YMMV / Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

---

• Alternative Character Interpretation: See here.
• Ass Pull: Emma Russell joining Alan Jonah and his eco-terrorist gang and helping them unleash the Titans against humanity because she thinks it could "honor" her son Andrew's death and help the world be better, despite the fact that Andrew's death in itself occurred in a Titan attack back in 2014. In other words, Emma knew very well and very personally how bad unleashing gigantic living natural disasters was, yet she actually thought creating a million repeats of her son's death on everyone else was the best way to honor his memory, making her decision to support the eco-terrorists a colossal doublethink. And since she knows that the terrorists are evil people who have even fewer standards than she does, it makes even less sense for her to think they would let her stop the rampaging Titans once she loses control of them.
• Award Snub: Didn't even get nominated for the Academy Award for Visual Effects despite similar blockbusters like Avengers: Endgame and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker getting nominations. The Critical Dissonance is presumably the cause. To the point where this film got nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award.
• Awesome Art: The SDCC poster for the film, which is a suitably epic mural of Godzilla fighting King Ghidorah.
• Base-Breaking Character: Emma, Mark and Madison Russell, Dr. Rick Stanton, and Admiral Willian Stenz. See here for details.
• Catharsis Factor: In response to King Ghidorah bringing widespread death and suffering, along with the death of Mothra, Godzilla pulls off a merciless and well-deserved No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on the vile alien dragon by vaporizing his wings, his side heads, and the rest of his body from the neck down before blowing up the agonizing central head with an Atomic Breath. In essence, never invoke the wrath of the true King of Monsters.
• Character Rerailment: Ghidorah returns to become the unstoppable and terrifying alien Omnicidal Maniac acting out of his own will that he was introduced as in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, after having spent almost all of his appearances afterwards as the resident Psycho for Hire for the next Alien Invaders Villain of the Week after another, suffering progressive Villain Decay through the franchise. In this film, even when the human villains do try to control Ghidorah like the alien villains had done before, Ghidorah immediately proves to be Eviler than Thou and they barely escape from his wrath. Basically, this version of Ghidorah is no-one's puppet.
• Complete Monster: See here for Ghidorah.
• Crack Pairing:
  • Dr. Vivienne Graham has been shipped with Godzilla, largely thanks to her actress playing a character who has romantic feelings for a sea monster in the time after the 2014 film came out.
  • Mark Russel's quote about "food, fight or f...something more intimate" brought out the Rodan x Ghidorah shippers big time — the fact Rodan in the film gets curb-stomped by Ghidorah and then bows to him for the rest of the film was probably extra fuel.
• Creepy Cute:
  • Kaiju fans are already pretty much begging to hug the monsters, but Mothra's larva form takes the cake with her adorable monstrous appearance. She will still attack without hesitation if you strike her first though, even in this form.
    • Then there's Mothra's post-metamorphosis state. You will believe a giant moth can be majestic and beautiful, besides being an Action Girl Kaiju ass-kicker with a deadly abdominal stinger.
  • In a darker way; as monstrous and terrifying evil as Ghidorah is, there's something rather amusing about the way his three heads occasionally disagree like bickering siblings. The left head is especially adored by the fans for its childlike, inquisitive, Genius Ditz personality and is often interpreted by the fandom as a Minion with an F in Evil.
• Critical Dissonance: Received mediocre reviews from critics, with a 42% Rotten Tomatoes score and 48/100 Metacritic average and with many lambasting its tone, plot, and characters. However, audience reception was much more positive, with 83% and 71/100 audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic respectively, and Godzilla fans both old and new had overwhelming praise for the ramped up Kaiju action and the tributes to classic Toho films.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • One of Ghidorah's heads gets this treatment. Many fans like to depict the left head, nicknamed "San" or more often "Kevin", as the Token Good Teammate of the three, focusing on the fact that he's The Ditz and more curious and easily distracted than his brothers. Even the director has gotten in on this interpretation, joking that Kevin would likely not be such a bad guy if he could call more of the shots.
  • A number of fans have sympathized with Rodan, claiming that he's not a really bad guy, and was just minding his own business before stupid humans fired missiles at him and forced him to fight Ghidorah, who in turn beat him and forced him to fight Godzilla and Mothra. Never mind that the Fire Demon shows unprecedented aggression towards the humans, clearly enjoying himself as he picked them out one by one, before he falls under Ghidorah's control (unlike Godzilla, who is willing to ignore the humans' hostility against him as long as it doesn't interfere with his goals, and unlike Mothra, who is able to drive off aggressors in a non-violent way).
  • To a slight degree, fans and fanfics who adore Mark Russell are likely to focus on his sympathetic qualities and trauma, but downplay or overlook his high-horsed attitude and his ungrateful, self-absorbed and all-round shitty treatment of all his living connections before his character development.
  • Viewers who really like Admiral Stenz are quick to argue that he was Just Following Orders when the Oxygen Destroyer was launched and that he personally disagreed with the weapon's usage against the Titans, even though there's little objective evidence of this and Stenz's choice of words ("With any luck it'll kill these things and this nightmare will finally be over") and his vocal tone (he sounds purely annoyed when refuting Serizawa's protest) indicate otherwise.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • King Ghidorah's left head, San or Kevin, has proven to be popular due to its curiosity and surprisingly Adorkable nature, with the center head's interactions with it being praised.
