My Thoughts on "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" Season 1
Well, I finally did it, I finally watched Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 1. I was hoping that I would be able to watch and review it before I saw Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, but then my Internet 🛜 got shut off, and I was hesitant about using my Personal Hotspot on anything except my laptop 💻, and was waiting and hoping for our Internet service 🛜 to be restored so that I could watch this show without having to use my Personal Hotspot.
But, it came clear to me that our Internet 🛜 wasn't going to restored anytime soon due the lack of money 💵 for it (CenturyLink is overcharging us on our bill), so I just sucked it up and decided to use my Personal Hotspot on my PS4 to watch this show. This wasn't actually the first time I had used my Personal Hotspot on either of my consoles because as many of you know if you read my blog, I have a Nintendo Switch. And I first tested out my Personal Hotspot on my Switch in order to redeem the code to get the DLC for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
I bought the card for it at Walmart, and it had a redeemable code on the receipt 🧾 that you could punch in on Nintendo Online or whatever it's called, and get the DLC. So, I needed Internet 🛜 for that, and I didn't want to keep waiting until our actual Internet provider 🛜 restored our Internet 🛜 because the code might already expire by then, and I wanted to be able to play the DLC for Mart Kart 8 Deluxe and race on all the tracks and play as all the characters that were behind a paywall. Because I got tired racing on the same tracks, and playing as the same character(s). Rosalina is my main. It worked, and I was able to download the DLC onto my Switch or my copy of the game or whatever, and I was able to start playing the DLC. I just glad that I finally got the chance to play as Peachette (Toadette's human form which strongly resembles Princess Peach hence the name, Toadette) and Pauline.
So, I was convinced with that to actually use my Hotspot to watch Monarch. Luckily, it worked and I was able to watch this show and now I'm able to write this review. I really needed something new to write about since I kind of got tired of just reposting old reviews that I already months ago or years ago, and just writing forewords for them. Those are comparatively low-effort compared to writing these newer reviews since I have a lot less new stuff to write, and all I have to do is just copy and paste everything from platform or format to another. Plus, I just got really tired of posting Transformers stuff, since all of the movie reviews I've posted have been Transformers reviews.
The last actual movie review I posted was "My Thoughts on Transformers: Age of Extinction," the fourth installment of the Michael Bay-directed Transformers series, which you can go read for yourself by clicking here. I'm thankfully that I came up with the admittedly weird idea of writing a plot synopsis for Maneater (2020), the open world RPG where you play as a shark 🦈, a bull shark to be exact, to break up the monotony. You can also read that here if you're interested. I will write an actual review of Maneater (2020) if I ever get the chance to play it. Fingers crossed 🤞 that I can get my hands 🤲 on the PS4 APEX Edition which has all the DLC already included.
There's no reason for me to buy the PS5 version since I don't currently own a PS5, and if I were to get that one, first I'd have to buy a PS5 which are pretty expensive still, then I'd have to get a 4K TV since the PS5 is 4K enabled, and anything that plays in 4K won't necessarily work on a regular 1080p HD TV. It has to be a 4K TV. So now, for now I got to go for the PS4 version since it's the cheapest one, and it has the DLC already included and I won't have to buy it separately like I would have if I bought the game at release and just had the base game.
The game is available on the Switch too, but if I get the Switch version, I won't be able to play the DLC since the DLC was never made available on the Switch. Tripwire Interactive stopped supporting the game altogether recently, which of course meant also canceling the DLC release for the Switch. So, the only versions of the game that you can play the DLC on are the PS4 version and the PS5 version. Honestly, I would only get a PS5 just to play 4K Blu-Rays 💿 or 4K Ultra HD as they're technically called, just like how I've mostly been using my PS4 as a Blu-Ray player 💿 as I bought very few games for it.
