In Laman's Terms: Why Did The MonsterVerse Evolve From Serious to Silly?

The general public got its first good look at the MonsterVerse through the inaugural domestic trailer for the 2014 Gareth Edwards movie Godzilla. Utilizing portions of György Ligeti's “Requiem” in a homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, the grim Godzilla teaser kept that gigantic lizard largely off-screen. Viewers saw glimpses of this beast, but nothing concrete. It was all meant to suggest what actual people would witness if Godzilla really attacked our world. This beast would be so massive that you’d only theoretically be able to witness pieces of his massive frame. This visual approach and tone carried over to the final film, which featured a little more silly monster-on-monster action but largely kept things grounded and serious.

A decade later, the tone of the Godzilla marketing campaign is now a distant memory. The full trailer for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is jam-packed full of jokes while all the destruction that these beasts engage in is meant to inspire cheers from the viewer, not leave them in terrified awe. Even the music accompanying this trailer was more frenetic and energetic compared to the somber majesty of using Ligeti compositions for the original Godzilla teaser. The MonsterVerse has pretty much gone to a different tonal planet compared to its earliest days in pop culture…but how did this transformation? And why did the MonsterVerse leave behind what initially seemed like an unshakeable somber tone seeped in realism?

Let's pause and go back to the year of "Don't Cha:" 2005. That's the year Batman Begins opened in theaters and forever changed how Hollywood approached revamping pre-existing brand names. Now every major media franchise was angling to reboot itself with a grim and gritty reboot rooted in the real world. Many of these sagas had previously experienced their own ultra-silly Batman & Robin that left audiences disappointed and indicated that it was time for something different. Thus, the James Bond saga left cars riding tidal waves behind in favor of the grounded exploits of Casino Royale. Terminator: Salvation, meanwhile, abandoned things like Terminator 3’s “talk to the hand” quips to create a realistic war movie where the enemies happen to be robots. Then there was the 2014 American remake of Godzilla, which was aiming to leave behind the style of the 1998 Godzilla title.

This installment marked the last time domestic filmmakers got their hands on this kaiju icon. It turned out to be a box office disappointment while its focus on archly drawn human characters instead of preposterous monster mayhem left fans disgruntled. With the Gareth Edwards Godzilla feature, it was clear audiences shouldn’t expect a retread of the Roland Emmerich take on the character. Instead, this 2014 movie went in the opposite direction of the 1998 Godzilla. Out went silly jokes and in came lots of scenes of humans being far too small to do anything in the face of massive monsters. To make the 2014 Godzilla seem like a must-see movie rather than a retread, there was no choice but to embrace a dark tone.

Ironically, though, the 2014 Godzilla inspired fan reactions that demanded another course correction in tone. While I'm personally a defender of that 2014 film, many had more complicated emotions about the final quality of that Gareth Edwards directorial effort. Specifically, folks largely criticized the lack of screentime for Godzilla and the dour tone. Subsequent follow-ups in the MonsterVerse would no longer occupy the "real world" and then bring some monsters into that space. Instead, Kong: Skull Island sent a bunch of humans to an island packed with beasties. In 2019, Godzilla: King of the Monsters would deliver a follow-up to the 2014 Godzilla that focused heavily on classic Toho monster movie fixtures like Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghiddorah. 

Embracing more stylized critters meant the MonsterVerse films were bound to get lighter in tone to some degree. However, changing tastes in blockbuster cinema hastened the MonsterVerse's shift to lighter exploits. Projects like The Avengers had become the new de facto model for Hollywood blockbusters to imitate. Comedy and self-referential jabs were in. The MonsterVerse responded accordingly. By the time 2019 rolled around, King of the Monsters had Bradley Whitford playing an alternate-universe version of Rick Sanchez while commercials for the feature were set to LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out". 

Ironically, this attempt to placate the tastes of modern moviegoers meant that the MonsterVerse had a similar (albeit faster) tonal shift to the classic Showa era of Godzilla movies. After all, that big lizard was introduced in a dark drama that didn't even hint at the idea of other monsters existing. Eventually, Godzilla anchored movies like Destroy All Monsters, which were full of bright colors, zippy tones, and tons of wacky narrative elements. If you stick around long enough in pop culture, the frightening becomes cozy to moviegoers. Even the raptors in Jurassic Park or Darth Vader are now friendly plush toys nostalgic adults cling to. Whether it's in the 1960s or the 2010s, Godzilla became less and less ominous the longer he stuck around on-screen in serialized storytelling (one-off movies like Shin Godzilla and Godzilla Minus One have proven far more effective at retaining his initial horrifying nature). In both eras of the character's history, the movies Godzilla anchors tend to get sillier the deeper into his filmography you get.

In the case of the MonsterVerse, the evolving tone was somewhat inevitable even if there wasn't both the influence of other blockbusters and historical precedence breathing down the neck of this cinematic universe. The MonsterVerse has rarely restored to hiring the same directors twice. Adam Wingard (helmer of Godzilla vs. Kong) is the first artist to direct two movies in the MonsterVerse. Across the first decade of this saga, Gareth Edwards, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, Michael Dougherty, and Wingard have all taken turns reinterpreting these massive beasts. In the process, there's been inevitable changes in the tones of individual films. The 2014 Godzilla from Edwards emphasized grand scale and a somber tone, two hallmarks of this auteur's output. By contrast, Vorg-Robert brought more dark humor and grandiose flourishes to Skull Island while Wingard had an unabashedly kid-friendly silliness imbued in his Godzilla vs. Kong outing.

The rotating door of filmmakers in the MonsterVerse made it inevitable that the tone of these movies would evolve greatly from what was present in that Godzilla teaser all those years ago. The MonsterVerse has never quite found a tonal groove that really clicks (just like it's failed to figure out what larger themes its monsters stand for). Godzilla: King of the Monsters was an especially egregious example of a movie seemingly torn between its impulses towards classical epic storytelling and ham-fisted comedy (why every human character in that movie was comic relief, I'll never understand). Still, it's been undeniably interesting seeing this franchise constantly modulating its tone to the whims of the public's blockbuster movie tastes and the ambitions of individual filmmakers. If there's any fictional character that can withstand so many different tonal swings, it's certainly Godzilla!