| “ | Long live the king! | „ |
| ~ Alan Jonah after releasing King Ghidorah - his most famous quote. |
| “ | Listen. While you're sitting comfortably in some laboratory, we've been fighting for decades in one dirty war after another. I've seen human nature firsthand, and I'm here to 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 one of the two secondary antagonists (alongside Rodan) 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, Rodan 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, Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones, Emhyr var Emreis in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Sardo Numspa in The Golden Child and David Carlton in Ali G Indahouse.
History
Background
According to Monarch, Alan Jonah was once a British Army colonel and MI6 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, a moth-like Titan. The terrorists suddenly attack the area by bombing it and killing a few scientists, the motive for the attack being to kidnap Monarch scientist Emma Russell and her daughter Madison. However, Emma herself planned and staged this as she was joining the organization and didn't want to make it public, as her intention was to join them in order to awaken the Titans to reverse humanity's wrongdoings.
Stealing a Monarch Osprey, Alan and his terrorists proceed to travel to Antarctica in order to free King Ghidorah, who has been frozen for centuries in the ice since after his fight with Godzilla over the title of alpha. The terrorists start shooting at Monarch soldiers, but Emma's ex-husband Mark Russell manages to escape. However, when he comes to rescue his family and come back to them, he sees Emma free Ghidorah herself using explosives, having noticed her betrayal to Jonah.
After Ghidorah's escape, Emma contacts MONARCH for a negotiation, claiming that by awakening the Titans, she can restore the natural order and revert the wrongdoings of humanity. Afterwards, Jonah plans on awakening a destructive Pteranodon-like Titan named Rodan in Isla de Mara, Mexico. He orders Emma to use the ORCA to awaken Rodan from a nearby volcano in Mexico, despite Madison's pleas to her mother not to listen to Jonah as there are still people evacuating the city, although Emma sadly apologises and activates the ORCA under Jonah's orders. Upon being awakened after responding to the ORCA's call, Rodan instantly starts destroying everything in his path, but is somehow defeated by Ghidorah, who now steals Godzilla's title as the new alpha after the latter's supposed death by a nuclear warhead known as the Oxygen Destroyer while fighting his rival underwater (although it turned out that Godzilla had survived, but badly injured from the blast, although later revived after Dr. Serizawa sacrifices himself by detonating another warhead to increase Godzilla's power). Ghidorah then makes Rodan his right-hand man and calls out to the other Titans, ordering them to cause numerous massacres under his command.
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, having overheard their conversation, manages to steal the ORCA and travels to Boston, where she leads Ghidorah and the other Titans to her location so that the Titans can turn against their own alpha. Later, Jonah decides to let Emma go when he finds out the latter is wanting to save Madison and her family. Regretting what she has done, Emma ends up sacrificing her life to Ghidorah in order to distract him so that she can save Godzilla and let her family escape, before being killed by the Titan while attempting to lure him away using the ORCA. However, Ghidorah is ultimately killed for good by Godzilla with Mothra's help (thanks to her energy having transferred into Godzilla in order to make him achieve a fiery form to destroy Ghidorah), resulting in Alan Jonah's ultimate goal to fail in vain as the Titans, who had once served Ghidorah, now submit to Godzilla as the rightful king of the monsters and true alpha. As a result, Godzilla forces the Titans to repair all the damage they have caused while keeping a close eye on them.
Despite this, Jonah is revealed to have survived the events of the film in the end, returning in the post-credit scene where he and his mercenaries manage to find one of Ghidorah's severed heads that Godzilla had previously bitten off earlier during his fight with the Titan underwater. It is uncertain how Jonah will use it for unknown purposes since he has now purchased Ghidorah's severed head.
Personality
Alan is an unemotional stoic and calm, yet insane and deranged man 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.
Alan's 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. While Jonah seems to aware of Ghidorah is an unsual Titan, he dosen't know or care that the Kaiju intends to destroy all life on Earth or the fact that he is a malicous alien with an agenda even more sinster than even Jonah's, putting his cause to save the planet in question.
