What Was That Device In Apex's Lab In Godzilla Vs. Kong?

Godzilla vs Kong spends a lot of its runtime, as advertised, with Godzilla and King Kong. These are Monsterverse movies, not Peopleverse movies, but we still need human beings to help us with some of the emotional connection — and also so that there's some actual talking instead of two giant beasts screaming at each other.

There are a number of human plots and while it's tempting to focus on the absolute bonkers revelation of the Hollow Earth that the Monsterverse has been hinting at since Kong: Skull Island, we've got to talk about the other team of hero humans led by either Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry) or Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown) — depending on how you look at it.

Madison, with her friend Josh (Julian Dennison) in tow, seeks out Bernie because of his long-time podcast contemplating the secrets of the kaiju. Bernie has insider knowledge because he works at a company called Apex, whose connection with Godzilla, Kong, and the Hollow Earth we'll return to in a moment.

Before Madison tracks down Bernie, he has a run-in with Godzilla. Godzilla turns up to destroy the Apex base Bernie works at, just as he is trying to find out what Apex is secretly up to. During the attack, Bernie discovers a strange device with a glowing red center that's making a strange pulsing sound.

And since no one ever says out loud what that device is, you might be wondering after watching Godzilla vs. Kong just what the heck that was about. And we are here to help!

As you may recall, Bernie, Madison, and Josh return to Apex in search of the mysterious red, pulsating device in question. Bernie is convinced it is located in the deep, dank, potentially hellacious Sub-Level 33. But once the trio finds their way into the bowels of the building, they don't discover what they were looking for; instead, they find a mysterious transportation system. Of course, nobody on the squad quite realizes what's going on before they accidentally wind up locked in one of the transport devices and find themselves very quickly transported deep underground to another Apex location.

Now, this part you likely remember very well because it involves the reveal of our actual big bad for Godzilla vs. Kong — Mechagodzilla! But what you might not have noticed amid the return of the Kong: Skull Island Skullcrawlers, Ren Serizawa (Shun Oguri) interfacing with the metal monstrosity, or that part where Mechagodzilla melts a Skullcrawler with his mouth laser, is that the mystery device appears in this sequence as well — because it's one of Mechagodzilla's eyes.

Yes, the scene lingers on Mechagodzilla's glowing red eyeball, both when he is first activated and after his testing is complete, and it gives off that same pulsating hum we heard when Bernie first discovers the device. And as Madison points out, Godzilla reacted to that eyeball because he could sense that it was part of the monster humanity is building to replace him.

Godzilla vs. Kong is streaming now on HBO Max.