The corporate zeal to turn every piece of remotely valuable I.P. into a shared cinematic universe will eventually have to hit a tipping point where the gambit simply no longer works anymore. I’m not sure that we’ve gotten there yet, but I think we’re close. The latest in the cycle comes with the premiere of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters on Apple TV+. A television spinoff set in the world of Legendary Pictures’ so-called MonsterVerse franchise (which encompasses modern interpretations of Godzilla, King Kong, and other giant kaiju), this show seems to be all about what people do in the time between monster attacks. Is that interesting? Results so far are inconclusive.
The series follows the continuity of Legendary’s Godzilla (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), and Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), with time-skipping storylines that take place before, around, and between the events of each of those movies. At least so far, what the show seems to be mostly missing is much actual monster action, which leaves me questioning what the point of it is supposed to be.
| Title: | Monarch: Legacy of Monsters |
| Season: | 1 |
| Episodes: | 1.01 – Aftermath 1.02 – Departure |
| Release Date: | November 17, 2023 |
| Watched On: | Apple TV+ |
As an exercise in world-building, depicting how a society would have to evolve in the aftermath of repeated giant monster attacks could be interesting, I suppose. We get at least a little bit of that here, as lead heroine Cate (Anna Sawai) travels to Tokyo to settle the affairs of her late father, and witnesses the way the city has positioned military defenses and developed evacuation and shelter procedures in the event of another Godzilla rampage. However, those details are mostly sparse and none too original (clearly just recycled World War II policies). For the most part, this storyline devolves into a soap opera of Cate discovering that her father had a secret second family in Japan that she and her mother never knew about.
Cate’s father was also apparently tied to a mysterious group called Monarch that knew about the existence of giant monsters for decades before the first official attack. She tries to investigate this by teaming up with her newly-discovered half-brother Kentaro (Ren Watabe) and his hacker girlfriend May (Kiersey Clemons), only to draw the attention of a baddie from the agency named Tim (Joe Tippett) who’s desperate to retrieve some very old files the father had stashed away in a safe. Escaping from him leads Cate and friends to Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell), a former Army vet who’s been imprisoned by Monarch (albeit comfortably so) and is eager to help them out.
In a bunch of flashback storylines, we learn that Lee (played by Kurt Russell’s actual son, Wyatt Russell) had close ties to Cate’s grandparents, Dr. Keiko Miura (Mari Yamamoto) and Bill Randa (Anders Holm), back in the 1950s, where they were among the first to discover that monsters were real. Observant fans of this franchise may recognize the name Bill Randa as the character in Kong: Skull Island played by John Goodman, who also briefly reprises the role in a flashback (flash-forward?) to the 1970s.
All this time-jumping gets to be somewhat confusing, and the aging of the actors makes no sense at all. Sure, the father-son casting and Kurt and Wyatt Russell is a bit of a coup; Wyatt is a good physical match for his dad and has his mannerisms down. But in order for the timeline to work, we’d have to believe that Kurt Russell is pushing 90 by the time of the modern-day (which is stated to be 2015) storyline. Meanwhile, the poor Randa character appears to age forty years between 1959 and 1973. (Must be stress.)
I won’t say the show has no monster action, but the first two episodes are fairly light on it, and aside from a flashback to Godzilla stomping through San Francisco in the 2014 movie, none of the iconic beasties make any appearances. Perhaps that’s an intentional decision, and maybe the series is building toward something, but it leaves the premiere a little underwhelming.
The conspiracy angle also didn’t especially grab me. What could possibly be on these 40-year-old tapes that’s so important – evidence that giant monsters exist? Hello, everybody already knows that. Two major cities were trashed by them. That’s old news by this point in the story. Maybe it’s proof that Monarch awakened and angered all the monsters and caused them to start attacking civilization? I guess that’d be something, but still doesn’t seem all that shocking a revelation.
Ultimately, I must concede that my disinterest in Monarch probably comes down to my lack of investment in any of the MonsterVerse movies that preceded it. Frankly, none of them have been particularly good. I went into this show not expecting much out of it, and there may have always been a limit to how much I could have enjoyed it – though I’d like to think that if it had actually been really well done, I would be open to recognizing and acknowledging that.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters isn’t awful or anything. I don’t dislike it. I’ll continue to watch, but this is very much a low-priority viewing for me.
Video Streaming
Apple TV+ premiered Monarch: Legacy of Monsters with two episodes on Friday, November 17th, 2023. Confusingly, the Apple TV+ menus state that new episodes will launch on Fridays, yet Episode 3 will be available on Wednesday the 22nd. I expect that the Thanksgiving holiday in America must have something to do with that.
The series streams in 4K HDR, primarily at at aspect ratio of 2.40:1. The opening scene of the first episode incorporates 4:3 home movie footage within a 16:9 film frame (with visible sprockets on the sides) that extends in height beyond the 2.40:1 area. I found that this is safe to crop to Constant Image Height projection without losing anything important. However, many later scenes in the show feature Japanese language dialogue with English subtitles that are frustratingly authored with one line in the picture and one in the lower letterbox bar, making them unreadable on a CIH screen. Reducing my projector’s zoom to 2.20:1 was a mostly acceptable compromise.
The 4K image is pretty sharp in scenes with no visual effects. Those with VFX, however, have been visibly softened to blend the extensive CGI. The show obviously has expensive production values, though the photography is largely understated, perhaps to emphasize the supposed realism of the fantasy conceit. Colors are often muted. Contrast and highlights are decent but nothing too eye-catching.
The Dolby Atmos soundtrack is very loud and fairly immersive, especially during the few monster attacks. Overhead speakers come to life with alert sirens, helicopters, and flying creatures. Bass extension in those same scenes is disappointing, sadly. During the flashback to Godzilla rampaging through San Francisco, you want to feel the monster’s roar vibrate in your chest, and nothing like that ever happens. In fact, bass in the musical score sometimes goes a little deeper than the action scenes do. That’s a letdown.
Related
- Godzilla
- Kurt Russell
- Giant Monsters
The Video File Blog 
Haven’t seen a single MonsterVerse film, but the Twitter discourse last week was that ‘Kong: Skull Island’ is very fun and deserves more praise. No idea if that’s true.
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I haven’t seen all of them. I guess that one’s probably the best of the ones I have. Even so, I don’t remember much about it.
Honestly, you’re not missing much. These are all disposable, forgettable movies.
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Within the “monsterverse,” I saw Godzilla in the theater in 2014, bought and have not watched the Skull Island UHD, and recently bought and have yet to watch King of the Monsters.
G vs. Kong does not interest me, and neither does this series. So, thank you for doing the thankless job of watching it.
Having recently bought a new Apple device, I do have 3mos of AppleTV+ and I plan to use it to watch For All Mankind.
I’ve been looking for a series to watch with my wife, and for a while I thought it was going to be the Netflix’s Lost in Space, but gave up about 5 episodes in because I couldn’t stand the way Dr. Smith was written.
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