How would you have edited King of The Monsters?

[BlankAccount]

I'd like to mention that there's no breaks at all in the film for anything. It all feels like it's happening in one day, which doesn't really work. I'm not really sure how that would be fixed other than completely redoing the movie.

Agreed.

I enjoyed the movie but I also got a headache from lack of breathing room or breaks and even missed stuff cause I'm reading posts and thinking "I don't remember that." It's not the movie doesn't have cool set-pieces, it's that they happen to close together to process them all at once.

To be honest, I preferred the pacing of the 2014 movie. People complained that it was boring, and I agree in some aspects, but it allowed you to get a chance to absorb what you had seen. Time passes in that film and it's noticeable. Here, it almost feels like we're seeing everything in real-time for some reason, and everyone has ADHD.

I didn't even think the screentime or pacing was the problem, it was too much teasing. Like damn I get what Gareth was going for but even in 1954 when Godzilla first uses his atomic breath on the power lines the movie stopped teasing after that.

[TheInfiniteAeon]

This movie was felt so Heisei or even Millennium that I'm disappointed there was no beam clash. They should've had one!

The Rodan vs. Ghidorah fight I felt we got short-changed there, we should've seen more of that! I expected Rodan to lose but not that fast. If they fought longer it would've made his surrender to Ghidorah more impactful. Also we shouldn't have to see that surrender on a computer screen, I want to see Rodan's face as he begrudgingly submits to his new alpha.

I feel like Mothra should've regrouped with Godzilla at his revival. That sky beam was supposed to be a call to arms when Mike first described it but Mothra didn't show up. Given how they've said she has a symbiotic relationship with him that would've solidified it before her energy transference death.

[LSD Jellyfish]

This movie was felt so Heisei or even Millennium that I'm disappointed there was no beam clash. They should've had one!

The Rodan vs. Ghidorah fight I felt we got short-changed there, we should've seen more of that! I expected Rodan to lose but not that fast. If they fought longer it would've made his surrender to Ghidorah more impactful. Also we shouldn't have to see that surrender on a computer screen, I want to see Rodan's face as he begrudgingly submits to his new alpha.

I feel like Mothra should've regrouped with Godzilla at his revival. That sky beam was supposed to be a call to arms when Mike first described it but Mothra didn't show up. Given how they've said she has a symbiotic relationship with him that would've solidified it before her energy transference death.

I wanted to bring that up badly.

I was shocked that despite Godzilla and Ghidorah having beams, and using them effectively throughout, they didn’t even have a beam lock. The film had more then enough melee action to justify it.

[BlankAccount]

Another thing? Change drop Godzilla from the title and make it just King of the Monsters.

This movie was felt so Heisei or even Millennium that I'm disappointed there was no beam clash. They should've had one!

It happens once very briefly.

[Olzh26]

would remove the concept of pack of titans and alpha titan

Can you elaborate on why a little bit? I'm not the biggest fan of the idea either, but I would fix other problems in the movie first.

because the concept of a pack of titans turns the interspecific relations of these superspecies into a mess

[TheInfiniteAeon]

Here's a changeup I would do for the humans:

Sam’s role replaced by Graham. Graham doesn't die.

Lengthen the Senate scene. Have Stenz mention that anti-Titan weapons are being developed. Show a schematic of the Oxygen Destroyer on the screen.

After the Oxygen Destroyer is used, have Serizawa and Stenz stand on the helipad in Castle Bravo. Serizawa grills Stenz over using it and the consequences it will cause. They're the first ones to see Mothra come down from above so it gives Serizawa a literal glimmer of hope. Maybe Graham calls them both from the door to tell them Godzilla is alive. Stenz leads the submarine mission to find Godzilla.

When it's time for Serizawa's sacrifice, Serizawa gets to say goodbye to both Stenz and Graham.

[LSD Jellyfish]

Here's a changeup I would do for the humans:

Sam’s role replaced by Graham. Graham doesn't die.

