Mechagodzilla メカゴジラ [MonsterVerse]

In 2014, Godzilla made himself known to the world. As the MUTO menace attacked several locations, Godzilla followed the male and female of the species in an effort to stop them. Eventually, the King of the Monsters was successful, where as humanity had failed to dispatch the MUTO.

The relatively powerless position humanity was in against these giant titans didn't go unnoticed. Despite the fact that Godzilla had proved to be a protector, a company set out to dethrone him and place humanity back as the dominant force the world over. Apex Cybernetics, under the guidance of its founder Walter Simmons, began planning a weapon that could challenge the titans.

Years of work was poured into the project, all in secrecy. The bulk of the construction took place at the Apex facilities in Pensacola, Florida and at Victoria Peak Mountain in Hong Kong. Eventually the weapon they were seeking was envisioned as a giant machine, a Mechagodzilla. This robot, larger than the real Godzilla, was outfitted with a variety of weapons. This included a powerful laser beam, missile launchers, a drill tail and the ability to charge its body parts with energy as a form of attack. Controlling the mammoth machine proved a challenge. A series of technicians were in charge of booting up Mechagodzilla, but an effective way to quickly maneuver and attack was needed if the war machine was to be successful against titans.

The solution to controlling Mechagodzilla appeared in an unusual place. In 2019, following a battle between Godzilla and King Ghidorah, one of the three-headed monster's necks became severed. This caused the head to fall into the nearby waters around Isla de Mara. This head was then recovered and sold to Alan Jonah, who was largely responsible for releasing the three-headed terror. Through some turn of events, Apex Cybernetics got its hands on these remains. From them, they setup Ghidorah's skull as a living supercomputer and neural interface. This was achieved through taking advantage of the telepathic ability of King Ghidorah, as the three heads used this as a way to communicate amongst each other. This capability was retooled, through a neural link with a pilot, to control the robot's actions remotely, doing so in a way that the pilot could maneuver the giant robot quickly. Using this technique came at a price, though. The link from Ghidorah emanated a signal, a familiar alpha-like call for titans.

The gravity of the signal being broadcast was quickly realized as Godzilla emerged in Pensacola, Florida in 2024. Sensing Ghidorah's signal, the King of the Monsters decimated the area, attempting to find and destroy the source. Although Godzilla was unsuccessful, Apex Cybernetics realized the King of the Monsters was drawn to their work. What's more, they still had one major hurdle to cross before Mechagodzilla was fully functional: powering the massive machine.

Through a series of underground tests with a living pilot named Ren Serizawa, they tried to understand the machine's attack capabilities and power needs. For these experiments, live enemies were acquired by Apex Cybernetics. This took the shape of Skullcrawlers, who were raised from eggs into adulthood. Upon reaching their peak size, the beasts were released from their containment areas and pitted against Mechagodzilla. The robot proved more than a match for the creatures, slaughtering them during these trials. Despite its success, though, running the weapon systems often overextended the machine, shutting off after it reached around 40% of its power capacity.

The robot needed more power. In the search for this, Apex, through a deep scan of the planet's core, found an undiscovered source of energy. Believing this would solve their energy problems, both Walter Simmons and pilot Ren Serizawa approached and convinced Nathan Lind to make an expedition to the center of the Earth, leaning on Nathan's Hollow Earth research. For this, Nathan, a former Monarch member, convinced the present day Monarch to do a joint mission with Apex. The group, through using Kong to lead them, was successful in locating the energy that Apex detected.

During this, Godzilla was once more honing in on Mechagodzilla's location, with a test against a Skullcrawler once more emanating Ghidorah's signal. The King of the Monsters approached Hong Kong, the current location of the robotic weapon. As the titan advanced, Kong had discovered a large chamber that also contained the previously undiscovered source of energy. This event was able to distract Godzilla, as he sensed the energy source being disturbed. Using his atomic breath, a hole was blown straight toward the expedition and Kong's location. While details for the undiscovered energy source were uploaded and downloaded by Apex, Kong ventured to the surface and faced Godzilla.

