#kotm

I honestly think Godzilla being provoked to Tasman Sea fight by the Orca-Z, and stopping his attack when the ship plays dead because the shutdown turned the Orca-Z off, would've been better in more ways than the final take. It would've provided a reason for Godzilla to attack Kong there and then while keeping true to his "last samurai" characterisation from the pre-Wingard films, without flanderising Godzilla into an Ape-hating heel like Wingard's films seem so bent on doing.

Also, the Orca-Z in general would have been a nice way to continue that plotline from KotM and show the repercussions.

On the other hand, I very much think the final film's "Ozymandian" version of Mechagodzilla killing Ren and Simmons was better than the unused alternate version of Mechagodzilla's awakening (where Ren would have deliberately uploaded Ghidorah's consciousness into Mechagodzilla after having Simmons assassinated, and Ghidorah!MechaG would have remained Ren's unwitting pawn all the way to its destruction). The version that we got instead fits much better into the Monsterverse's themes of human hubris and nature being beyond our control than the alternate version does, and it lets Monsterverse Ghidorah keep their agency and uncontrollability which was an important part of their character rerailment in KotM, instead of repeating the "agency" part of Toho Ghidorah's villain decay. The version we got is also more original than this alternate "mastermind Ren" version, since the latter version just sounds like a cheap rebrand of Batman vs. Superman's climax to boot - and from what I've read of BvS's plot, GvK's story already has too much in common with it as is. Also, Simmons' film death is just so amusing! :)

That having been said, I wish the other parts of the Hayworth subplot - him hunting Team Godzilla and being killed by Bernie at Hong Kong - were kept in, especially with the rumours that Hayworth would have been the very same Apex spook who arranged the death of Bernie's wife, making him and his death by Bernie's hands an appropriate part of Bernie's character arc.

* I likewise think they could have kept the unused scene of Ren approaching Nathan at the bar and talking to him about his father, just so that we actually get some characterisation and possible motives of Serizawa Evil-Jr. into the finished film.

Regarding how the KotM Titans would have left the surface for the Hollow Earth due to the Orca-Z instead of because they just backtracked the mass awakening offscreen. While I still would have been frustrated in this unused take that the surface returns to being free of active Titans again after all the advertising KotM gave us of the mass awakening being the "dawn of a new world of monsters" and that Nothing Is the Same Anymore, I wouldn't have been nearly as pissed at this as I was at the "mass awakening just gets completely reversed back into hibernation offscreen inbetween films, as if nothing in KotM except Ghidorah's severed head meant anything at all" final take which we got where instead. :P

They should have kept in the stuff about Madison acting out-of-character due to her KotM PTSD to make her behaviour in the film more sensical and give her trauma more weight. Even if I'm a heathen who thinks on the other hand that the cuts to the Russells' GvK scenes were worth being spared more of Mark spending this film being an insufferable, self-pity-filled twit all over again.