Lengthen the Senate scene. Have Stenz mention that anti-Titan weapons are being developed. Show a schematic of the Oxygen Destroyer on the screen.

After the Oxygen Destroyer is used, have Serizawa and Stenz stand on the helipad in Castle Bravo. Serizawa grills Stenz over using it and the consequences it will cause. They're the first ones to see Mothra come down from above so it gives Serizawa a literal glimmer of hope. Maybe Graham calls them both from the door to tell them Godzilla is alive. Stenz leads the submarine mission to find Godzilla.

When it's time for Serizawa's sacrifice, Serizawa gets to say goodbye to both Stenz and Graham.

Holy shit, the whole Oxygen Destroyer scene would`ve been waaay less egregious if Stenz brought that up so early on in the film. But agreed. Its weird because Stenz reminds me of a heisei/showa era military guy. They keep making cameos in films but aren`t really important minus a few lines. Despite him being a generic military guy I was actually seeing him, even if briefly.

[TheInfiniteAeon]

I still don't know how to rectify the whole family drama part. I do know, however, that if we're still going with Maddie using the stadium speakers to broadcast the Orca signal she shouldn't have delayed in disconnecting and turning it off. She can still be delayed by the impact of Ghidorah's landing and but she shouldn't be standing still. Maybe she's running past a windowed room when Ghidorah spots her or I don't know maybe just crawl away so he doesn't spot her! Ghidorah's frustration at not finding the source is enough justification for him to still tear up the place with gravity beams.

[vibramrunner]

Spoiler:

Remove the Oxygen Destroyer completely. Seriously it's a pretty big deal of a weapon, even Godzilla vs Destroyer never brought it back, just mention it, and here it's just used like a random plot device.

King Ghidorah is supposed to be this huge threat even Godzilla struggles with, right? Have him injury Godzilla like 1974 Mechagodzilla did, and he has to retreat to recover. The Antarctica fight was the prefect place to have him be injured.

This. I would've had Rodan be the first monster to awaken, so would could have a had a couple genuine city destruction scenes that also demonstrate the loss of life these things cause, and then have Rodan fly north and help Ghidorah defeat Godzilla in the Antarctica fight. Then have Mothra awaken (from cocoon -- no need for larva Mothra), or be awakened by Millie, Chandler or Vera, to even the fight.

[Your Boy Leroy]

I think the first fight in the blizzard was my personal favorite of the movie. I found it to be the most well-balanced between the monsters and the human action. The shots lingered on the monsters long enough to introduce them, plus give good glimpses of the battle without blowing its load too quickly. Add in the Ghidorah and Godzilla entrances, and this was an excellent intro battle.

The Mexico battle between Godzilla and Ghidorah was short, but given the great Rodan scenes right before that, I was okay with the length. However, I would’ve appreciated another shot or two of Godzilla that actually established entered the battle. The shots where he enters the fight were so quick and close that it was hard to see if he was even there. Otherwise, it was a great action scene.

The last battle is the one I had the most issues with. As many have said, the film cuts back and forth between the humans and the monster battle a little too much. G’14 did this too, but when that film cut back to the monsters, they were wider and lingered long enough to establish what was going on. It wasn’t too bad in this film, and I love close-ups during action scenes, but close-ups are used best alongside wider shots. They can accentuate the action scene to give it mor depth. With the finale here, I felt the close-ups dominated. All in all, while I loved the movie itself, I couldn’t help but feel conflicted about the final battle.

I don’t even know where to begin with the human stuff. There are many complaints about there being too many characters. While I didn’t have a hard time keeping track of who’s who, I did feel that from the middle to the end that some of the characters were redundant. For example, the Sam character was good at first and wasn’t annoying like I had feared he would be. But after the Mexico scene, he has nothing to do. I would’ve liked to have seen the Admiral character from G’14 have a stronger presence, but I got the feeling he didn’t want to be in this movie anyway (same with Sally Hawkins’ character).

