has the immediate fallout of the Vietnam War's end on their plate, stating that he's already done Bill too many favors in the past. However, he's persuaded to use his pull to get Randa and Brooks the chance to piggyback on the Landsat expedition to Skull Island once Brooks points out that if Monarch aren't on that island with Landsat, then the Soviets will get anything of value that might be on the island ahead of America. Willis also, despite making it very clear that he wanted this to be the last favor he ever grants Randa, is apparently convinced to approve Randa's last-last request for permission to form a military escort to the island.
Miles Atherton
Appeared In: Godzilla: Aftershock
The San Francisco Commission's representative, who is assigned to observe Monarch's activities and possible accountability for the San Francisco disaster during the MUTO Prime's rampage.
- By-the-Book Cop: Well, By-the-Book Bureaucrat. He's a little annoyed that the Russian government weren't informed of his and Monarch's presence in Siberia investigating the MUTO Prime before they landed, commenting it risks causing a major diplomatic incident.
- Excellent Judge of Character: He's concerned from the start that Emma might not be emotionally fit to be managing Monarch's Titan-studying activities due to the loss she suffered in San Francisco, and his concerns deepen during his time with her. Considering Emma's actions in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Miles was more right than he knew about her.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Downplayed and ultimately averted by him. He's a little vexed that Tarkan and Emma didn't bother informing the Russian Federation of their presence in Siberia in advance to avoid risking a major diplomatic incident, but apart from that he's non-obstructive. After the U.N. Security Council refuse to support Monarch's efforts to aid Godzilla without regards for the consequences of the MUTO Prime impregnating Godzilla, Miles steals the ORCA prototype's remains and gets them to Emma so she can prevent the MUTO Prime's victory which would spell an extinction event.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He's concerned about how clandestine Monarch has been for decades, and he privately shares his concerns about Emma Russell's mental state with his superiors, but he doesn't do anything to obstruct Emma and Tarkan's ongoing efforts to investigate a rampaging Titan. After learning just how destructive it would be to the entire world if the MUTO Prime succeeds in its goals; Miles hesitantly supports Emma's efforts to manipulate the creature with artificial bio-acoustics to aid Godzilla once it becomes clear Monarch have no better solutions, he goes out of his way to vouch for Emma to the U.N. Security Council, then when that fails, he uses his pull to illegally get the ORCA prototype's remains to Emma.
- Stoic Spectacles: A bespectacled man who is usually calm and collected (except when he's faced with the prospect of descending into a Titan-made borehole), and is more perceptive and competent than Emma gives him credit for.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Working with Emma during her trek around the world is this for him. Emma just sees him as an Obstructive Bureaucrat, while Miles has found her to be "singularly arrogant, condescending, and confrontational."
- To Be Lawful or Good: When the U.N. Security Council all but shut down Emma's research under the assumption that all their problems will be solved if the MUTO Prime kills Godzilla and returns to dormancy, ignoring the apocalyptic long-term consequences; Atherton, who vouched to the council for Emma, uses his pull to essentially steal the ORCA prototype from the U.N. and get it to Emma.
Senator Williams
Portrayed By: C.C.H. Pounder
Appeared In: Godzilla: King of the Monsters
- "Thank you for the Fifth Grade history lesson, Mr. Coleman. But we still haven’t heard one good reason why Monarch shouldn't fall under military jurisdiction or why these creatures shouldn't be exterminated."
A U.S. senator who chairs the committee that's grilling Monarch on their reasons for not cooperating with the government's demands to exterminate the Titans.
- Adaptation Name Change: In the novelization, she's instead named Claire Godine.
- Commander Contrarian: She makes a retort to (or just ignores) every argument Monarch make at the hearing in favor of trying to coexist with the Titans which Monarch is in charge of tracking.Sam Coleman: We believe that these Titans and others like them provide an essential balance to our world.
[literally 14 seconds later]
Senator Williams: We still haven't heard one good reason why Monarch shouldn't fall under military jurisdiction, or why these creatures shouldn't be exterminated. - Deadpan Snarker:"Thank you for the fifth grade history lesson, Dr. Coleman."
- Fantastic Racism: Doesn't trust the Titans at all, and wants Monarch to work with the military to kill them before they awaken. The novelization suggests it's partly because of the damage Godzilla and the male MUTO did at Hawaii, which is where she is from.
- Hauled Before A Senate Subcommittee: Drags Monarch's leadership into such a meeting to make them explain why they won't cooperate with the government's plans.
- Jerkass: Unlike Admiral Stenz, who despite his faults is a Reasonable Authority Figure, Senator Williams only listens to what she wants to hear, and she flat-out hates the Titans and wants them killed. She's also clearly contemptuous when directly accusing Serizawa of being a Zombie Advocate.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: She wants the Titans killed while they're still dormant and believes humanity is capable of doing so... overlooking the fact nothing humanity has barring an experimental weapon with severe risk of long term collateral damage does anything but make the Titans mad (and the one time said weapon is used, it doesn't kill either of the Titans it hits), and Monarch's attempt to kill the male MUTO only resulted in that exact outcome. Even Mark Russell, who is in the same boat of wanting the Titans dead, isn't dumb enough to think humanity should pick a fight with the Titans unless they're absolutely sure that's a fight they can win.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: She's the lead senator of the hearings interrogating Monarch about their lack of cooperation with the government's desire to see the Titans killed, and very much doesn't care for Monarch's arguments that trying to kill the Titans would be a grave mistake.
- Straw Character: Her one scene is spent establishing the plot thread that the Government doesn't want Monarch studying and safeguarding the Titans, but rather to destroy them before another San Francisco happens. She doesn't have any other characteristics or role to play in the movie.
- Uncertain Doom: The United States Senate is based in Washington D.C.. Later in the movie, logically no more than a few days after the senate scene, D.C. is completely inundated by King Ghidorah's hurricane when he invades and ravages the city to make it his roost, leaving it uncertain whether or not Williams and the other senators managed to evacuate from the city in time.
- Underestimating Badassery: Sure, Senator. The US Military can absolutely kill the giant animals who are immune to practically anything humanity can throw at them, never mind that just two of them only went down to an impromptu joint effort between mankind and Godzilla. That couldn't possibly backfire in any way.
- Wrong Assumption: She seems to believe she's in one of the older Godzilla movies, where the military needs to be mobilized to hunt down and destroy all the newly-emerging monsters for the sake of mankind's survival, and where the creatures can be killed by military-grade weaponry; especially if the military catches the creatures while they're sleeping. She also seems to believe in the vein of Aliens that even attempting to coexist at all with the monsters is an obscene pipe dream and anyone who seriously entertains the idea is not to be trusted. In actuality, Senator Williams is in a Green Aesop where her opponents have good reasons for being so overly concerned about the Titans' ecological importance, and where there's The Day After Tomorrow-style consequences of politicians like her making ignorant decisions. She also doesn't realize that she's in a full-blown Cosmic Horror Story where mankind can't match the Titans on their own terms without getting benign Titans on our side to act as our champions by circumstance.