This bought Apex valuable time as they were able to quickly replicate the energy source from this downloaded information. Despite protests from Ren that it was untested, the source was used immediately on Mechagodzilla and the robot powered up. Ren prepared to control the machine, but found his neural link severed. Mechagodzilla was now acting on his own, seemingly under influence from Ghidorah's telepathic connection. The robot quickly killed Walter Simmons, destroying the observation deck overseeing him. Next, electricity was sent surging through the neural link cables, electrocuting Ren.

Firing its powerful Proton Scream laser beam, Mechagodzilla burst through the Apex facility into the open city of Hong Kong. Once there, Godzilla, who had recently defeated Kong, began quickly advancing. A volley of missiles were launched, but did little to halt the King of the Monsters as Godzilla slammed into Mechagodzilla's side. The war machine was quick to turn the tides, though, as it charged its hands with blue energy and slammed it into Godzilla. From there, the robot began to fullfil its original purpose of defeating Godzilla, although under Ghidorah's influence rather than its intended human directive. Using its giant hands, the robot tried to force open Godzilla's mouth so it could fire a laser directly inside, turning the tables on how Godzilla had originally killed the female MUTO a decade ago. The plan was thwarted, though, by the arrival of a recently revived Kong.

Joining forces, both titans battled the robotic menace. Despite their combined might, Mechagodzilla was able to hold his own. Attempting to use his tail drill, the machine readied to end Kong until an incident of sabotage occurred in the remains of its control room. This caused a brief disconnect in Ghidorah's link with Mechagodzilla. Although the disruption was minor, it was enough for Godzilla to fire his atomic ray and charge Kong's war axe. Using the supercharged weapon, the former ruler of Skull Island decimated Mechagodzilla, chopping off its tail and arms. Before the head could fire a laser, the axe also severed it from the body. With Mechagodzilla defeated, Kong picked up and thrusted the detached head skyward while roaring in victory.

• The Playmates Toys release of the figure includes the following description: "A robotic Apex predator with unstoppable powers of laser destruction, Mechagodzilla was created in secret to destroy Godzilla and end the reign of monsters."
• In Toho Kingdom's interview with director Adam Wingard, the director noted that the concept of the Ghidorah connection with Mechagodzilla pre-dated Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) being finished. In fact, the after credits scene in the 2019 film was created to accommodate this idea.
• Also in Toho Kingdom's interview with Adam Wingard, it's mentioned that preliminary stages of production, although never getting past the early animation phase, had a less one sided fight between just Godzilla and Mechagodzilla. This was ultimately decided against as the director felt it wasn't clear what the stakes were, as opposed to a battle where Mechagodzilla dominated before Kong showed up.
  
  In addition, the director also mentions that Godzilla is in a weakened state for the fight, having just battled Kong and used his atomic ray "to its absolute core". In fact, the director in particular comments on the beam lock sequence, where Godzilla's atomic ray locks with Mechagodzilla's laser before the robotic monster's weapon overpowers it. The director muses that if Godzilla was coming into the battle fresh, that wouldn't have happened, but admits the idea of the weakened Godzilla for the fight was never expressly stated during the movie although it was the director's impression of things. Furthermore, the idea of Godzilla being weakened while fighting Mechagodzilla is also noted in the official novelization of the film.
• In an interview with Inverse, director Adam Wingard cited drawing inspriation from the Transformers franchise for the character's design: "I just always loved the simplicity of the Transformers designs, so I tried to create a look to the character that was punchy and just had a bit more simplicity. There's an immediacy to his shape and outline." He does clarify though that he's not referring to the more modern Transformers films, or at least Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Wingard continues, talking about the third modern film, noting: "The Transformers, they just looked like metal. They looked like a plane crash. So I thought, that's the thing I wanted to avoid. They were too complex. There are too many moving parts, and I couldn't latch on to anything."
• The name "Proton Scream" for Mechagodzilla's laser beam comes from an early listing of the Playmates Toys action figure, and is also referred to as such by concept artist Jared Krichevsky on Instagram.
• During a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), director Adam Wingard was asked on what is driving Mechagodzilla "after he went mad." The director addresses this noting: "I think its the ghost of Ghidorah possessing Mecha's A.I. creating a new personality."