Hero to Anti-Hero/Villain

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

I'm all for that. Godzilla being more villainous is a lot more interesting. It'd be great if he started to become that way due to actions cause by humanity, somehow.

[G2000]

I'd like him to remain a hero/antihero for these films. Not actively trying to destroy, but simply causing destruction by existing- and only retaliating when he truly feels threatened. This would still cause the military to oppose him, as even though he doesn't really mean to, he's still causing billions of dollars worth of proprety damage and killing thousands of people just from coming up on land, which makes them consider him a threat (and rightfully so). I'd save the actively evil, villanous stuff for enemy monsters.

[InstinctiveGigan]

Totally for that, humanity should look like more of a villian than some of the monsters he's bound to fight. I bet we're gonna do something to him in the future films that'll make him hate our guts.

[20th Century Boy]

Hmmm... Nah. Unless they cleverly tie it in with the story's themes, I see no point.

[junkerde]

mothra and the song of her people will make him look eeeevil

[Variola]

I hope not; Godzilla was great as an anti-hero, turning him into a straight villain would be less fun cos then I wouldn't be able to root for both him and the human characters.

[Godzilla21]

mothra and the song of her people will make him look eeeevil

You're welcome btw. Jeesh!

[HayesAJones]

No. The end of the movie established him as a force that not only we, the audience, can route for, but the people within the film as well. Which is ultimately what Gopdzilla is. He's the one we want to see, he's the one we want to win no matter what side he's on, so we may as well plop him on our side. Undoing that move would make the ending meaningless and pull the rug out from beneath the first movie entureky. (And before anyone brings up G3, Gammy was firmly reestablished as a hero at the end of that. His relationship with humanity was only questioned, not changed.)

This is one of the reasons I don't support Mothra from the sequel. Well, at least as an enemy. To have her be G's main adversary, they either have to reverse his initial characterization as a creature that allows for cohabitation or make Mothra the threat. Neither is a good option. So what we need is Ghidorah to be brought in as a galactic alpha predator to G's terrestrial alpha predator. Either that or something like Hedorah that threatens the health of the planet as a whole and thus repeats the events of the first film, though on a bigger, more dire scale.

And another thing: this Godzilla is NOT a hero. He plays a heroic role, yes, but he himself does not qualify as heroic. He did nothing to intentionally help human beings. He crushed the M.U.T.O. because they threatened him, not because they were causing havoc amongst some pathetic pink rats between his feet. He's the force of nature that he was in the Heisei films or "most powerful element in play" that he was in films like Vs. The Sea Monster.

Honestly, I think a lot of you guys are simply unhappy we got a neutral Godzilla instead of a antagonistic one. That's fine, there's a lot of Godzillas out there and the movie had to settle on one, so some people would bound to be disappointed, but just accept it- even if you do so bitterly- instead of trying to convince yourself and everyone else that things will change to the way you want.

(This... this isn't aimed at anyone in particular, so I hope no one takes offense. This is something I've been mulling over a while and this was just a good opportunity to vent. So, just label this as a angry rant if you don't agree and please ignore me. I just need to get this out.)

[Starsteam]

Unnecessary. Absolutely nothing wrong with him being a good guy and there are plenty of ways to develop the character.

Besides, it's not like Godzilla gets enough screen time to earn any development/joke.

[KJ Corp]

Villain Godzilla makes for better "oh shit!" moments.

[Starsteam]

Villain Godzilla makes for better "oh shit!" moments.

Or you could just have a good villain monster.
Cause I saw plenty of 'oh shit' moments from the MUTOs.

[Starsteam]

I just don't see where this whole 'He's going to become a villain' thing is coming from. How do you know what the sequels will be like? What if the plot requires him to continue saving the Earth from other monster threats? What if humans get a clue and stop bothering the poor creature.

I'm not trying to argue that it isn't a possibility. It wouldn't have mattered to me if he was good or bad in the first film, but now that the general audience has the basic idea of this Godzilla, why go switch it around?

[Mecha-SpaceGhidorah]

Beneficial (but not necessarily benevolent) force of nature Godzilla evolving to a more out right malevolent force of nature is the path I'd most like to see. I've posted my ideas of how they could do it while keeping in this storyline before; I don't think it would be too hard to go along that line.