U.S. Military
Navy
Admiral William Stenz
"I know you don't agree with this. But my first priority is to safeguard our citizens."
Portrayed By: David Strathairn
Appeared In: Godzilla | Godzilla: King of the Monsters
- "I would not be asking anyone of you to take this leap if I did not have complete faith in your ability to succeed. Your courage will never be more needed than it is today."
The military senior officer in charge of the operations to combat the MUTOs.
- Aesop Amnesia: After his attempt to nuke Godzilla and the MUTOs spectacularly backfires, Stenz' last appearance in the 2014 movie is him opting to hold out hope that Serizawa is right about Godzilla being humanity's ally instead of our enemy who will solve the MUTO problem for us (which Godzilla does do). In King of the Monsters, Stenz is right back to dismissing Serizawa's pro-monster advice, refusing to consider Godzilla an ally, and trying to kill the Titans on U.S. military terms – in fact, it's hinted in the senate scene that Stenz is siding with the government's plan to exterminate all the Titans (which would likely include Godzilla). Semi-justified, as Stenz' original decision to put faith in Godzilla was born out of desperation and there was literally nothing else the military could do, so he most likely saw it as a last-ditch Enemy Mine rather than as proof that he should've taken Serizawa more seriously.
- Anti-Villain: Depending on which side of the character's Broken Base you're on, he can be seen as an example who's more often working with the human heroes than not. His personality and intentions are genuinely noble, he's respectful to Monarch and he's slightly more hesitant than Captain Hampton or the government to resort to Nuke 'em action, but he does have a tendency to attempt killing or even exterminating the Titans with manmade means in the expectation that it's the least costly way to neutralize the threat to humanity; in direct defiance of the MonsterVerse's aesop about nature's power and mankind's fallacy.
- Beleaguered Bureaucrat: In the 2014 film, he makes it clear to Serizawa that his dismissal of the latter's concerns about nuking the Kaiju isn't the standard General Ripper's paranoia and overt ignorance of experts, but is based more on Stenz' professional and moral duties to prioritize the public's lives and on Stenz being massively bogged down by the collateral the MUTOs cause with every passing minute. Stenz pretty much states that he'd be happy to consider alternative methods of neutralizing the threat if he didn't see nuking them as the least costly recourse available, a character trait which receives even more emphasis in the novelization. These traits seem to have somewhat faded in King of the Monsters: it's hinted Stenz is siding with the government in favor of a Titan extermination agenda, although he still hints to Serizawa when the Oxygen Destroyer is launched that he's been stalling for time in the hopes Monarch could resolve the problems on their own terms (which they haven't, or so he assumes)."I understand your concerns, doctor. But I am sacrificing lives every minute trying to steer one of these things clear of population centers and now there are two more on the way!"
- The Brigadier: A stoic and professional U.S. military officer, Stenz is put in command of the military effort to track and combat the loosed MUTOs. Five years later, he's directly involved in the senate hearings on the Titans on the U.S. military's behalf, and in the Oxygen Destroyer's launch against the loosed Titans. Stenz tries to be a reasonable authority figure, but he ultimately ignores the experts at the most crucial moments, and ends up making a bad situation even worse than it could have been. Persistently skeptical of Dr. Serizawa's faith in Godzilla, Stenz can't think outside of the box when attempting to kill Titans, and he only opens up to deferring towards Monarch's way of thinking after the military's way of doing things has created some apocalyptically-catastrophic and needless FUBAR.
- Commander Contrarian: Deconstructed. Stenz is more level-headed and respectful of the experts than most military leaders in this type of movie, but he does have a tendency to disregard Monarch's advice when it comes to trying to kill the Kaiju with human means, and across both his appearances he's persistently skeptical of Monarch's more naturalistic or idealist ideas about humanity coexisting with the Titans. In both of Stenz's movie appearances, this mindset and the decisions that result from it ultimately fails to resolve the Titan crises, and if anything exacerbates the apocalyptic problems humanity is faced with.
- Consummate Professional: This is more or less his problem. He's a dedicated, stern and no-nonsense U.S. Navy leader (though he does show hints of a softer side in his sympathy for Serizawa and seeming second thoughts about using nuclear weapons in the first movie), and he seriously struggles to think outside of a pre-The Unmasqued World military mindset, which ultimately creates serious problems in both of Stenz's appearances due to the Titans in the MonsterVerse being directly tied to the Green Aesop. It's also hinted that he's Lawful to a fault.
- Deep Breath Reveals Tension: In the 2014 film's novelization, Stenz takes a deep breath to ready himself before addressing a group of soldiers, shortly after the MUTOs have nested in San Francisco with a ticking nuke.
- Demoted to Extra: He only shows up in a couple of scenes in King Of The Monsters.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: He turns down Serizawa's advice in favor of Nuke 'em despite his respect for Serizawa, and though he remains polite to Serizawa, he seems to think the latter is against attempting to kill the Titans due to his reverence of them and due to lingering fears about the Hiroshima bombing (in which case, . What Stenz fails to realize is Serizawa is actually saying that man is not nearly as big as it thinks it is, and that they're not merely trying to fight a living, giant threat but are dealing with eldritch physical forces of nature which they don't yet understand; and that attempting to forcibly subdue such important parts of nature with manmade means is certain to backfire and might if anything make things worse for us. Stenz gets extra points for seemingly not learning his lesson even after Serizawa verbally spells it out for him near the end of the first film, if Stenz' actions in the second film are any indication.
- Failure Hero: Exaggerated. Both times he turns up to try and contain a Titan situation, the military's recourse goes completely awry and ends up aiding the truly-hostile Titans' world-ending goals. The most that Stenz can do right is in helping to clean up the catastrophic mess the military have made, and even that boils down to the army standing by and doing nothing (in the 2014 film), or creating a ginormous decoy on Godzilla's behalf (in King of the Monsters). And even in the latter case, the novelization states that Stenz and the military fleet's assault meant to distract King Ghidorah was decimated much quicker and more spectacularly than Stenz or anyone else involved in the operation's planning had been expecting.
- Fantastic Racism: Not half as bad as the likes of Senator Williams, but he generally just sees the Titans as "things", and King of the Monsters shows he's persistent in his view of them as a threat to innocent civilians that is better being destroyed.