[Pkmatrix]

I'll be very interested to see what sort of deleted scenes may be on the Blu-Ray. Aside from the report of a 3 hour cut, we already know from people who reported from test screenings that the Senate scene was added to replace additional talking scenes leading up to Antarctica in an effort to speed up the movie and that the scene where they find Madison in the ruined house was trimmed. I'm curious if a slower-paced and shorter film could be created using some of the deleted scenes, since I honestly struggle a bit trying to figure out how to slow it down as it is.

[GuardianGhido]

Couple of wide shots, give Millie Bobby Brown and Charles Dance bigger roles with more lines, leave a little breathing room for those who can't keep up with the plot.

But more importantly remove the whole Oxygen Destroyer thing and make it so that King Ghidorah defeats Godzilla on his own and this time (supposedly) finishes the job before leaving, draining/electocuting/choking Godzilla to the point where he goes into shock and his heart stops before Mothra comes over to restart it. This not only removes all the stupidity revolving around the OD but makes it clear that Godzilla is no match for King Ghidorah without any help, establishing Ghiddy as the terrifying threat he's supposed to be.

[Pkmatrix]

Couple of wide shots, give Millie Bobby Brown and Charles Dance bigger roles with more lines, leave a little breathing room for those who can't keep up with the plot.

But more importantly remove the whole Oxygen Destroyer thing and make it so that King Ghidorah defeats Godzilla on his own and this time (supposedly) finishes the job before leaving, draining/electocuting/choking Godzilla to the point where he goes into shock and his heart stops before Mothra comes over to restart it. This not only removes all the stupidity revolving around the OD but makes it clear that Godzilla is no match for King Ghidorah without any help, establishing Ghiddy as the terrifying threat he's supposed to be.

But...that's not a different edit, that's rewriting the film?

[GuardianGhido]

Couple of wide shots, give Millie Bobby Brown and Charles Dance bigger roles with more lines, leave a little breathing room for those who can't keep up with the plot.

But more importantly remove the whole Oxygen Destroyer thing and make it so that King Ghidorah defeats Godzilla on his own and this time (supposedly) finishes the job before leaving, draining/electocuting/choking Godzilla to the point where he goes into shock and his heart stops before Mothra comes over to restart it. This not only removes all the stupidity revolving around the OD but makes it clear that Godzilla is no match for King Ghidorah without any help, establishing Ghiddy as the terrifying threat he's supposed to be.

But...that's not a different edit, that's rewriting the film?

Oh I guess I went too far with a mere edit then, sorry. You could at least give some more background to the OD though.

[Pkmatrix]

Couple of wide shots, give Millie Bobby Brown and Charles Dance bigger roles with more lines, leave a little breathing room for those who can't keep up with the plot.

But more importantly remove the whole Oxygen Destroyer thing and make it so that King Ghidorah defeats Godzilla on his own and this time (supposedly) finishes the job before leaving, draining/electocuting/choking Godzilla to the point where he goes into shock and his heart stops before Mothra comes over to restart it. This not only removes all the stupidity revolving around the OD but makes it clear that Godzilla is no match for King Ghidorah without any help, establishing Ghiddy as the terrifying threat he's supposed to be.

But...that's not a different edit, that's rewriting the film?

Oh I guess I went too far with a mere edit then, sorry. You could at least give some more background to the OD though.

I agree, and I'm hoping there's some more in the deleted scenes because it's introduced and then discarded as a plot point far FAR too fast. Giving Brown and Dance more is only going to be possible if there's some deleted scenes with them (fingers crossed!), but cutting Oxygen Destroyer if you want should be possible with some clever editing to just make it look like Ghidorah won the fight outright.

[MegaEvilSaurus666]

Couple of wide shots, give Millie Bobby Brown and Charles Dance bigger roles with more lines, leave a little breathing room for those who can't keep up with the plot.