  • Of the original Titans in the film, Behemoth (the one which resembles a woolly mammoth) is about the most popular of them, probably for having a very distinct design and being one of the rare examples of a mammalian kaiju (besides Kong, of course). This seems to also be an In-Universe case as in the novelization, a researcher named Mariko sabotages Monarch's attempts to kill Behemoth because she finds him to be "the most interesting titan".
  • The older Houston Brooks who appears late in the film is popular, for simply being a returning character from Kong: Skull Island and for now being played by Ensemble Darkhorse king Joe Morton.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Artwork of Rodan that can be uncovered in the "Monarch Sciences" ARG includes a depiction of a bird-headed creature that has a strong resemblance to Gigan. This caused large swathes of the fandom to speculate about him making a surprise appearance in the film. The creature turned out to actually be an Apkallu, a common motif in Mesopotamian relief art.
  • Based on Michael Dougherty's claim that a character from Kong: Skull Island will show up in the movie, fans speculated that Charles Dance's character is none other than an aged up James Conrad, who was previously played by Tom Hiddleston in Skull Island. Ultimately jossed, as it's revealed that Charles Dance plays Alan Jonah, the leader of an eco-terrorist organization seeking to weaponize the Titans: the Skull Island character in question is an older Brooks, now played by Joe Morton.
  • The second trailer teases two additional monsters: a multi-legged crustacean-like creature and a shelled, mountain-like monster. While generally thought of as brand-new kaiju created by Legendary, some speculated that the spider-creature might be Kumonga, Ebirah, Destroyah, or even "Vishnu" from the 2014 teaser trailer; while the mountain-creature was theorized to be Anguirus, Kamoebas, or even Gamera. This was intensified upon the reveal that there's 17 reported kaiju, and various have been getting curious codenames like "Leviathan" and "Bunyip", driving speculation on what kaiju these could be up to eleven.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • King Ghidorah is as badass as ever in this movie, and stays true to his original portrayal in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster as an unstoppable, world-ending alien force of nature, acting entirely of his own agenda instead of being the meager puppet of Human Aliens.
  • Charles Dance's cold and charismatic portrayal of the Eco-Terrorist Alan Jonah made for an entertaining villain. Many viewers even found his chillingly nihilistic support of King Ghidorah and the Titans more compelling than Emma's Heel Realization. It doesn't hurt that the latter is widely considered poorly-written and much less likable than the film seems to believe, and Jonah's frequent sniping and mockery of her only serves to make the audience relate to him.
• Fan Nickname: King Ghidorah's ditzy left head is given the fittingly unfitting moniker of "Kevin". Another alternative is "Kevin Ghidorah".
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • While there are certainly plenty of fans that appreciate both, one formed with the film's own predecessor almost as soon as it came out, somewhat inevitably given their radically antithetical approaches and styles. Those who prefer King of the Monsters call Godzilla (2014) a dull, slow film about bland, boring people that doesn't have enough monsters and takes too long to get to the action. Those who prefer Godzilla call King of the Monsters a loud, stupid film about nasty, unlikable people that overexposes and normalizes its monsters with poorly-shot action.
  • Another inter-fandom example with Godzilla: The Planet Eater, released just six months before King of the Monsters. Fans who enjoyed Planet Eater felt it had more interesting characters and themes, and saw it as a more sophisticated entry, while criticizing King of the Monsters for being a dumb, mindless action movie that tries too hard to please die-hard Godzilla fans. Fans of King of the Monsters are quick to fire back by claiming the film still carries the look and feel of a Godzilla movie despite not being produced by Toho, and it managed to deliver on not only a proper monster fight between Godzilla and King Ghidorah, but also had a more enjoyable and fun tone to it; denouncing Planet Eater for being too bleak, cynical, and often times pretentious, to find enjoyable.
• Fanfic Fuel: The movie notes that Monarch has confirmed the existence of 17 Titans and predicts there may be even more. Lots of room for writers to reinterpret already-existing monsters, such as missing fan-favorites Anguirus or Battra — both of whom make brief cameos in the film and novelization respectively — into the context of the MonsterVerse or even make up stories about their own original kaiju.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Pokémon Detective Pikachu. Despite being released within close proximity, you’ll see both fandoms getting along splendidly. Simply because both are Legendary productions based off popular Japanese franchises and both have Ken Watanabe. Numerous Pokémon fans have voiced eagerness to see King of the Monsters, christening it a Spiritual Adaptation of what they'd imagine a movie involving Legendary Pokémon would be like. Likewise, many G-fans are more than happy to voice support for the follow-up Legendary movie, considering the two as teammates in the box office context. Toho distributing both in Japan ensures any site talking about one film is bound to include the other.
  • Since the casting of Millie Bobby Brown and Randy Havens, fans of this film have gotten along very well with Stranger Things fandom. There are also fans who compare the Queen MUTO/Barb to the Mind Flayer.
  • With Avengers: Endgame. Director Michael Dougherty has been very supportive to Avengers: Endgame and even posted a heartwarming tweet of a comic book cover of Marvel’s Godzilla featuring the Avengers and said, "This movie would make the world a better place.! Fans of both franchises took very kindly to this tweet and expressed love for the idea of a crossover between the two.
  • Many fans of God of War (PS4) get along really well with fans of this movie, courtesy of the composer Bear McCreary having worked for both projects which involve legendary battles between gods, monsters, and awesome soundtracks.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Several Titans seen or mentioned on-screen have names of mythological or biblical origin, such as "Scylla", "Behemoth", "Methuselah", "Mokele-Mbembe", "Bunyip" and so on, implying that most human legends and beliefs are based on those creatures' existence.