However, by then, Alan had already given any hope for humanity that he decided to allow Ghidorah to destroy the planet and wait for the end, the novelization also mentions that Alan hates humans because he had a daughter who he loved that got kinapped on her way home and murdered, in the novelization, he also was perfectly fine with ordering his men to slit Madison's throat if Emma went near the Orca, he also seems to hold a fascination and obsession with the Kaiju, believing them 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 to use it for unknown reasons.
Despite these turn of events, Alan is a slightly honorable man, as rather than having his men kill Emma once she's no longer needed, he instead lets her go when he finds out she's wanting to save Madison. The novelization mentions that this was either due to not caring about Emma anymore or simply because he had some humanity left in him. Alan also cared greatly for one of his soldiers, Asher, being greatly concerned for him when Mark fatally shot him in a attempt to rescue his wife Emma and his daughter Madison. However Jonah's care for his men could be limited, due to his intentions to destroy humanity and never seemed to take their lives into consideration since Ghidorah would've likely turned on Jonah and his mercnaries, further proving his instability, which led him to make very bad descions that makes his judgement even more questionable.
Gallery
Trivia
- Jonah could be considered the human counterpart to King Ghidorah, also being a homicidal killer who wished to change the world to how he sees fit. It is even theorized he may be the Monsterverse version of the Controller of Planet X from Invasion of Astro Monster as well as Controller X from Godzilla: Final Wars. That being said, Jonah is not as evil as Controller X or King Ghidorah, just unstable and petty.
- Another similaraity between Johan and Ghidorah. Both are evil but rather sadistic-free in the movie but both are more vicious and sadistic in the novelization.
- In the novelization while Jonah had more sympathiec qualities such as his genuine care for Asher (he still cared for Asher in the movie but their relationship wasn't as focused on) and his loss of his daughter, he was also slightly more villainous ordering his men to slit Madison's throat if Emma went near the Orca.
- 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, for some fans he was the most popular human character in the 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. However, he and his echo-terrorist group are viewed by fanbase as the most unnecessary subplots as well as the weakest element in the film, due to thier pressence driving away from the main plot of Ghidorah's rampage and for being out of place in a story that normally features him as the main threat, which usually involves eitheir him acting on his own or an Alien threat playing a role in his rampage. While Charles Dance's acting was praised, Jonah's role and relavance to the plot as well as his characterization received a mixed reception, in addition to his motives being murky at best and even confusing at worst. Many fans felt his character would've worked better in a film featuring Biollante as Godzilla's main oppopent, whose debut film featured a similar terrorist group the played an antagonistic role in the film.
- It is currently unknown if Jonah is truly aware of Ghidorah's alien origins as it was Monarch who found it based on the cave paitings depecting his conflicts with Godzilla, however it was hinted that Jonah was aware of that Ghidorah was not from Earth from the very beggining as he said "god had nothing to do with this".
- It is also theorized by the fandom that the Alan Jonah that appeared in the movie is not the real one, but rather an Alien impressonating him, due to the implications of his knowlege of Ghidorah. It may be implied that the real Jonah was either abucted or killed by them decades the film and his eco-terrorsit movement to restore the Earth was really a front for an Alien invasion. The implication could be that an Expy of the Xillians is going playing a future role in the Monsterverse as thay had a history of using members of their species posing as humans for ininfiltration. In additions they also use monsters to destroy humanity, so they can settle on their planet and colonize it. This could explain Jonah's insane motives and willingness to allow Ghidorah destroy the Earth.
- 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.
- His name (specifically his surname) could be a reference and parody to the prophet Jonah from the Old Testament of the Bible as they are both associated with giant monsters (Jonah was swallowed by a whale and lived in there 3 days before being vomited by it; Alan Jonah wanting to use monsters on mankind) and are both hateful to mankind's evil tendencies (Ninevites for the prophet Jonah; the entire world for Alan Jonah).
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