Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters

Hey everyone and welcome today we will be talking about Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. Fun Fact, this show takes place before the events of Kong: Skull Island and in between the events of Godzilla and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. This show came out in 2023 and stars Anna Sawai, Kiersey Clemons, and Ren Watabe and was created by Chris Black and Matt Fraction. So without further ado let’s get right into it.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters follows Cate and Kentaro Randa who are investigating their missing father with the help of their friend May. Along the way they enlist their grandmothers friend Lee Shaw who is being held by this mysterious organization Monarch and Monarch is hiding something about these monsters also known as Titans. While that is going on in present day, we also get flashbacks on how Monarch was started and the roles Keiko, Lee, and Bill Randa played with getting it up and running.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is a show about monsters and the organization created to help understand them. It has similar vibes to Godzilla, Pacific Rim, or Kong: Skull Island.

I love monster stuff and I think the Monsterverse is fun so I was like I’m going to give this show a try and I really enjoyed it. The show expands on the world that has already been introduced to us across the other 4 movies and shows just how little we know. One thing I was nervous about was the budget because I was like you can’t have a show set in the Monsterverse and not have monsters but they gave them a good budget and had plenty of monsters to keep me entertained.

I thought it was cool in modern day to follow these half siblings who didn’t know their dad was out here hoping across the globe getting different people pregnant and see them deal with learning the fact they have a half sibling, that their father cheated on their mothers, and that he is working for a secret organization that knew about Godzilla and other titans for years and has kept that info from the public. It was interesting to see that they’re grandmother and grandfather were key players in getting monarch created and as the season went on they learned about their family and we learned that no matter what the Randa family is going to be involved with these  titans. I thought they were really smart too because they were able to use what their father left behind to basically piece together a puzzle of what happened and where he might be which led them to him.

I was wondering what Mays role might be in this and she was too mysterious and I just didn’t know how she would play into the grand scheme of things but one we learned who she was running from things started making sense. In Godzilla vs. Kong there is a mechanical Godzilla that makes an appearance that is created by the company Apex Cybernetics which is the company that May was running from even though in this show when we are introduced to it, it is called Applied Experimental Technologies. We know this company is up to no good per Mays disdain for them and now we know why because they are creating weapons to fight creatures they don’t know enough about.

There’s always a debate about nepotism babies online which are just funny to me but this show has one of the best uses of a repo baby by having Lee Shaw be played in the past by Wyatt Russell and in the present day be played by Kurt Russell. Im so happy they did this instead of using that weird looking de-aging software because if you have a actor like Kurt who has a son who also acts why not use both considering that’s the closest you’ll get to a younger version of himself. I thought both actors did a great job of showing the character and how much he changed over the years from this military die hard and then he met Bill and Keiko and started to become more rebellious and eventually as he got older realized that what the government was doing isn’t right. I had a feeling that he knew Keiko was still alive and was waiting for the perfect opportunity to go and save her. I do wonder if there is any way that he survived at the end.

There are some other connections to the <onsterverse besides you know, the titans. We see Apex Cybernetics and them getting info from monarch through May which hints at them planning something to rival Godzilla which leads into Godzilla vs. kong which is a big reveal. Bill Randa  who is played by Anders Holm for the majority of this show is a younger version of the character played by John Goodman from Kong: Skull Island. We see that Duvalls sister is Sandra Brody who dies in the beginning of Godzilla when the reactor becomes unstable and that means that she’s also the aunt to Ford Brody who was one of the main characters in that movie. I have seen all the movies and while I don’t remember everything it was nice to have these call backs.

I love that this show went from past to present so we can see that some people have known about the titans for a long time and hid that info from the world. We also got to see that the titan world that was introduced to us in Godzilla vs. Kong is something they knew about as well but couldn’t understand it so they just focused on other things. In the past we see how the government of the USA decided the best option was to try and bomb the titans instead of listening to the scientist plea to try and understand them and how this could affect humans which could’ve benefitted them more. We see that them bombing actually didn’t do anything and just goes to show that taking an aggressive approach isn’t always the best.

Like I said I was nervous about the budget because I wanted to see monsters and yes we saw plenty and one I was not actually expecting to see was Godzilla and I was shocked that we saw that monster multiple times. One thing that has been stated multiple time is that Godzilla is the king of the monsters and this show further solidified that with how they showed him dealing with other titans or the governments interference.

One thing I was really shocked to see was that they knew in the past that there was another world and after a failed experiment to check it out they never wanted to explore it again. We learn that in order to get into the monster world you have to have a titan cross through with you. This is one of the things that hinted that lee may be trying to find Keiko but I completely missed it. Earlier on we find out that she was dragged down by these creatures from the titan world and one is to assume she was dead but as the season goes on and we learn about the other world inside our world we start getting small hints she may be alive like the signals from that world and time not working the same there. We come to find out that to her it’s been 53 days but for the outside it’s been 53 years and she hasn’t aged a bit. Im glad that she made it out alive but I’m interested to see how she deals with how different the world is.

My favorite part of the show was the flashback scenes. I feel like in the past i’ve watched the Godzilla movies because they are entertaining and I never really thought about if anyone was keeping tab on these monsters and in the films we learn about monarch but the flashbacks give so much more depth into the beginnings and how it was an uphill battle to get monarch off the ground. The actors who play Keiko, Lee, and Bill were great and really had me invested to see how this would all play out. I loved seeing how there was so much they didn’t know and how the scientist they really wanted to learn more about these titans even if they didn’t have support from the government. There were a lot of questions I didn’t know I needed answered that were answered from these flashbacks and I’m glad that they added them.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is a great addition to the monsterverse. The story had me on the edge of my seat week after week and had me wondering at first how it fit into the monster verse and why would they be focusing on this timeline but as the story continues it all makes sense. The cast was great and it really had me looking forward to more monster movies but also hopefully more about monarch and see what is in store for this lost world.