- Fatal Flaw: Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) seems to have cemented narrow-mindedness to the bigger picture as Stenz's Fatal Flaw. Despite maintaining a constant level head and despite his respectful demeanor towards Monarch, he's simply unable to think outside of a normal military mindset of treating the Titans like an active threat to infrastructure and civilians' safety that the military must neutralize, which is particularly problematic due to how the creatures directly tie into the MonsterVerse's Green Aesop. He sees the Titans merely as "things" and in terms of how much of a threat they pose, and he misinterprets Monarch's protests against killing the Titans for naivete born of their scientific fascination with the creatures. Depending on Alternative Character Interpretation, his role in King of the Monsters indicates he's either persistent in his distrust of the Kaiju, or he's choosing To Be Lawful rather than Good to a fault. Either way, him failing to wrap his head around the Kaiju as anything other than a potential threat and furthermore not taking Serizawa's advice more seriously has so far racked up two extreme cases of making things go From Bad to Worse.
- Foil:
- To Serizawa, whom he holds a mutual respect for. One is Japanese and the other American, and they have a talk about the Hiroshima bombing at one point. One is a scientist and the other a military man. They're also both quite lean and elderly, and both are The Stoic. Both are level-headed, but Stenz usually advocates killing the Titans whereas Serizawa has idealist shades and admires the Titans — guess who makes things worse and who proves to be right. Serizawa is focused on the balance of nature, while Stenz is more focused on human lives. Stenz advocates human intervention in Titan crises whereas Serizawa's iconic Wham Line summarizes his stance.
- And to Colonel Diane Foster in King of the Monsters. Both are high-ranking and decorated military officers who are charged with protecting human lives from Titan threats and cooperating with Monarch in that capacity, and one is a Caucasian-American male while the other is an African-American female. However, Foster's relations with Monarch are considerably better than Stenz', as she's more likely to follow Monarch's advice and prospers for it. Foster is portrayed as a Front Line General whereas Stenz is primarily portrayed as an officer who operates from mission control.
- General Failure: Downplayed. Every time this guy has been put in charge of trying to combat a Titan threat, his decisions, complicity, and failure to think outside the box have directly caused a bad Titan situation to become so much worse than it needed to be. Stenz' decision to use a nuke against Godzilla and the MUTOs despite Monarch's urgings to the contrary ends up creating a disgraceful military FUBAR that puts an entire major city at risk of nuclear destruction whilst giving the MUTOs a food source to fertilize their spawn (and Stenz somehow wasn't demoted after commanding this blunder). Five years later, Stenz' implicit support of The Government's Titan-exterminating agenda and his part in the Oxygen Destroyer's launch directly enables King Ghidorah's reign of terror, putting the entire human race and all life on Earth as we know it under the threat of near-certain and total destruction. All of the above having been said, it's made clear in the 2014 movie and the King of the Monsters novelization that it's less a matter of Stenz being incompetent at his job, and more a matter of the entire U.S. military being completely out of their depth whilst severely underestimating the Titans' capabilities. In fact, from what we've seen of the rest of the government and military, it's likely that any other military commander might have been even more arrogant and bull-headed than Stenz if they were put in the same role as him, so it's less that Stenz is a failure and more that he was the least inept man the military had for the job.
- General Ripper: Downplayed in that he's selfless, has some respect for the experts he's provided and he's ultimately well-intentioned, but Stenz does overall function in a similar role. Though he's not as blind to reason as the government he serves; Stenz is persistently skeptical of the idea of coexisting with Titans or letting them fight due to his narrow outlook, he tends to think the Godzilla Threshold has been crossed far too early and fall back on throwing high-risk weapons of mass destruction at the Titans, and he has a track record of dismissing Monarch's advice at some of the worst times. It's indicated in King of the Monsters that Stenz listening to his higher-ups is the problem rather than solution to his faults, as the government are indicated to be even less reasonable and forward-thinking than Stenz is. He overall tends both to fail at thinking outside the box, and to underestimate the consequences of his Nuke 'em measures as well as not thinking in advance about what the hell he'll do if the Nuke 'em attempt backfires.
- Godzilla Threshold: He tends to think the Threshold has been crossed earlier than it actually has been. He believes that utilizing nuclear weapons works as the least costly way of dealing with the MUTOs. He's aware that they feed off of radiation, but believes the sheer strength of the explosion will be enough to kill them, since the H-Bomb that failed to kill Godzilla in 1954 is a firecracker compared to what's at their disposal six decades later. In King of the Monsters, he and the military resort to deploying an even more devastating prototype weapon against Ghidorah, in an attempt to kill him and Rodan after both Titans awaken and escape Monarch's containment outposts.
- Hair-Contrast Duo: He forms an inversion with the much darker-haired Dr. Serizawa in Godzilla (2014) while they're working together on tracking the Kaiju, and debating the military's use of nuclear weaponry. Serizawa is by far the more idealistic and philosophical of the duo with his borderline-esoteric conviction in Godzilla's benign purpose, he reveres nature, and he believes that human intervention does more harm than good compared to letting nature sort itself out. Stenz on the other hand is committed to protecting the public from the Kaiju to the point of being short-sighted to the bigger picture, he's down-to-earth to a fault if out of his depth, he's skeptical of the idea that Godzilla is anything more than another destructive beast that threatens the lives Stenz is charged with defending, and disgust at the idea of doing nothing is one of the reasons why Stenz initially authorizes nuking the Kaiju over Serizawa's objections. The two men at a couple points have a heart-to-heart over their respective countries' history with each-other at the end of World War II and (in the novelization) their respective fathers' contrasting personal histories with the Little Boy atomic bomb.
- Hauled Before a Senate Subcommittee: With Sam Coleman and Dr. Serizawa, he is summoned by the Senate for a meeting on the Titans.
- Hero Antagonist: He's technically on the side of good and has genuinely noble objectives, but his inability to perceive the Titans outside of a normal military mindset causes him to (civilly) clash with Monarch and dismiss their more Xenophile suggestions, while resorting to Nuke 'em methods in an attempt to curtail the Titans. It can be argued that him and the military are directly responsible for things going From Bad to Worse in both the 2014 movie and King of the Monsters because they didn't listen and tried to sort out the Titan problem on their own terms, with devastating consequences.
- Heroic Lineage: The 2014 movie's official novelization mentions Stenz' father was an ensign on the Indianapolis, the same cruiser which transported the atomic bombs' components. Downplayed, given the moral questionability of the atomic bombs' usage coupled with the Admiral's actions seven decades later crossing into Hero Antagonist territory.
- Idiot Ball: In the first film, he starts off the hunt for the MUTO by demanding all search options be immediately brought to the table and furthermore relying on algorithmic Navy software to plot all of the kaiju's possible paths to landfall. But when he, his colleagues and Monarch realize the MUTOs threaten to become Explosive Breeders, the only plan brought to the table is the Nuke 'em plan, and Stenz settles on it almost immediately with no reasonable alternative plans having apparently been considered. It's even worse in the novelization's version, where Stenz first orders Hampton to bring him all options, but when Hampton just mentions the nuclear plan, Stenz decides to settle on that straight away without even hearing out the alternative options.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He causes a truly catastrophic case once in both his appearances, and it can be argued that he is to blame for things going From Bad to Worse in both films.
