GojiBean
Your resident irradiated Kaiju King
Hoyo peeps!
This tutorial is both a tutorial and my chance to rant against my own favorite monster franchise, Godzilla. But the same issues brought up in this tutorial apply to literally every monster situation in story telling. And we'll go over examples of both good and bad storytelling featuring monsters.
So, let's dive in!!
It's a question as old as the monster genre. Is a human story necessary to make a good monster story?
And the answer... Is "no."
BUT!!!
... If you are going to create a human story alongside the monster action you must, must, must ensure that it actually matters and properly supports and enriches the monster action in a dynamic and believable way.
Let's look at an example which does this well: Jaws.
We all know Jaws (or, most of us do).
The human story in Jaws is a simple one. The Chief of Police, Martin Brody, is a city boy who's afraid of the water but faces his fear in order to keep his town safe from a man-eating shark despite the backlash from the local Mayor's office. Along the way Brody is joined by Matt Hooper of the Oceanographic Institute who's in it both for scientific reasons as well as to answer the call for help sent out by Brody's office, and Quint the shark hunter who's in it for the money.
Simple premise, right? Yes. And it should be.
All three men want to find and kill this shark to protect the human lives (and earn the money, in Quint's case), and that puts them in direct and natural conflict with the shark itself. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is circumstantial. It's all by simple, elegant design. The shark needs to fulfill its instinctive drive to hunt and eat, and does so by targeting humans. And the humans in turn must prevent these killings and resolve to kill the shark. The two worlds cannot coexist. It's one or the other.
Now, let's look at an example where this relationship is done very, very poorly: The Monsterverse films by Legendary Pictures.
Beginning with 2014's "Godzilla," helmed by Gareth Edwards as the director and Max Borenstein credited as the primary screenplay writer, this story gets a few things right but stumbles and falls on its face after Act I concludes.
The Brody family, namely Joe (the father) and Ford (the son) experience a tragedy when Joe's wife is killed during a nuclear reactor meltdown takes place due to a new monster wreaking havoc. Joe recognizes the symptoms of the incident, a series of tremors all at a consistent frequency, is unnatural and that something alive caused the meltdown. Not a mechanical malfunction or anything else that normally would cause such a disaster. Ford, on the other hand, thinks his dad is crazy and is lashing out in grief at the loss of his wife. Thus, we have a familial division. Joe manages to convince Ford to come with him one last time to the plant where the disaster occurred, and the MUTO creature is finally revealed proving Joe's theory before his unfortunate demise. Before he passes, Ford apologizes for doubting him.
Is this good storytelling? Yes, actually. It's a perfectly normal process of events which build off each prior point to the conclusion of Joe's death.
The problem?... This is all in Act 1. There are still 2 more acts (and about an hour and a half of film) to go!
If you've seen my other tutorials, you might recognize the terms "Active" and "Reactive" protagonists. Joe Brody is an Active Protagonist. His choices and dialogue directly influence the story progression. Ford is a Reactive Protagonist. He's dragged along by the story because it forces him to. And when you have a Reactive protagonist with a flat and uninteresting personality, and even less interesting methods of reacting to what happens around him, you will rapidly lose audience interest and support because they crave what Joe Brody brought to the table: charisma and drive.
This is 2014 Godzilla's downfall. Joe Brody died far too early in the film and left Ford to carry the burden of leading man when his character clearly was not designed to do so. Either his death should have come at the end, or not at all. I would argue it should not have happened at all. But that's just my opinion.
The rest of the human cast, including Doctor Serizawa (played by Ken Watanabe), are forgettable and/or otherwise unimportant. And this is a recipe for disaster for any story teller.
If your characters don't matter or are uninteresting and forgettable, your story has little to no chance of reaching its ultimate potential.
Let's move on to 2019's King of the Monsters, where things take an even bigger dive into depressingly and debilitatingly bad storytelling by Michael Dougherty (director) and Zach Shields, co-writers of the screenplay.
We begin with the opening sequence at a Monarch (basically the protagonist organization) facility in temple in the forests of China, housing the egg of Mothra.
Michael Dougherty made a big deal in interviews leading up to the film's release that Mothra and Godzilla would share a symbiotic relationship that would be central to the story. But did he deliver?
Short answer: No.