EDIT: Here's what I've posted in the past about how I could see them doing it.

There can still be strong opponent monsters for Godzilla to fight, but after the events of the first film, government (both U.S. and international) pressure start to morph Monarch into a more militaristic organization. This puts Graham and Serizawa a bit out of the loop and at odds with the top brass. If they keep Stenz as well (and I hope they do), he might be the one trying to keep them involved (if for no other reason than the respect he got for them during the first movie). The second film shows that the desire to kill Godzilla may not be totally wrong, in that in order to kill the second monster he ends up doing very large scale damage. Near the end a new weapon is developed that doesn't manage to do any long term damage to Godzilla but it shows him that we may, in fact, be a potential threat and shows Monarch/the governments/the militaries that they are on the right track.

The third film can follow Godzilla being the "destroy of [our] worlds." Now we are considered a threat and he's fully antagonistic to us. Whatever other monster he's also fighting gives Serizawa (who over the course of the last two films has become increasingly disillusioned with Monarch's work, and perhaps humanity in general) the time to finish his work on the anti-Godzilla weapon. The question becomes, can he bring himself to do it. Will he sabotage his own research and let Godzilla destroy the short-sighted, violent animals he's come to see us as; or will he use the weapon on Godzilla in hopes of a humanity building a better tomorrow but at the risk of opening another Pandora's box and maybe stopping someone else's pocket watch in the process…?

[Zillamon51]

I want this series to go on as long as possible. Therefore, they shouldn't mess with what works about G'14, they should improve what didn't. The villain / antihero Godzilla may be the most popular among fans, and that overall angle may be "in" now as a Hollywood trend, but it only really works in small doses. It works for Godzilla because people are inclined to root for him regardless of circumstances. But if that gets stretched out for too long, the Big G loses a lot deal of appeal. (Why do you think the Showa series went on longer than the darker Heisei and Millennium combined?) One of the things that made this movie a hit was that it unexpectedly gave people (general audiences) what they wanted: A good-guy Godzilla. A Godzilla they could root for when he fought, and cheer for when he won. The Godzilla they remember from their childhood, treated seriously and upgraded with big-budget VFX. That Godzilla is now established as the standard going forward. Arbitrarily change it and people will tune out. No one wants Spider-Man or Wolverine or the Avengers to turn bad. And they don't want it for Godzilla now, either.

[kaijumaikeru]

-post removed-

[Shisa Caesar]

If they want to have character development they are going to need to not get the help of the US military which puts limits on how they can be shown.

[Dorkzilla]

Something similar to Gamera's character development throughout the Heisei Gamera trilogy would be great.

[HayesAJones]

Something similar to Gamera's character development throughout the Heisei Gamera trilogy would be great.

That's another thing. Pulling the "heroic to pseudo-villainous" role switcheroo would just be retreading old territory. Gamera's already done it and, having rewatched Guardian of the Universe a few days ago, I think that would be a bad idea since Godzilla chasing down the M.U.T.O. already rings pretty close to Gammy hunting the Gyaos. I'm not saying that Godzilla ripped it off or even took inspiration from Gamera, it could very well just be a coincidence, but adding more similarities still wouldn't be good.

[gzilla46]

Something similar to Gamera's character development throughout the Heisei Gamera trilogy would be great.

That's another thing. Pulling the "heroic to pseudo-villainous" role switcheroo would just be retreading old territory. Gamer's already done it and, having rewatched Guardian of the Universe a few days ago, I think that would be a bad idea since Godzilla chasing down the M.U.T.O. already rings pretty close to Gammy hunting the Gyaos. I'm not saying that Godzilla ripped it off or even took inspiration from Gamera, it could very well just be a coincidence, but adding more similarities still wouldn't be good.

Funny things, the premise of G2014 reminded me a little bit of Gamera. Am I the only one who thinks this?

[HayesAJones]

Funny things, the premise of G2014 reminded me a little bit of Gamera. Am I the only one who thinks this?

Nope.

... having rewatched Guardian of the Universe a few days ago, I think that would be a bad idea since Godzilla chasing down the M.U.T.O. already rings pretty close to Gammy hunting the Gyaos.