Monsterverse: What should change/ could be better?

I wish Rodan had more of a presence. His appearance in G:Kotm was rather lacking. He was there for fanservice practically.

G. H. (Gman) The only character in the movie who legitimately annoyed me was Sam Coleman, and that's because the guy doesn't do anything over the course of the film. Even One-Liners-Guy (AKA Rick Stanton) does more than him, even if it's just reading Godzilla's bio-signs or helping coordinate the Rodan chase or things like that. At least it's something useful. The one time Sam could have been helpful was in the scene where the Argo's doors get jammed. He's Monarch's chief of the Tech division or something, but then it's Mark who fixes it.

Speaking of Mark, he was actually my favorite character out of the whole thing. Maybe I'm just overly sympathetic (I'm probably the only person in the world who kinda felt bad for Dakota Fanning in War of the Worlds), but there was something about that opening scene of him staggering through the ruins of San Francisco looking for Andrew that really hit me. We get so hopped up on watching the monsters fighting that we forget that every time they clash, it's a city-wide 9/11 for us. It kind of reminded me of some of the aftermath scenes of the 1954 film.

Going back to Stanton, I feel like the guy was wasted potential, however minor it may have been. His Monarch Sciences bio said that he was part of the bioacoustics division, so I expected him and Mark to work together on deciphering the ORCA's Alpha signal. In fact, that's another thing I'm gonna do in my rewrite; cut down on his jokes a bit and make him more of a nice uncle type character; somebody who'll make you smile when you need it, but is also serious when the time comes for seriousness.

Gmkgoji How would you have written him?

So what I would have done, like in my Godzilla X Symphogear story, I would have had Rodan be a bigger threat. I would have kept the city destruction scenes and stuff, and I would also have Godzilla and Rodan fight on an island. I would make Rodan be like a MUCH stronger male Muto. Rodan would practically be a HUGE pain in the ass to Godzilla, dive bombing him, pecking at him, clawing him, and all that good stuff while at the same time, being very agile while in battle, making him almost impossible to hit by Godzilla. I want Rodan to be Godzilla's equal like in Ghidorah: The three-headed monster. 

Gmkgoji I probably would have kept his role mostly the same as in the film, but make it more obvious that he's not happy to be made Ghidorah's underling, and he's only doing it because he's absolutely scared of being curb stomped again. In the scenes where he and Ghidorah are fighting Monarch in DC, he'd be noticeably less peppy about destroying things, and when Madison activates the ORCA in Boston, he actually tries to slip away, only for Ghidorah to growl him down and make him follow him to Boston. When Godzilla and Mothra show up to take Ghidorah down, Rodan switches over to their side to fight him. Que the good stuff you've described. He'd get taken out after Ghidorah powers up again in a scene reminiscent of Anguirus's attack on him in Destroy All Monsters, but would turn up again after Ghidorah's death. Here he'd be a lot less reluctant to accept Godzilla as Alpha.

And I do plan on doing all of the above in that rewrite of mine.

I like your idea, but I wanted Rodan to have a larger presence. 

JurassicKaiju14,
I liked the idea of Mark, but not the execution. The film seemed afraid to go on too long without Kyle Chandler's face onscreen. They wouldn't give any other cast around him time to shine.

Before they get to Castle Bravo he's exposition dumping his entire backstory to Dr. Graham. "Well after San Fransisco, I hit the bottle..." Really? It would've been far more effective had Serizawa and Graham found him drunk and hopeless in a bar--Then we would've seen a character struggling to pull himself together and while trying find his kids in the middle of a monster apocalypse. It would've been a more interesting situation to put any character in and we wouldn't have had to get that long exposition dump on the aircraft. (Which is an issue the movie has. Instead of seeing Mark at his lowest, we're told. Instead of seeing why King Ghidorah is a great nemesis, we're told, etc.)

Mark magically has all the answers to everything. "This Mothra is a decoy. They're going after something bigger." - "Take the guns off him." - "Show him we're not a threat." - "Show me his hunting path." - "I have an idea to lure big bird away from the town." - "They only do that to feed, to fight or... something more intimate." - "They're moving in a pack. They're hunting. It's not erratic." - "How many nukes do you have?"

He's invited to an outpost full of supposed military & scientific experts, but none of them come up with the conclusions Mark does. He's five years behind all of their knowledge/research, yet comes up with all of the big ideas! No wonder no one else had any decent arcs--Kyle Chandler's character upstages all of them at every turn.