In the opening sequence at Mothra's temple, she hatches and one of the guards accidentally zaps her with a stun baton. She goes ape shit and starts fighting back against all the others. She's then about to kill Emma Russell and her daughter Maddison Russel, played by Vera Farmiga and Milly Bobby Brown respectively, before Emma activates a device known as the ORCA to play Godzilla's alpha frequency which instantly pacifies Mothra.
Remember, Mothra was just born. By all rights she should be a blank slate driven by instinct. But she seems to recognize Godzilla's alpha frequency and is calmed by it.
But wait. Doesn't this mean Dougherty did it right?
Not at all.
Consider what comes next. Instead of continuing to focus on Mothra and Godzilla, Dougherty shifts focus to Emma and Maddison. Emma's son, Andrew, was killed during Godzilla's battle with the MUTO's in 2014's events. Her home was destroyed, and her husband driven to alcoholism which caused their divorce. Emma nd Maddison were both about to be killed a moment ago, but here she is with a big derpy smile letting Maddison reach out an touch Mothra who now is paying more attention to the two of them than to Godzilla's alpha frequency coming from the ORCA.
Why?
Why would you split focus from Mothra and Godzilla to a meaningless human interaction with Mothra which shouldn't even be happening given the trauma Emma has lived through? As soon as Mothra stopped attacking she should have grabbed Maddison and ran back into the observation room. Why would she risk her only daughter and last remaining close family member after what almost happened just a few moments ago? She shouldn't. Her psychology doesn't add up which completely delegitimizes her actions in this sequence. Not only that, but she's somehow become a fanatic on the side of the Titans and wants to release all of them into the world to "take it back" from the infection that is humanity.
Um... What? Emma, who lost her son and whose family fell apart due to the Titans is a fanatical supporter of them?
How does that make sense?
Short answer: It doesn't.
Nothing about Emma Russell makes sense.
She partners with an eco terrorist group run by Jonah (Charles Dance), who appears literally out of nowhere to blow a hole in the wall of the temple and barge into Mothra's chambers before killing the other scientists and taking Emma and Maddison with him.
Now, how does all of this affect the monster action?
In short, it doesn't.
Arguments can be made for "Emma woke up Ghidorah by blowing up the ice, and she woke up Rodan with the ORCA!" However, these arguments fail in the face of the facts once you take a step back an dlook at the big picture of the story.
Godzilla is known to have special senses humanity has yet to fully understand, including the ability to sense danger anywhere in the world. Before Ghidorah is unleashed Godzilla makes a sudden beeline for Antarctica where Ghidorah slumbers. There is no explanation for this. He just goes. However, it was good timing because he showed up in time to confront Ghidorah before he could do too much damage to the facilities or take too many human lives.
Some might suggest that he could sense the humans were going to set Ghidorah free. And despite what I just said about him having senses humanity hasn't really quantified yet, how would he know what humanity is doing specifically in Antarctica? Does he have some sort of psychic power to send his mind out there to actually see what they're doing and then understand that it's going to set Ghidorah free? Sensing danger is one thing. Knowing what's about to happen is another. And there's no way Godzilla knew what the humans were doing specifically.
So, was he reacting to them? Or was he reacting to Ghidorah and sensing that he was going to break free regardless?
This question is very important, but is never answered. If what the humans were doing actually mattered here, this question would have a definitive answer. But it doesn't because the humans are ultimately inconsequential. Whether set free by explosives or because the ice is melting enough to free him due to global warming, Ghidorah was destined to break free from his icy tomb and unleash his wrath upon the world.
What does Ghidorah do afterwards? He faces Godzilla in a brief scuffle before retreating, beats up Rodan, and then Godzilla gets hit with the Oxygen Destroyer and his put into a near-death state while Ghidorah is left unscathed and unleashes an alpha roar to wake all of the Titans worldwide, after which they bend to his alpha supremacy and begin attacking humanity under his influence.
The human story is, from this point on, completely severed from the monster action.
Despite the nuke set off in Godzilla's face by Serizawa, sacrificing himself in the process, it doesn't matter. Godzilla would have recovered eventually. It wasn't going to be fast enough for humanity's liking. So they expedited the process. But he would have healed and come back to face Ghidorah again eventually because that's what he does. And the rest, as we say, is history. Godzilla is destined to defeat Ghidorah because Mothra sacrificed herself and gave Godzilla her energy after her body was destroyed (How does she do this? No idea), and that allows him to get the W.
