Toho Kingdom

Legitimately curious on what all your thoughts are, but am I the only one that’s not the biggest fan of all the “alpha” stuff? Part of the reason why I think the Showa and Heisei Godzilla was cool was because he was just strong, and didn’t need humans hyping him up using monikers like alpha. It’s one of those things where I feel like actions speak louder then words.

It also is annoying because I sort of don’t like Godzilla being the definitive leader or head monster. While it’s true that Godzilla was most likely the strongest monster in Monsterland in DAM, he was never treated as the de facto leader.

I think the Showa series maybe called him KOTM maybe once or twice, and that might have been the dubs. I think all the Queen of the monsters shit is just as riduclous; one of the reasons I liked Mothra again was likening her to a kami god. King and Queen attributes way too much personification to these versions of the monsters.

Queen of the Monsters was completely undeserved in the context of the story, but I absolutely love the Alpha/King concept.

Gives them an Animalistic Regalness, and gives a new meaning to the term "Animal Kingdom".

They feel real yet godly.

_JNavs_ wrote:Queen of the Monsters was completely undeserved in the context of the story, but I absolutely love the Alpha/King concept.

Gives them an Animalistic Regalness, and gives a new meaning to the term "Animal Kingdom".

They feel real yet godly.

vice versa. A pack can not consist of different species. I very much hope that Wingard will forget about it and the monsters will once again be mostly lonely, and packs will be only inside the species. It will be even more interesting

I honestly love the idea of Godzilla being an alpha in this sense. The idea of him having to defend his title and being in control of a horde of monsters gives that kingly vibe, which fits for me!

In this particular interpretation, I think it works amazingly. Would it work for every Godzilla? No. I think this version works with how they establish the Titans and their dynamics. I can’t see, say, Heisei Godzilla doing this. But, hey. I like it for what it is!

We saw this in the Showa series in vs Gigan and clearly shown in DAM that Godzilla lives and “rules” over Monster Island, even with kaiju such as Kamacarus and Kumonga who tried to eat his kid. Hell even a Mothra larvae who at one point he tried to eat. Godzilla creating some order and balance to kaiju is not new. I think what was new is the human perspective and explanation of it. This film does the same but with a more detailed look and explanation from the human perspective.

I wouldn’t even call it inconsistent with the previous film. The two MUTO appearing was an anomaly relative to the rest of the Titan world. At that time is was Skull Island (isolated from the rest of the world) and Godzilla, contained Titans and relatively neutral predator. The MUTOs appeared because of human meddling and upset that order, immediately going to try and breed an entire nest of MUTO. That would be a huge threat to Godzilla and the rest of the Titan population because Kong could maybe handle one MUTO but not two or more. Godzilla hunted them down actively, they were never after him and were always running away from him.

The NuMUTO as some are calling her, appears with the rest of the Titans and is without a mate. I doubt Godzilla feels threatened by her nor is worried about overpopulation because Scylla, Rodan, and others would probably eat the majority of her offspring. Also the guy with tusks could probably take down an adult MUTO if so inclined. With all the Titans awake Godzilla doesn’t have to be the only predator out there to keep MUTOs in check. Their ecosystem is balanced now they are all active.

I'm on board. LSD, you say you don't like the Alpha concept because it was never used before, but I say that's the point. One of my favorite aspects of not only this movie is that while it does rely very heavily on what came before, to its detriment in some areas, it (and the Monsterverse overall) isn't afraid to blaze its own trail, too. Godzilla has been referred to as the King of the Monsters since 1956, but pretty much exclusively outside the actual movies. This is a bold new direction to move in, making him for the first time a literal king of the monsters, actually exercising authority and control over the others. It's unexplored territory and we don't know what it will mean going forward, and that's exciting.

Does it anthropomorphize the monsters to a large degree? Sure, but can't that be a good thing? Haven't we always bemoaned the fact that Western audiences assume Godzilla is nothing but a generic overgrown lizard, motivated by instinct and trying to lay eggs in Madison Square Garden? If going this far in the other direction doesn't cement Godzilla and the rest of the Toho pantheon as characters rather than mindless obstacles or plot devices, nothing will.

I will give you that Queen of the Monsters was absurd in the context of this series, though. I was definitely rolling my eyes when that line came up.

I hate this!

Added in 5 minutes 33 seconds:

JAGzilla wrote: Does it anthropomorphize the monsters to a large degree? Sure, but can't that be a good thing? Haven't we always bemoaned the fact that Western audiences assume Godzilla is nothing but a generic overgrown lizard, motivated by instinct and trying to lay eggs in Madison Square Garden? If going this far in the other direction doesn't cement Godzilla and the rest of the Toho pantheon as characters rather than mindless obstacles or plot devices, nothing will.

Why immediately such extremes? Need a golden mean, which was shown in the film in 2014. And here is another show with talking monsters.

JAGzilla wrote: Does it anthropomorphize the monsters to a large degree? Sure, but can't that be a good thing?