But, anyway, enough about my personal problems, or Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, or the overabundance of Transformers reviews on my blog, or Maneater (2020), this is about Monarch, and I haven't posted that much Godzilla or MonsterVerse related content on here and I need to post some more, so let's talk about it. Now, I've been wanting to watch this show for a long time since it's apart of the MonsterVerse, and I want to watch as much of the stuff that comes out of the MonsterVerse as I can. I still haven't watched the animated Skull Island series on Netflix, though that one might also be added to my list. And I was more enthused to watch it when I saw clips of it online, all of which show the monsters.
Like, before watching the show for myself, I saw the clip of the opening scene of Episode 1 where we see William Randa (played once again by John Goodman, at least in that one scene) get chased by a Mother Longlegs (that big spider-like creature from Kong: Skull Island with legs that are camouflaged to resemble bamboo 🎋) and ends up at the edge of a cliff left with no where else to go, waiting to die, before a giant crab-like creature with rock-like camouflage 🪨 called a Mantleclaw rises up and starts fighting the Mother Longlegs until they both fall into the water 💦 below, giving Randa enough time to escape. We all know that Bill Randa doesn't die from a Mother Longlegs or a Mantleclaw. He dies from a Skullcrawler.
I will say about this scene that they don't exactly make it clear at what point in the timeline does this event occur. Does it happen after the Mother Longlegs attack that we see in the movie or does it happen before? Because I saw a reaction video to the first episode where they said that this scene happens before the Mother Longlegs encounter that we see in Kong: Skull Island, which is why Bill doesn't look at that surprised or shocked when he sees it because he's already seen one before and survived it. Probably like an hour or an hour and a half before. I was always under the impression that this scene happened after because that's what made the most sense timeline wise, and fits with how Bill reacts when he sees the Mother Longlegs and he runs away from it.
He's very clearly scared because he's seen what this creature can do, and what it's capable of, and he definitely doesn't want to be eaten by one. Plus, it does make sense that there is more than one Mother Longlegs on the island. I mean, there isn't just one of every species, usually there's at least more than one individual in a wild population of a species unless it's like really endangered and on the verge of extinction. But, I doubt any of the animals on Skull Island are endangered or not the verge of extinction by this point since this island had been isolated from the rest of the world for millions of years, and only humans that lived there were the Iwis.
They hadn't encountered modern industrialized western civilization until the 1973 expedition by Monarch, Landsat, and the US military 🇺🇸 of course. And this was before the storm surrounding the island overtook the island, and not only wiped out the Iwi tribe (except for Jia), but probably wiped out every other species still left on the island by that point. So at this point in the MonsterVerse timeline, in the 70s, every species on Skull Island for the most part is fine except for Kong's of course. The Great Ape population on the island was almost completely wiped out by the Skullcrawlers, and Kong was the only one left.
I also saw the clip from the ending of Episode 10, which is the last episode of the season (more on that a little bit later), where we see Kong very briefly. Yes, that's right, they put Kong in this series, but only for a few seconds in the very last episode. He's the very last thing that we see in the season finale. Again, more on that a little bit later. But, beyond those clips, I avoided watching anything else of this series on YouTube until I saw the full thing on Apple TV+.
I of course knew the basic premise of the show from watching the trailers that it was going to mainly center around this one family, this brother and sister who are trying to find their lost father who bailed on them after the 2014 San Francisco attack happened (an event that that everyone in the show refers to as G-Day). As well as uncover the mystery of Monarch, who the woman ♀︎, Cate Randa (Anna Sawai) saw on the Golden Gate Bridge 🌉 after she lost her kids, her students, since she was a school teacher when Godzilla crossed the bridge 🌉 and broke it half. I knew that the show would be set sometime in-between Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), acting as both a sequel to Godzilla (2014) and Kong: Skull Island (which chronologically comes before Godzilla 2014 and all the other MonsterVerse movies) and a prequel to pretty much everything else.