Maddison stealing the ORCA to call Ghidorah to Boston changes nothing except the location of his battle with Godzilla. It does nothing to change the flow of the battle itself. Emma using the ORCA to draw Ghidorah away from Godzilla after he got Mothra's energy (since Ghidorah was trying to siphon the energy for himself by biting Godzilla), there's nothing to say it was necessary. Godzilla's power became so great by the time he unleashed his nuclear pulse there was literally nothing Ghidorah could do against him. Could Ghidorah drain his energy fast enough to stop that? I highly doubt it. Godzilla basically went Super Saiyan. And you're not stopping that just from a couple bites.
Dougherty and Shields did their best to make the human story matter. But, unfortunately, they failed.
Far too many events in the film become circumstantial and forced which nullifies the legitimacy of their existence. A few subtle changes here and there and it could be a different discussion. But, as things stand, this is what we got. A total disconnection of importance between the human and monster stories as they unfold in parallel rather than them intersecting dynamically and purposefully.
2021's Godzilla vs. Kong... Dear lord, where do I begin?
They make a big deal about the idea that if Kong leaves Skull Island Godzilla will come for him.
Why?
"Ancient rivalry."
Um... Bullshit.
This nonsense about an ancient rivalry is Legendary's Writer's Room admitting that they have no idea how to make this happen any other way than by forcing it.
Godzilla has no beef with this particular member of Kong's species. And we know from the previous two films Godzilla's supposed to be an honorable and heroic figure. But this film makes him out to be a pure and unadulterated bully who's out to just fight for the sake of dominance.
Why the change from the previous films?
This question is never answered. It's never even touched upon as an issue in conflict with his depiction in the previous films which shows how lackluster the Writer's Room of Legendary Pictures is despite some of the names present within it.
This throws the entire premise of this film into question.
Why does Godzilla feel the need to come for Kong just because he left Skull Island when he's been shown to be a heroic figure and a benevolent Alpha in the world of the Titan's natural order? What threat does Kong pose just by moving around? Some would argue "Kong's change of location would upset the natural order Godzilla's protecting." But answer me this: How does it threaten the natural order? Which Titans would Kong be aggressive against when all he's ever wanted is to live in peace on Skull Island? Given that the humans are moving him to Antarctica, where there's an entrance to the Hollow Earth which leads deep down into the Earth's core into an untouched world separate from the surface, how does that affect the natural order? If Godzilla's smart enough to sense danger anywhere in the world, surely he knows that this move by Kong isn't threatening in any way and doesn't sense any ill intentions from Kong, right? Or, are Godzilla's senses suddenly diminished outside of being able to tell where Kong and other Titans are? If so, why diminish them or change them just for this fight?
You can see how quickly this film's foundation falls apart now, right? And, sadly, it's all because of the human story. The humans are the ones saying "If we take him off the island Godzilla will come for him." It's the humans saying Godzilla's out for dominance and wants to make sure Kong stays on Skull Island (why Godzilla would get upset by this, they never both explaining or even touching upon). And it's the humans who actually make the move to transport Kong to the Hollow Earth right now despite the fact that there's no proof the storms of Skull Island would in any way threaten Kong's life.
Everything about this film's premise, down to the smallest detail, is forced and circumstantial rather than being dynamic and supportive of the monster action which accompanies it.
Need further proof?
Mechagodzilla/Ghidorah.
Ghidorah's skull serves as the hub of a DNA Super Computer controlling Mechagodzilla. When the energy of the Hollow Earth is provided, suddenly it grants Ghidorah's consciousness (through his DNA) to take control of Mechagodzilla and start running rampant before a short battle with Godzilla and Kong at the climax of the film.
But... How does this even work?
Consciousness and memories are not contained in DNA. They're both a product of the brain. And Ghidorah's brain is gone. We can see clear shots in the film looking inside his skull. There's no brain. Just bones.
Despite this reality, they force his consciousness into Mechagodzilla once the energy of the Hollow Earth is copied (somehow just by being contained in a glass tube). Why did they do this? Cool factor, maybe? I honestly don't know the reasoning behind this decision. There's nothing natural or supportive about it with respect to the rest of the story. Everything is either running in parallel, or is so forced and circumstantial it may as well be two separate stories coexisting in the same universe with no actual direct relation to each other whatsoever. Not even a parallel one.