How would all that "alpha" thing work when there is a population for each titan species? Did they follow their own pack leaders? And now feel the urge to do the same, but since there are only one of each... Those two ideas don't realy mesh with each other - in older movies they could have been too human, because vast majority of monsters were one of a kind special snowflakes - aliens, mutants, gods etc. But they are supposed to be part of natural ecosystem now, aren't they? At least, that was explicitly said in G14. KoTM kinda sorta silently retcons that.

One of the end credit newspaper clippings says "Godzilla keeps Titan in check; King of the Monsters defends cities from attacks, keeps 'natural order'."

So it seems like Godzilla is indeed the King, not just of the Titans but of the entire Earth. And he must protect all of his subjects, including humans of which he seems to have a particularly affinity for.

Dogherty destroyed MonsterVese

Olzh26 wrote:A pack can not consist of different species.

Actually, yes it can. We spent thousands of years shaping and exploiting that.

Almost every domesticated animal we have, we have because we were able to use and abuse their natural pack or herd mentalitiesto our own ends. Further, the humans in charge of a group of animals is the alpha. We've even managed to get some, admittedly very limited, further blending of multiple species together. Using our domesticated dogs (of which we are the head of the pack) to help direct our domesticated livestock (of which we are the head of the herd).

SunFelix320 wrote:

JAGzilla wrote: Does it anthropomorphize the monsters to a large degree? Sure, but can't that be a good thing?

How would all that "alpha" thing work when there is a population for each titan species? Did they follow their own pack leaders? And now feel the urge to do the same, but since there are only one of each... Those two ideas don't realy mesh with each other - in older movies they could have been too human, because vast majority of monsters were one of a kind special snowflakes - aliens, mutants, gods etc. But they are supposed to be part of natural ecosystem now, aren't they? At least, that was explicitly said in G14. KoTM kinda sorta silently retcons that.

What Mecha-SpaceGhidorah said, pretty much. And there are of course any number of cases of animals of different species befriending or working with one another. The kaiju being at least semi-sentient is a factor there, too, since they can make their own decisions instead of just following instinct.

Mecha-SpaceGhidorah wrote:

Olzh26 wrote:A pack can not consist of different species.

Actually, yes it can. We spent thousands of years shaping and exploiting that.

Almost every domesticated animal we have, we have because we were able to use and abuse their natural pack or herd mentalitiesto our own ends. Further, the humans in charge of a group of animals is the alpha. We've even managed to get some, admittedly very limited, further blending of multiple species together. Using our domesticated dogs (of which we are the head of the pack) to help direct our domesticated livestock (of which we are the head of the herd).

man spent a thousand years on it. let's get a better example from the wild. when animals from different species walked in a pack

I fully concede that I don't know of any fully natural mutli-species packs/herds/pod/etc. in anything like the degree shown or implied in G:KotM. You're going to have to apply some willing suspension of disbelief here. That said, I can point again to our usage and domestication of animals as a more "natural" version of it. Yes, as we have it now took us all of human history to get to, but we were only ever able to start because wild wolves and sheep and cows and horses and goats and llamas and all the others could give us even a little ground on which we were able to get an initial foothold. Again, what's shown in the film is orders of magnitude different, but it is a fiction, we can push the "reality" for the sake of the story we want to tell and the ideas we want to front.

_JNavs_ wrote:Queen of the Monsters was completely undeserved in the context of the story, but I absolutely love the Alpha/King concept.

Gives them an Animalistic Regalness, and gives a new meaning to the term "Animal Kingdom".

They feel real yet godly.

Given her unique symbiotic relationship with Godzilla in this movie I think it's somewhat deserved. As hard-to-believe as the moth-patterned nuclear pulse is, it's the culmination of their symbiosis.

the problem is not even that it is not grounded. You see, it is very strange when in the first film they said that Muto and Godzilla are natural enemies, to see in the second film how Muto recognizes Godzilla as an alpha

The MUTO might well just recognize Godzilla as something that will kick her ass into next week if she doesn't comply. When an elephant tells a lion to get out of the way, the lion gets the hell out of the way, you know?

JAGzilla wrote:The MUTO might well just recognize Godzilla as something that will kick her ass into next week if she doesn't comply. When an elephant tells a lion to get out of the way, the lion gets the hell out of the way, you know?

The lion is get out of the way, but he does not comply. if Muto is just afraid of Godzilla then I will be fine with this

Yeah Godzilla was giving the "Who's next?/Anyone else?" kind of staredown

Olzh26 wrote:

_JNavs_ wrote:Queen of the Monsters was completely undeserved in the context of the story, but I absolutely love the Alpha/King concept.

Gives them an Animalistic Regalness, and gives a new meaning to the term "Animal Kingdom".

They feel real yet godly.

vice versa. A pack can not consist of different species. I very much hope that Wingard will forget about it and the monsters will once again be mostly lonely, and packs will be only inside the species. It will be even more interesting

I really get the feeling that, with some monsters heading to Skull Island in the credits, that some monsters follow Kong and some follow Godzilla. I'm not really thrilled with that, if that's how it goes, but I'd be willing to see where they take it if true.

Hopefully the don't leak the whole skreeonking movie 9 months before it releases this time.