Most of it is set in the year, 2015, until the last episode which jumps forward two years to 2017 due to some time dilation shenanigans involving the Hollow Earth 🌎. Coincidentally, 2017 was the same year that Kong: Skull Island was released. Wonder if they did that on purpose given how the season ends. The show actually has two parallel storylines: the story that's set in the 2012-2017 time frame, and the story that's set in the 1952-1982 time frame and is told entirely through flashbacks. The modern day 21st century stuff also has flashback scenes, mostly to flesh out the 2010s main characters, and the furthest they go back to is 2012, which is why I say that it has a 2012-2017 time frame.
I also knew that Kurt Russell and his son, Wyatt Russell were both going to be in this show, and that they were both going to be playing the same character at different ages. With Wyatt playing the young Lee Shaw and Kurt playing the old Lee Shaw. I also listened to the opening theme of this show and seen the intro title sequence, both of which are absolute bangers. I binged watched nearly the entire thing in one sitting yesterday (Wednesday June 19, 2024) until midnight when I decided to call it a day, and turn it off and watch the last episode the next day which is today (Thursday June 20, 2024) when I hopefully post this. I didn't actually end up posting it that day, I ended up posting it today, Friday June 21, 2024.
So, what did I think of this series? I thought it was pretty good. I actually enjoyed quite a bit. I wouldn't have binged watched nearly the entire thing if I hadn't enjoyed it. Now, right off the bat, don't go into this show expecting to see a lot of monster action. There are monsters in the show, and when there is monster action, we do see it. It's just that there's not a lot of it, and shouldn't go into this show thinking that there will be. A lot of the monster scenes that are in this show were in the trailers, like that's kind of the extent of a lot of them. We don't even see Godzilla fight another monster until the very last episode. That is unless you count the flashback scenes where we see people watching the news reports of Godzilla fighting the male MUTO ♂︎ in Honolulu.
This is strictly a human story, that explores the history of this one family, the Randa family and their relationship with Monarch, the government agency that's been at the center of this little kaiju cinematic universe and has been the one thing that has tied all the movies together. Besides the Hollow Earth 🌎 of course. Which is totally fair. I mean, the show's called Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, not Godzilla: Legacy of Monsters, so it's not like the show was promising a lot of monster screen time or monster action and didn't deliver. It's telling you right in the title that it's going to focus more on the humans. But, it's such a weird juxtaposition to go from Godzilla x Kong, which focused almost entirely on the monsters to this show which barely focuses on the monsters at all, and focuses on the humans and their little small scale family drama.
It's also weird going back to a time when Monarch was still secretive, and somewhat mysterious and even kind of sinister. Whereas in the more recent films, really starting with Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Monarch is out in the open. They are no longer a secret, everyone knows what they are and what they do, and they're treated just like any other agency within the US government 🇺🇸. No more than secretive or off-the-books than the CIA, NSA, FBI, or ATF.
Although, the current incarnation of Monarch in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Godzilla vs. Kong, and Godzilla x Kong is more comparable to the EPA or NOAA, where they're more scientific and environmentally conscious, they're not really respected by the rest of the government and are always on the verge of being shut down due to the rest of the government not appreciating the work they do, or understanding the danger of the Titans and what it takes to keep them in check, which is just relying on Godzilla and/or Kong to take care of the bad ones. Because human weapons are pretty much useless against Titans, unless you count the oxygen destroyer in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019).
And also keeping Godzilla and Kong apart, and preventing them from encroaching on each other's territory, and start fighting each other again and trying to killing each other again. They're mostly doing that to protect Kong, since he's the one out of the two Titans who's most at risk from dying in a direct confrontation with Godzilla. Because there's no way Kong can actually kill Godzilla, you know they aren't protecting Godzilla because he doesn't need protection. and Kong almost died the last time he fought Godzilla. Like, in Godzilla x Kong, they were in trouble with the Italian government 🇮🇹 because Godzilla made a mess in Rome while fighting Scylla, and also took a nap inside the Colosseum 😴, making it his new home, and they blamed Monarch for the whole thing.