Honestly I don't think this story could be done properly given the lore the Monsterverse has already provided us. Short of retconning everything, which they basically did, Godzilla and Kong have no reason to fight. They're both benevolent Alpha's just trying to live their best lives and have no personal beef with each other as individuals. Kong leaving Skull Island to search for a new home and ending up in the Hollow Earth shouldn't matter at all to Godzilla. And by taking the spotlight away from Godzilla and Kong and putting it back on Ghidorah, the villain of the last film who's already dead but given new "life" in Mechagodzilla to force a team up in the end as a cop out to having to make a truly "finished" conflict between Godzilla and Kong... Bruh.
I kept talking about dynamic human stories alongside the monster action in the above section.
But how do we do that?
Quite easily, as a matter of fact (which makes it all the more irritating that Legendary Pictures and the Monsterverse continue to fail at it).
Whatever happens in the human story, it has to affect the monster action. And vice versa. If you insert something that happens on one side but is only reacted to passively by the other, that's a failure to make the event dynamic and supportive to the monster action.
Say you're writing your own Godzilla story. You want the humans to trigger Godzilla into attacking a particular city. But all you do is say humans attacked him with navy ships while he was out at sea and resting on the ocean floor. How and why does that make him go after a specific city?... At the risk of sounding snarky, good luck explaining that one.
Instead, how about Godzilla is attacked specifically off the coast of the city you're talking about? He's in Tokyo Bay just cruising and exploring his territory, not bothering the humans at all (or at least not trying to), and he's bombarded by aircraft firing air-to-surface missiles at him. And when they do so, they're coming at him from the direction of the city?
Ah haaaaa... Now we have some dynamic relations.
It's such a simple thing, no? Just have them come from the direction of the city when they attack, and bam. Godzilla attributes the aircraft with the city and makes landfall to exact his vengeance. Is he necessarily right that the city is responsible? No. Does it matter? No. Because the goal of this was to have him attack a specific city in a dynamic way.
Mission accomplished.
What about Godzilla's perspective? How does his attacking this specific city affect humans in a way that naturally progresses the story?
How about his attack on the city after being attacked triggers a protagonist organization, like Monarch, to notice that Godzilla reacted defensively and they petition the government to cease their attacks on Godzilla simply because he's in their coastal waters?
This is another dynamic interlocking moment of story. The government attacked Godzilla because he came too close to shore. Godzilla retaliated. The protags recognized his defensive retaliation and are trying to make things better for both sides. But the government won't hear it. They see a monster in their territory and think "kill it," regardless of the proof of defensive retaliation right in front of their faces.
This leads them to push for more attacks against Godzilla while at sea. And because there's no other targets than the ships and planes themselves, Godzilla remembers the last time these things came for him and he goes back to that city once again to lay waste to whatever's left after his first assault.
It's a natural back and forth.
Overly simple, and probably only good for a short film or short story of 100 pages or less. But it's a valid story formula.
Whatever the humans do directly affects and guides Godzilla forward. And what Godzilla does directly affects and guides humanity forward.
The Godzilla film which demonstrates this relationship the best is the original Gojira film of 1954, directed by Ishiro Honda. Every Godzilla appearance drives humanity to do something, which in turn drives Godzilla to react. Back and forth, back and forth until the end of the film with Serizawa and the Oxygen Destroyer. Is it perfect? No. But it's still the best example of the dynamic nature of the human and monster stories in the Godzilla franchise.
Ultimately, humans and monsters have existed in stories together for as long as humanity has had the creativity to put them side by side.
But today, in the modern world where we have the most access to technology for information and learning purposes, major film companies can't seem to get this rather simple relationship right.
Why? I don't know. It truly is a simple affair. Just make sure that what the humans do directly and dynamically correlates to how the monsters react and respond, and vice versa. The more the human and monster stories are separated from one another by circumstance and forced contrivances, the worse the stories become.
Take your time. Make sure they're dynamically linked and influence each other. And you'll be golden when writing your own monster stories.
Take a page from the book of Hollywood's failures, and avoid the mistakes they've made by putting parallel stories into forced conflict and forgetting to make their characters meaningful and impactful in the grand scheme of the story's narrative.
Cheers!