  • A Freeze-Frame Bonus in the redacted text from the credits shows a set of coordinates. They lead to a Turkish quarry featuring a temple older than Stonehenge.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Dr. Serizawa’s line in the last film about how the arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control and not the other way around became a lot more foreboding after this movie came out. A group of eco-terrorists are attempting to unleash the Titans and manipulate them using a machine as a way to "save" the Earth, only for everything to go horribly wrong on a globally-apocalyptic scale because they underestimated the device and because they've unwittingly unleashed a creature which poses an even bigger threat to the world than humanity or the other Titans.
  • Joe Brody's iconic line in the last film about a Titan sending humanity back to the Stone Age takes on a more literal and serious meaning in light of the implications in this film's Creative Closing Credits: it's revealed that in ancient times, the Titans literally eradicated a civilization of Advanced Ancient Humans which predated every other civilization on Earth.
  • In the very first Godzilla movie, Dr. Serizawa was unwilling to use the Oxygen Destroyer on Godzilla as he feared that, in the wrong hands, it would be used as a destructive weapon on par with the atomic bomb. While not in the same continuity, we do get to see the military use an Oxygen Destroyer that was commissioned by the government as a weapon to use against their enemies, the Titans. Dr. Serizawa’s greatest fear has become a reality.
  • Emma Russell indirectly getting Dr. Graham killed in Antarctica when she betrays Monarch and leaves them for dead becomes harsher in light of the movie novelization and the Godzilla: Aftershock graphic novel both revealing that Graham was a close friend to both Emma and Madison in the years after San Francisco's destruction.
• He's Just Hiding: Somewhat. The fact that San/Kevin's decapitated head at the end of the film is clearly experiencing decomposition didn't stop fans speculating that it's still biologically alive and could regenerate a whole body from the neck-stump in time. Amusingly, this turned out to be true after a fashion, as the head's skull was used for the creation of Mechagodzilla in Godzilla vs. Kong and a remnant of Ghidorah's consciousness took over the machine.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In Kong: Skull Island, John Goodman's character, Randa, enters the film exclaiming "there'll never be a more screwed up time in Washington". This was a joke about the political climate of the time versus that of 2017, but cut to this film and Washington, D.C. has been turned into a hellscape with artillery guns firing, a giant volcanic pterosaur roaming the sky, and oh yeah, a gargantuan, evil space dragon blasting everything with lightning. Needless to say, it's much more messed up than it was in the '70s.
    • Another line from Randa in Skull Island has him openly defending the idea that monsters exist, all the while mocking people for believing aliens exist in the same scene. Cut to this film and it’s revealed that this take on King Ghidorah keeps his alien origins from the Showa era.
  • Lots of memes popped up when the 2014 movie's trailers were released, with the teased appearances of the Male MUTO being jokingly theorized as "#RodanConfirmed". Fast forward five years later, and Rodan really is confirmed.
  • When stars Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell were announced to star in Kong: Skull Island, many Straight Outta Compton jokes came up. More commonly with jokes on where Ice Cube is at. Now come this film, Ice Cube's real-life son O'Shea, Jr. (who also played his dad in the latter movie) is in the Monsterverse.
  • The scenario of Ghidorah having multiple heads that think independently suddenly started holding even more realism when a two-headed timber rattlesnake was discovered in New Jersey, in which the heads acted independently from one another.
  • Blue Öyster Cult made a parody of their Signature Song Godzilla called "No-zilla" as a response to their song for being left out of the 1998 remake’s soundtrack. Fast forward to 2019, and their "Godzilla" song has finally made it into an official Godzilla movie as a cover.
  • The film notably used an epic orchestral version of Claude Debussy’s Claire De Lune in the first trailer, however this is not the first time this song has been featured in the Godzilla franchise as a synth version of the song was used in Terror of Mechagodzilla.
  • The soundtrack was by Bear McCreary, ironically this isn’t the first project with giant monsters he has done the soundtrack for, nor is it the first movie with giant monsters he has provided the soundtrack for.
• Ho Yay: When Ghidorah responds to Rodan's cries, Mark points out that he's either coming for food, a fight, or "something more intimate." The two charge each other from a considerable distance, collide into a quick scuffle that's largely cut away from, and after that, Rodan is the first to bow to Ghidorah and something of a foil to Mothra.
• I Knew It!: Ghidorah being revealed to be extraterrestrial in origin was predicted by multiple parties before the movie's release, and isn't that unforeseen for viewers who know that most of the character's previous incarnations were this.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Emma Russell. She is perfectly willing to sacrifice millions if not billions of lives to reach her goals, she betrays her former colleagues and in doing so secures many of their deaths (whether by the hands of Jonah's mercenaries or by Ghidorah), and she manipulates and drags her preteen daughter into an organization of radical paramilitary eco-terrorists without thinking it through; to say nothing of how her goal involves collaterally putting millions of families through the very same pain of losing loved ones that she experienced. But Emma does genuinely care about her daughter Madison and the latter's view of her, and you can at least pity her for the loss of her son and her My God, What Have I Done? realization, plus there's her subtle Pet the Dog moment early in the film when she tries to save a colleague from being massacred. After her betrayal is revealed and after she awakens Rodan, Emma's actions have completely broken her relationship with her daughter — after receiving an Armor-Piercing Question about whether or not her dead son would really want what she's done, Emma is at this point truly alone. Then there's the parental fear of her daughter being in the midst of a city-destroying Kaiju battle (worse yet is Emma's knowledge that the battle will come upon Madison minutes before it does). Ultimately, Emma commits a Heroic Sacrifice and is left dying in the street, moments before Fire Godzilla's metal-melting arrival...