Even the US government 🇺🇸 starts questioning Monarch's usefulness due to their perceived inability to control or contain Godzilla or any of the other Titans, and prevent them from destroying cities and killing thousands or millions of people. Even though, that's not Monarch's purpose, at least by Godzilla x Kong. Their purpose to study Godzilla and the other Titans, as well as cooperate with Godzilla and help him and Kong out whenever a new malevolent Titan appears to threaten the planet. They are trying to prevent civilian deaths and collateral damage, but they don't do a particularly good job of it since these creatures still cause a lot of death and destruction during their massive battles. So really, they kind of just stopped caring about civilian casualties or infrastructure damage by the time of events of Godzilla x Kong roll around, and are just focused on maintaining some level of coexistence with the Titans, or at least, the good Titans like Godzilla, Kong, and Mothra.
Speaking of which, I do think that this show does do a good job at showing the human cost of these monster fights. Like, we tend not to think about the human cost of these fights in the moment when they go down. We just care about all the spectacle. But yeah, it would suck to be a human living in this world. If you live along the coast, or even if you don't live along the coast, you never know when these monsters are going to show up, you never know if your city is going to get destroyed, or if you or your loved ones are going to die whenever these monsters show up and start attacking the city or doing battle with each other within the city. These things can pretty much pop up anywhere, from the ocean or from a Hollow Earth entry point 🌎. So, you're not safe even if you're more inland, if you're landlocked.
I mean, the end fight in Hong Kong 🇭🇰 in Godzilla vs. Kong and the end fight in Rio de Janeiro in Godzilla x Kong were both each G-Day times two, since in the Hong Kong battle 🇭🇰 there were three Titans present, and one of them was a robot. And in the Rio battle, there were five Titans present, one of them being a juvenile and one of them having the power to literally freeze the entire world 🥶. Boston definitely got the short end of the stick as far as cities go since that city was completely obliterated during the final battle of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019). That city was completely vaporized and reduced to piles of rubble just from Godzilla's fire nuclear pulse ability 🔥☢️ alone. No body could live there ever again, not until several decades when the city can rebuild completely from the ground up.
So, it would definitely suck to just be a civilian living in the MonsterVerse, and this show does a good job at showing that by showing how the Battle of San Francisco affected the lives of these characters. Their lives were completely uprooted by this one event, the main character, Cate suffers from PTSD just from losing her kids to Godzilla's Golden Gate Bridge crossing 🌉, and it wasn't even the worst of it. The worst was yet to come for humanity in the years after G-Day.
I wonder what the characters from this show would think of the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Godzilla vs. Kong, and Godzilla x Kong? What would they think of the fact that the Earth 🌎 was attacked by a giant three-headed yellow alien dragon that breathes electricity ⚡️? What would they think of the fact that Godzilla and Kong fought each other in the middle of Hong Kong 🇭🇰? What would they think of the fact that Apex Cybernetics built Mechagodzilla and tried to use him to kill Godzilla also in the middle of Hong Kong 🇭🇰? What would they think of the fact Godzilla and Kong had an anti-gravity fight with a giant evil ape called the Skar King who uses a spinal cord whip and a giant reptile called Shimo who has ice breath 🧊 strong enough to cause another ice age 🧊? What would they think of the fact that this fight extended and spilled over into Rio de Janeiro due to the monsters falling into a Hollow Earth portal 🌎 that led directly to that city? None of these events have happened yet during the timeline of this show. That's why I say the worst is yet to come for humanity.
I mean, there are already characters in this show who would definitely not be fans of Ishirō Serizawa, and his approach to Godzilla and the other Titans. Shaw even mocks Serizawa's famous iconic line, "Let them fight," when he's being interrogated by Natalia Verdugo (Mirelly Taylor) and talking about how Monarch lost their way. Maybe they'll explore some of this in the next season.