- GojiBean
This tutorial is both a tutorial and my chance to rant against my own favorite monster franchise, Godzilla. But the same issues brought up in this tutorial apply to literally every monster situation in story telling. And we'll go over examples of both good and bad storytelling featuring monsters.
So, let's dive in!!
Making a human story that matters
It's a question as old as the monster genre. Is a human story necessary to make a good monster story?
And the answer... Is "no."
BUT!!!
... If you are going to create a human story alongside the monster action you must, must, must ensure that it actually matters and properly supports and enriches the monster action in a dynamic and believable way.
Let's look at an example which does this well: Jaws.
We all know Jaws (or, most of us do).
The human story in Jaws is a simple one. The Chief of Police, Martin Brody, is a city boy who's afraid of the water but faces his fear in order to keep his town safe from a man-eating shark despite the backlash from the local Mayor's office. Along the way Brody is joined by Matt Hooper of the Oceanographic Institute who's in it both for scientific reasons as well as to answer the call for help sent out by Brody's office, and Quint the shark hunter who's in it for the money.
Simple premise, right? Yes. And it should be.
All three men want to find and kill this shark to protect the human lives (and earn the money, in Quint's case), and that puts them in direct and natural conflict with the shark itself. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is circumstantial. It's all by simple, elegant design. The shark needs to fulfill its instinctive drive to hunt and eat, and does so by targeting humans. And the humans in turn must prevent these killings and resolve to kill the shark. The two worlds cannot coexist. It's one or the other.
Now, let's look at an example where this relationship is done very, very poorly: The Monsterverse films by Legendary Pictures.
Beginning with 2014's "Godzilla," helmed by Gareth Edwards as the director and Max Borenstein credited as the primary screenplay writer, this story gets a few things right but stumbles and falls on its face after Act I concludes.
The Brody family, namely Joe (the father) and Ford (the son) experience a tragedy when Joe's wife is killed during a nuclear reactor meltdown takes place due to a new monster wreaking havoc. Joe recognizes the symptoms of the incident, a series of tremors all at a consistent frequency, is unnatural and that something alive caused the meltdown. Not a mechanical malfunction or anything else that normally would cause such a disaster. Ford, on the other hand, thinks his dad is crazy and is lashing out in grief at the loss of his wife. Thus, we have a familial division. Joe manages to convince Ford to come with him one last time to the plant where the disaster occurred, and the MUTO creature is finally revealed proving Joe's theory before his unfortunate demise. Before he passes, Ford apologizes for doubting him.
Is this good storytelling? Yes, actually. It's a perfectly normal process of events which build off each prior point to the conclusion of Joe's death.
The problem?... This is all in Act 1. There are still 2 more acts (and about an hour and a half of film) to go!
If you've seen my other tutorials, you might recognize the terms "Active" and "Reactive" protagonists. Joe Brody is an Active Protagonist. His choices and dialogue directly influence the story progression. Ford is a Reactive Protagonist. He's dragged along by the story because it forces him to. And when you have a Reactive protagonist with a flat and uninteresting personality, and even less interesting methods of reacting to what happens around him, you will rapidly lose audience interest and support because they crave what Joe Brody brought to the table: charisma and drive.
This is 2014 Godzilla's downfall. Joe Brody died far too early in the film and left Ford to carry the burden of leading man when his character clearly was not designed to do so. Either his death should have come at the end, or not at all. I would argue it should not have happened at all. But that's just my opinion.
The rest of the human cast, including Doctor Serizawa (played by Ken Watanabe), are forgettable and/or otherwise unimportant. And this is a recipe for disaster for any story teller.
If your characters don't matter or are uninteresting and forgettable, your story has little to no chance of reaching its ultimate potential.
Let's move on to 2019's King of the Monsters, where things take an even bigger dive into depressingly and debilitatingly bad storytelling by Michael Dougherty (director) and Zach Shields, co-writers of the screenplay.
We begin with the opening sequence at a Monarch (basically the protagonist organization) facility in temple in the forests of China, housing the egg of Mothra.
Michael Dougherty made a big deal in interviews leading up to the film's release that Mothra and Godzilla would share a symbiotic relationship that would be central to the story. But did he deliver?
Short answer: No.
