| “ | Long live the king! | „ |
| ~ Jonah after releasing King Ghidorah and 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. | „ |
| ~ Jonah explaining his motives. |
| “ | We'll take it. | „ |
| ~ Jonah purchasing one of Ghidorah's heads during the post-credits, foreshadowing the creation of Mechagodzilla by Apex Cybernetics. |
Alan Jonah is the secondary antagonist of the 2019 MonsterVerse sci-fi action film Godzilla: King of the Monsters and its prequel comic book Godzilla: Aftershock, and the main antagonist of the 2024 video game Kong: Survivor Instinct.
He is a former British Army colonel and MI-6 agent-turned-eco-terrorist leader who sought to find and awaken all of the Earth's Titans as he intends to have them wipe out humanity so they can become the planet's dominant species while planning to use the Titans to restore order to nature with assistance from Monarch traitor Dr. Emma Russell, whom he uses as a pawn. However, his plan was foiled thanks to Emma's daughter Madison, who steals her mother's sonar device called the ORCA and uses it to stop the Titans' worldwide rampage to prevent them from destroying all life and causing more catastrophes. After Ghidorah's death at the hands of Godzilla, Jonah purchases one of the three-headed Titan's severed heads that had been torn off by Godzilla before selling it to Apex Cybernetics, leading to the creation of the robotic Titan Mechagodzilla.
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, David Carlton in Ali G Indahouse, and Roderick Burgess in The Sandman. In Kong: Survivor Instinct, he was voiced by Larry Oblander.
Biography
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, he grew misanthropic. He founded a eco-terrorist organization, focused on letting the Titans destroy humanity as he believes that they will take better care of Earth than humans.
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 on deployment only for her body to be found six days later in a storm drain.
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 the 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. Afterward, Jonah plans on awakening another Titan, 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 pleading to her mother not to listen to Jonah and give Monarch more time to evacuate the civilians, although Emma refuses to listen to her and does it anyway.
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 before awakening and enslaving 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 the possibility of using the ORCA to broadcast a signal from the Fenway Park stadium in Boston, 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. 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 sacrificing herself to Ghidorah and transferring her energy into Godzilla in order to make him achieve a fiery form to destroy Ghidorah) while the Titans, who had once served Ghidorah, now submit to Godzilla as the rightful king of the monsters and true alpha. In the aftermath, rather than having the planet reset back to its natural order, Godzilla instead forced the Titans to undo the wrongdoings of mankind by repairing all the damage caused to Earth, leaving Jonah's plan in vain.
Even though his plans have been foiled, Jonah and his mercenaries travel to Mexico and find one of Ghidorah's severed heads that Godzilla had previously bitten off earlier during his underwater fight with his foe. It is uncertain how Jonah will use it for unknown purposes since he has now purchased Ghidorah's severed head.
Godzilla vs. Kong - The Official Movie Novelization
In 2024, sometime after the events of the Boston attack, a man implied to be Alan Jonah, who is wanted by Interpol and at least twenty governments at that point, meets Walter Simmons, the CEO of Apex Cybernetics, in Pensacola. The two made a mutual agreement in which the man sold one of Ghidorah's skulls to Simmons. Simmons would then later use the skull as a cockpit for the construction of Mechagodzilla. It's later stated in the novelization that during the crisis involving Godzilla's rampage and Mechagodzilla's emergence, Jonah is still at large as far as Monarch know and his current whereabouts are unknown.
Kong: Survivor Instinct
After Godzilla and Kong teamed up to defeat and destroy Mechagodzilla, Jonah formed a new mercenary organization called the "Hyenas" as they plan to utilize the ORCA Σ to lure Titans and harvest their DNA for the highest bidders. Jonah and his men managed to capture Tiamat's daughter Lahamu, and with the help of Stacy Martin, began experimenting on her for "Project Reborn" in a secret underwater facility. However, Jonah's plan was foiled by Stacy's father, David Martin, and he led the Hyenas into using submarines to retreat as Lahamu escaped to the open ocean to reunite with Tiamat.
Godzilla x Kong: The Hunted
In 2027, Bernie Hayes keeps a photo of Jonah in his office.