That brings me to why I even titled this review, "My Thoughts on Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 1." The reason why I titled it that is that it has recently been confirmed that there will be a Season 2, and that it will feature a lot more Kong, probably to follow up on that ending teaser at the end of the last episode of Season 1. As far as I know, there haven't been any other plot details beyond that, though I'm sure it's going to continue and explore the really weird family dynamics of the Randa family. I did not expect this show to delve this deeply into William Randa's family history. It turns out that he actually had a whole family. He had a wife, he had a son (albeit an adopted one), and of course, he has two grandkids. The way it seemed in Kong: Skull Island, it seemed like Bill Randa was just a childless bachelor who was too caught up in his work to have a wife or kids.
But I guess, we can't judge a book by its cover because if we did, then we'd be wondering how he goes from being really young-looking Andrew Holms to being old ass John Goodman in just a matter of a decade. Like, he still looks all young in 1962, and then is all old looking in 1973. Like, how are supposed to convince me that guy becomes John Goodman in just a matter of 11 years? You're basically saying that Bill Randa aged pretty poorly in the years after Shaw disappeared into the Hollow Earth 🌎.
It is crazy to think though that out of the original trio, the founding members of Monarch, Bill is the only who actually died. Shaw and Keiko just got trapped in the Hollow Earth 🌎, and didn't escape until decades later when the world had already passed them by. But, Bill? Nah, he didn't get to live. He kicked the bucket, or rather, the bucket kicked him. Even his own son, Hiroshi got to live since he essentially faked his death after he went off the grid to study Godzilla and learn more about the Hollow Earth entry points 🌎.
Anyway, he married he a Japanese woman 🇯🇵♀︎, Dr. Keiko (Mari Yamamoto), which is cool 👍. Guess that means he's in the "guys who love Asian women ♀︎" club. Welcome to the club. I can't blame the guy. Keiko is pretty hot. In fact, all of the female characters ♀︎ in this show are pretty hot I would say. Even Verdugo. But, I can't imagine how it would feel to meet your grandmother for the first time, and she's still almost nearly the same age as you and your father. That's got to be awkward and weird. This is what I mean what I say that Randa family dynamics are weird.
(I myself am in the "guys who love Asian women ♀︎" club, and these are three Asian women ♀︎ that I really love ❤️. They're all YouTubers, two of them are ASMR YouTubers, and they're all South Koreans 🇰🇷. Okay, well one of them is a Korean-American 🇺🇸, but still you know what I mean. What can I say? Korean women ♀︎ are hot. The one top is Emily, who has a YouTube channel called Emirichu. Well technically, she has three or four YouTube channels. Emirichu is her main one, then she has two separate VTuber channels because she's also a VTuber on Twitch, and she recently opened a new channel called Spilled Ink, which is a joint venture with her boyfriend, Daidus, who is also a famous big YouTuber with millions of subs.
She's the Korean-American 🇺🇸 in case you couldn't figure that out. She has a western name, how could you not figure that out? But, despite being an American 🇺🇸, she currently lives in Japan 🇯🇵 with Daidus. They moved there together after they both joined this multi-channel network called GeeX+—pronounced "Geeks Plus"—which gave them the opportunity to not only live in Japan 🇯🇵, but also collaborate with other YouTubers who are also apart of this network and live in Japan 🇯🇵 too. Now, all of her content has to do with hew new life in Japan 🇯🇵 and also anime cafes. And a lot of the people she collaborates with now on her videos are from GeeX+ and no where else. If they aren't GeeX+, she probably doesn't or won't collaborate with them. It's probably in her contract that she can only collab with GeeX+ creators and influencers. So yeah, she's taken, not that I had much of a chance with her anyway. The video I got this screenshot of her from is from a video that she did with a YouTuber called Gigguk, one of the three hosts of the Trash Taste podcast 🎙️. It was like a weird game show type of thing where Gigguk would ask Emily questions, and she'd have to give her best answers.
