Out of all of the cinematic
universes from the 2010s, no one expected Godzilla and Kong to be the one
to reign supreme at the box office this year. What can I say? People like
to see giant monsters fight. But do you know what would make that even better? These giant monsters fighting
giant robot mech suits. And that, my friends, is exactly
where the MonsterVerse is headed. Hello, Internet! Welcome to Film Theory, the show that wants you to take a kaiju-sized
bite out of that subscribe button. So, after struggling a bit during the past decade, Godzilla's been having a really big year, huh? Fan-driven projects like Unknowingly's The Man
in the Suit have been blowing up on YouTube, the Japanese film Godzilla Minus One was a
huge hit and won the franchise its first Oscar, Monarch Legacy of the Monsters was one
of Apple TV's biggest hits last year, and the latest MonsterVerse movie,
Godzilla Kong The New Empire, is the second biggest movie of the year so far, leaving audiences chomping at the bit for more. And hey, I get it. When your
movie features a giant monkey with a robot arm fist-fighting a dinosaur lizard that eats radiation on the Pyramids of Giza,
it's kinda hard not to be a crowd-pleaser. No doubt, Godzilla and Kong are
having a moment in pop culture, and everyone involved is tripling down on it. The team behind Minus One have
started work on another film, Monarch is moving ahead with a second
season and multiple spinoff shows, and most importantly for us today, Hollywood is hard at work on a script
for the follow-up to Godzilla Kong. And that is exciting. I love these big dumb movies
about big dumb monsters fighting, so any chance we get to talk about them, I'm in. We've done shorts about Godzilla Kong, we've
made officially licensed Godzilla Kong apparel, it's high time we revisit this series
with a good old-fashioned theory, a prediction about what's to come. Because let me tell you, there are so many hints
in this latest movie about their future plans that based solely on what we see in Godzilla Kong
The New Empire, and what we almost didn't see, we can predict exactly where the
future of this franchise is headed. Here's a hint for you, the next
kaiju that Godzilla and Kong are gonna be fighting will be out of this world, and what's more, they won't be alone. There's a third franchise about to
cross over into the MonsterVerse, and this one has some big dumb giant robots. Charge your atomic breath and equip
your robot hands, loyal theorists, it's time to lay the smackdown on
the future of the MonsterVerse. So in case you need a quick refresher
on the surprisingly complicated lore of the MonsterVerse, let's get on the same page. In this world, there are giant
monsters collectively known as titans. They've always been here in one form or another, and likely inspired most of the
gods and demons of ancient cultures. Many of these titans are intelligent, some are good, others evil, some are
just like big, wild, feral animals. The most powerful of these is
Godzilla, the king of the monsters, who basically keeps all of the others in check, but has been in hibernation for
potentially millions of years. That time frame is really frustratingly unclear. Meanwhile, there's also a large
species of giant apes worshipped by early human civilization that have
been pushed to the brink of extinction. Only one remains, known as Kong, who has lived
most of his life on the isolated Skull Island. Cut to the 20th century, where
nuclear testing awakens Godzilla, and Kong is discovered on Skull
Island by explorers connected to a mysterious titan-researching
organization called Monarch. Cue several movies of Godzilla and Kong fighting, and or teaming up with one
another, humans, or other titans. And we end up at the current
status quo of Godzilla roaming the surface of the Earth, keeping titans in check, while Kong looks after a giant cavern in
the Earth's crust known as Hollow Earth. Yeah, Hollow Earth is a thing in this
world, just... just roll with it. That leads us into Godzilla Kong, the New Empire, which sees Kong discovering more
giant monkeys in Hollow Earth, led by an evil monkey called the Skar King. You can tell this guy is bad news because
he dropkicks Baby Kong's dad into lava. Anyway, Skar King has a magic crystal that lets
him control another new ice titan named Shimo, whom he leads to the surface to start a brand new
Ice Age and kill off humanity once and for all. This, understandably, makes Godzilla angry, leading to a big team-up that
leaves the Skar King dead, Shimo freed, and Kong the
new king of the Hollow Earth. All the while, the human characters
from Monarch are also there, and the filmmakers really try to
make us like them to mixed results. I mean, this is a movie where Kong uses
a giant baby monkey as a baseball bat. We're not supposed to care about Trapper,
Ishiro Shirazawa, or Dr. Irene Andrews. I can prove it because one of those
characters isn't in this movie, and you probably didn't notice. So, that's what's happened, but what happens next? Where are the next Godzilla
and Kong movies headed, and what sort of monsters will they be fighting? Well, I believe the answer lies in the latest
dangling thread introduced in Godzilla Kong. The weird magic crystals. Yeah, these crystals were a sort of
recurring story element in this movie. The Eeewoo people, native to Hollow Earth,
use these crystals as a sort of power source that reacts to bioelectricity in the same way that
Godzilla's spines charge up his atomic breath. This is partially what leads to the cool
zero-gravity fight halfway through the movie. Additionally, a similar sort of crystal is
at the end of the whip used by Skar King. Remember that awesome weapon
made out of like a kaiju spine? Yeah, that crystal at the end there seems to give him some sort of telepathic