- His approval of a plan to lure Godzilla and the MUTOs using nuclear warheads backfires quite horribly, when the MUTOs steal the warhead in a highly-populated city before it can be used to lure them out to sea.
- It's unclear how much involvement he had in the military's decision to launch the prototype Oxygen Destroyer beyond being the liaison who warned Monarch to get clear of the blast zone, but the weapon's usage ends up being an Epic Fail of truly apocalyptic proportions. Stenz and the military were hoping the weapon would kill the rampant Rodan and Ghidorah, but it only succeeds in taking out the one Titan who was preventing The End of the World as We Know It, and with Godzilla out of the picture, Ghidorah promptly instigates the absolute worst-case scenario with the Titans: the creatures around the world razing humanity's cities into the ground and threatening to drive the world into global extinction instead of renewing it.
- Nuke 'em:
- In his first appearance, he approves a plan to attempt killing Godzilla and the MUTOs using nuclear warheads with more concussive force than the 50s bombs in the hopes it'll succeed at killing them where the 50s bombs failed, despite the serious risksnote that if any of the three Kaiju survive the blast then they'll actually be empowered even more by the radiation and likely enraged. Unlike most examples of this trope, Stenz seems to have genuine doubts while he's preparing to enact the measure, but he sticks to it despite Serizawa's pleas.
- In an even worse case, it's implied in King of the Monsters that Stenz is responsible for the military launching the Oxygen Destroyer (an even more devastating weapon designed for killing Titans) against Ghidorah, and he only contacts Monarch who could've told him what precisely was going on after the weapon has been launched. Also bear in mind, the O.D. being fired is a prototype that's still in development, and it's being fired just a few miles away from the populated island that the Kaiju were originally threatening.
- Only Sane by Comparison: Despite his Fatal Flaw, in King of the Monsters he comes off as comparatively more reasonable than the other U.S. government figures such as Senator Williams — any disagreements he and the other main characters share are often respectable and he's willing to listen to the experts, whilst the senators choose to butt heads over jurisdiction. He actually almost seems to realize this in the senate scene, when he's stunned by the senators' laughter which shows they're not taking the Titan matter of discussion seriously.
- Pragmatic Hero: Played With. He has shades of a composed and logical Consummate Professional with Hero Antagonist shades, but he's ultimately ill-suited for dealing with Titan situations due to his narrowed outlook on them. Stenz is a strictly professional military man who is obviously operating on a Pragmatic Hero mindset when he (apologetically) chooses to use Nuke 'em measures to deal with the Titans despite Monarch's protests. Although he respects Monarch's expertise and has a polite and composed disposition, he fails to understand the Titans' nature and the Green Aesop, instead misinterpreting Monarch's idolization of Godzilla and other Titans as the naivete of a negative-type Zombie Advocate. He's strictly concerned with saving civilian lives and he's often unable to think or see outside of that particular frame of though. Ultimately, Stenz's and/or the military taking action which Monarch protests to in both films is what directly enables things to go From Bad to Worse.
- Rank Up: It's subtle, but Stenz was apparently promoted by two stars in the U.S. Navy in-between his two movie appearances: in the 2014 film, Stenz' uniform sports a two-star Rear Admiral insignia, whereas both the military uniforms he wears in King of the Monsters sport a four-star Rear Admiral insignia.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Despite his Fatal Flaw, Stenz does aim to be this.
- In his first appearance, he treats the Kaiju as a threat for good reason, but he's consistently level-headed, and he has enough respect for the Monarch experts he's provided to not just brush them off without first hearing what they have to say, nor does he throw them off his advisory committee just because they disagree. Stenz' highest priority is explicitly the safety of civilians' lives, and he can honestly be credited with putting this at the forefront of his mind instead of being single-mindedly obsessed with the idea of killing a big monster (that's more than can be said for the military officers who dealt with Zilla and his spawn, or the government that Stenz answers to for that matter). He also seems to have serious second thoughts about his Nuke 'em plan in the first movie which Serizawa protests to, although he ultimately goes through with it. After Stenz's nuclear plan horribly backfires and leaves the military with their hands tied, he concedes to holding out hope that Serizawa is right about Godzilla destroying the MUTOs for them.
- Zig-Zagged in King of the Monsters. He only contacts Monarch just after the Oxygen Destroyer has been launched against Ghidorah and Rodan, meaning Monarch are unable to give advice or even inform the military what precisely is going on at the location and whether or not such a drastic move is really necessary. It's also hinted in the movie and confirmed by the novelization that Stenz has remained persistently skeptical of both Godzilla's benevolence and the idea of humans coexisting with Titans, despite Monarch's expert advice about the Titans' ecological necessity and despite Godzilla's benevolent display at the end of the first movie. That having been said, once the Oxygen Destroyer makes things apocalyptically worse with awakened Titans spontaneously ravaging the planet, Stenz and the military go straight to Monarch to get them onboard with helping combat the crisis, and if Stenz has any objections to the plan to revive Godzilla with a nuke so he can defeat Ghidorah then he doesn't show them.
- Skepticism Failure: He's skeptical of Serizawa's naturalist ideals about the Titans (thinking it a sign of naivete) and about the idea that Godzilla is humanity's protector or that the Titans can coexist with humans, to the point of narrow-mindedness. It's strongly hinted in King of the Monsters and explicitly confirmed in the novelization that Stenz's skepticism has persisted even after the events of the 2014 film. Naturally, the ending of King of the Monsters proves Serizawa was entirely right about the Titans and Godzilla, though it's implied that Stenz probably didn't live to see it.
- The Stoic: Mostly the polite kind, who for the most part displays a calm and no-nonsense disposition. He also scarcely raises his voice an octave when making tough calls, such as when he admits in the 2014 movie that he's sacrificing lives every minute trying to minimize the damage caused by the Titans' movements — unfortunately, not every tough call he makes is the right call, especially when Titans are concerned.
- Straw Character: He seems to be one of the military in relation to the movies' Green Aesop. He's a Reasonable Authority Figure who genuinely values the sacrifices of field troops and is concerned about safeguarding civilian lives, but respect for nature and the long-term survival of humanity aren't exactly at the forefront of his mind, and he seems to think (or rather he erroneously hopes) that standard military tactics and manmade weaponry can solve any major problem including the Titans.