  • Emma's ex-husband Mark is a non-antagonist example. He's rude, abrasive, self-righteous, cynical, vengefully bitter, he can be obstinately self-focused and inconsiderate of others when it comes to his grief and feeling sorry for himself; and he shows next to no appreciation, or even respect, towards his Monarch ex-colleagues when they're just trying to help him out and are focused on saving his kidnapped family. Despite all of this, at least one of the reasons why Mark is as bad as he is at the movie's start is because he's been unable to move past his little son being crushed to death amidst the Kaiju's devastation of San Francisco, and he blames Godzilla (who was one of the Kaiju involved in the battle and the only one that's still alive) for his loss. Plus, Mark feels a lot of shame, guilt and self-loathing over how badly he's let his daughter and now-ex wife down, and he's desperate not to lose them as well (Madison alone after he finds out what Emma has become) once he learns they're in danger.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Apart from Godzilla, there are plenty of fans who are eagerly awaiting the Legendary versions of Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah — the first time these characters have appeared in a Hollywood-made Godzilla movie.
  • For the human cast, plenty of fans are excited to see how Millie Bobby Brown will fare in her big screen debut.
• Like You Would Really Do It: While Godzilla has been killed off in past series entries, it almost always turned out to be temporary, or lead to him being replaced by a successor. Not to mention that Godzilla is a very important character to the broader series as the resident Big Good and/or Greater-Scope Paragon, and that at the time of his "death" there's still quite a bit of movie left and another set piece battle between him and Ghidorah to get to. All in all, their surprise demise in the middle of the movie is not very convincing.
• Love to Hate:
  • King Ghidorah. Just like always, he's a cruel, heartless and sadistic monster who kills for the fun of it, but he's also thoroughly intimidating and impressive while doing so, and the decision to give each of his heads individual personalities and a complicated codependent relationship with each other gives him even more depth and personality. With the sheer level of destruction he unleashes, you definitely believe he deserves to be Godzilla's Arch-Enemy.
  • Charles Dance delivers a chilling, cold-blooded and ruthless performance as Alan Jonah. Jonah murders Monarch operatives all over the place, and reveals himself to be a Misanthrope Supreme who condemns all of humanity and the vast majority of life on Earth to being murdered by Ghidorah, making the audience quite want to see him get his just-deserts. At the same time, Jonah is markedly more competent and subdued than the MonsterVerse's other human antagonists thus far, he has a few Pet the Dog moments and implicit Benevolent Boss tendencies, on top of a tragic backstory whilst remaining an overall nasty piece of work; making for a very entertaining and watchable villain. It doesn't hurt that the other major human villain, Emma Russel, is often seen as an unselfaware hypocrite who's far less tragic or sympathetic than the writing seems to think; Jonah's constant cold and unsympathetic insults directed at them instead come across as calling them out for their myopic lack of selfawareness instead and only serve to make the audience relate to him rather than despise him.
• Magnificent Bastard: See here for Godzilla.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Because of this movie, Rodan is often jokingly depicted as a cowardly Quisling in the style of Starscream or Benedict Arnold, based on him serving King Ghidorah after being beaten up and switching to Godzilla’s side before Ghidorah’s body is even cold at the end.
  • Despite all of King Ghidorah's Adaptational Badassery points in this film – his ability to spontaneously dominate the Titans around the world single-handedly, his lack of reliance on Human Alien masters to be a global threat, his Healing Factor, the fact that this version doesn't cave and flee the war when he suffers a grievous injury, and his Near-Villain Victories against Godzilla one of which occurs when the latter is overloaded by a nuke – accusations of King Ghidorah in this film being one of the weakest iterations to date are a common sight in the Godzilla fandom whenever he's brought up (which is very bizarre when he has the likes of the GMK Ghidorah and Heisei Ghidorah^note whom are infamous among Godzilla viewers for being underdogs and performing banally in their fights to be contrasted against). This incarnation is often made out to be a weakling; with the fandom exaggerating his stalemates or losses against Godzilla, downplaying the unambiguous struggles and near-defeats that Godzilla endured against him throughout the movie, and taking issue with Ghidorah being outmatched in Boston by just two of the original three rival monsters that were required to match him in his debut movie until he has the third monster on his side backing him up; the fandom scapegoats Ghidorah as an Adaptational Wimp whilst ignoring how Godzilla, Mothra or Rodan's own respective Adaptational Badassery and Adaptational Wimp points contribute to the original scales of power balance amongst the Big Four's conflict being altered.
• Memetic Mutation: With its own article.
• Misaimed Fandom: A surprising number of viewers thought the government was being reasonable with their demands to kill all Titans at the start of the film. Said viewers argued that with what little the human race knows about the Titans at the film's start before the ending proved Serizawa and Emma right about the Titans' ecological necessity, the government's demand come off as highly reasonable. Of course, this argument ignores the fact that Monarch have already established before the film's start that the Titans are ecologically essential, that the senate at the movie's beginning make it clear they aren't taking the official professional Titan experts seriously, and that the chair of said committee blatantly ignores or conveniently forgets everything Monarch says that she doesn't want to hear.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Not 100% intended by the creators, but a lot of spectators would likely agree that Emma Russell crosses the MEH when they activate the ORCA to fully awaken Ghidorah, knowing that her own ex-husband and the father of her daughter, plus a bunch of other key Monarch operatives whom a later scene reveals she personally recruited will be at ground zero. While Emma could be let off easy for not knowing Ghidorah was an Ax-Crazy Omnicidal Maniac until after it awoke, what Emma can't be let off easy for is this: after the newly-awakened Ghidorah fully establishes its true nature by deliberately incinerating the G-Team in full view of Emma's Osprey, Emma doesn't move to stop Madison the second that her use of the ORCA cause Ghidorah to almost shoot their tiltrotor down, she moves to stop Madison the second that Madison moves to try and help the survivors on the ground (including Madison's father) at all.
