| “ | Long live the king! | „ |
| ~ Alan Jonah after releasing King Ghidorah - his most famous quote. |
| “ | While you're sitting comfortably in some laboratory, we've been fighting for decades in a dirty war after another. I've seen human nature firsthand, and let me tell you that it doesn't get any better. It just gets worse. So I'm sorry that Monster Zero isn't exactly what we were expecting. But we opened Pandora's Box, and there's no closing it now. | „ |
| ~ Alan Jonah explaining his motives. |
Alan Jonah is the central antagonist of MonsterVerse's Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the third movie of the MonsterVerse franchise and a sequel to the 2014 Godzilla film. He is a former British Army colonel and MI-6 agent turned eco-terrorist faction leader who sought to release King Ghidorah and the rest of the Titans across the globe so they can supplant humanity as the dominant species and restore order to nature.
He was portrayed by Charles Dance, who also played Mr. Benedict in Last Action Hero, Master Vampire in Dracula Untold and Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones.
History
Background
Alan Jonah was once a British colonel and agent but after many years of seeing humanity at its worst grew misanthropic. He founded a terrorist organization, focused on letting the Kaiju monsters destroy humanity as he believes that they will take better care of Earth than humans.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Alan's terrorist group first appears at the start of the film when an egg in China gives birth to Mothra. The terrorists suddenly attack the area by bombing it, the motive for the attack being to kidnap Monarch scientist Emma Russell and her daughter Madison. However, Emma herself planned this as she was joining the organization and didn't want to make it public.
Alan and his terrorists proceed to travel to Antarctica in order to free King Ghidorah, who has been frozen for a long time in the ice. The terrorists start shooting at Monarch but Mark Russell, Emma's husband, manages to escape. But when he comes to rescue his family, he sees Emma rescue Ghidorah herself.
After awakening Ghidorah, Jonah plans on awakening another destructive Kaiju named Rodan. He orders Emma to use a device known as the Orca to awaken Rodan from a volcano. Rodan instantly starts destroying everything in its path and eats multiple humans. Ghidorah later makes Rodan his own right-hand and multiple other titans start following Ghidorah's orders, leading into multiple massacres.
Emma eventually starts doubting that Jonah's goals are as effective as he says they are, and suggests that they quit the operation, but Jonah disagrees. However, Madison manages to steal the Orca and leads Ghidorah to Boston where the other Kaiju reside so that he can be killed by them. Regretting what she has done, Emma sacrifices herself to Ghidorah to distract him so that her family can escape, before being killed by the monster.
Jonah is revealed to have survived the events of the film in the end, returning in the post-credit scene where he manages to find one of Ghidorah's head. It is unknown how he will use it.
Personality
Jonah is an unemotional, stoic and calm person who doesn't care about the lives that are lost during his terrorist attacks. This could be due to different reasons, such as experiencing so many horrible things during his time as agent and colonel that he's become unaffected by death, or viewing his victims as sacrifices for a higher cause. His motive can be simplified by saying that he wants to save planet Earth from humanity as he believes humanity will destroy the planet, but his way of preventing destruction will inevitably cause more destruction than what he's trying to stop, as Ghidorah most likely would have destroyed the entire world had he not been stopped. Although by then, Jonah had already given any hope for humanity that he decided to allow Ghidorah destroy the planet and wait for the end. He is also seems to hold a fascination and obsession with the Kaiju, believing him to be worthy of ruling the Earth. Even after Ghidorah's defeat, Alan's obsession with him was still present as he brought one of his severed heads and wishes to bring it back.
Gallery
Trivia
- Alan Jonah is the second villain to be a human in the MonsterVerse franchise, following Preston Packard. In stark contrast of Preston, however, Jonah survived the events of his debut film.
- Coincidentally, the two shared a similar military background.
- Despite Jonah's actions, he was the most popular human character in film and one of the most popular human characters in the MonsterVerse. In fact, many of his actions are arguably consistent with his cause than Dr. Emma Russell, whom initially believes Ghidorah to be an Earth based Titan, but was soon revealed to be an alien bent on taking over the planet and killing all of humanity, something even Jonah figured out rather quickly.
- Whereas Jonah's motives were to humble his own race whom he deemed ravaging the planet, King Ghidorah proved to be the bigger threat because he sought Earth's destruction.
- It is revealed in the novelization that Jonah's disdain for humanity was cemented when his daughter was kidnapped and killed on her way back from school while he was in deployment only for her body to be found six days later in a storm drain.