- Straw Vulcan: He's somewhat this, at least in the 2014 film. He's calm and tries to be reasonable and logical with his efforts to neutralize the Kaiju, even when he plans to nuke them, but he's so objective and unwilling to go on a limb that he dismisses Serizawa's idealism about Godzilla being mankind's ally rather than our enemy and about letting the Titans fight being more productive than trying to intervene on strictly human terms. Naturally, Serizawa is proven right in the end that Godzilla is their only real hope of neutralizing the MUTOs, and later installments have only further proven Serizawa right about the Titans.
- Ultimate Job Security: Downplayed, but as noted on his Godzilla Wikia page
, he's been promoted by two extra stars between the 2014 film and King of the Monsters, despite the massive San Francisco fiasco with the nuke which he was in charge of and which his decision ultimately instigated. Possibly justified by the five-year gap between the movies meaning he made other accomplishments that earned him promotion — or alternatively, it might have something to do with the government's portrayal in Godzilla Aftershock and Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which reveals they're even less forward-thinking and even more idiotic than Stenz is. - Uncertain Doom: In the King of the Monsters novelization, Stenz' submarine is apparently damaged at the Washington D.C. battle against Ghidorah and Rodan, and the last that's seen of him is a brief video feed showing his sub is flooding and suffering electrical fires before the signal cuts out, making it likely (given the environment where his sub was going down) that he died, although the novelization deliberately leaves it uncertain. A deleted scene (which was cut from the film because the director wanted to leave the door open for Stenz to return in a future instalment) depicts Stenz Facing Death with Dignity and telling Colonel Foster via video feed It Has Been an Honor, before he's apparently Killed Mid-Sentence by an explosion. If Stenz is dead, this arguably doubles as a Karmic Death for his role in the Oxygen Destroyer's usage which caused so much avoidable harm and destruction, as he wouldn't have been present at that battle if the O.D.'s deployment hadn't enabled King Ghidorah's global Titan takeover.
- Underestimating Badassery:
- His plan to kill the kaiju using the sheer physical force of a modern nuclear bomb greatly underestimates the power of the Titans as would be demonstrated in King of the Monsters where a nuke exploding (relative) inches from Godzilla's nose did exactly nothing to him.
- He has some doubts about Godzilla's ability to defeat the MUTOs, in spite of Godzilla chasing one of the MUTOs out of Honolulu and hardly being affected by the Navy's gunnery in San Francisco Bay.
- He later overestimates the Oxygen Destroyer's effectiveness on Ghidorah, who survives due to his alien true nature. Even Godzilla, who is affected by the weapon after taking it point-blank, ultimately survives it in a severely crippled state.
- The Unfettered: Downplayed. He makes it clear in the 2014 movie that he's willing to make tough calls, and he won't let Serizawa or Monarch getting upset or outraged at his decisions impede him if he thinks nuking Titans or deploying the Oxygen Destroyer is the safest way to neutralize a Titan threat. Unfortunately, this isn't necessarily a good thing in his case, since in both his movie appearances, he ends up partly or wholly responsible for causing things with the Titan antagonists to go From Bad to Worse.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Played Straight by him and his military colleagues in King of the Monsters. At the time of Ghidorah and Rodan's clash at Isla de Mara and Godzilla's approach, Stenz suddenly contacts Monarch and informs them that the military have deployed the Oxygen Destroyer in an attempt to kill the loosed Titans without first consulting Monarch. Instead of killing either of the Titans who were an actual threat, the weapon only ends up taking out Godzilla and thereby all but handing control of the other Titans around the planet to Ghidorah, triggering a global apocalypse which would've ended in the extinction of all non-alien complex life on Earth if Ghidorah hadn't been stopped. In fact, the director has stated Godzilla would've beaten Ghidorah at Isla de Mara if the military hadn't launched the Oxygen Destroyer.
- Wrong Assumption: With his moderately reasonable attitude towards the Ignored Experts and constant level-headedness while trying to combat the franchise's resident Kaiju, Stenz could be an excellent military leader in any other kaiju or disaster movies' settings. Unfortunately, Stenz happens to be in a non-classical kaiju setting where the giant rampaging monsters are directly tied to a philosophical and idealistic Green Aesop which Stenz can't wrap his head around, and themes of mankind's hubris in thinking we are in control of nature are in full effect; making Stenz, with his inability to think outside the box, a poor liaison for competently handling Titan crises.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: During the Senate meeting in King of the Monsters, when the lead senator entertains the notion of humanity making Godzilla their pet and the other delegates start laughing, Stenz is visibly taken aback by the committee not taking the matter seriously. He also looks quite stunned when Graham and Serizawa walk straight out of the important committee (and displease the lead senator in the process) based on a phone-call.
William "Bill" Randa
Admiral Wilcox
Portrayed By: Hakeem Kae-Kazim
Appeared In: Godzilla vs. Kong
A US Navy officer who is involved in the transportation of Kong across the ocean.
- Black Dude Dies First: Subverted. With how he's only present in the navy fleet scenes and featured in the trailers, it'd be easy to assume he'll end up dying in Godzilla's attack on the fleet. In the movie proper, he's still alive when Godzilla departs.
- The Chains of Commanding: The novelization shows that he has this, and he firmly impresses the responsibility of being in charge on Nathan.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He looks to Team Kong for advice and takes their suggestions seriously, but he still doesn't just blindly do whatever they say, only following Nathan's suggestion that they turn off everything during Godzilla's attack once Nathan explains they'll be playing dead and making Godzilla think he's defeated them. However, it should be noted the novelization does specify Wilcox officially answers to Dr. Lind during the mission instead of the latter being merely an advisor — that being said, Wilcox doesn't hesitate to take command when Nathan has a Deer in the Headlights reaction to Godzilla's attack. Unlike Admiral Stenz, Wilcox seems to be a bit more aware of the power discrepancy between man and Titan and that the best the military can do is annoy them or divert their attention.
Army
Lieutenant Ford Brody
Colonel Diane Foster
Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard
General Ward
Portrayed By: James M. Connor
Appeared In: Kong: Skull Island (voice) | Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure (Isle of the Damned)
A U.S. Army officer who contacts Lieutenant Colonel Packard to inform him that Landsat are requesting a military escort for their survey expedition to Skull Island.
After Packard and most of the Sky Devils have died on the expedition due in part to Monarch's deceit at the onset and due to Kong initially slaughtering half the squadron, General Ward takes an active interest in Skull Island, forming a group of mercenaries with the aim of killing Kong in revenge for the Sky Devils' losses.
- Ascended Extra: In Kong: Skull Island, Ward was just the voice on a phone in a single scene, passing on the request for a military escort to Packard. In the new MonsterVerse Skull Island tabletop game campaign that's set after the movie, Ward is a major antagonistic character, heading one of the main factions.
- A Father to His Men: Implied. He amicably suggests to Packard when calling him that he could turn down the Landsat job in favor of taking some earned time off at home. In the Skull Island Cinematic Adventure game's Isle of the Damned story, General Ward is hellbent on avenging the deaths of Packard and other Sky Devils by Kong's hand.