  • Alan Jonah toes the line in his first few scenes when he brutally massacres the Monarch outposts' scientific staff in cold blood (looking one Monarch scientist who has his hands up in surrender dead in the eye before he shoots him point blank). The latest possible point of Jonah's crossing is when he shrugs off Emma's concerns that King Ghidorah is doing the complete opposite of restoring the planet's ecology and admits he's happy if all humans instead of just most humans die in the global calamity, revealing that saving the Earth was just Jonah's excuse and he's willing to let the entire planet die out of misanthropic spite.
  • King Ghidorah crosses the line in his very first scene. If not when kills the G-Team with a Slasher Smile after he's verified that they pose no threat to him, then for sure when he takes his eyes off his nemesis Godzilla purely so he can eat Dr. Graham alive; while the latter was running away from him no less, and did nothing to provoke him.
• Most Wonderful Sound: That glorious charging noise just before Godzilla unleashes his Atomic Breath. Especially after he goes full Burning Mode.
• Narm:
  • During the battle in Antarctica, Ghidorah knocks Godzilla into the chasm that he emerged from. However, Godzilla just clumsily tumbles into the hole with a scream, like a fat cat that just happened to roll off the couch. Doesn't help said scream is one of Goji's higher-pitched Showa roars.
  • Some have found Emma Russell's "Humanity is the infection" speech in the trailer to be too dramatic and condescending to take very seriously. Possibly more forgivable in the final product, where it is repeatedly challenged and criticized by the people receiving it, and thus probably meant to not be taken too seriously.
    • Additionally, it's implied that Emma's sanity has been slipping. Her daughter expressed concern about her early in the film; when called out about having lost her mind, Russell responds with the "I've never been more sane" response often stereotyped as typical for the insane.
  • Jonah actually goes to the trouble of making a Powerpoint presentation for his Motive Rant. You can only imagine the other eco-terrorists asking if this is really the best use of his time.
  • Late in the film, when Madison decides to steal the ORCA in order to stop the Titan attacks around the world, Jonah's men who are guarding the device just so happen to take a break all at once, and coincidentally at the same time Madison arrives to take a peek into the room as well! This leaves the ORCA device completely unguarded and very conveniently allows Madison to easily steal the device and waltz out of the front door with nobody to stop her at all. Better yet, nobody discovers that Madison stole the device until she already traveled all the way to Fenway Park in Boston and used it, and even then it took Jonah seeing the news report that the monsters ceased their attacks to realize what Madison had done. This gets an Author's Saving Throw in the film's novelization, where one Mook is left behind to guard the ORCA but gets tazed by Madison when he catches her.
• Narm Charm:
  • There is the shot of Madison grinning at the sight of Godzilla at the end of the trailer. It may feel inappropriate to some considering that she is smiling at a living nuclear bomb, something Godzilla has been compared to many times. But since this is Godzilla we are talking about, add to that his heroic presence and the overall mood of the trailer, Madison's smile completely fits the scene and maybe even makes her an Audience Surrogate. More forgiveable in the film itself, since Ghidorah is actively hunting her and the Orca at that point, so the arrival of Godzilla actually is a cause for relief.
  • King Ghidorah's middle head in particular has a gloriously sinister Slasher Smile, and while it may seem rather cheesy and silly in such a serious and realistic film (never mind the coincidence that an extraterrestrial creature not from Earth just happens to make the same facial expressions with its mouth as primates do), it certainly works wonders in making him feel all the more evil and malevolent.
  • From the second trailer, the sight of Godzilla charging at King Ghidorah with a speed that would be impossible for a creature of his size is rather cheesy, but it does bring back some fond memories of the lovable silly charm from the classic Showa era films.
  • The Kaiju move much faster and more human-like in this film, notably Ghidorah's rapid wing-flapping when he lands. Unrealistic for creatures their size, but a nice touch that make them feel like the good old Showa suitmation.
  • In addition to his new roar, Godzilla has been given his squealing, higher-pitched screeches of the Showa era. Vocal Dissonance at its finest, but still a loving tribute to the Toho films and very fitting considering this Godzilla is quite a heroic character like how the Showa Goji evolved into a full-blown hero in the later films of his era.
  • Cliched stock lines like "May God have mercy on us all" and "There must be another way" that would stand out as corny in another movie fit right in in a Godzilla movie.
• Not Badass Enough for Fans: Rodan annihilates Monarch's Gold Squadron of jets in an aerial battle with ease, and he manages to severely cripple Mothra before their battle ends, but he's a Memetic Loser because he's nowhere near the power level of the Alpha Titans Godzilla and Ghidorah (one of whom makes Rodan back down with but a Death Glare while the other curb-stomps Rodan in barely over one minute); even though the aforementioned Mothra is an Alpha.
• Older Than They Think:
  • This isn't the first time that Mothra was given a more leaner, edgier appearance. Rebirth of Mothra 3 gave Mothra Leo a badass armored form in the climax while Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack! redesigned Mothra to look more like a wasp.
