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uhhhyaenbyjade · 30 days

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How I Would Change Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (if i was smart enough to direct and write movies)

DISCLAIMER: I loved GxK, and I believe it is an entertaining movie! This is just my take on how I would've liked to see things happen, with it connecting to the previous installments more, as well as tweaking some minor details here and there.

SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT! DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE

So, the biggest change I am adding is that Madison Russell from Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong. I was honestly surprised when I heard that Millie Bobby Brown wasn't involved in the project at all, and I feel like Maddie's presence could have really helped flesh out some of the human aspects of the movie.

The only other thing I am really changing from the movie is adding cameos that link the movies together better, as well as making some minor attempts at making the science less... fantastical. I am not deleting any scenes from the movie, just altering them and adding a few more. Hopefully, this keeps a good balance between the human aspect versus the Titan aspect. So, the movie would probably turn out to be approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes in length, compared to the 1 hour 55 minute run time. I am only going to have bullet points for the parts I am altering/adding, so anything I leave out from the movie is otherwise unchanged or doesn't have enough of a difference to warrant a bullet point.

During the scene where we see updates of MONARCH over the past few years, we don't just see Dr. Ilene Andrews in interviews, but also cameos from Dr. Ilene Chen and Dr. Ling Chen, and possibly some other cameos like Sam Coleman or Mark Russell. Less emphasis on being thankful for Godzilla's help (because yeah he's helping, but also thousands of people are dying directly from him), but more emphasis is placed on MONARCH helping with relief efforts, and the usage of the Titan Warning System we saw in MONARCH: Legacy of Monsters. Also, instead of the other MONARCH person we see in charge (who I think is Hampton, Rachel House's character?) we see Deputy Director Verdugo.

Another small change is that MONARCH isn't trying to "stay ahead of DC" here. I understand why they did that, but from my understanding of the previous iterations in the Monsterverse series, MONARCH was supposed to be considered trustworthy and the top Titan research group after King of the Monsters, especially after the fall of APEX. So, instead, MONARCH is just trying to find what answers they can give to the United Nations as soon as possible.

When Godzilla kills Scylla, we get an explanation of how Scylla was causing problems to the natural world, as well as directly challenging Godzilla for Alpha status, which was explored in Godzilla x Kong: The Hunted.

At the MONARCH school (which I really hope is a school for children of MONARCH employees, or at least a school funded by MONARCH, and not an indoctrination school), we see that Jia is a student at the school, and Maddie is there as well (I don't know what year this movie takes place in, but it takes place sometime after GvK in 2024. Timeline-wise, Maddie was 17 in 2024, and probably a junior/senior in high school, so depending on how long it's been since GvK, she could be a teaching assistant of some kind, or a senior in high school) and friends of each other. They both have visions as the Hollow Earth signal is received; Jia has flashbacks of her past on Skull Island and of her time in Hollow Earth, and Maddie has flashbacks of her encounter with Mothra, Godzilla, as well as when she faced Ghidorah and MechaGodzilla. Both of them also have the same quick flashing vision of the future events of the movie.

When Ilene comes to check on Jia after the incident of her drawing on the desk, Maddie is there, and there's a new scene where all three of them talk about what is going on. Maddie says that MONARCH is too rigid in their thinking, and mentions that there's someone who could help them.

In Miami, Maddie and Ilene meet up with Bernie, and Maddie is integral in helping Ilene convince Bernie to help.

During Trapper's introduction scene where he gives Kong his new tooth, we also have Nathan Lind and Mark Russell show up to witness the event. They are both there to say goodbye to the Hollow Earth transport team, and Maddie joins Trapper, Ilene, Jia, Bernie, and a MONARCH military member (instead of the asshole Mikael, it would be one of the G-Team members from Godzilla KOTM to add more emphasis on their death; either Jackson Barnes or Anthony Martinez would probably be the most recognizable ones)

Instead of Godzilla going to France's nuclear power plant and destroying the place to absorb the radiation, and therefore attacking the humans who attacked him (which kind of went against the whole "the Titans are the guardians of nature" thing and the previous characterizations of Godzilla in the Monsterverse), he goes to some abandoned nuclear site. I would say Chernobyl, but I doubt they'd put that in the movie due to Russia's Invasion right now. But just some abandoned nuclear plant somewhere would work.

