I don’t understand the hate for the way the Hollow Earth was portrayed in GVK.

I thought Wingard did a great job at making the Hollow Earth a literal world within our world rather than keeping it a series of interconnected tunnels. It opens the door for some amazing worldbuilding and exploration in future movies. I just find the idea of a primordial world with prehistoric creatures hidden beneath our feet to be fascinating, hence the reason I fell in love with King Kong.

I know some fans have complained about Wingard retconning the nature of the Hollow Earth, but I don’t see it as a retcon. In KOTM, we learn that the Hollow Earth is a series of interconnected tunnels beneath the Earth’s crust. Just because it's different than what was previously set up to be doesn't mean there were any contradictions. Monarch could have been unaware of the real Hollow Earth during KOTM and assumed it was just a series of interconnected tunnels underground.

And for anybody wondering what the Hollow Earth’s light source is, there’s a paragraph on page 82 of the GVK artbook that says this…

“Because gravity goes haywire inside [the] Hollow Earth’s inverted shell, one of the only navigational constants is the pulsating storm overhead that provides the realm’s only source of light. This pseudo-sun shines on misted rainforests and pinnacles of blackened granite, as the landscape cuticles upward in every direction. Sulfur volcanoes in Indonesia helped inspire the look of the lightning-lashed central storm. ‘They give off this strange, ebbing purple glow, and we looked to that as a light source,’ says Hammock.”

I’ve also seen questions regarding the presence of radiation in the Hollow Earth. My take on the matter is that there are some sections of the Hollow Earth that are more radioactive than others, Godzilla’s temple from KOTM being one of them.