Godzilla and Kong recap: the story so far

No. 01 · 2014 · Film

Godzilla recap

In 1999, an incident at a Japanese nuclear plant kills Sandra Brody, wife of the plant's engineer Joe. Fifteen years later Joe is still obsessed with the cover-up, and his son Ford, a Navy bomb disposal officer, flies to Japan to bail him out. In the quarantine zone they find that Monarch has been studying a chrysalis that feeds on radiation. It hatches into a winged creature, a MUTO, and Joe is killed. Monarch scientists Ishiro Serizawa and Vivienne Graham explain that an ancient predator, Godzilla, has been hidden since 1954, when atomic tests were really attempts to kill him. A second, larger female MUTO awakens in Nevada, and the two head to San Francisco to breed, while Godzilla rises to hunt them. The military plans to lure them with a nuclear warhead, and Ford joins the mission.

How Godzilla ends

Godzilla fights the MUTOs in San Francisco. Ford burns their nest and gets the warhead onto a boat out of the city before it detonates, while Godzilla kills the male and finishes the female by blasting his atomic breath down her throat. Godzilla collapses, then wakes and returns to the sea. Ford reunites with his wife and son, and the news hails Godzilla as the savior of the city.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 02 · 2017 · Film

Kong: Skull Island recap

In 1973, as the United States pulls out of Vietnam, Monarch official Bill Randa gets an escort to survey an uncharted island in the South Pacific. Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard's helicopter squadron, the British tracker James Conrad and the photographer Mason Weaver go with him. They drop seismic charges on Skull Island, and a giant ape, Kong, smashes the helicopters and kills many of the soldiers. Randa admits he came to prove monsters exist. The survivors are split up. Conrad's group meets the Iwi, a native people, and Hank Marlow, an American pilot stranded since World War II, who explains that Kong is the island's protector against the Skullcrawlers, reptiles from underground that killed the rest of his kind. Packard, who lost men to Kong, wants revenge and leads his soldiers to kill him.

How Kong: Skull Island ends

Packard's napalm trap brings Kong down, but Conrad and Weaver stop him, and Kong crushes Packard. The largest Skullcrawler attacks; Kong fights it, saves Weaver from a lake, and tears out its tongue and organs. The survivors leave on Marlow's rebuilt boat, and Marlow returns home to the wife and son he has never met. Kong is left as the island's guardian.

Post-credits scenes

Yes. After the credits, Conrad and Weaver are held by Monarch, who show them cave paintings of other Titans: Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra and King Ghidorah. "Kong is not the only king," they are told, setting up Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

No. 03 · 2019 · Film

Godzilla: King of the Monsters recap

Five years after San Francisco, Monarch paleobiologist Emma Russell, who lost her son in the battle, has built the Orca, a device that can call and calm Titans. Eco-terrorist Alan Jonah kidnaps her and her daughter Madison, and Emma is revealed to be working with him: she believes the Titans must be freed to heal the planet. They awaken Monster Zero, a three-headed dragon frozen in Antarctica, which turns out to be King Ghidorah, an alien rival to Godzilla. Ghidorah wakes Rodan, a fire demon from a volcano in Mexico. Mothra hatches in China. In a battle in Mexico, the military's Oxygen Destroyer badly wounds Godzilla and Ghidorah takes command of the Titans, which rise all over the world. Emma's ex-husband Mark joins Monarch to rescue Madison.

How Godzilla: King of the Monsters ends

Ishiro Serizawa carries a nuclear warhead into Godzilla's underwater lair and sacrifices himself to revive him. Madison steals the Orca and lures Ghidorah to Boston, where Emma dies saving her family. Mothra gives her life shielding Godzilla, who absorbs her energy, burns Ghidorah apart in a nuclear pulse and becomes king. The other Titans, Rodan included, bow to him as the world watches.

Post-credits scenes

The credits show news clippings of Titans restoring the environment around the world. After the credits, Alan Jonah buys one of Ghidorah's severed heads from fishermen in Mexico, setting up the next films.

No. 04 · 2021 · Film

Godzilla vs. Kong recap

Monarch keeps Kong in a dome on Skull Island, where he befriends Jia, a deaf Iwi girl who speaks with him in sign language. Godzilla suddenly attacks an Apex Cybernetics facility in Pensacola. Apex's CEO Walter Simmons hires the scientist Nathan Lind to lead an expedition to the Hollow Earth, the Titans' home, to find an energy source; Kong is the guide. On the way, Godzilla attacks the convoy at sea and the two fight. In the Hollow Earth, Kong finds his ancestors' throne room and an axe made from a Godzilla dorsal plate, and Apex steals the energy. Madison Russell, her friend Josh and the podcaster Bernie Hayes break into Apex and discover what Godzilla was attacking: Mechagodzilla, a robot powered by the skull of King Ghidorah and piloted by Ren Serizawa.