Inside Hollow Earth, there are issues with the HEAV due to the signal disrupting the systems, but they are quickly able to figure out the best way to traverse the land; when Jia and Maddie sense the pulse, the HEAV lands until it is over, and then repeat. On their first landing, the G-Team member dies. After they find the Mothra temple, it is Maddie who approaches the glowing dragonfly and presses the button on the wall, allowing them to find the Iwi civilization.

In the scene where we first see Shimo, there is more emphasis and origin on the crystal that Skar King uses to control her; perhaps the crystal is a part of Shimo's ice crystals that we see on her back, and has strange properties due to the Hollow Earth's radiation? We also give Shimo more of a personality. When she first appears, Shimo would be curious about Kong, but flinch at sharp movements from anyone. And then when she is forced to attack, it'd be obvious that she doesn't want to, but Skar King forces her to with the crystal.

I want Shimo to have more characterization in the movie. I've seen people complain that she was just... kinda there. Like, her whole purpose was to keep Skar King from getting bullied too badly. So, by really showing that Shimo is being forced into this and that her natural state is curiosity and warmth (as opposed to her icy nature ;D ), it provides more depth to her character, making the viewers want to see her freed.

When Godzilla arrives at Tiamat's lair, they fight again, but instead of killing Tiamat, Godzilla is able to force Tiamat out like he did in Godzilla: Dominion. Again, too much unnecessary (although insanely badass) murder for a "guardian of nature". He goes into the hibernation to evolve himself.

In the Iwi civilization, we get a more scientific look at the Iwi culture. I don't understand the gravity thing the movie tried to go for, so instead I want to focus on the cultural aspect; they are similar in most aspects to what was seen in Kong: Skull Island, but there are clear differences in dress, the markings they wear, and their ceremonies. This would also be where we go into more detail about how essential Mothra is to this group of Iwi people, instead of her being shoehorned in when all we've seen previously was the Iwi and Kong's species. We see Jia figuring this out and clearly being happy at this. I would also go into them using crystals more, like how we saw with the guard's spears, instead of the gravity-based science. These crystals would be seen to have a mystic quality, explained by Mothra's radiation, perhaps.

When Kong arrives at the Iwi civilization with Suko, that's when Trapper leaves to go back to the Outpost to retrieve the gauntlet for Kong, THEN we go into seeing the lore behind Skar King and Shimo at the temple. This provides a better sense of time between Kong's arrival and his getting the gauntlet since it honestly felt way too fast.

Inside the crystal temple itself, we see the history of the war between Skar King and his ape versus Godzilla and Mothra. I'd love to have Shimo seen more as a threat, with them explicitly saying and having a longer conversation that Shimo was the one who started the last Ice Age, and that before she was captured by Skar King, she had frozen Ghidorah in Antarctica. There is perhaps slightly more exposition here, with the prophecy including not only the "Iwi from Skull Island", but "a girl touched by Mothra".

In this scene, I want to explore Maddie's connection to Mothra. In the Godzilla: King of the Monsters Official Novelization, it is implied that there is some connection between Mothra and Maddie after the scene in the Temple of the Moth. It is hinted at when Maddie has a vision of Mothra while she is unconscious during the Boston battle. I would love to explore that more, and there'd be a deeper explanation in the Official Novelization, something with Mothra bonding with Maddie since there weren't any twin priestesses like there usually is, perhaps.

This is when Trapper returns and gives Kong the gauntlet, and when Jia sends the latter up to bring Godzilla down to help.

Maddie and Jia both go up the crystal temple to the top, where they find that Mothra has a cocoon up there; Maddie realizes that this is what Mothra must have been doing before she arrived in Boston to help Godzilla (I remember reading somewhere that the director said that Mothra was likely off laying an egg during her absence between showing MONARCH where to find Godzilla and her arrival in Boston. This would work really well in my opinion, and a lot better than her materializing out of magic crystal dust.

When Kong arrives on the surface to summon Godzilla, they still fight a bit. However, it becomes clear early on that Godzilla really isn't into the fight; he has obviously been sensing the signal the whole time, so he knows that something is happening with Skar King and Shimo. With previous movies (and especially MONARCH: Legacy of Monsters) trying to convey Godzilla's intelligence, it isn't a far stretch to suggest that Godzilla would figure out that Kong is trying to get his help. Still, the fight goes on for long enough that Mothra arrives to keep them from beating each other up too much. We see Jia and Maddie reach out to Kong and Godzilla respectively.

