'The official novelisation of the biggest battle in movie history: Godzilla vs Kong, the latest film in the Monsterverse franchise, starring Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Kyle Chandler and Zhang Ziyi.
'Humanity fights for its future as Godzilla and Kong embark on a path of destruction that will see the two most powerful forces of nature on the planet collide in an all-out war!
'Writer Greg Keyes returns once again to the Monsterverse and takes readers deeper into the worlds of Monarch, the Titans, and so much more.'
One of the best things about movie novelisations is being able to expand upon big screen stories in ways that the filmmakers weren't able to, often including concepts from earlier stages in production, or scenes that end up on the cutting room floor. Whilst Godzilla Vs. Kong doesn't have a huge amount of removed scenes in the book, it does add a lot of background information that explains a lot of the inner workings of the film; and answers some of the questions I've seen people asking online.
The plot is largely the same as the movie. When Godzilla reappears after a three year absence and attacks a tech facility in Florida the world fears that their giant protector may have finally turned against humanity. As such, the tech company in question, Apex, joins forces with the Titan research and containment group Monarch to find a way of combating Godzilla.
Picking up on research and theories that were hinted at in Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla: King of the Monsters Apex finds a way to map out the Hollow Earth, the vast caverns and tunnels that exist below the surface of the planet that may have been the origin point for all of the Titans. They discover that there's an energy source deep inside the Earth that matches the radiation that Godzilla puts out, and they set out to get hold of it. To this end they recruit scientist Nathan Lind, who previously tried to enter the Hollow Earth in an expedition that cost the life of his brother.
Nathan believes that Kong may possess the genetic memory of how to get to Hollow Earth safely, and the location of this power source, so recruits Ilene Andrews, the woman looking after Kong, to join him. Together with Jia, the last surviving member of the Iwi people, they set out to take Kong deep into the Hollow Earth; a mission that puts Kong on Godzilla's radar, and brings the two alpha Titans into conflict.
The biggest differences between the book and the film that eagle eyed fans will notice is that we get a lot more about Lind and the Hollow Earth than the film provided, and we actually get to see the failed expedition that cost the life of his brother. Whilst the film did talk about this event we actually get to see it here, and it definitely makes the entire expedition feel more dangerous than the film did, and it lets readers get into Lind's head and see why his failure haunts him so much.
We also get to learn more about Skull Island, and how it went from the lush paradise we saw in Kong's film to the storm wracked place it becomes in Godzilla Vs. Kong. We get none of these answers in the film, but Greg Keyes makes a point of explaining it here, and we actually discover that the island's entire ecosystem has been destroyed following the appearance of the giant bat Titan Camazotz. Camazotz, and his battle with Kong, was the main plot of the comic series Kingdom Kong, which also featured the first appearance of Jia, so it's good to see that whilst the films may not be acknowledging everything the books are trying to bring all the parts of the Monsterverse together into one coheive whole.
This is something we see a few times across the book as Keyes will also make mention of Godzilla fighting other creatures such a Scylla, an event that happened in the comic Godzilla Dominion. It not only makes everything feel bigger, and widens the universe, but adds a cohesion that sometimes feels lacking in the movies. We have mentions of human characters that don't appear in every film, learn what they're up to, and get to know what's been going on between the films.
It's not just background information that Keyes expands upon, however, as he goes into more detail in key moments in the film, offering insight that is never clearly stated in the film and are things that viewers are left to try and figure out on their own. Things such as the huge temple Kong finding in the Hollow Earth having been built by his ancestors rather than humans, or that Apex has not just one but two of the Ghidora skulls, and that one is inside Mechagodzilla itself. It's hinted at in the film that Mechagodzilla goes out of control because of the latent personality of King Ghidora, but the book explicitly confirms it. It also makes the story feel somewhat closer to Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla from 2002, in which Mechagodzilla was also built using organic components from defeated monsters.
The expansions the book makes really make it a good read, and it's stuff that I wished was in the film. Tell me more about the inner workings of Mechagodzilla, explain why Ren Serizawa wants to kill Godzilla, tell me why Skull Island is wrecked. Greg Keyes gave me all the action of the film but also all of the background info I wanted to, making it more than just a film adaptation, but an expansion that made it just as entertaining.
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