control over the ice kaiju Shimo, implying that it's the same sort
of crystal used by the Eeewoo, since their crystals let them
communicate telepathically and send out distress signals to the surface world. Once that crystal on Skar's whip is
destroyed, Shimo is freed and turns on Skar, teaming up with Godzilla and Kong to kill him. But what is this thing? What
are any of these crystals? Well, one possibility? They're
the remnants of a meteor. See, all throughout Godzilla Kong,
we're told that the Eeewoo call Godzilla The monster who ate a star. Godzilla. a star, and especially one that has fallen
to Earth enough to be eaten by Godzilla, is almost certainly how an ancient
civilization would interpret a meteor impact, especially one that Godzilla somehow stopped or incorporated into his body so he
could charge up his atomic breath. Additionally, we see Godzilla survive a similar meteor impact on Earth in the
comic book Godzilla Awakening, published in 2014. Though it should be said that this was one of
the first bits of extended MonsterVerse material and has since been contradicted by later
films, so it's probably not canon anymore. That being said, it does tell us that
Godzilla and how he interacts with meteors has been on the minds of the people behind the
MonsterVerse since basically the beginning. It wouldn't be surprising that this element got
recycled in later stories like in The New Empire. But real quick, let's take a
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back into the water with Godzilla and Kong. Now those meteors might be all well
and good, but why does it matter? Why do these magic crystals being
actually a meteor mean anything? Well, to classic kaiju fans, Godzilla plus
crystals plus meteors adds up to one thing. Space Godzilla. If you don't know, Space Godzilla is, well, I
mean, it's exactly what's written on the tin. He's an alien clone of Godzilla from outer space and the primary villain of
Godzilla versus Space Godzilla. Really, these movies just get
right to the point, don't they? The whole shtick of this guy was
that some of Godzilla's blood merges with an alien made of crystal, creating a new hybrid creature
bent on taking over the Earth. That sounds exactly like the sort of bad
guy they'd fight in the MonsterVerse, right? An alien titan who wants to conquer the world. And hey, if you think that aliens
are just a step too far here, remember that this is already
a thing in the MonsterVerse. We learn in Godzilla King of the
Monsters that King Ghidorah is an alien. Fell from the stars, huh? Doesn't that sound an awful lot like the
language used by the Eeewoo to describe Godzilla, the monster who ate a star? All of the stars are aligning here and
pointing to Space Godzilla as the next true big bad that Godzilla and Kong
will have to beat into submission. But that being said, there's one big
old monkey wrench we have to throw into this particular scenario. What if Legendary Pictures, the
people who make these movies, can't actually use Space Godzilla? See, Legendary only outright owns
the rights to their version of Kong and the original titans created for these movies. The classic Japanese kaiju
from the Godzilla franchise, including Mothra, Rodan, King Ghidorah,
and the King of the Monsters himself? Those are all owned by Toho, the Japanese studio that originally
created them decades ago. Any and every time Legendary wants
to use them in the MonsterVerse, they have to license them from Toho. In fact, it was big news when Legendary
confirmed that they'd secured the licenses for Ghidorah, Rodan, and Mothra
to join the MonsterVerse. And while the price tag for these monsters
is in public, it does not come cheap. For this latest Godzilla Kong, scenes
involving Mothra were actually shot using an entirely different
original character as a placeholder, just in case they couldn't get
the clearance to use Mothra again. And this wasn't just some
corporate standoffishness, there was a real chance that
that was going to happen. After the disaster that was the
1998 American Godzilla movie, Toho is notoriously protective
of their characters and IP, and even if they cleared the
use of Godzilla for a movie, that doesn't necessarily mean that they'd
do the same for any of the other kaiju. That's a really big what-if to hang
your hundred million dollar movie on given that the rug could get pulled
out from under you at any point. So, what's Legendary's solution here? Well, there are a couple directions they
could take to sort of work around this problem if they don't get the rights to any
of Godzilla's other famous foes. They could either invent their own new
enemies for Godzilla and Kong to fight, or they could pull in something
they do have the rights to. Now, that first option,
absolutely valid, and after all, that is what has been done for the
MonsterVerse with the Skar King, Shimo, Bsilla, and Tiamat. But those characters were just... fine. Not really super exciting or
memorable, if we're honest. In fact, there were a lot of people
who thought and hoped that Silab, the big crab thing that Godzilla
fought the last couple of movies, was actually Kumonga, another part
of his classic rogues gallery. So, sure, Legendary could create new monsters, their own version of SpaceGodzilla
for Kong and Godzilla to fight, or they could go with option number two, another crossover with something
that they do have the rights to. But I wonder, what could that be? Two words, loyal theorists, Pacific Rim. Today we are canceling the apocalypse! If you don't remember Pacific
Rim, that's an absolute tragedy. This was one of the coolest movies of the 2010s, all about a world under
constant assault by alien kaiju coming out of a portal at the
bottom of the Pacific Ocean. To fight them, humanity developed