But more importantly remove the whole Oxygen Destroyer thing and make it so that King Ghidorah defeats Godzilla on his own and this time (supposedly) finishes the job before leaving, draining/electocuting/choking Godzilla to the point where he goes into shock and his heart stops before Mothra comes over to restart it. This not only removes all the stupidity revolving around the OD but makes it clear that Godzilla is no match for King Ghidorah without any help, establishing Ghiddy as the terrifying threat he's supposed to be.

That would help the pacing a lot, and give the monsters more power in the plot. It's weird when several people come to the same conclusion, because I and a few other users said basically the same thing.

On the previous page, I mentioned that it would've probably helped if Ghidorah's call had awakened Rodan, along with the other titans. Then, Rodan rebels against Ghidorah, only to be taken out. This gives Rodan more personality, better establishes the dominance battle (although I dislike the "alpha titan" concept), and gives less control to people like Emma Russell.

I got the sense in this movie that, despite the personalities and strength of the monsters, they don't really get to have as much effectiveness on the plot itself. They don't have much of a dynamic. Human drama sets up monster action too many times in this movie, and not the other way around. In Godzilla 2014 (1999 mining operation aside), and Godzilla movies of old, the monsters set the action themselves. For example, "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster." Humanity reacts, giving the monsters a scarier sense of control, and sets them up as forces of nature. The film's approach isn't terrible, but I feel it could've been written stronger.

But...that's not a different edit, that's rewriting the film?

Because it has some issues that ultimately go back to writing. The pacing of this film depended upon the writing. Too much is included. It's hard to fix it without making any changes to the plot.

Now, ignoring my comment above, my more minor edits would be slowing down the monsters by 0.75x in some shots, editing the sound effects (the classic Godzilla roar felt out of place, and the Mothra chirp in the blasts from Godzilla at the end), just cutting Vivienne Graham out altogether (that's probably the only way to fix her death), cutting the jokes (plus that fortune cookie line). Add some extended scenes (whatever they are). Charles Dance and Millie Bobby Brown don't have enough to do in the movie, so if there's deleted scenes with them, add it.

[Gailah 1966]

My re-edit would kill the whole mainstream capability of this movie. But if Legendary pictures calls me I will write an exiting stroy and do the direction work.

[GodzillaFan1990's]

I guess the only things I would had done was give Mothra an bigger role and Madison having some connection to her as Mothra had with the Shoijins in previous Godzilla films.

[MrRockett]

I actually think extending the government scene and having it explain that the oxygen destroyer is an option now so it doesn’t show up out of the blue is a good call. But I think they could’ve done differently though is in the first battle stretch it out a little longer make it a little more brutal to wear Godzilla does get beaten pretty soundly to where he has to retreat into the ocean.

Ghidorah Takes off to go wreak havoc as well as Rodan who picks up on Gidorah’s presence and heads off to engage him like the prick that he is. They both battle with Rodan actually getting a few good shots in and causing the damage to lefty instead of Godzilla. It would show Rodan has some major value especially when he then loses and surrenders to Ghidorah.

So here’s the twist get Ghidorah’s head doesn’t begin to regenerate right away. And since there is no Godzilla the military decides to hit them with the oxygen destroyer which unfortunately has limited affect on either aside from it somehow accelerating the regeneration capabilities of Ghidorah. Not as fast in the movie but by the time we get to the final battle it is completing its regeneration.

At this point everybody assumes Godzilla is dead just like the movie but since his breath skyward is not a beacon, after the nuke, we get nothing...even hovering Mothra thinks he’s dead and her bioluminescence reflects that feeling so they leave, defeated.

That’s when the question of is there another monster that can stand up, no our hope is dead, not we killed him.