  • This also isn't the first time that Rodan was portrayed in a more hostile light. Rodan was the titular villain in his debut film, and Expanded Universe material for the Toho kaiju universe would portray him as something of a Token Evil Teammate.
  • Fans may have been caught off-guard by Ghidorah's ability to regrow his heads, but this isn't the first time the character has shown such abilities: In Rebirth of Mothra 3, Grand King Ghidorah regenerated his entire body from one of Cretaceous Ghidorah's severed tails.
  • Viewers and meme posters have been confused on why is Godzilla somehow been able to stand in the middle of the ocean when there is no sea floor for him to stand on. For one, it's an official poster specifically for Rule of Cool. Second, Godzilla has always done this since Godzilla (1954) where he's out in the ocean. Fans are quick to point out he's done this for years.
  • Some audiences have found it odd that Godzilla can run at King Ghidorah with such speed despite his size. This isn’t the first time he did this, in particular in Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack! he did the same exact thing.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Dr. Ling Chen, Dr. Ilene Chen's twin sister also played by Zhang Ziyi half way in the film. Although she has no speaking lines, the reveal she is Dr Chen’s twin sister was unexpected. Implying that both characters are this film’s version of the iconic Mothra Twins. If so, it's a hereditary position, considering their family is shown to have a set of identical twin girls being born into each generation.
  • In the same scene, an older Houston Brooks now played by Joe Morton is also memorable.
• Pandering to the Base: This movie is purposefully designed to appease die-hard Godzilla fans. This time, there are more Kaiju fights involving the classic Toho monsters; the music includes new renditions of Akira Ifukube’s iconic Godzilla theme, Yuji Koseki's Mothra theme, and a remix of Blue Oyster Cult's song "Godzilla"; and more scenes are taken straight out of the Toho movies. Given the amount of love it’s gotten from the fans, on top of it being the 65th anniversary of the series, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. On the other hand, it's been cited as a reason for the film's box office underperformance; while King Ghidorah, Mothra and Rodan are iconic among fans of the franchise, they're not very well-known to general audiences, meaning the Sequel Escalation implied by their presence didn't register and the trailers appeared to be more of the same.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Admiral Stenz and the military: it's widely assumed that Stenz outright greenlit the Oxygen Destroyer's launch (which is hinted at but isn't confirmed); but more than that, viewers tend to assume the military knew that Godzilla was going on to be caught in the blast and they deliberately targeted him. The latter forgets that Ghidorah had only just finished fighting Rodan when Stenz announced the Oxygen Destroyer's launch and Godzilla didn't arrive on the scene of the strike until a couple minutes later, indicating that it was Ghidorah and Rodan rather than Ghidorah and Godzilla who were the intended targets that Stenz was referring to.
  • Ghidorah himself gets a Love to Hate form of this. Whilst the film and novelizations make it clear that Ghidorah enjoys killing humans and that he has overkill tendencies as a manifestation of his sadism, fanfics often make him out to be way more prone to Cold-Blooded Torture than anything in his movie portrayal suggested.
• Salvaged Story:
  • The 2014 film was criticized by fans for focusing too much on the human drama and not giving the monsters enough attention. The filmmakers have addressed this by balancing out both the human story and the monster fights, giving the monsters and the threats at large a much greater presence. Sadly, this became even more polarizing among critics.
  • Certain viewers of the 2014 Godzilla movie found Godzilla to be something of a Designated Hero, due to the sheer collateral damage he indifferently causes onscreen while pursuing the MUTOs (particularly the tsunami he brings to Hawaii), in contrast to how the classic Toho movies' more heroic takes on Godzilla would often make him out to be a more idealistic Anti-Hero and sugar-coat the destruction of city blocks by him. This film implies early on that because of the destruction in the 2014 movie, not everyone regards Godzilla as a hero and some people (like Mark Russell) outright want his blood.
  • 2014 viewers criticized Dr. Serizawa for his and Dr. Graham's advocation against the military's plan to nuke all three Kaiju, taking the military's side on the matter due to that film presenting the military as (mostly) rational if out of their depth, and due to the fact the film doesn't explicitly vindicate Serizawa and Graham's worries: although that film did give the military some intelligence and sympathetic points, ultimately, it was clearly trying to portray their decision to use nukes as a Nuke 'em move which likely would have made things much worse. The 2014 film's graphic novel prequel Godzilla: Awakening didn't help its case at all, since the '54 nuclear bombing against Godzilla and Shinomura which Serizawa's father decried ultimately solved everyone's problems without any catches. King of the Monsters explicitly demonstrates when Godzilla is nuked point-blank to revitalize him that nuking a Kaiju runs the risk of turning them into a walking, ticking, invincible hydrogen bomb which is basically running on steroids for a matter of hours, before it explodes.
  • Serizawa (subtly) breaking his original rule against human intervention in Titan battles. See here for details.
  • In the 2014 Godzilla film, Dr. Serizawa's claims of Godzilla's ecological importance were kind of hard to take seriously for some, despite the fact that this influence exists in real-life with keystone species. In this film, it's more explicitly shown that The Cuckoolander Was Right, with the presence of the awakened Titans having a massive healing effect on damaged ecosystems after Ghidorah's plans are stopped.
