"Godzilla Vs Kong: New Empire" And Its Potential New Villain. Great or Disappointing?

*Waves with a silly toothy grin*

Time for a segment called "Upcoming Movie Dragon Insights!".

So for our first official blog post I thought we would cover something near and dear to my heart.  The upcoming GvK New Empire movie.  The trailer for it recently dropped a few days ago, and if you haven't seen it I suggest you stop reading and go check it out below. 

 

Most people who know me know that I love Godzilla.  I squealed with glee the moment the big guys tail started lighting up in the smoke and dust during the 2014 movie.  Chills ran down my spine when Monarch faced off against him and Serizawa gave them the order to stand down in the face of his lightshow.  Then drove my wife mad with all of my incessant whispering about this thing or that thing coming back from Godzilla's past in GvK, especially when I saw Kevin's skull!  I have movie posters from the older films hanging on the walls beside me now!  

Needless to say, I'm a pretty big fan.

So what I want to do now is break down the teaser trailer, and then follow that up with my thoughts on the potential direction of the plot line, how I would have preferred the studio had taken it, and finally my thoughts on the apparent new big baddy of the film.

As the trailer starts we are introduced to the silhouette of this new titan that at first glance appears to be a relative of Kong sitting on a throne.  We sweep out from there to see the bones of many fallen enemies and stop on the skulls of a Godzilla and a Kong, implying that this new titan may have been responsible for the war between their species long ago or that it killed both species.  This then cuts to the title which is done in a kind of Marvel-esque font before cutting back to a closeup of the new titans face.  Finally we end on the vague release date of 2024.

Taking all of that in, let me say this.

I'm not thrilled with this decision or this trailer.

The decision to go with this new titan appears to be an attempt to explain the war between the Godzillas and Kongs teased in Godzilla VS Kong.  There were plenty of hints about what happened, offering a clear and definitive route for future movies, however the plot line of GvK also made that story line feel pretty redundant with the mutual respect that Godzilla and Kong appeared to have in the end.  And I know the studio said that they didn't want to have a decisive winner in that match up but if you watched the movie with any kind of objective view, Godzilla was clearly the victor in every confrontation, even after Kong received the axe, Godzilla literally stomped him to death and it was only the intervention of the humans in the movie that saved him.  So that said, I highly doubt that Kong would be willing to test his luck as second time to play out the whole war storyline.  

There has been plenty of setup for other storylines as well.  The one I believe holds the most merit would be one involving Destroyah or some variant of him. The between-film comics set this up as a possibility, along with the Oxygen destroyer having been used in King of the Monsters, which fans of the older films will remember was the origins for Destroyah.  

I also liked the potential for a new Space Godzilla origin story.  This one however would be a little bit harder to explain because Godzilla hasn't really had any DNA launched into space or anything.  A revamp of his story could make this something that happened millennia ago or something I suppose.  

Now, for the potential new big baddy.  I don't like it.  Kong is supposed to be the Ape titan.  Not to mention there was absolutely nothing in previous films that lead up to this new titan.  I have seen some comments on posts about this stating that the writers wanted a villain that could be more intelligent than Kong, but that is something many of the foes of Godzilla have.  The aforementioned Space Godzilla, Destroyah, Ghidora, all extremely intelligent and known to be devious and full of malice. This all said, there is no real gaurantee that this new titan is actually a villain. As with GvK's Mechagodzilla, there is always the potential to have the true villain be a mystery until the right moment. 

Obviously I am still excited for a new Godzilla movie, and while I can not really endorse the track that they are taking so far, I also admit that I do not really have enough information at this point to make a complete judgement about the plot.  I will wait with baited breath in the hopes that it will develop into a story that will be truly entertaining.  

This has been the first segment of UMDI! 

*Waves with a paw, wing, and tail*