In the opening sequence at Mothra's temple, she hatches and one of the guards accidentally zaps her with a stun baton. She goes ape shit and starts fighting back against all the others. She's then about to kill Emma Russell and her daughter Maddison Russel, played by Vera Farmiga and Milly Bobby Brown respectively, before Emma activates a device known as the ORCA to play Godzilla's alpha frequency which instantly pacifies Mothra.
Remember, Mothra was just born. By all rights she should be a blank slate driven by instinct. But she seems to recognize Godzilla's alpha frequency and is calmed by it.
But wait. Doesn't this mean Dougherty did it right?
Not at all.
Consider what comes next. Instead of continuing to focus on Mothra and Godzilla, Dougherty shifts focus to Emma and Maddison. Emma's son, Andrew, was killed during Godzilla's battle with the MUTO's in 2014's events. Her home was destroyed, and her husband driven to alcoholism which caused their divorce. Emma nd Maddison were both about to be killed a moment ago, but here she is with a big derpy smile letting Maddison reach out an touch Mothra who now is paying more attention to the two of them than to Godzilla's alpha frequency coming from the ORCA.
Why?
Why would you split focus from Mothra and Godzilla to a meaningless human interaction with Mothra which shouldn't even be happening given the trauma Emma has lived through? As soon as Mothra stopped attacking she should have grabbed Maddison and ran back into the observation room. Why would she risk her only daughter and last remaining close family member after what almost happened just a few moments ago? She shouldn't. Her psychology doesn't add up which completely delegitimizes her actions in this sequence. Not only that, but she's somehow become a fanatic on the side of the Titans and wants to release all of them into the world to "take it back" from the infection that is humanity.
Um... What? Emma, who lost her son and whose family fell apart due to the Titans is a fanatical supporter of them?
How does that make sense?
Short answer: It doesn't.
Nothing about Emma Russell makes sense.
She partners with an eco terrorist group run by Jonah (Charles Dance), who appears literally out of nowhere to blow a hole in the wall of the temple and barge into Mothra's chambers before killing the other scientists and taking Emma and Maddison with him.
Now, how does all of this affect the monster action?
In short, it doesn't.
Arguments can be made for "Emma woke up Ghidorah by blowing up the ice, and she woke up Rodan with the ORCA!" However, these arguments fail in the face of the facts once you take a step back an dlook at the big picture of the story.
Godzilla is known to have special senses humanity has yet to fully understand, including the ability to sense danger anywhere in the world. Before Ghidorah is unleashed Godzilla makes a sudden beeline for Antarctica where Ghidorah slumbers. There is no explanation for this. He just goes. However, it was good timing because he showed up in time to confront Ghidorah before he could do too much damage to the facilities or take too many human lives.
Some might suggest that he could sense the humans were going to set Ghidorah free. And despite what I just said about him having senses humanity hasn't really quantified yet, how would he know what humanity is doing specifically in Antarctica? Does he have some sort of psychic power to send his mind out there to actually see what they're doing and then understand that it's going to set Ghidorah free? Sensing danger is one thing. Knowing what's about to happen is another. And there's no way Godzilla knew what the humans were doing specifically.
So, was he reacting to them? Or was he reacting to Ghidorah and sensing that he was going to break free regardless?
This question is very important, but is never answered. If what the humans were doing actually mattered here, this question would have a definitive answer. But it doesn't because the humans are ultimately inconsequential. Whether set free by explosives or because the ice is melting enough to free him due to global warming, Ghidorah was destined to break free from his icy tomb and unleash his wrath upon the world.
What does Ghidorah do afterwards? He faces Godzilla in a brief scuffle before retreating, beats up Rodan, and then Godzilla gets hit with the Oxygen Destroyer and his put into a near-death state while Ghidorah is left unscathed and unleashes an alpha roar to wake all of the Titans worldwide, after which they bend to his alpha supremacy and begin attacking humanity under his influence.
The human story is, from this point on, completely severed from the monster action.
Despite the nuke set off in Godzilla's face by Serizawa, sacrificing himself in the process, it doesn't matter. Godzilla would have recovered eventually. It wasn't going to be fast enough for humanity's liking. So they expedited the process. But he would have healed and come back to face Ghidorah again eventually because that's what he does. And the rest, as we say, is history. Godzilla is destined to defeat Ghidorah because Mothra sacrificed herself and gave Godzilla her energy after her body was destroyed (How does she do this? No idea), and that allows him to get the W.