- General Ripper: Similarly to what Packard became before him, General Ward in the Cinematic Adventure game's Isle of the Damned storyline has become hellbent on killing Kong, leading a conspiracy with military mercenaries against the ape in vengeance for the deaths of the Sky Devils.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: He's more or less the new Packard in Isle of the Damned, as a military officer who wants to settle a blood debt with Kong for the latter's role in the deaths of his men and who serves as an antagonist.
- The Voice: He's never seen in person in the movie. Only his voice is heard over the phone when he calls Packard about Landsat's request for a military escort.
Major Jack Chapman
Captain Earl Cole
Chief Warrant Officer Jackson Barnes
Warrant Officer Glenn Mills
Warrant Officer Reg Slivko
Warrant Officer Joe Reles
Staff Sergeant Anthony Martinez
Lieutenant/Colonel Leland "Lee" Shaw
General Puckett
Portrayed By: Christopher Heyerdahl
Appeared In: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
A one-star U.S. Army general in 1954, who authorized the attempt to kill Godzilla disguised as the Castle Bravo test after Monarch brought their findings to him, and who subsequently gave Monarch the unlimited budget it needed to expand into a global coalition.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Unlike the deliberately-bigoted Lieutenant Hatch, Puckett is more Innocently Insensitive in his treatment of the Japanese female doctor Keiko, but his interactions with her do show that he's still a product of his time. He's genuinely surprised on first meeting Keiko that she's a woman with a doctorate. At the gala in 1955, his genuine attempt to jump in and ward off Lieutenant Hatch's racism in Keiko's defence involves him saying that she's "one of the good [Japanese]".
- Dirty Coward: Downplayed, since he's not so much a coward as he is as much a politician as he is a general. Whenever Monarch provides concrete evidence of the Titans and the threat they poise, he's always 100% behind them. However, if things go south, he's quick to abandon ship per his superiors' orders. During the first Hollow Earth expedition, he's proudly praising Monarch and the party line of American exceptionalism that got them to this point, but when it goes haywire, he quickly backs out and doesn't back up Monarch in the wake of the tragedy at all.
- Expy: He takes over the role that the fictionalized version of General Douglas MacArthur in Godzilla: Awakening originally had; of the U.S. Army officer who authorized the Castle Bravo atomic bombing in an attempt to kill Godzilla, over protests from Monarch, and who contributed to Monarch's growth in its early days.
- General Ripper: A fairly understandable case, given what the Titans physically are combined with how little-understood they and Godzilla were in his time. His express reaction to Titans' existence is abject horror and fear of what a creature as big as Godzilla could do if it ever encroaches on the U.S.. When Lee Shaw, Keiko Miura and Bill Randa request 150 pounds of uranium to lure Godzilla out of hiding, Puckett instead puts that uranium to use building an atom bomb to try and kill Godzilla without telling the trio, and when they find out, he turns down their protests to killing Godzilla before they even know if Godzilla will pose a threat, of his true nature, or what his greater role in the world might be. When Godzilla is seemingly killed by the blast, Puckett turns to his celebratory men with a grin and boasts, "Magnificent!"
- Innocently Insensitive: Towards Keiko due to the views on women and the Japanese in his time. Aside from accidentally slighting her by assuming that she's a miss on their first meeting (which is a source of annoyance for the female doctor), Puckett attempts to defend her against Lieutenant Hatch's racism by calling her "one of the good [Japanese]" when she's right next to him, which greatly upsets her.
- Ironic Echo: When Shaw expresses displeasure at him building a nuclear bomb behind his and his team's backs to kill Godzilla, Puckett justifies his actions by throwing back in Shaw's face the words that Shaw originally used to convince Pucket that (scientifically) investigating Godzilla was worth redirecting 150 pounds of the country's uranium supply to begin with: Godzilla being "an existential threat to global security."
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- He points out that telling the military that a 400 foot lizard at large in the world and not expecting them to at the least consider a preemptive strike to keep it away from American soil is pretty silly.
- After Shaw's apparent death, he remorsefully agrees with the orders to shut down Monarch since they cannot determine what happened or how to prevent it from happening again.
- Nuke 'em: A little downplayed. He takes to the idea of nuking Godzilla first and asking questions later once Lee, Keiko and Bill convince him that safeguarding the U.S.'s territories against an incursion by the Titan is worth redirecting their uranium supply into dealing with him (with the trio being unaware that Puckett would interpret their advice as "nuke Godzilla" instead of "lure Godzilla out for study"). Puckett not only all but goes behind the scientists' backs when arranging the nuclear strike against Godzilla, he also turns down the trio's subsequent pleas that they should wait to learn more about Godzilla before they resort to trying to kill him, justifying his hasty course of action by saying, "You wait to see what the enemy's gonna do, you've already lost". When Godzilla vanishes in the atomic blast and is presumed dead, Puckett turns to his jubilant men and he calls what they've done "magnificent" while sporting an unsettling grin, making him come a lot closer to playing this trope straight.
- Oh, Crap!: He is terrified when he is brought to the imprint of Godzilla's footprint. When he later learns that Godzilla survived Castle Bravo, he's so scared that he immediately reverses course regarding Monarch's termination and full backs them up.
- Pet the Dog: When Shaw appears to have died, he's genuinely torn up about it and pleads with Randa to not allow Hiroshi to lose him as well.
- Pride: Not only is he certain that an atomic bomb can and will obliterate Godzilla (which is a lot more justifiable in his case than it was in Stenz', since in his time it's never been attempted on a Titan before); but his reaction to Godzilla's seeming death in the blast is to grin and shout to his men, "Magnificent!", clearly taking pride in the destructive power of man trumping nature's perceived horrors. Of course, the audience is fully aware that his attempt on Godzilla's life has completely failed to kill him, and if anything it's probably made him even stronger in the long run.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Mostly. His first and express reaction to proof of Godzilla's existence is horrified fear (which is understandable, if misguided in the case of this particular Titan), and he internalizes Lee's concerns that Godzilla could be an even greater potential threat to U.S. national security than the exhaustion of the uranium reserves that are needed to deter foreign powers via a nuclear arsenal would be. Although Puckett takes Shaw, Keiko and Bill's request for uranium to lure Godzilla out for study as meaning they need to nuke Godzilla A.S.A.P. and he takes to the idea, and although he also refuses the trio's subsequent protests to destroying Godzilla; unlike Admiral Stenz six decades later, General Puckett is a lot more justifiable in believing that an atomic weapon could actually kill Godzilla with certainty and work as intended since it had never been tried before him. After Godzilla is seemingly killed, Lee suggesting that another Titan like Godzilla could turn up far nearer to an American population center convinces Puckett to reject Lee's request for extra funding and resources for Monarch... to instead give Monarch unlimited extra funding and resources. When Lee shows up at a backyard barbeque to protest being left behind while Keiko and Bill were sent to investigate a Titan sighting, Puckett says that he's considering promoting Lee to take his place overseeing Monarch, which he will then be able to run as he sees fit, warning Lee that if he makes the wrong choices it could spell disaster. When Lee chases after Keiko instead of attending an important meeting, Puckett assigns military oversight of Monarch to Lieutenant Hatch, who contemptuously guts their previously-unlimited funding while sneering at Keiko for being Japanese.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Not only is he the military figure who ordered the nuclear strike on Godzilla at Bikini Atoll in 1954, it's revealed that it was his actions that caused Monarch to decide to keep the government and military in the dark about how many dormant Titans they found around the world for the next six decades, leading to the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters. And he's the one who gave Monarch the blank cheque in government funding which eventually enabled it to expand to its 21st century size. Although Puckett's appearance was relatively minor, his actions shaped the whole MonsterVerse.
