Subterranean worlds

HBO Max released Godzilla vs. Kong last week, and I've been watching it in chunks with Bram over the last couple of days. I've been enjoying it: my expectations are firmly in the "two giant monsters duking it out on an aircrafter carrier" is a lot of fun, rather than being one of thise critics who's decrying the lack of focus on the character's emotions. Sometimes, I just want to watch monsters smash things.

What I didn't expect was the film to feature a well-worn science fiction concept: the Hollow Earth, where the Earth we know is just a shell, containing a vast, hidden ecosystem and/or civilization below our feet.

The concept first popped up in 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters, where Godzilla escapes after being attacked, and in which an organization called Monarch (devoted to studying the monsters) theorized existed. In Godzilla vs. Kong, we see it in its full glory, a vast, beautiful subterranean world populated by giant monsters and harboring a valuable energy source.

It's a neat addition, one that stretches far back into the history of science fiction, and which some believe is the actual nature of planet Earth.