The one in the middle is Rang, who has a YouTube channel called 혜랑 RANG ASMR. She cut her hair recently, so now she's sporting short hair now, at least for the time being. The video that I got this screenshot from is from an older video of hers. It was from 2019, so she still had long hair. She was one of the first ASMR channels I got into on YouTube during the 2020-2021 timeframe, during the pandemic 😷🦠. I didn't really care about the ASMR content really, I just liked her because of her appearance, because I thought she looked hot.
The same applies to the one on the bottom, who is known only as Nareun. She has a YouTube channel called 송나른 Nareun ASMR. The video that I got this screenshot of her is also from an older video of hers. It was from 2021, so it was a little bit more recent than Rang's video. She does a lot of mouth noises ASMR videos, and I tend not to gravitate towards those. Mouth noises ASMR videos in general just off put me, they aren't pleasant at all even if you like ASMR content. I prefer just the normal whispering ones, because I can hear her voice, her beautiful voice. Honestly, I think Nareun is the hottest one out of these three. But, they are all hot though.)
First you have William Randa, who marries Keiko, and adopts her son, Hiroshi in turn. Then Hiroshi has his own kids, with two different women ♀︎ in two different countries. A daughter in America 🇺🇸 and a son in Japan 🇯🇵, while telling neither of the other one's existence. Then he disappears without telling them where he's going or what he does for a living. Then, the daughter goes to Japan 🇯🇵 to I guess collect some stuff from her dad's old apartment, only to discover her long-lost half brother and his mother. The daughter's mother in America 🇺🇸 tricked her into going to Japan 🇯🇵, to Tokyo, just find out if Hiroshi was cheating on her or not, but didn't want to go herself.
She just send their daughter to find out if he was cheating on her or not for her, and then report back what she found. She didn't tell her daughter at all that's why she wanted her to go to Japan 🇯🇵, and what she wanted her to do while she was over there. In fact, she lied to her and told her that she was only sending her there to collect some stuff from his apartment, when in reality, she was sending her there to collect dirt on her husband and find out if he was being unfaithful. Kind of messed up. Then of course of the series, she meets her great uncle, and meets her grandmother who hasn't aged at all since she fell into that hole in Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 (before it was an independent country) back in 1959. All because time works differently in Hollow Earth 🌎 than it does on the surface.
Kind of makes you wonder why time didn't significantly fly for any of the characters that went down to Hollow Earth 🌎 in either Godzilla vs. Kong or Godzilla x Kong. Maybe that HEAV technology bypasses or completely negates the time dilation of the Hollow Earth 🌎. Or more likely, this was just a thing they came up with for this series to create more drama, without really thinking about how it might contradict with what the movies established about how Hollow Earth 🌎 works.
Keiko's whole storyline/arc reminds me a lot of Janet Van Dyne in the Ant-Man 🐜 movies. Janet's whole storyline was that she got trapped in the Quantum Realm for several years after she turned off her Pym particle regulator and went subatomic to disable to a nuclear missile ☢️, and aged normally and grew old while she was stuck down there for several decades.
She trapped Kang the Conqueror down there by shrinking his only means of escape. But, inadvertently gave him the ability to become a dictator inside of the Quantum Realm, and build himself an army that he used to crush any and all dissent inside the Quantum Realm and tighten his grip on power, and intended to use against the normal-sized atomic world ⚛️ if he ever found a way to escape.
She had sex with Lord Krylar on multiple occasions because of her "needs," who I guess was leading a rebellion of some kind against Kang before he switched sides and joined Kang's ranks sometime after Janet left. Speaking of which, she then escaped from the Quantum Realm in the present day when her husband was all old too, and her daughter was a fully-grown adult and had already taken her place as the new Wasp.
It's like that, only here, Keiko gets trapped in the Hollow Earth 🌏 for several years (58 years), doesn't age at all since it's only been 55 days for her, she meets her old friend and colleague who actually is really old, and she meets her son as an adult and meets her granddaughter who is also an adult, and her husband's dead. He's been dead for 44 years, and he died from getting swallowed by a giant two-legged lizard with a skull face. BTW, the Hollow Earth 🌎 is way cooler than the Quantum Realm hands down just saying.