How Godzilla vs. Kong ends

Godzilla and Kong fight in Hong Kong, and Godzilla wins. Mechagodzilla, powered by the Hollow Earth energy, is taken over by Ghidorah's mind and kills Simmons and Ren. Nathan revives Kong, who joins Godzilla, and Kong tears Mechagodzilla apart with the axe. Godzilla and Kong part on uneasy terms, and Kong becomes ruler of the Hollow Earth, roaring from his ancestors' throne as Monarch settles in to watch him.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 05 · 2023 · Series · optional

Skull Island recap

In 1993, Charlie, the son of the cryptid-hunting expedition leader Cap, and his best friend Mike pull a girl, Annie, out of the sea in the South Pacific. A giant Kraken sinks their boat and kills Mike's father Hiro, and the boys wash up on Skull Island. Cap also makes it ashore and runs into Irene, a scientist leading mercenaries who are hunting Annie. Annie and the boys bond with Dog, a doglike creature, survive the island's monsters and try to stay ahead of Kong, while Mike hides a wound from the Kraken. They realise they cannot escape while the Kraken guards the waters, and Charlie remembers that Kong is attached to a necklace once worn by a girl he protected. Charlie makes peace with his father and goes with Annie and Dog to steal the necklace from a temple and lure Kong to the coast. Masked islanders capture Charlie.

How Skull Island ends

Kong chases the necklace to the beach and fights the Kraken there, wounding it with the wreck of Cap's boat before ripping it in half and throwing it out to sea. The wave knocks Annie out. She wakes two weeks later in a hospital on the mainland, greeted by Irene, who is revealed to be her mother, leaving the others' fates open.

No. 06 · 2023 · Series · optional

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters recap

In season 1, set in 2015 after Godzilla's attack on San Francisco, Cate Randa travels to Tokyo and discovers that her missing father Hiroshi had a second family, including her half brother Kentaro. With Kentaro's ex-girlfriend May, they find Hiroshi's files on Monarch, and an aging Lee Shaw, a founding Monarch officer, helps them escape the agency. Flashbacks to the 1950s show Bill Randa, the scientist Keiko Miura and a young Lee Shaw forming Monarch, following Godzilla, and falling into a love triangle; Keiko marries Bill and is lost in 1962. Cate, May and Shaw are pulled into Axis Mundi, a realm between the surface and the Hollow Earth where time runs differently, and find Keiko there, still young. In season 2, Kong's attack on the Skull Island station wakes a tentacled sea Titan, Titan X, worshipped by a cult on the island of Santa Soledad that Shaw, Keiko and Bill visited in 1957. Apex Cybernetics chases the Titan for its own ends. Hiroshi dies saving Cate, and Titan X lays an egg that Godzilla attacks.

How Monarch: Legacy of Monsters ends

Season 1 ends with Cate, May and Keiko escaping Axis Mundi while Shaw is left behind, and the reunited family on Skull Island as Kong approaches. Season 2 ends with Cate leading Titan X and its egg back to Axis Mundi. Six weeks later, Monarch recruits Cate, May and Keiko to track Kentaro, who has gone off with Apex's Isabel Simmons, and Shaw sees Rodan in Thailand.

No. 07 · 2024 · Film

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire recap

Kong lives alone in the Hollow Earth, while Godzilla guards the surface, defeating Titans and sleeping in the Colosseum in Rome. A signal from deep in the Hollow Earth draws Godzilla to a nuclear plant to absorb radiation, and Jia, now living at Monarch's Hollow Earth base with her adoptive mother Ilene Andrews, starts having visions. Kong, given a mechanical gauntlet for a damaged tooth, finds a hidden realm full of his own species, ruled by the cruel Skar King, who controls the ice Titan Shimo with a crystal. Ilene, Bernie Hayes and the Titan vet Trapper follow Jia's visions and find a lost tribe of Iwi, Jia's people. Kong is beaten by the Skar King and realises he needs Godzilla's help. The Iwi revive Mothra to bring the two together.

How Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ends

Mothra stops Godzilla and Kong fighting, and the two go into the Hollow Earth together. They fight the Skar King and Shimo, then the battle spills out into Rio de Janeiro. Jia uses Mothra to break the Skar King's hold on Shimo, who freezes him, and Kong throws him into a portal to be killed. Kong becomes king of his kind with Shimo at his side, and Godzilla returns to sleep in the Colosseum.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.