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Warning: slight spoilers for Godzilla vs. Kong are in play. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, you may want to turn back.
In the beginning, there was Godzilla, which featured the titular Titan’s battle against a pair of monsters known simply as Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms, or “MUTOs” for short. As the series progressed, more Titans were brought into the fold, but one of the runaway favorites had to be gigantic moth/Godzilla’s champion, Mothra. Introduced in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, it was assumed that we’d see her kind again in the massive sequel Godzilla vs. Kong. And yet, she was nowhere to be seen, which led to one obvious question: where’s Mothra?
While Godzilla vs. Kong is an absolute blast of a film, and the story is indeed focused on the fight between the two beasts in the title, this was still a subject that had to be approached. So during the press day for the movie, I asked all of the cast members I spoke with where they thought Mothra was during the events of director Adam Wingard’s massive MonsterVerse crossover. For the most part, I was met with the same answer: “I don’t know.”
Out of the five Godzilla vs. Kong cast members I was able to interview, three had no idea where Mothra was. Rebecca Hall, Eiza Gonzalez and Demian Bichir all sadly had no clues as to where this queen of the monsters could be. But that didn’t stop Team Godzilla supporters Millie Bobby Brown and Julian Dennison from offering their own hypotheses. Here’s what they had to say about the matter:
Brown: Mothra is such a queen. Let me tell you, Mike. She has no time for this boy drama. I mean, get over yourselves with the fighting. Nobody cares anymore.Dennison: Hopefully she’s just chilling in a cocoon somewhere, vibin’ out.
Just when you thought Godzilla vs. Kong was the title fight of the week, in comes both Millie Bobby Brown and Julian Dennison to sort of duke it out over Mothra. In Ms. Brown’s defense, Mothra does hatch from an egg, not a cocoon. However, on the subject of those Titan boys making noise, there is a bit of a crowd gathering around this gigantic smackdown; and the results have been most impressive at the international box office.
The case surrounding the missing Mothra gets even more interesting though. Godzilla: King of the Monsters did confirm there was another Mothra egg in the world, providing a backdoor for the return of the Titan some see as a companion to Godzilla. However, the Godzilla vs. Kong production makes this light-hearted question even more of a realistic concern. Which is all thanks to the fact that during the making of the film, actor Zhang Ziyi was mentioned as reprising her Godzilla: King of the Monsters roles.
Though her big post-credits scene from Godzilla: King of the Monsters was cut before it was even filmed, Zhang Ziyi was supposed to be returning as both Dr. Ilene and Ling Chen in Godzilla vs. Kong. Even our own Adam Holmes uncovered further confirmation of Mothra's involvement in the movie, through two different sources. Initially, his trip to the movie’s set uncovered some details as to how the film would reference the Mothra Twins, albeit a young pair, in its costuming. However, the plot thickened further in Mr. Holmes' interview with MonsterVerse architect Max Borenstein, who dished the following information:
That same tag at some point was going to be in Godzilla vs. Kong. There was a different potential tag. I definitely remember those scenes and playing around them … They were cool scenes.
Do we dare start to ask Warner Bros to “release the Mothra cut” of Godzilla vs. Kong, in hopes of getting the full, furry story? Don’t hold your breath, as director Adam Wingard wanted to bring a streamlined monster-stomping experience to the screen, and oh did he succeed. Then again, that doesn’t mean a home video release couldn’t, and shouldn’t, contain the missing scenes that show just what’s going on in the world of this mammoth moth. And apologies to Julian Dennison, should these new scenes trigger his fear of moths described in the video above.
Godzilla vs. Kong, in all of its sub-two hour glory, is currently available in theaters and on HBO Max. If you’re looking to get on board with the streaming side of things, there’s a six month prepaid discount waiting for you. However, if you feel safe enough to go out into the world of your local movie theater, a wide variety of options and formats are available to put you in the middle of the action.