I do think that it was pretty interesting that they decided to set part of the story in Kazakhstan 🇰🇿. It's the place where Keiko falls into the Hollow Earth 🌏 in the late 50s, and it's the place where Cate, Shaw, and May fall into the Hollow Earth 🌏, and reunite with Keiko. That's the most Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 has been involved in a Hollywood production besides Borat, although this is a slightly less inaccurate portrayal of Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 than Borat.
I say slightly because during the flashback scene in the past storyline, they say "Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 1959" in the location text on the screen, but Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 was not Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 yet. It was the Kazakh SSR ☭, it was still apart of the Soviet Union ☭. So, if they really wanted to be accurate, they should've said "Kazakh SSR ☭ 1959" or "Soviet Union ☭ Kazakh SSR ☭ 1959" or at the very least, "Soviet Union ☭ 1959." Then in the 2015 scenes, they could say "Kazakhstan 🇰🇿" since by then, it was an independent country. I do like the nice detail that they had Keiko talk to a Russian kid when they enter this restricted area to investigate any Titan activity going on there, and she actually speaks to him in Russian.
So, Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 is still very much within Russia 🇷🇺's orbit, and is therefore not truly independent, and now it's entering China 🇨🇳's orbit too as China 🇨🇳 becomes more and more powerful, flexing its muscles in Central Asia now that they've forced Xinjiang and the Uyghur people within down to their knees. However, despite Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 still being under the influence of Russia 🇷🇺, they haven't been completely lockstep with them about the Ukraine war 🇺🇦. Like, Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 has refused to support Russia 🇷🇺's efforts in the war in Ukraine 🇺🇦, they've refused to condemn it as well, and they've taken steps to prevent Russia 🇷🇺 from forcefully "recruiting" Kazakhs 🇰🇿 to fight in Ukraine 🇺🇦.
I say "recruiting" in quotes because the Russians 🇷🇺 often just trick these men ♂︎ into joining the war, or they just straight up kidnap them and force them to fight in the war on the frontlines. The Kazakh government 🇰🇿 hasn't done a particularly good job at preventing this as it is still happening to this day, really ever since the war started and didn't go Putin's way. But, that is one area in which Russia 🇷🇺 and Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 disagree. They see eye-to-eye on many things, and the Ukraine war 🇺🇦 just isn't one of them.)
Since Russian was the official language of the USSR ☭ and ethnic Russians made the majority of the population inside the Kazakh SSR ☭ because Stalin and other Soviet leaders ☭ tried to repopulate it with ethnic Russians and replace the ethnic Kazakhs as the majority. A lot like what China 🇨🇳 has been doing in Tibet and Xinjiang in all honesty. So, Keiko, Bill, and Shaw would be more likely to bump into an ethnic Russian than they would an ethnic Kazakh during that time. Sad but true, as are most facts about the Soviet Union ☭.
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But, Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 isn't the only unique location that this show takes us to. There's a scene during the past stuff that's set in the Philippines 🇵🇭 where Shaw, Keiko, and Bill all meet each other for the first time and Bill and Keiko investigate the wreckage of the USS Lawton, the ship that Bill was on. This show has more Japan scenes 🇯🇵 than any of the movies so far, and has more dialogue in Japanese than any of the movies so far.
It's like the people who made this show actually remembered the Godzilla franchise's roots and actually decided to honor it a little bit having a lot of scenes take place in Japan 🇯🇵 and have the Japanese characters 🇯🇵 speak to each other in Japanese. I know I complained about this sort of thing in my review of Meg 2: The Trench, with having the Chinese characters 🇨🇳 speak to each other in Chinese, but that case, it felt kind of forced and felt like that movie was pandering to a specific audience, to a specific demographic, which it was.
