Godzilla vs Kong’s Serizawa Story Is A MonsterVerse Betrayal

As the son of the Monarch scientist Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe), Godzilla vs. Kong’s introduction of Ren Serizawa (Shun Oguri) as the Chief Technology officer at Apex Cybernetics and one of the inventors of Mechagodzilla is a MonsterVerse betrayal given his family’s peaceful history with Godzilla and the Titans. Since Ren acts as a henchman to Apex CEO Walter Simmons (Demián Bichir) throughout Godzilla vs. Kong, Ren and Ishiro’s relationship as father and son is only inferred by their shared surname and is never developed further, leaving fans to conclude the unsteady nature of their relationship through their widely differing paths within the MonsterVerse.

In Godzilla vs. Kong, after Godzilla attacks the Apex Cybernetics facility in Pensacola, Florida, Simmons and Ren recruit former Monarch scientist Dr. Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård) to lead a mission into Hollow Earth, an ancient ecosystem that’s the birthplace of the Titans, in order to harness the ecosystem’s radioactive energy and develop a weapon strong enough to defeat Godzilla. When Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown), Josh Valentine (Julian Dennison), and Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry) accidentally break into the Apex facility in Hong Kong, they discover that this weapon is actually Mechagodzilla, an artificial kaiju that Ren is able to control telepathically by utilizing Ghidorah’s skull as a psionic interface. While Ren’s grandfather and his father Ishiro were both fascinated by Gojira and dedicated their lives to researching the Titans at Monarch, Ren’s storyline as the principle scientist that develops the ultimate Titan killing weapon within Godzilla vs. Kong dishonors his father’s legacy within the MonsterVerse.

Ren’s development of Mechagodzilla goes against everything his father Ishiro stood for within the MonsterVerse: maintaining peace between humanity and the Titans. After Ishiro ordered Monarch officials to kill a MUTO being hatched onsite in Janjira at the beginning of Godzilla, Ishiro came to the conclusion that humanity is incapable of killing the Titans and therefore shouldn’t interfere. As the Titans began to emerge, Ishiro hypothesized that Godzilla is nature’s way of restoring balance when the Titans bring disorder to the planet and that allowing them to fight amongst each other is the best course of action. “The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control and not the other way around. Let them fight,” says Ishiro in Godzilla. Since Ren constructed Mechagodzilla with the sole purpose of killing Godzilla, Ren’s role in Godzilla vs. Kong was a direct violation of his father’s belief in a peaceful and natural resolution to the Titan conflicts.

Ren’s role in Godzilla vs. Kong also disrespects the sacrifice Ishiro made within Godzilla: King of the Monsters. After the military deployed a missile known as the Oxygen Destroyer at Godzilla and the alien Ghidorah, Ghidorah survives and becomes the new leader of the Titans while Godzilla is badly injured and retreats to an underwater city where he can regenerate over time by absorbing radiation from the Earth’s core. When Dr. Chen suggests that the process could take years, Ishiro elects to take a one-way trip into the city and detonate a nuclear warhead by hand, giving his life to revive Godzilla in order to restore the world to its natural order by defeating Ghidorah. If Ren’s Mechagodzilla had been successful and defeated Godzilla as planned in Godzilla vs. Kong, it would’ve rendered Ishiro’s sacrifice meaningless by exposing their world once more to irreversible Titan conflicts once the King of the Monsters was no longer around to maintain balance.

While Ren didn’t uphold his father’s legacy within Godzilla vs. Kong, Ren inadvertently proved his father’s point when he created Mechagodzilla. In a twist that had dark consequences for Ren, after the sample of the Hollow Earth energy increased Mechagodzilla’s power, it also revived Ghidorah’s consciousness, allowing Ghidorah to take control of Mechagodzilla and electrocuting Ren in the process. While Ren built Mechagodzilla with the intention of controlling nature, nature in the end got the better of him, which is exactly what Ishiro warned would happen in Godzilla.