giant robot mech suits called Jaegers, piloted by two or more humans psychically linked. Though the film struggled at the box office, it was a huge hit with critics,
audiences, and industry professionals. And the best parts for Legendary? They outright own the Pacific
Rim IP, everything in it, and have tried multiple times to continue
it with sequels and spinoff shows. Plus, franchise creator Guillermo del Toro
and the sequel's director, Stephen DeKnight, have independently said that they want Pacific
Rim to cross over into the MonsterVerse. There is a real interest in continuing
this franchise from everyone involved, no giant legal loopholes to jump through, and what better way to juice
it up than connecting it with the other biggest kaiju IP
on the planet, Godzilla and Kong. But hold up. Even if this makes business sense,
why would it make story sense? Why would I say that Pacific Rim
is set to cross over at all here? Well, there are a lot of signs
towards this crossover happening, all from the New Empire alone. Firstly, after Godzilla wakes
up from his catnap in Rome, we get a brief glimpse of
a wall covered in graffiti, almost all of which are easter
eggs to other kaiju movies. But over here on the side, we can see a crude rendition of Pacific
Rim's most famous kaiju, Knifehead. That right there is, again, proof that Pacific
Rim was on the minds of these filmmakers, and that it hasn't been forgotten by Legendary. But that's just one easter
egg on a wall covered in them. It's not like it's outright
proof that Monarch is, like, developing Jaeger mechs or anything, right? No, of course not. That happens later in the movie. Yeah, you know that cool robot hand power-up that
Kong is given about halfway through the movie? As its backstory is being explained, we get a real good look at
the blueprints for the device. And what do you know? They're the blueprints for Gipsy Danger, the Jaeger mech that was the
poster robot for Pacific Rim. And it's not like it just
kinda looks like Gipsy Danger, they are straight up the same robot. If you pause this scene and zoom in on the
details here written on the blueprints, they explain that the robot arm will
feature stuff like a retractable chainsword and a switchblade mod, things used in the actual Pacific Rim movie. Little details like that being put in
Godzilla Kong were not an accident. Bits of lore have been communicated to us in these sorts of
blink-and-you-miss-it moments before. And this is canonical proof
that the humans in this world are developing giant mech suits. Now, obviously, the world set up in Pacific Rim is impossible to integrate
into the MonsterVerse as is. As cool as it would be, we're not gonna see these
characters or mechs or kaiju literally pop in from a portal
from the Pacific Rimiverse. If anything, it would be sort of a soft reboot bringing in elements from Pacific
Rim to fit within the MonsterVerse, but disconnected from the old films. But all of the pieces needed are there. We just proved that Monarch has
developed blueprints for a mech. Tech exists in the MonsterVerse
that can link minds, a la the Jaeger pilots in Pacific Rim, as we see with Rin Serizawa connecting his
mind with Ghidorahs in Godzilla vs. Kong. Which, hey, wouldn't you know it, is similar to story elements involving
Charlie Day's character from Pacific Rim. We know that Monarch is concerned about
relying solely on Kong to protect humanity, thus giving them motivation to make the mechs. And most importantly, thematically, we're at a point in the story
where the general public is probably fed up with these
kaiju destroying their cities, and they might want a real
way for humans to fight back. I mean, just look at what
happened in the New Empire. Sure, a new Ice Age got averted and the Skar King caught a
pretty well-deserved beatdown, but Monarch did an awful job at trying
to keep these monsters in check, and any explanation for this latest
victory probably isn't gonna fly. Like, could you imagine? Ah yes, it was worth Godzilla
and Kong destroying the pyramids and most of downtown Rio to
kill one big giant monkey. Humanity is gonna want something that
isn't a giant lizard with anger issues or a great ape who speaks sign language to
help them fight back against the next threat. Plus, piloted mechs would
give the human characters that no one cares about something exciting to do. Like, might as well if Legendary insists on shoving them into every
single one of these movies. Oh, and the best part? The cherry on top? This would even fit in the
same story as Space Godzilla. The plot of the original Japanese
Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla sees the King of the Monsters team up
with a human-made robot named Mogura to defeat the Big Bad. That is literally what we've
just seen the MonsterVerse put all of the pieces in place for. This series is headed for a
crossover with Pacific Rim. Monarch is going to develop Jaegermechs, using the same Neuralink drift technology used to connect a human brain with
Ghidorah to pilot MechaGodzilla, but this time with two humans
piloting a giant robot. SpaceGodzilla, or some original knockoff monster, will come to Earth with
kaiju minions like Knifehead, and using the same mind-control crystal
magic they set up in the New Empire, they'll pit Godzilla vs. Kong once again, forcing the new Jaegermechs into action. They'll fight and destroy another
irreplaceable world landmark before teaming up against
SpaceGodzilla and saving the world. Well, at least until the next time they
need a monster hit at the box office. But hey, that's just a theory. A film theory! And cut! And if you want another Godzilla
vs. Kong theory right now, check out our video where we explain the
Godzilla vs. Kong movie we didn't get to see.
