Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a movie in which massive creatures larger than anything that has ever lived battle each other to the death in the middle of populated modern cities. Some of them live inside volcanoes and others spent untold eaons frozen in a block of ice before breaking free without any long term effects. However, the thing that Thomas Middleditch is calling out isn't the massive kaiju creatures. It's the technology used by humans in the movie.
Thomas Middleditch plays Sam Coleman in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, one of the members of Monarch, the secret human organization that has spent decades researching the "titans" in secret. The organization seems to have an endless supply of money, which has been put toward creating some awesome technology. One of these pieces of tech is the Argo, what is essentially a flying aircraft carrier, and as cool as the actor admits the ship is, he also is forced to admit that the thing could never actually exist. According to Middleditch...
There’s a lot of gadgets in this film, most notably the Argo which we’re shooting endless scenes on. The Argo, it’s this massive ship that is so big, I don’t know if it could fly and also has hovering VTOL capabilities. As an aviator, I call bologna. But, it’s still pretty fun. It’s still cool.
Thomas Middleditch actually is a licensed pilot, so he knows a bit about what he's talking about. The Argo is a massive flying wing, it looks to be about the size of a small city, so the idea that something of that size could fly with that design is a bit unrealistic. Add to that the fact that it has Vertical Take-Off And Landing (VTOL) capability, something that is impossible for most planes, and it becomes all the more unbelievable.
Of course, as Thomas Middleditch admits in the special features for the Godzilla: King of the Monsters Blu-ray. The Argo is still pretty cool, so we'll let it slide. When your movie is about giant monsters roaming the earth and firing atomic breath weapons at each other, you can take a bit of license with the realism of your tech. The point of the movie isn't to be accurate, it's to be awesome.
For the most part, Godzilla: King of the Monsters succeeded in being awesome. If the first Godzilla faltered by not featuring the title creature enough, the sequel fixed that problem and then piled three more kaiju on top of that just for good measure.
We can be sure that cool technology like the Argo is only the beginning for the Monsterverse. Michael Dougherty who directed King of the Monsters also helmed the upcoming sequel Godzilla vs. Kong, and if one thing is clear from the Blu-ray special features, he loved pushing the envelope with cool tech and awesome monsters.
While Godzilla: King of the Monsters did not blow away the box office, the follow-up has already been filmed, so we know it's happening. Perhaps the Argo will get some cool new upgrades, that are equally implausible.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters is now available in Digital HD and on Blu-ray.