  • The official novelization re-contextualizes a few problems viewers had with the film to amend them:
    • Master Sergeant Hendricks and the G-Team's remaining red shirts turning around and firing on the freshly-awakened Ghidorah with regular machine guns is considered one of the most glaring instances of Too Dumb to Live in the movie, and in the MonsterVerse overall (which is no small feat given that trope's history with the kaiju genre). The novelization makes it explicitly clear that the soldiers knew their guns couldn't do more than draw Ghidorah's attention, and they were committing a Heroic Sacrifice by trying to keep Ghidorah focused on them to buy the main cast more time to escape.
    • Although it wasn't a major point of contention, many fans were disappointed that Kong doesn't get any more than a couple mentions in the film, seeing it as a missed opportunity to begin setting up his fight with Godzilla in the next film. The novelization features an extra scene from Kong's P.O.V. on Skull Island, which reveals how Kong responded (or rather didn't respond) to King Ghidorah's alpha call: Kong is absent from the movie's events because he's too busy keeping the Skullcrawlers that Ghidorah's call has stirred up from escaping Skull Island; making Kong the Hero of Another Story while still putting him in the narrative.
    • A criticism levied at the movie is how majorly Jonah and his goons grasp the Villain Ball during the last hour of the run-time by (A) leaving the incredibly-valuable and dangerous ORCA unguarded in a non-secure room and (B) leaving their Millstone-level Token Good Teammate Madison completely unsupervised; enabling Madison to steal the ORCA right out from under the eco-terrorists' noses. The novelization slightly amends this by revealing that Jonah did leave one particularly-intimidating goon to guard the ORCA, and Madison barely avoided being foiled by that mook when he almost caught her red-handed.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The SDCC trailer definitely gave fans a reason to say so with the atmosphere being majestic to terror.
  • After 24 years, nobody expected the return of Burning Godzilla.
  • Kaiju possessing a strong Healing Factor is pretty par the course for Godzilla movies, but it's safe to say nobody was anticipating King Ghidorah to completely regrow a severed head in less than a minute.
• Signature Scene:
  • Godzilla creating a Pillar of Light with his Atomic Breath, being the first promotional material that was released. The quick shots of Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah from the first trailer also count.
  • And as of the second trailer, when Godzilla and King Ghidorah charge each other head-on.
  • The movie proper has King Ghidorah perched atop an active volcano, roaring into the sky with a cross in the foreground, cementing him as the Devil to Godzilla's God.
  • Also from the full film are Rodan's awakening for his badass Curb-Stomp Battle against the Monarch air support and Mothra's hatching for the absolutely beautiful reveal of her imago form.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • Given the Kaiju cast (Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah), the movie is spiritually a remake of Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (although the plot goes in a completely different direction).
  • Alternatively, this film serves this to Gamera 3: Awakening of Irys. Both films question the allegiance of the Kaiju, and the Big Bad awakened by a troubled woman.
  • Both this film and Gamera 2: Advent of Legion have an alien threat from outer space arriving on Earth to xenoform the planet to their needs, involve the heroic monster temporarily out of commission due to an explosion (though it's Legion who put Gamera out of commission rather than humans), which is followed by the heroic monster using a massive power boost to finally obliterate their opponents along with putting the aforementioned questioning of the kaiju's benevolence to rest.
• Squick: The scene where King Ghidorah is on top of volcano and regenerating his left head is rather disgusting, especially when the middle head was biting parts of the membranous encasing to forcefully pull out the head. And the first structure to form out of the growing mass is its tongue!
• Strawman Has a Point: Although the film does present Well-Intentioned Extremist Emma Russell's plan to awaken the Titans as Villain Has a Point and even The Extremist Was Right, her criticism of Serizawa and Monarch for the sorry state that the latter has fallen into at the film's start is scarcely treated as more than an afterthought. While the Monarch brass and Mark are right to call Emma a lunatic and call her out on the global mass murder her plan involves engineering; out of the three Titan-interested organizations in the film — those being Monarch, the prejudiced government who simply want the Titans indiscriminately exterminated and have nil foresight of the likely consequences, and the eco-terrorists who have valid concerns about the government but are far too willing to murder billions of innocents — Monarch throughout the film come across as the most passive and ineffectual party in regards to their ultimate agenda. Dr. Serizawa preaches about humans and Titans coexisting, but neither he nor any of his supporters make any suggestions in the senate scene, nor anywhere else, about how to go about doing that, and in the meantime Monarch's actions indicate they care more about maintaining the inevitably soon-to-fail status quo (keeping the Titans contained) than doing anything productive. Furthermore, when Serizawa, Graham and Coleman attend a senate hearing and advocate for human-Titan coexistence (the one time Monarch are actually seen doing squat to address the threat of the government's stupidity), it's clear that Graham and Serizawa aren't taking it all that seriously (albeit because the senate are, well, less than reasonable about the whole thing).
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • While the new designs for Godzilla, Rodan, and King Ghidorah are well-received, Mothra's final imago form garnered a more divisive reaction. Some complained how Mothra's slimmer body and scythe-like appendages are too much a departure from her traditional Toho design, while also causing her to look too similar to the Male MUTO.
  • Many have also complained at changing the catch-all designation of giant monsters from "M.U.T.O.s" to "Titans", changing their overall feel from being cryptids to being straight-up eldritch gods. Though it could be very likely that it was changed to avoid confusion with the "M.U.T.O.s" from the previous film, since the name is associated with those two far too often. Given the more god like appearance of the monsters in this upcoming film, the name "Titans" could be more fitting.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Drs. Ishirō Serizawa and Vivienne Graham, and Admiral William Stenz. See here for details.