Quotes
| “ | Man does not control the laws of nature, and neither do you. | „ |
| ~ Jonah shooting down Emma's attempt to reason with him. |
| “ | Madison, tell me, what exactly did Mommy sell you on? Some grand utopia? Man and monster living together in blissful harmony? | „ |
| ~ Jonah mockingly asking Madison if Emma sold her on the idea to release the Titans by promising humans and monsters living together in peace. |
| “ | Hello, Doctor Russell. That was a warning shot. I suggest you come along with me now. | „ |
| ~ Jonah to Emma. |
| “ | I seem to remember you telling me that the world always belonged to them. Well, maybe it's time we give it back. | „ |
| ~ Jonah to Emma. |
Personality
Alan is an unemotional, stoic, and calm, yet cruel, intimidating, sadistic, manipulative, and ruthless man who doesn't care about the lives lost in 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 became unaffected by the 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 inevitably caused 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 be aware of Ghidorah is an unusual Titan, he doesn't know or care that the Kaiju intends to destroy all life on Earth or the fact that he is a malicious alien with an agenda even more sinister 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 humanity because he had a daughter who got kidnapped 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 Titans, 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 his nihilism and suicidal plans, Alan is shown to have signs of humanity and some redeeming qualities. This is demonstrated as, rather than having his men kill Emma once she's no longer needed, he instead decides to let her go when he learns she's wanting to save Madison, even allowing her to take one of his men's vehicles. The novelization mentions that this was either due to not caring about Emma anymore or simply because he had some humanity left in him (since he himself lost a child), or his stoic exterior in the situation actually masks a fear of death as he was not willing to risk his life to go with Emma, despite being his part in releasing the Titans. Alan also cared greatly for one of his soldiers, Asher, being greatly concerned for him when Mark fatally shot him in an attempt to rescue his wife Emma and his daughter Madison. This care also seems to extend to the rest of his men, as he is unwilling to let Emma take any of them with her to find Madison due to fear for their safety, even though it was his neglect that put them and himself in harm's way and risk of facing Ghidorah's wrath as just as much as anyone else.
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 mercenaries, further proving his instability, which led him to make very bad decisions that make his judgment and ability to inspire loyalty among his followers even more questionable as his inability to take responsibility for the crisis and blindly sabotaging his own plans makes him actually look incompetent and could normally lead someone like him to be viewed as a possible liability to his organization, due to his instability and reluctance to regain control of the situation. In addition, it's implied in the Godzilla vs. Kong novelization that Jonah sold a Ghidorah head to Walter Simmons (whose views on humanity and the Titans are diametric to Jonah's own), hinting that Godzilla's choice to halt the Titans' global destruction against humanity upon Ghidorah's death has further eroded what little sanity Jonah still had.
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 similarity between Jonah and Ghidorah - Both are evil but rather non-sadistic in the movie but both are more vicious and sadistic in the novelization.
- In the novelization while Jonah had more sympathetic 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 only human villain to be still alive in the MonsterVerse after the events of Godzilla vs. Kong.
- Jonah is the only human villain who hasn't made any direct interactions with Godzilla in the MonsterVerse franchise.
- Jonah serves as a foil to Mark Russell, representing what he would've become if he hadn't moved on from the death of his son Andrew and let his hatred of Godzilla consume him.
- Jonah also serves as a foil to Emma Russell, representing what she would've become if she didn't realize the error of her ways and redeemed herself.
- Alan Jonah is the second villain to be a human in the MonsterVerse franchise, following Preston Packard. In stark contrast to Preston, however, Jonah survived the events of his debut film.
- Coincidentally, the two shared a similar military background.
- If it's proven the implication of Jonah's disillusionment over the Titans is true, he may have gained a similar grudge against Godzilla much how Packard did with Kong.
- 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 paintings depicting his conflicts with Godzilla, however it was hinted that Jonah was aware that Ghidorah was not from Earth from the very beginning as he said "God had nothing to do with this".
- His name (specifically his surname) could be a reference and homage 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 its stomach for three days before being vomited out; 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).
- Despite Jonah's attempts at destroying humanity, he doesn't seem eager to risk his own life, hinting him to be a coward at heart when facing death. It's also possible Jonah's supposed care for his men is a façade, likely planning to have them killed once they outlive their usefulness as he refused to Emma find Madison and likely re-take the ORCA to stop Ghidorah from possibly reaching the capture Monarch facility they've taken, who would've killed most of his soldiers and likely him if he ever reached the base. It's possible if that happened, Jonah would've callously abandoned his own soldiers and leave them for dead at the hands of the alien Titan.
- If his biblical namesake hold ups, it's possible that Jonah's implied selling of a Ghidorah head to Apex could due to becoming disillusioned with the Titans, likely furious over Godzilla choosing to save humanity rather let it burn like he hoped as well the Titans accepting him as their ruler, leading Jonah to abandon his own support over their dominance on the planet, much like how he forsake his own species and instead chose to seek vengeance against Godzilla as well dedicate to destroying both of them, making even more unstable, unhinged, deranged and unpredictable.
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