Back in the summer of 2017, I visited a secret underwater base where hundreds of people were hard at work. This was one of the clandestine installments run by the monster-studying organization Monarch, and the scientists and personnel on hand had one primary task: waiting and watching for signs of the greatest monster of them all. The king of the monsters -- Godzilla!

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Of course, in actual fact I was in Atlanta on a soundstage where the huge Monarch set was standing, a series of corridors and chambers that simulated a high-tech base built into the side of an underwater mountain range. Filled with computer monitors displaying details about suspected or known monsters, and featuring a giant window that will offer Monarch scientists a view of the depths of the sea and -- as the trailers have shown us -- of monster passersby, this set is, in a word, sick.Monarch, which was first revealed in the 2014 Godzilla reboot, is once again a centerpiece of that film’s sequel, Godzilla: King of the Monsters . And the organization -- and the production, from Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. -- have spared no expense in their quest to track giant monsters and/or giant profits for the ongoing series.With the prequel Kong: Skull Island hitting in 2017, and Godzilla vs. Kong already shooting for a 2020 release, there’s a lot going on in the so-called MonsterVerse. But for now, the cast and crew of King of the Monsters are focused on pitting Godzilla against a trio of his classic foes: Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah, who traditionally is depicted as our giant hero’s most hated foe.Directed by Michael Dougherty (Trick 'r Treat, Krampus), who also co-wrote the script with Zach Shields, and starring non-monstery humans including Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Bradley Whitford, Sally Hawkins, Charles Dance, Thomas Middleditch, Aisha Hinds, O'Shea Jackson Jr., David Strathairn, Ken Watanabe, and Ziyi Zhang, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is basically a dream come true for the director, who recalls making a camcorder-Godzilla movie when he was around 10… and which starred his pet tortoise and some Star Wars toys.Read on for all the details about the film that I dug up while on set -- like a Monarch scientist unearthing some humongous creature that he just should’ve left sleeping!

Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah Explained

Godzilla: King of the Monsters Images 5 IMAGES

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Whereas the 2014 Godzilla film focused on just the title monster as he reemerged to battle fairly anonymous MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms), one of the goals of Dougherty and producer Alex Garcia was to dig into the storied catalogue of original Japanese monster studio Toho’s classic beasts. And so we’re getting the pterodactyl-like Rodan, the warm and fuzzy giant insect Mothra, and the three-headed King Ghidorah (a.ka. Monster Zero). The filmmakers have tried to give each of these beasts their own iconography and memorable moments.“There's a big sequence where Rodan emerges from a volcano, which is actually going to be what we're shooting in Mexico,” explained the producer.The instigating incident of the film involves Vera Farmiga and Millie Bobby Brown's characters being kidnapped by a mercenary group that seeks the “Orca,” a device developed by Farmiga’s character which allows for a limited form of communication with, or control of, the giant monsters.“[Monarch believes] that the mercenary group may be there and a whole chase ensues with Rodan, which is a really great sequence Mike has come up with in the movie,” continued Garcia. “The Monarch crew is in a craft they have called the Argo. … Part of it is how do we do things with these creatures that we've not seen before, and just the idea of an aerial chase between this thing and all of these crafts is super exciting.”Garcia said that Mothra was the most challenging of the three monsters from a design perspective.“One thing Mike was really passionate about with Mothra is that she feels really elegant, but also lithe and deadly,” the producer explained during a tour of concept art and models of the creatures. “And that obviously in the Toho designs, there were really iconic elements, but it's taking the essence of those while being able to have her feel formidable.”As for King Ghidorah, he is not surprisingly the Big Bad of the film.“He's sort of long been Godzilla's arch-nemesis in the Toho canon and certainly lives up to that reputation here,” said Garcia. “With Rodan and Mothra, we play a little bit with where the allegiance would lie. You could almost say that it's a bit of a battle for supremacy between Gozilla and Ghidorah. That's always the tricky thing. How do you capture that essence but yet still have it feel really fresh and distinctive so that an audience who isn't necessarily familiar with the character falls in love with it the same way hopefully we did when we were kids? It's part of the reason they've been around for so long.”Another aspect of King of the Monsters’ approach to these creatures is their almost biblical-like nature. Everywhere Ghidorah goes, he's followed by a tempest or a storm,” said Garcia. “Mothra clears, and has this celestial light. Rodan is [accompanied by] fire.”According to the Monarch site which is an in-universe part of the film’s marketing, Mothra has a wingspan of 803 feet and a deep history in human mythology. “The folklore and fairy tales tell of a winged creature of blinding light, an angel of the clouds whose god-like luminescence has the power to shatter the sky,” says the site’s write-up on this beauty. Rodan’s wingspan tops Mothra’s at 871 feet, while his behavior is described as “destroyer” and his range is “worldwide.” “The legends speak of it as the ‘Fire Demon’ or ‘The One Born of Fire,’” says the site. As for Ghidorah, his body height is 521 feet, his nature is bio-electrical, and the Monarch profile compares him to the Hydra or Rainbow Serpent of legend: “A living extinction event, named ‘the one who is many.’” Yikes.