• Tough Act to Follow: Not necessarily the film itself (although it does have fans who hold it in higher regard than Godzilla vs. Kong), but rather its soundtrack; in the MonsterVerse overall. After Bear McCreary's god-tier work on this film which was nominated for four Best Music and Best Original Score awards (on top of the film winning two HPA Awards for Outstanding Sound), a lot of viewers who watched King of the Monsters couldn't help feeling underwhelmed by the follow-up film's soundtrack, which had a different composer.
• Unequal Pairing: Ghidorah/Rodan is a pretty popular ship among the film's fandom. Not only is Rodan a baseline Titan whereas Ghidorah is a much more powerful Alpha Titan (even if Rodan himself is no pushover), but Ghidorah actually curb-stomps Rodan inside two minutes and afterwards makes Rodan his servant during the film.
• Unexpected Character:
  • While Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins were heavily expected to return as Dr. Serizawa and Dr. Graham respectively, nobody expected Admiral William Stenz played by David Strathairn to return until he was seen in the second trailer.
  • Another female M.U.T.O was also unexpected. Though this time, it’s implied that she will now be Godzilla's ally in the future.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • While the character of Emma Russell is clearly not supposed to be purely sympathetic, much is made of her tragic backstory, including the loss of a child during the first Godzilla attack, fueling her determination to take drastic action to fix the world. Unfortunately, said "drastic action" involves working with an eco-terrorist paramilitary group to unleash monsters en-masse and bring human death on a truly massive scale, and the film never really acknowledges the sheer hypocrisy of what Emma's doing; instead painting her protectiveness over her remaining offspring as a redeeming quality, rather than drawing attention to the incredible cognitive dissonance necessary to condemn hundreds of millions or even billions of other parents' children to their deaths "for the greater good," to say nothing of leaving her children's father and her co-workers to almost-certain death. Emma abandoning her plans to rescue Madison is supposed to be her redeeming qualities winning out, but since she's already condemned millions of other parents' children to die as part of her plan entirely of her own volition, it comes off as her being Morally Myopic instead. Alan Jonah's constant sniping at Emma is supposed to be him kicking the dog, but instead it comes across as him rightfully calling the character out for the un-selfaware hypocrite and atrociously-incompetent parent that she is.
  • Although he's still widely considered a comparatively better character than Emma, Mark Russell's attitude toward Godzilla didn't come across as particularly understandable to some. We're supposed to sympathize with his pain and understand where he's coming from with his hatred towards Godzilla for the latter's role in the San Francisco battle which killed Mark's son. Whilst the movie does portray Mark as ultimately being in the wrong for holding onto revenge, there's one crucial factor in San Fran's destruction that the movie does not acknowledge in any shape or form, not even when Mark finally admits he needs to let go of his hatred: the MUTOs were the beasts responsible for starting the city's destruction, whereas Godzilla's involvement began and ended with him stopping and killing the MUTOs. This makes Mark's grudge against Godzilla look less like an understandable reaction by an emotionally-wrecked man to Andrew's death, and more like Mark was so petty, spiteful and desperate for an excuse to hate something that he latched onto the very creature who technically avenged his son's death for him as a target. The fact that Mark unfairly lashes out at his completely-courteous Monarch ex-colleagues in an extremely rude and at times hypocritical manner because they won't indulge his rage doesn't do him many favors, nor does the movie's A Million Is a Statistic treatment of the Russells' grief relative to millions of other people's.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: Over a year after the film was first released, this Up From The Depths video goes into great detail about some of the deeper spiritual themes and symbolism working just under the film's crust. Some of it is fairly obvious, such as Godzilla and Ghidorah being God and Satan respectively. But some of it is pretty deep, such as Serizawa's sacrifice being thematically a literal human sacrifice by which humanity atones for having sinned against God(zilla); and the Russells representing disbelief (Mark) and dogma (Emma), with Madison as the balance between the two extremes, and the final reconciliation of the family showing balance being regained (just prior to Godzilla's final defeat of Ghidorah, to drive the symbolism home). While it may not necessarily elevate the film beyond "dumb monster movie," it does make it a smarter "dumb monster movie."
• Win Back the Crowd: Amongst the few fans who were at least indifferent to Legendary’s previous Godzilla effort, this film won many of those same fans over by increasing the monster action, balancing out said action and the human drama, and by introducing more iconic Toho kaiju in a faithful and respectful manner.
• The Woobie: Madison does not have any easy time throughout the movie. Her older brother's death when she was a small child has torn her parents apart and left her distant from her father, she gets manipulated by her own mother into joining an Eco-Terrorist paramilitary, and she's forced to watch as dozens of Monarch operatives including her limited social circle are mercilessly cut down and slaughtered. She has several traumatic close calls with Titans including Ghidorah (which leads to a full-blown Near-Death Experience in the novelization), and she's finally forced to watch yet another member of her family die under similar circumstances to her brother while she's helpless to do anything. It's easy to imagine at the movie's end that Madison will be having some Shell-Shocked Veteran-style nightmares for a while afterwards.
• Woobie Family: The Russell family, arguably. After the elder child Andrew was a tragic casualty of the San Francisco incident, the rest of the family tore themselves apart in grief: Mark was so unable and unwilling to process his grief that he pushed away everyone including his grieving ex-wife and daughter, and he ran off to the mountains for years; and Emma became nightmarishly unstable and, in her attempts to make some good come of Andrew's death and to punish humanity for causing his death, ends up alienating all her friends, and horrifically traumatizes her remaining child Madison (who was the only one of the surviving Russells who coped with Andrew's death in a healthy manner).

---