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“ | And now, my Mecha. It's not only Godzilla's equal, but his superior. The Apex Titan of my own hand. It's time to show the world what you can do. | „ |
~ Walter Simmons upon witnessing the full activation of Mechagodzilla. |
Walter Simmons is the overarching antagonist of Godzilla vs. Kong and the Apple TV+ television series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
He is the head of the robotics company Apex Cybernetics and supposedly wants to help people recover from the damage caused by the Titans, but in reality, he wants to control the Earth with mankind as the supreme species and is willing to kill millions of civilians via Godzilla to do so.
He was portrayed by Demián Bichir.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
- He focused his wealth and resources on creating Mechagodzilla using his advanced technology, purchasing two of King Ghidorah's skulls from Alan Jonah, one for the cockpit and the other for the head.
- He plotted on using Mechagodzilla to enslave all of the Titans he can and kill the rest, making mankind the dominant race all out of his fanaticism that mankind is the apex species with his corporate empire on top, which is why he named his corporation "Apex Cybernetics".
- He is the one behind the creation of the Oxygen Destroyer, having presented it as a weapon for the military to use to kill Godzilla, having never been caught due to Apex having connections with the government.
- He had Bernie Hayes' wife Sara murdered in a car accident to cover up his agenda against the Titans, as she uncovered the truth about the Oxygen Destroyer. In turn, this is what led Bernie to work for Apex while undercover so he can expose their agenda.
- He has no genuine care about his daughter Maia, despite her seeking his approval. This is shown when he plays mind-games with her to test whether or not she is worthy of inheriting Apex, keeping Kong's involvement in the mission a secret to her.
- He is responsible for brainwashing Godzilla into becoming dangerously aggressive and homicidal via Mechagodzilla's activation, using the Titan to dispose of thousands of people and destroy countless buildings which resulted in an immense number of damage in the process, making this Walter's actions and not Godzilla's.
- He would then manipulate humanity by lying to them that Godzilla has turned rogue towards them, though this basically was entirely his fault for causing all of this considering that he was the one who provoked Godzilla into war. Not only that, but this would also lead to Godzilla and Kong's rivalry in the first place (likely due to Godzilla's hatred against apes after one of his ancestors was killed by the Skar King in the past), despite Kong posing no threat to Godzilla.
- In his headquarters in Hong Kong, he tests Mechagodzilla against smaller Titans. One of the Titans was a Skullcrawler nicknamed "Number 10" which Mechagodzilla slices in half with its proton scream.
- He manipulates Monarch members Nathan Lind and Ilene Andrews to lead an expedition with Maia down to the Hollow Earth using Kong as their navigator so that Apex can extract its energy to power Mechagodzilla in order to defeat Godzilla.
- When Madison Russell confronts him by telling him that he provoked Godzilla into war and caused thousands of innocent people to lose their lives through his operation and endangered millions more, Simmons doesn't care and has Ren activate Mechagodzilla anyway, despite the latter's warnings it was still not ready.
- To make matters worse, Simmons deliberately made it so that Godzilla would go to Hong Kong and kill the millions there, and Apex can use Mechagodzilla to kill him so he can paint himself as a "savior" and systematically take over the world through Apex as a corporate empire.
- His death wasn't played for sympathy when he is killed by Mechagodzilla under Ghidorah's influence as he outright deserved it for his heinous actions.
- All of his worst actions show that beneath his public façade is a cold, selfish man who only cares about making mankind the dominant race to satisfy his ego without caring about how many casualties were necessary to turn the world against Godzilla.
- Despite having more resources than Jonah who was successful in a higher body count of hundreds of millions and attempted billions, shoots a man onscreen, and is indirectly responsible for provoking far more Titans because he wants all of mankind to be annihilated, Simmons can't do so because he's lacking the ORCA which can awaken Titans, making him stand out as the quality over Jonah's quantity.
- Despite having comedic moments, he is still taken seriously.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- Even though he engineered and attempted to engineer mass casualties in Hong Kong, he still had some form of honor towards Nathan Lind's late brother David, feeling sorry for his death and saying that he was "a true pioneer", which isn't subverted. However, this is a small deterrent, as Simmons' high-functioning sociopathy and the dead-eyed look in his face when he mentions David Lind shows that at best, he only had some twisted respect toward David for "pioneering" humanity, or at worst he was only using the mention of David as a manipulation tactic towards Nathan.
- He expresses high confidence in his daughter Maia and tests her if she can inherit his corporate empire, suggesting he cares for her.
- This is all but subverted in the novelization version, which implies more heavily than the film that he's psychologically abusive to her, and that he withheld relevant information about the life-threatening Hollow Earth mission from her as nothing more than a test and a joke.
Trivia[]
- Walter Simmons is the only Near Pure Evil in the Godzilla franchise to be human, as well as the only Near Pure Evil in the King Kong franchise and in the MonsterVerse.
- Alex Garcia, who produced Godzilla vs. Kong, stated that Walter Simmons is "not necessarily a Machiavellian character. He believes something, he's not necessarily our villain, by the way, but he is a very complex character who believes he's doing the right thing. And he may be, but that's where the mystery at the core of the film comes into play."
- However, this post was before the international release of the movie, and if Walter believed that he was doing the right thing, it was only out of his delusions of grandeur due to his intention to destroy millions of lives through Godzilla, thus making him Near Pure Evil. It is possible that the post was made to hide any hints of his true nature.
- Despite his status as Near Pure Evil and one of the evilest human antagonists in the MonsterVerse alongside Alan Jonah and Emma Russell, Simmons has received a disturbing deal of sympathy from viewers, simply because Simmons' agenda on the surface involves building a weapon to fight Titans; glossing over or outright ignoring that he:
- Deliberately engineered the deaths of millions for no better reason than to make himself look like a "savior" when he enacts his plan.
- Fired the first shot which ended a peaceful and entirely beneficial coexistence between humans and Titans.
- The film's implications (which are more explicitly confirmed in the novelization) that Simmons planned to use Mechagodzilla to take over the world for himself after Apex had succeeded in murdering Godzilla.
- In the film's novelization, it's explicitly revealed that Simmons engineered Godzilla's rampage in Hong Kong, counting on Godzilla causing so much destruction in a city so Apex can be the "saviors" once Mechagodzilla is set loose. If his one mitigating quality concerning Nathan's brother is debunked, Simmons may qualify as Pure Evil after all.
External Links[]
- Walter Simmons on the Villains Wiki
- Walter Simmons on the Godzilla Wiki
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Near Pure Evils | ||
Canon Fanon |
Near Pure Evils | ||
Live-Action Features See Also |