- So Proud of You: He expresses pride in Lee Shaw's ascension in rank and authority through Monarch multiple times. Most notably, he says as much after he's had a few drinks at the 1955 gala, and the last time that he sees Shaw when the latter is about to pioneer an attempted mission to Hollow Earth in 1962, Puckett is notably beaming at Shaw with a smile.
- The Stoic: When Operation Hourglass backfires, General Puckett pointedly keeps his nerves in check as he's holding on for dear life against the Vile Vortex's suction. Once the immediate destruction caused by disturbing the vortex ceases, Puckett goes straight to Bill to ask him what happened.
Lieutenant Hatch
Portrayed By: Matthew MacCaull
Appeared In: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
General Puckett's liaison for Monarch's military oversight after passing over Lee Shaw, gutting the organization's funding out of contempt, skepticism, Red Scare and racism.- Frame-Up: Ultimately, Shaw frames him for keeping Godzilla's survival of Castle Bravo secret from General Puckett in order to convince Puckett to get rid of him, when in truth Hatch genuinely didn't know about it because Shaw, Keiko and Bill had taken an oath to keep that information to themselves. Of course, considering what an asshole Hatch was and that he was sabotaging Monarch to suit his own Red Scare priorities, no-one will feel sorry for him.
- General Failure: He believes that combating possible communist spies on American soil is much more important than doing anything to prepare for future Titan threats to the human race, and he actively tries to sabotage Monarch to that end. He also antagonizes the 50s Monarch trio to their faces, especially Keiko for being a Japanese ex-Navy woman. All of this means that the 50s trio actively hide things from him and that Shaw pulls out all stops to get him booted out of the organization.
- Jerkass: He's a self-serving, racist, nationalist slimeball, who rapidly starts oozing derision for Monarch's monster-hunting mission, borderline-graphically insults Keiko to her face for her Japanese heritage and Imperial Navy past, and actively tries to sabotage Project Monarch from within so that he can shut it down and repurpose all its funding towards the Red Scare.
- Laser-Guided Karma: He submits a biased and damning report about Monarch to Puckett in an effort to get the organization shut down. Shaw retaliates by framing Hatch to make it look as if he's the one responsible for Puckett not being informed that Castle Bravo failed to kill Godzilla and by making it look as if he severely underplayed the extent of the Titan threat in his report (which he did), and the facts that we never see Hatch again and that Monarch has fully bounced back from his sabotage by 1962 imply that he was stripped of authority over the organization and that his career suffered.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He sneers at Dr. Keiko Miura being given American military clearance due to her being 1) a woman, and 2) Japanese, specifically citing her being a former member of the Imperial Japanese Navy. He then guts Monarch's funding while scoffing that they should focus on a real threat to American national security, like Soviet spies infiltrating the country, and delivers a damning and biased report to General Puckett claiming they've been wasting the US government's resources in an attempt to get it shut down.
- Skewed Priorities: Though he does have some reason to believe that Titans aren't all that common and can be killed on account of him being in the dark about how many of them there are and about Godzilla surviving the Castle Bravo test, he thinks that safeguarding the U.S. alone against Soviet spies and communism matters more than safeguarding anyone against the existential threat of gigantic atomic monsters.
- Slimeball: He's a smug bigot who oozes condescension, he quite crudely insults the female Japanese doctor Keiko to her face, and upon being granted control of Project Monarch by General Puckett, he actively tries to sabotage the organization and get it shut down with a negatively-biased and damning report to Puckett so that he can repurpose its funding toward his own Red Scare tactics. His attitude and behavior leads to the Monarch trio not telling him anything of value and ultimately leads to Shaw pulling out all stops to get him ousted.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Lieutenant Hatch's attempt to shut Project Monarch down, though it ultimately failed once Lee exposed his corrupt actions, was what led Bill Randa to theorize about the existence of the Hollow Earth, reducing him to the laughingstock he was at the beginning of Kong: Skull Island.
Air Force
Lieutenant Hank Marlow
Portrayed By: John C. Reilly & Will Brittain (Young)
Appeared In: Kong: Skull Island
- "The way they tell it for thousands of years, the people on this island lived in fear. That's a hell of a long time to be scared. And then, the damnedest thing happened. Some of the things they were afraid of started protecting them against the things that were eating them."
A World War II Lieutenant who spent 28 years stranded on Skull Island. He knows the creatures of the island, and he is a friend of the Iwi natives.
- Bare-Handed Blade Block: In the opening scene, Marlow catches Gunpei's shin-guntō with his hands. His hands get bloody and he screams in pain, but he manages to pull the sword out of Gunpei's hands.
- Cloudcuckoolander: He's gone more than a little bit nutty living for 28 years on Skull Island.
- Cool Old Guy: Though 28 years past his prime, he holds his own well in battle and even wounds one of the Skullcrawlers.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He may be goofy, but he's still a World War II vet who survived 28 years in an incredibly hostile environment, jury-rigged the wreckage of a fighter plane into a workable boat, and doesn't hesitate to jump into the fray.
- Deadpan Snarker:Marlow: This is a good group of boys. We’re all gonna die together out here. You’re a good group of boys to die with, I’ll tell you that much. *laugh* You shouldn’t have come here.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After 28 years stranded on an uncharted, monster-infested island, Marlow manages to reunite with his wife and now-adult son. He also arrives home just in time to see the Cubs win the World Series, all while eating a hot dog and drinking a cold beer.
- The Enemy Weapons Are Better: Hank carries a Type 98 shin-guntō, a memento of Gunpei, the Japanese Zero pilot that attempted to kill him after their dogfight left them both stranded on the beach; although ineffective against huge creatures like the Skullcrawlers, it proved very handy for his continued survival, and helps the crew fight off quite a few threats. Ironically, while the Type 98 was a cheap, mass-produced and inadequate combat sword in real life, here it's good enough to carve up monsters.
