Monarch Timeline

So we just gonna not talk about the 1952 tagline?

I'm sensing some Hedorah. Anyone else sensing some Hedorah?

It even talks about how the "smog" was a giant wave of pollution that washed over the city.

Nah, I think that's Mothra. Poison gas seems like a natural evolution of poisonous scale powder.

It WAS Mothra, a nasty after effect of her flapping her wings 

Dang, flapping her wings just does that. G's gonna have to smash them things to stop that trash. Or will G and Mothra even fight?

The existence of multiple nuclear bombings was never in question. They even say in the movie "Those nuclear tests in the South Pacific? Not tests." Legendary's Instagram reiterating this doesn't do anything to strengthen the continuity of Awakening. I'm not saying Awakening is "definitely 100% not canon and never was," I'm merely making the point that Legendary has been hesitant to directly reference it and its writing had little direct connection with production on Godzilla. I think Legendary will simply pick and choose what elements from Awakening apply to the rest of the MonsterVerse canon, and am not expecting it to ever be directly referenced.

I don't get what the big deal is anyway, it was a tie-in for the film published long before the full direction of the MonsterVerse was determined. Having filmmakers adhere strictly to something like that when making further films seems unnecessary. Plus I personally just did not care for the comic.

Birth of Kong, by contrast, is being published after Kong: Skull Island has come out and the writers are being very careful and deliberate with making it fit in nicely with the rest of the MonsterVerse now that they know where it's heading. Plus there is a completely explicit reference to its events in the timeline.

Cool, so JUST like The Incredible Hulk, the red-headed stepchild of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

I'm cool with that comparison.

I would say a more likely comparison is Star Wars Legends material.

They might canonize certain aspects and characters they can use, but otherwise noncanon side works that have been retconned.

Nah, Legends is taking it a bit far. It's referenced directly, just like Skull Island: Birth of Kong, and its interpretation of things has been made "official" on numerous accounts.

I'd say we shouldn't preclude one without precluding the other, just to be safe. Keep the timeline nice and clean, thus not having to deal with potential "pick-and-choose" scenarios, because those get REALLY annoying for me.

I think it's exactly like legends. Multiple times Legends brought in places characters and ideas that were brought into the movies afterwards. However it was writtin largely before Disney made the mandate that all material had to be canon, just as Awakening was made before they monsterverse was a real thing and had very little to do with the movie. 

Now that those things have to be canon and they're playing with bigger ideas they would go back to the novels/comics and taking the pieces they want that will fit into their story and leaving the rest. The fact that as I said they are going out of their way to not acknowledge big parts of that comic says everything.

The Thrawn Trilogy is legends is what introduced Coruscant as a capital planet, that was later included when the prequels were made, but the Thrawn trilogy is not canon right now despite that.

Awakening introduced Douglas McArthur that the movies now acknowledge, but they're going out of their way to ignore the big story point of that book Shinomura, pointing to the exact same treatment Disney gave Legends.

^And to add, "In 1954 we awakened something," is a very, very difficult line in the film to get around. It sort of supports Durp's comparison.

Yeah, not really. They awakened something alright in 1954, because Godzilla was up and about before then and he was probably intrigued by this weird nuclear "thing", the U.S.S. Nautilus.

The U.S.S. Lawton incident happened in 1943.Then we have MONARCH being established by President Truman in 1946 to track down and study Godzilla specifically. They were tracking him beforehand, and awakened him in 1954 with the Nautilus, bringing him to the Pan-Pacific Proving Grounds.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. The simple solution is that they awakened him in 1954, one of the times when he was asleep, when he was awake beforehand.

Simple composite timeline:

> Godzilla awakens in 1943 and attacks the U.S.S. Lawton, leading to the U.S. government covering it up

> Hiroshima is bombed in 1945, drawing in Godzilla and thus prompting Truman to sign off on MONARCH to track and destroy him

> The U.S.S. Nautilus, in its course to track down Godzilla, awakens him with its nuclear technology in 1954, which allows General Douglas MacArthur to field Operation: Lucky Dragon, Castle Bravo to the Pentagon and the public

But in the film they act and explain 1954 as if it was the first time they had run in to Godzilla. The rest is just desperate fan conjecture to connect the dots at best.

^ Strangely enough though, it would appear Kong: Skull Island retcons the "1954" line, much like it did for the founding of Monarch. The U.S.S. Lawton was sunk in 1943, and according to Vogt-Roberts' commentary in the film's special features, it was Godzilla who sank it. Originally, Randa was meant to show pictures of Godzilla during the scene where he discusses the shipwreck, but it was changed because Vogt-Roberts felt it was "too on the nose" and he wanted audiences to figure it out for themselves. So if that's the case, Godzilla was active prior to 1954, which would reconcile a very small part of the discrepancies between Godzilla and Awakening. I still don't think it fully redeems Awakening, but it's apparent at this point Kong has retconned some of what was established in the history given in Godzilla.

I think Durp's explanation of everything is spot-on. Legendary goes out of its way to avoid treating all of Awakening as canon, as it was written very detached from the film and before the MonsterVerse was a thing. Legendary is most likely going back and picking elements introduced in Awakening to bring them into the official canon, but like Durp said they are intentionally leaving out large parts of it.

TBH I actually forgot about Randa mention the Lawton, cool to see that it was Godzilla that sank it. That's also pretty cool as it shows that he's attacked military vehicles before and he can do it again. 

Hey guys! check this out!

I think it could be Ghidorah!

With all that information I don't see how it could be anything else.

Well this completely proves TheTruthisOutThere is a fraud as I've been saying. He's claimed on multiple occasions that Ghidorah would be in Siberia, and Legendary has revealed he's in Antartica, on the other side of the globe.

@Fanzilla, he also said the monsterverse will be prevalent at SDCC this year, and there is no Godzilla at all this year. LOL

This image of the timeline hints at Mothra (Temple of the Moth) and insinuates that she has already cocooned herself. It also recaps, "the Battle of San Francisco" which is a pretty cool name for the event in 2014.

2009 - TEMPLE OF THE MOTH -
Mythographic studies of Chinese temples leads MONARCH to the high-altitude jungles of the Unnan Province. Dr. Emma Russell and her team follow a mysterious bio-acoustic signature to a previously undiscovered megalithic temple, within which lies a gigantic cocoon. A quickening heartbeat is detected inside.

2012 - MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE -
Days before retirement, MONARCH veteran Houston Brooks receives a coded message from his son. The mission to Skull Island has revealed dramatic new information about Kong's origins, and his role on the island.

2014 - THE BATTLE OF SAN FRANCISCO -
The existence of giant superspecies is revealed to the world as Godzilla clashes with the two M.U.T.O.s in the center of San Francisco. Unleashing devastation upon the urban center, the world watches as Godzilla defends our world and restores balance to the natural order. The time has come for MONARCH to step out of the shadows.

2016 - MONSTER ZERO -
When MONARCH discover an extraordinary superspecies sealed beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, Dr. Vivienne Graham leads the effort to build a covert containment and research facility around the dormant creature. Her classified field notes contain a mysterious footnote: "The devil has three heads."