You have Rodan and KG destroy Washington etc (make it over the course of days, like how many times in Toho films we see the monsters just trashing cities...all hope is lost and then Mothra arrives heroically to try and hold off both KG and Rodan. She holds her own but eventually gets caught in the melee and is about to be finished when (then we get the atomic blast out of nowhere knocking KG over like in the movie (that part was well done in the movie but) instead of his beam being blue, it should have been red as he returns and is already red which would explain their concern about him melting down.) He’s supercharged and Has to expend his energy to not explode.
He starts to get the upper hand but Rodan keeps chicken shit blind siding him (call to Hokmuto) so a dying Mothra, seeing Goji’s only chance is a 1 on 1 and with the sneaky Rodan circling for a full speed death strike, we see Rodan approaching and suddenly go limp with the stinger and toxins causing both he and a spent Mothra to crash at Mach 2 into the city leveling everything.
That’s when G goes for the death stomp final assault to finish KG.
It does take everything out of him and Mothra in her last act, finally releases her energy to revive him. Then we have the gathering st the end.

[GuardianGhido]

I actually think extending the government scene and having it explain that the oxygen destroyer is an option now so it doesn’t show up out of the blue is a good call. But I think they could’ve done differently though is in the first battle stretch it out a little longer make it a little more brutal to wear Godzilla does get beaten pretty soundly to where he has to retreat into the ocean.

Ghidorah Takes off to go wreak havoc as well as Rodan who picks up on Gidorah’s presence and heads off to engage him like the prick that he is. They both battle with Rodan actually getting a few good shots in and causing the damage to lefty instead of Godzilla. It would show Rodan has some major value especially when he then loses and surrenders to Ghidorah.

So here’s the twist get Ghidorah’s head doesn’t begin to regenerate right away. And since there is no Godzilla the military decides to hit them with the oxygen destroyer which unfortunately has limited affect on either aside from it somehow accelerating the regeneration capabilities of Ghidorah. Not as fast in the movie but by the time we get to the final battle it is completing its regeneration.

At this point everybody assumes Godzilla is dead just like the movie but since his breath skyward is not a beacon, after the nuke, we get nothing...even hovering Mothra thinks he’s dead and her bioluminescence reflects that feeling so they leave, defeated.

That’s when the question of is there another monster that can stand up, no our hope is dead, not we killed him.

You have Rodan and KG destroy Washington etc (make it over the course of days, like how many times in Toho films we see the monsters just trashing cities...all hope is lost and then Mothra arrives heroically to try and hold off both KG and Rodan. She holds her own but eventually gets caught in the melee and is about to be finished when (then we get the atomic blast out of nowhere knocking KG over like in the movie (that part was well done in the movie but) instead of his beam being blue, it should have been red as he returns and is already red which would explain their concern about him melting down.) He’s supercharged and Has to expend his energy to not explode.
He starts to get the upper hand but Rodan keeps chicken poop blind siding him (call to Hokmuto) so a dying Mothra, seeing Goji’s only chance is a 1 on 1 and with the sneaky Rodan circling for a full speed death strike, we see Rodan approaching and suddenly go limp with the stinger and toxins causing both he and a spent Mothra to crash at Mach 2 into the city leveling everything.
That’s when G goes for the death stomp final assault to finish KG.
It does take everything out of him and Mothra in her last act, finally releases her energy to revive him. Then we have the gathering st the end.

I like the idea of letting Rodan take off one of Ghiddy's heads but disagree with some other points:

A. I don't think Godzilla would ever retreat from fighting Ghidorah even if he was dying. And even if he did retreat, KG wouldn't leave him alone if he had an advantage, he'd hunt down and finish him off unless he was also badly hurt.

B. I get KG not being affected by the Oxygen Destroyer, but his regen being accelerated by it makes zero sense. It's supposed to be a weapon that destroys all biomatter, I don't think any chemical used could actually enhance KG's alien abilities.

C. Why would Godzilla NOT show up after being supercharged by a nuke? He's not the kind of Kaiju to trick everyone else into assuming him dead and arrive all of a sudden (at least not on purpose). At the very least, he'd let Mothra know he was alive and subsequently Monarch would know as well.

And last but definitely not least:

D. Rodan is not a prick.