When Skar King arrives at the Iwi civilization, the Iwi tribe uses their knowledge of the region's radioactive properties (again, nothing gravity-based science-wise because that was all confusing and likely very bad science) to try and send energy through the crystals, messing with the portals from Hollow Earth.

There is no more anti-gravity fight scene. Although I enjoyed it a lot (seeing Godzilla swim through the air and the apes use the rocks to climb around were honestly so cool), it doesn't fit with the "improved" science I am attempting to do. Another ground fight, but they go around the tunnel so they're all still fighting on different planes.

Due to the close proximity to the surface, Ilene is able to warn MONARCH, and they work with the United Nations to evacuate Rio de Janeiro, since there is a tunnel appearing there. This brings us back to the beginning, where I wanted to do away with the "be grateful for Godzilla even though he destroys thousands of people's lives every time he's on the news" thing at the start.

When Skar King and Shimo arrive in Rio de Janeiro, since Kong, Godzilla, and Mothra are unable to stop them due to the immense amount of apes in Skar King's army, there is a lot of destruction. We see Skar King force Shimo into starting another Ice Age, though again, we see that she really doesn't want to do what he says. She starts freezing the city, and the MONARCH evacuation teams there panic as they get closer to their position, before Godzilla, Kong, Jia, Maddie, Trapper, and Bernie (the humans are in the HEAV, with a brief exposition that Mothra was staying back to stop all of Skar King's apes from destroying the Iwi civilization).

This fight is pretty much the same, but the civilians are barely present, and we only see them evacuating a few people away in the HEAV. The final battle still focuses mainly on the Titans, with a heavy amount of emphasis on the crystal from Skar King's whip. I'd keep the absolute bullying that Skar King got the same, but the explanation for this is that Skar King is much older now, and his opponents over-leveled themselves expecting him in his prime.

Mothra arrives from the tunnel, and this is what distracts Skar King long enough for Suko to use Kong's axe to break the crystal that controls Shimo. Once this happens, we see that Shimo can feel it, and she immediately stops attacking Godzilla and looks around in curiosity and amazement. She flinches when Skar King is trying to order her around while he is being bullied by Kong, but with a trill from Mothra and a growl from Godzilla, she joins in bullying her tormentor.

After the fight, there is more of a delay before the ending; we see Bernie on the news talking about his podcast, achieving his movie-long wish to be believed; we see Maddie saying goodbye to Mothra as she leaves and Maddie reunites with her dad and also Josh from GvK; Jia stays with Ilene, but she has a newfound connection to the Iwi sister tribe in the Hollow Earth; Mothra flies across the ocean while Godzilla swims below her to emphasize the symbiotic relationship, and they both take a nap in the coliseum (Godzilla is considerably more careful as he steps through the city this time); Kong returns to the Hollow Earth with Suko and Shimo, and he leads the apes out of their imprisoned area and to the main area of Hollow Earth, where his kingdom is.

For an end credits scene, it'd be Ilene and Jia in the Iwi civilization, where they get permission from the priest lady to see a special part of the temple, where it reveals prophecy-art of Kong, Mothra, and Godzilla fighting against their next enemy.

Obviously, without anything known about future projects, we don't have any end credits scene for this movie. If there is another movie (I thought I saw somewhere that Adam Wingard wanted to direct a trilogy of Monsterverse movies, which means another GxK installment could be in the future, perhaps?), I don't think they'd do what many people want and bring back a Toho villain. Based on the trend of what they've done in the series so far, the next installment would include an original villain with some connection to both of them. So I'll list out some options of what I'd like to see, of both Toho villains and original villains:

Toho: Hedorah, Biollante, Destoroyah, and my personal choice; Battra.

Original: Methuselah, Leviathan, another threat from space (not SpaceGodzilla, since that'd be difficult to work out in this series I think, but maybe something along the lines of Ghidorah's family, since I think they were briefly mentioned in the King of the Monsters Official Novelization), or another threat that goes against Hollow Earth and the surface. Maybe a giant worm-like creature or burrowing Titan could be a good idea, since it'd be able to go back and forth between the two worlds. It'd provide a nice background for how the portals are made.

So, there it is! I hope you guys enjoyed it and like my ideas for how Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire could have been improved. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

#godzilla #gojira #kong #mothra #skar king #shimo #monarch #monsterverse #legendary monsterverse #gxk #gxk spoilers #gxk: the new empire #godzilla x kong: the new empire #godzilla x kong

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