- While not sufficient to deal a decisive blow, the guntō did prove to be the most effective of the weapons on hand against the "small" skull-crawler, as a single slash managed to pierce the skin and draw blood while nothing else served as more than a distraction, and that includes a napalm fueled flame thrower and a .50 caliber heavy machine gun mounted on the remains of a triceratops. In fact, Mason's clever use of the gas vent explosion still left the corpse intact.
- "Eureka!" Moment: He bitterly says it'll be impossible to cross from the Iwi's village to the northern side of the island in one piece... then his face turns thoughtful as he adds, "At least not on foot," getting the idea to use The Gray Fox to navigate along the rivers.
- Expy: He is a dead-ringer for the photojournalist from Apocalypse Now for his role as the crazy outsider who had gone native and reveres a mysterious figure.
- Fire-Forged Friends: As it turns out, with the Japanese pilot, Gunpei. The two set aside their differences and forged a friendship while stranded at Skull Island. Gunpei's death at the hands of a Skullcrawler tragically cut it short.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: He's rather mystified by the changes to the world that happened in his absence when the expedition team tells him about them, such as the moon landings and the fact that the US is now locked in a Cold War against the Soviet Union. Slivko even compares him to a time traveler for it.Marlow: And what happens with the war? Do we win?Slivko: Which one?Marlow: That makes sense.
- Flowers of Romance: He brings flowers with him for his wife when he reunites with her and their son after leaving Skull Island.
- Gratuitous Japanese: Before charging into battle against a Skullcrawler, Marlow draws Gunpei's sword and whispers "Death before dishonor" in Japanese. It was earlier revealed that Gunpei was killed by a Skullcrawler, so it might have been a tribute to him.
- Haunted House Historian: Hank is shown to be wary of most of Skull Island's mega-fauna (particularly the Skullcrawlers); he's also very pessimistic about the expedition's chances of survival, let alone killing or capturing Kong, after angering him with their initial barrage.Marlow: This a good group of boys. We're all gonna die together! (Uncomfortable, terrified laugh) You shouldn't have come here!
- Identical Grandson: Marlow's son is played by Will Brittain, who also played young Marlow in the prologue.
- Ignored Expert: Given the fact that he's been on Skull Island for 28 years, Marlow knows the place forwards and backward and the places to avoid. When Packard wants to go find Chapman, Marlow argues against it but his advice gets ignored, and at the Boneyard, Marlow calls the area dangerous, only to be disregarded by Packard again.
- Important Haircut: Before he leaves the indigenous tribe's village, he cuts his extremely unkempt beard into a proper manly beard. At the end of the movie, before reuniting with his family, he shaves it into a short mustache.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Bonds with Slivko over their baseball clubs. He manages to convince Slivko to turn against the maddened Packard in the end.
- I Will Find You: His motivation is to get off Skull Island so that he can reunite with his wife and the now-grown son that he never got to meet.
- Long-Lost Relative: To his wife and son, whom he left behind when he crashed on Skull Island. They reunite in the end.
- MacGyvering: Along with the help of Gunpei he manages to build a boat out of the plane wrecks of a B-29 bomber, a P-51, and a Japanese Zero.
- Manly Facial Hair: A WWII pilot, and a decades-long veteran survivor of an Isle of Giant Horrors which might be the most hostile wilderness anywhere on Earth's surface, and a loving husband and father who wants nothing more than to see his wife again and see the now grown-up son that he never got to know; who has grown a very bushy beard in his many years marooned and cut off from civilization. Even when he gets back to the United States once and for all in The Stinger, Marlow has cut his beard but still maintains a bushy mustache when he reunites with his family.
- Mighty Whitey: Averted, despite the Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness influences. Marlow is not the leader of the Iwi tribe on Skull Island, more just a kooky immigrant that they tolerate and give shelter to.
- Military Salute: He salutes Conrad, Weaver, Brooks, San and Nieves' group when introducing himself to them and confirming he's a long-marooned military pilot.
- Mirthless Laughter: Having been left a little eccentric by his long time marooned on Skull Island, Marlow has moments where he bursts into inappropriate giggles. He laughs when he learns Conrad and Weaver's expedition has a way off the island but it's in the north and they only have three days to get there, which Marlow knows is a damn-near impossible objective to meet without getting eaten first. Comically, Conrad doesn't even twig that Marlow's laughter is the Shock- and Irony-type version of the trope until Marlow starts slapping Conrad's face.
- Mr. Exposition: Justified, as he's lived on the island longer than anyone on the expedition team, and is the only one there who can give them a good description of the terrain (in English).Marlow: [protesting the decision to go to Chapman's location] Yeah, I've only been here for 28 years, what do I know?
- Obsessive Sports Fan: He's a huge fan of the Chicago Cubs. Wanting to know if they've won a world series is among his questions about what's happened in the world at large during his decades stranded on Skull Island, and he jokingly takes offence to Slivko supporting the Detroit Tigers. After returning to civilization and after reuniting his family, catching up on sports on the TV is one of the first things Marlow does.
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: When the group are about to face off against a small Skullcrawler in the boneyard, Marlow draws Gunpei's shin-guntō and whispers in his fallen fire-forged friend's native tongue, "Death before dishonor". A few seconds later, the Crawler charges, and Marlow manages to both survive and wound it in the leg.
- Sad Clown: While Hank is the most cheerful and the funniest person in Skull Island, he is implied to be rather heartbroken and misses his family. Before leaving the village, he gives his final farewell at Gunpei's grave and gives a tearful goodbye to the natives.
- Sarcasm-Blind: When Conrad sarcastically calls his jury-rigged makeshift boat "lovely", Marlow replies, "Damn right." Although based on how Marlow gives Conrad a glance just before replying, Marlow may have been aware of the sarcasm and snarkily pretending not to notice it.
- Talkative Loon: Having lived among the less-than-talkative Iwi for almost three decades he can no longer tell the difference when he's talking or thinking, or even when others are talking or thinking:To Nieves: Your mouth is moving...
- Time-Shifted Actor: Will Brittain plays Hank during WWII.
- Tragic Keepsake: Gunpei's shin-guntō sword, which was used as a grave marker. It survives the rest of the movie and Marlow keeps it when he returns home.
- You're Insane!: "This is NUTS! YOU HEAR ME?! NUTS!!!"
Lieutenant Lauren Griffin
Sergeant Tre Morales
Played By: Victor Rasuk
Appearances: Godzilla
The leader of a small regiment of soldiers assigned to transport a nuclear warhead to attract the MUTOs.
- Fatal Family Photo: In the novelization, he shows a photo of his family to Ford. Later, he dies amid the female MUTO's attack on the train.
