Warning: Spoilers follow for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
The MonsterVerse continues to impress audiences with its ferocious monster fights in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, as the titular Titans find a way to work together in order to take care of a threat too big for them to battle alone. And while the sequel directed by Adam Wingard has plenty of fun moments, such as Kong using the young ape Suko as a weapon against other giant apes, the story brings light to one of the MonsterVerse’s biggest issues. The Skar King might be a cruel antagonist, but the truth is that this franchise has a serious problem when it comes to the villain department. So how can the MonsterVerse’s lack of truly threatening villains be fixed?
The Evil Versions of the Heroes Situation
The premise of the latest sequel set in the MonsterVerse follows Doctor Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) as she realizes that an ancient evil could be unleashed on the surface of the planet. The Skar King is revealed to be the leader of a giant ape civilization that has been living imprisoned in a secret section of the Hollow Earth for years. And considering how he was placed in that underground cave by Godzilla in the first place, the Skar King has a score to settle with the King of the Monsters. But as interesting as their confrontation might sound, its similarities with other MonsterVerse storylines doesn’t make the rivalry as impactful as the filmmakers might hope.
In the previous film, Godzilla vs. Kong, the two attempted to prove who was the most powerful monster on the planet, fighting each other in a quest for Titan supremacy that decimated Hong Kong (which should’ve been renamed Hong Godzilla after the outcome). But after a mechanical version of Godzilla named Mechagodzilla began to wreak havoc, Godzilla and Kong had to work as a team to take it down.
But this is where the mere existence of the Skar King becomes a problem in the sequel. After fighting against an evil version of Godzilla in GvK, GxK gives us the monsters trading blows with... an evil version of Kong. This might sound like the next logical step for the franchise, but it doesn’t offer a good antagonist for the heroes of this story. Despite the fact that the audience is told through exposition that the Skar King is a very old rival of Godzilla, the giant ape doesn’t have any particularly noteworthy traits. And while the human characters continuously talk about how dangerous he is, the sequel never makes him look particularly threatening when facing Godzilla and Kong.
The Power Problem
Godzilla and Kong have considerably different abilities and techniques that make them interesting fighters when it comes to saving the world. An antagonist that could counter Godzilla’s energy blasts and Kong’s agility could truly become the franchise’s biggest threat. Instead of using Godzilla and Kong’s own skills against them, which was kind of the case with the Skar King and Mechagodzilla, the MonsterVerse should look for a way to introduce a baddie that can complement the hero monsters’ moves.
Across his history in foreign cinema, Godzilla has crossed paths with adversaries such as Anguirus and Destoroyah, monsters that would be more than capable of becoming the solution to the MonsterVerse’s villain problem. Their power sets, designs and overall styles of movement are fairly different from Kong and Godzilla’s, which could shake things up for the heroes of the series.
The MonsterVerse hasn’t been afraid to play around with different types of monsters in the past. Godzilla: King of the Monsters alone had creatures such as Ghidorah and Rodan – both of whom were capable of flight. Those encounters teased the idea of Godzilla struggling to fight against Titans with different powers and abilities than his own. But the recent sequels that have united the character with Kong left those ideas in the past, as well as the chance for substantially different fight sequences from what has been seen before. If the studio wants to keep printing money with this series, introducing monsters with new sets of powers could ensure the MonsterVerse’s future.
Raise the Stakes With the Humans of the MonsterVerse
It’s widely known that the human plots of the MonsterVerse always bring the mood down when audiences are trying to enjoy a giant ape and a giant lizard fighting against one another. But that doesn’t have to be the case. If the studio considered directly involving the humans with the Titan fights in ways that haven’t been seen before, perhaps the storylines involving characters such as Bernie (Brian Tyree Henry) and Hall’s Dr. Andrews wouldn’t feel so dull. The MonsterVerse doesn’t take itself very seriously anymore, and while that was the right direction to take for the series, these human characters need to fully embrace the fact that they’re part of the Titan action.
One of the most wholesome factors to come out of the post-pandemic Godzilla and Kong stories has been the giant ape’s relationship with Jia (Kaylee Hottle). Through her use of sign language, the young girl is able to communicate with Kong, who has learned to communicate back with her thanks to his ties with the Iwi community. This bond has raised the emotional stakes for both characters, something that hasn’t happened for Godzilla due to him not being able to communicate directly with the humans.
What the MonsterVerse truly needs is a direct connection between the heroes and villains that creates an emotional response in audiences. Considering how every installment of the franchise has multiple encounters between the dominating creatures, there comes a point where the audience needs bigger reasons to care about the fights other than the fact that they get to see Godzilla firing atomic breath at someone else.
The franchise has had many effective and emotional sequences where the hero monsters directly interact with the humans. How much more effective would these films be if the villain monsters were allowed the same? Aren’t the most effective bad guys always the ones we can connect with on some level?
At the end of the day, the box office results have demonstrated that Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the continuation audiences have been waiting for, even if the sequel has once again proven how the franchise has an antagonist problem. The Skar King escaped his prison and threatened the people of Brazil, but it can’t really matter when he never looks like a real threat for the dynamic duo of the MonsterVerse. Time will tell if this trend will continue in future installments of the series, or if Godzilla and Kong will run into a monster so powerful – or emotionally effective – that it threatens to change the hierarchy of power in the franchise. Hopefully, the next villain doesn’t turn out to be a combination of Godzilla and Kong at the very least.