Maddison stealing the ORCA to call Ghidorah to Boston changes nothing except the location of his battle with Godzilla. It does nothing to change the flow of the battle itself. Emma using the ORCA to draw Ghidorah away from Godzilla after he got Mothra's energy (since Ghidorah was trying to siphon the energy for himself by biting Godzilla), there's nothing to say it was necessary. Godzilla's power became so great by the time he unleashed his nuclear pulse there was literally nothing Ghidorah could do against him. Could Ghidorah drain his energy fast enough to stop that? I highly doubt it. Godzilla basically went Super Saiyan. And you're not stopping that just from a couple bites.
Dougherty and Shields did their best to make the human story matter. But, unfortunately, they failed.
Far too many events in the film become circumstantial and forced which nullifies the legitimacy of their existence. A few subtle changes here and there and it could be a different discussion. But, as things stand, this is what we got. A total disconnection of importance between the human and monster stories as they unfold in parallel rather than them intersecting dynamically and purposefully.
2021's Godzilla vs. Kong... Dear lord, where do I begin?
They make a big deal about the idea that if Kong leaves Skull Island Godzilla will come for him.
Why?
"Ancient rivalry."
Um... Bullshit.
This nonsense about an ancient rivalry is Legendary's Writer's Room admitting that they have no idea how to make this happen any other way than by forcing it.
Godzilla has no beef with this particular member of Kong's species. And we know from the previous two films Godzilla's supposed to be an honorable and heroic figure. But this film makes him out to be a pure and unadulterated bully who's out to just fight for the sake of dominance.
Why the change from the previous films?
This question is never answered. It's never even touched upon as an issue in conflict with his depiction in the previous films which shows how lackluster the Writer's Room of Legendary Pictures is despite some of the names present within it.
This throws the entire premise of this film into question.
Why does Godzilla feel the need to come for Kong just because he left Skull Island when he's been shown to be a heroic figure and a benevolent Alpha in the world of the Titan's natural order? What threat does Kong pose just by moving around? Some would argue "Kong's change of location would upset the natural order Godzilla's protecting." But answer me this: How does it threaten the natural order? Which Titans would Kong be aggressive against when all he's ever wanted is to live in peace on Skull Island? Given that the humans are moving him to Antarctica, where there's an entrance to the Hollow Earth which leads deep down into the Earth's core into an untouched world separate from the surface, how does that affect the natural order? If Godzilla's smart enough to sense danger anywhere in the world, surely he knows that this move by Kong isn't threatening in any way and doesn't sense any ill intentions from Kong, right? Or, are Godzilla's senses suddenly diminished outside of being able to tell where Kong and other Titans are? If so, why diminish them or change them just for this fight?
You can see how quickly this film's foundation falls apart now, right? And, sadly, it's all because of the human story. The humans are the ones saying "If we take him off the island Godzilla will come for him." It's the humans saying Godzilla's out for dominance and wants to make sure Kong stays on Skull Island (why Godzilla would get upset by this, they never both explaining or even touching upon). And it's the humans who actually make the move to transport Kong to the Hollow Earth right now despite the fact that there's no proof the storms of Skull Island would in any way threaten Kong's life.
Everything about this film's premise, down to the smallest detail, is forced and circumstantial rather than being dynamic and supportive of the monster action which accompanies it.
Need further proof?
Mechagodzilla/Ghidorah.
Ghidorah's skull serves as the hub of a DNA Super Computer controlling Mechagodzilla. When the energy of the Hollow Earth is provided, suddenly it grants Ghidorah's consciousness (through his DNA) to take control of Mechagodzilla and start running rampant before a short battle with Godzilla and Kong at the climax of the film.
But... How does this even work?
Consciousness and memories are not contained in DNA. They're both a product of the brain. And Ghidorah's brain is gone. We can see clear shots in the film looking inside his skull. There's no brain. Just bones.
Despite this reality, they force his consciousness into Mechagodzilla once the energy of the Hollow Earth is copied (somehow just by being contained in a glass tube). Why did they do this? Cool factor, maybe? I honestly don't know the reasoning behind this decision. There's nothing natural or supportive about it with respect to the rest of the story. Everything is either running in parallel, or is so forced and circumstantial it may as well be two separate stories coexisting in the same universe with no actual direct relation to each other whatsoever. Not even a parallel one.