Graham, Stanton, Coleman, Chen--None of them have an arc of their own and barely do anything to legitimize a supporting character role. In fact Coleman and Stanton could've been merged into one character; there was no reason to have two comedic relief characters. And the only thing Chen does is gawk and over-dramatically give the monsters titles: "The fire demon!" "The one who is many!" "Queen of the monsters!" If these monsters didn't have cool titles, there would be no need for her to be in this movie...

Emma of course, comes off as nuts--Any character with the line, "I couldn't be more sane," is immediately questionable. But what's worse is the movie wants to legitimize her. And of course Charles Dance is basically wasted as a bus driver for her needs.

The only two characters I liked were Madison, who had the balls to backtalk her mother's insanity, steal the Orca to stop the mayhem and defy King Ghidorah in front of him. Serizawa was tolerable as well, but his reasoning for sacrificing himself takes some stretching. (Why him? There's plenty of more experienced military personnel onboard the sub who also know what the stakes are.)

The entire film needed a heavy - heavy - rewrite to fix these issues. But Dougherty was more interested in other things.

Gmkgoji,
I tend to agree. Although I think Rodan has some of the best scenes in the movie, he comes off as too easily submissive. (To both King Ghidorah and Godzilla.) Plus giving King Ghidorah an ally in the final battle that rescued him from Mothra took away from his menace. Making the battle three against one would've given a better idea of how imposing and powerful King Ghidorah is.

G. H. (Gman) "It would've been far more effective had Serizawa and Graham found him drunk and hopeless in a bar--Then we would've seen a character struggling to pull himself together and while trying find his kids in the middle of a monster apocalypse. It would've been a more interesting situation to put any character in and we wouldn't have had to get that long exposition dump on the aircraft. (Which is an issue the movie has. Instead of seeing Mark at his lowest, we're told. Instead of seeing why King Ghidorah is a great nemesis, we're told, etc.)"

(begins jotting down notes for the rewrite)

"Coleman and Stanton could've been merged into one character; there was no reason to have two comedic relief characters."

Agreed, and (not to keep going back to it), but that's another thing I'm doing for my rewrite. Sam Coleman as we know him does not exist; his replacement is a liaison between the US government and Monarch who's more meant to represent the looming threat of the military taking over and simply wiping out the Titans.

I've never been a Charles Dance fan, so his role in the film (or apparent lack thereof) never really bothered me. He does have an expanded role in my version though, actually pursuing Madison down to Boston in an attempt to retrieve the ORCA before she messes up his apocalypse fantasy.

You know, I agree. They should've kept King Ghidorah as a final threat in the Monsterverse instead of what they did. 

It's so disappointing.

MinecraftDinoKaiju I probably would have saved him for last myself, but I'm not too broken up over it, to be honest.

I think it would've been more interesting had Dance's character and the entire eco-terrorist organization been removed from the film completely. Emma's a high level Monarch scientist. She has the credentials to do anything and go anywhere she wants. What was stopping her from claiming she had "work" to do at Antartica and sneaking the Orca there to wake up King Ghidorah. It would've made her a more cunning character to walk into Antartica with the Orca, smile and nod at people she works with while pretending she has to get to work on something and secretly sneaking around them to bust King Ghidorah out...

But again--For the sake of build up, King Ghidorah should've been saved for last anyway, so perhaps she busts out Rodan instead or something. Like I said, this movie needed a heavy rewrite, and going along with their current structure still doesn't work.

G. H. (Gman) "I think it would've been more interesting had Dance's character and the entire eco-terrorist organization been removed from the film completely. Emma's a high level Monarch scientist. She has the credentials to do anything and go anywhere she wants. What was stopping her from claiming she had "work" to do at Antartica and sneaking the Orca there to wake up King Ghidorah. It would've made her a more cunning character to walk into Antartica with the Orca, smile and nod at people she works with while pretending she has to get to work on something and secretly sneaking around them to bust King Ghidorah out..."

I'm mostly settled on what I want to do with my version, but I could definitely see that working.

Someone on Facebook mentioned this idea and I thought this would've been a good, simple way to go. Do away with the large cast and hone in on the conflict between two men and their ideologies. It would've benefited from diving deeper into their characters instead of sharing time with confused archetypes and needless characters gawking out windows. Here's his idea:

"For just the movie itself [King of the Monsters] I would have done away with the Russell family and make it about the conflict between Serizawa and Jonah. Give them a history together. Maybe Jonah used to be in charge of the armed forces division attached to MONARCH but after seeing how MONARCH leaders like Serizawa priorities titans lives over the men lost in the line of duty he got disenfranchised with the whole thing and is working to undermine MONARCH.

Basically instead of introducing new characters, make it about the characters already introduced in the previous movie."