Honestly I don't think this story could be done properly given the lore the Monsterverse has already provided us. Short of retconning everything, which they basically did, Godzilla and Kong have no reason to fight. They're both benevolent Alpha's just trying to live their best lives and have no personal beef with each other as individuals. Kong leaving Skull Island to search for a new home and ending up in the Hollow Earth shouldn't matter at all to Godzilla. And by taking the spotlight away from Godzilla and Kong and putting it back on Ghidorah, the villain of the last film who's already dead but given new "life" in Mechagodzilla to force a team up in the end as a cop out to having to make a truly "finished" conflict between Godzilla and Kong... Bruh.
Dynamic Human/Monster Relations
I kept talking about dynamic human stories alongside the monster action in the above section.
But how do we do that?
Quite easily, as a matter of fact (which makes it all the more irritating that Legendary Pictures and the Monsterverse continue to fail at it).
Whatever happens in the human story, it has to affect the monster action. And vice versa. If you insert something that happens on one side but is only reacted to passively by the other, that's a failure to make the event dynamic and supportive to the monster action.
Say you're writing your own Godzilla story. You want the humans to trigger Godzilla into attacking a particular city. But all you do is say humans attacked him with navy ships while he was out at sea and resting on the ocean floor. How and why does that make him go after a specific city?... At the risk of sounding snarky, good luck explaining that one.
Instead, how about Godzilla is attacked specifically off the coast of the city you're talking about? He's in Tokyo Bay just cruising and exploring his territory, not bothering the humans at all (or at least not trying to), and he's bombarded by aircraft firing air-to-surface missiles at him. And when they do so, they're coming at him from the direction of the city?
Ah haaaaa... Now we have some dynamic relations.
It's such a simple thing, no? Just have them come from the direction of the city when they attack, and bam. Godzilla attributes the aircraft with the city and makes landfall to exact his vengeance. Is he necessarily right that the city is responsible? No. Does it matter? No. Because the goal of this was to have him attack a specific city in a dynamic way.
Mission accomplished.
What about Godzilla's perspective? How does his attacking this specific city affect humans in a way that naturally progresses the story?
How about his attack on the city after being attacked triggers a protagonist organization, like Monarch, to notice that Godzilla reacted defensively and they petition the government to cease their attacks on Godzilla simply because he's in their coastal waters?
This is another dynamic interlocking moment of story. The government attacked Godzilla because he came too close to shore. Godzilla retaliated. The protags recognized his defensive retaliation and are trying to make things better for both sides. But the government won't hear it. They see a monster in their territory and think "kill it," regardless of the proof of defensive retaliation right in front of their faces.
This leads them to push for more attacks against Godzilla while at sea. And because there's no other targets than the ships and planes themselves, Godzilla remembers the last time these things came for him and he goes back to that city once again to lay waste to whatever's left after his first assault.
It's a natural back and forth.
Overly simple, and probably only good for a short film or short story of 100 pages or less. But it's a valid story formula.
Whatever the humans do directly affects and guides Godzilla forward. And what Godzilla does directly affects and guides humanity forward.
The Godzilla film which demonstrates this relationship the best is the original Gojira film of 1954, directed by Ishiro Honda. Every Godzilla appearance drives humanity to do something, which in turn drives Godzilla to react. Back and forth, back and forth until the end of the film with Serizawa and the Oxygen Destroyer. Is it perfect? No. But it's still the best example of the dynamic nature of the human and monster stories in the Godzilla franchise.
Concluding Thoughts
Ultimately, humans and monsters have existed in stories together for as long as humanity has had the creativity to put them side by side.
But today, in the modern world where we have the most access to technology for information and learning purposes, major film companies can't seem to get this rather simple relationship right.
Why? I don't know. It truly is a simple affair. Just make sure that what the humans do directly and dynamically correlates to how the monsters react and respond, and vice versa. The more the human and monster stories are separated from one another by circumstance and forced contrivances, the worse the stories become.
Take your time. Make sure they're dynamically linked and influence each other. And you'll be golden when writing your own monster stories.
Take a page from the book of Hollywood's failures, and avoid the mistakes they've made by putting parallel stories into forced conflict and forgetting to make their characters meaningful and impactful in the grand scheme of the story's narrative.
Cheers!
- GojiBean