But here, it feels much more organic and like they did it to serve the story, rather than to serve financial interests 🤑 by trying to get into a specific market that some Hollywood studios still think can significantly increase a movie's profits 💵. It didn't feel like it was trying to be propaganda to appease an authoritarian government, but rather characters of a different nationality and different ethnicity speaking their native tongue since that's what comes naturally to them, and feels the most comfortable. Which is kind of funny because Legendary is partially owned by a Chinese company 🇨🇳, Wanda Group 万达集团. At least the Japanese characters 🇯🇵 are all played by Japanese actors (a lot of them Japanese-American 🇺🇸, but still) rather than them be played by Chinese actors like in some other movies and TV shows would, because hey, "All Asians look alike, right 🤪?" 🙄👎.
Like, the monster is like an avatar or a puppet for her, and everything she does, it does. Like if she does a stupid little dance, the monster will do that same exact dance and move exactly how she moves. It's really weird and stupid looking movie. It's not even action movie, it's a romantic comedy ❤️ that just happens to have a giant monster in it, or two giant monsters I guess. Anne Hathaway's character in Colossal has an ex-boyfriend or ex-husband who also controls a giant monster that shows up in Seoul, and when they fight, the monsters fight as well all the way across the world in Seoul.
Anne Hathaway and the guy are in the US 🇺🇸, they're no where near Seoul, and yet they're able to control these monsters in Seoul all the way from the US 🇺🇸. And I guess the monsters are supposed to be physical manifestations for their internal feelings, and the whole movie is supposed to be an allegory about a woman ♀︎ trying to overcome a bad breakup or a bad divorce. It all kind of sounds a bit lame to me.
Anyway, enough about Colossal, a kaiju movie hardly anyone watched or cares about, I do think it was gutsy that they mentioned North Korea 🇰🇵 in this show. Makes you wonder what North Korea 🇰🇵's up to in the MonsterVerse, and what they think of all the Titan stuff going on around the world. I mean, they did try to build their own Iron Man suit in Iron Man 2, so maybe in the MonsterVerse they're trying to create their own Titans, or are trying find ways of controlling the ones that are already known to exist. Wonder if there are any Hollow Earth entry points 🌎 there.)
The characters make a brief stop in South Korea 🇰🇷 to meet a character, who I did like and thought was cool when we met him, but looking back on it, was always dead meat from the very start, named Du-Ho (Bruce Baek). They later make a quick stop in Algeria 🇩🇿 after they read their dad, Hiroshi's map of gamma ray bursts or Titan events or whatever, and bear witness to Godzilla waking up, and rising up from the desert and mountainous terrain of Africa's largest country by area. It is pretty cool to see Godzilla in a desert setting yet again after just seeing him in Egypt 🇪🇬 with Kong and Mothra in Godzilla x Kong. Godzilla rising up from the ground has to be a reference to Mothra vs. Godzilla, which was the first movie in the entire Godzilla franchise to have Godzilla rise up from the ground covered in dirt instead of rising up from the ocean or from an iceberg.
Speaking of which, this show does have a ton of references to the older Godzilla movies from the Shōwa era that hardcore Godzilla fans will definitely understand and get a kick out of. The reference that I caught, understood, and liked the most was the character, Emiko Randa, Hiroshi's first wife in Japan 🇯🇵. I like the fact that they named a character in this show, Emiko after the character, Emiko Yamane from the original 1954 Godzilla film, the one that started it all. That is the only reason why they would name that character that. It's obvious to anyone who has been a Godzilla fan long before the MonsterVerse or Godzilla Minus One ever came into existence.
Though, they kind of do this funny thing with the dates when they're showing Cate's flashbacks to the events of G-Day, where the day before G-Day, they say "G-Day Minus One," and two days before, they say "G-Day Minus Two." Were the people who made this show trying to reference that movie since it came around the same time that this show premiered? Were they even aware of that movie's existence while they were making this show to even do a cheeky little reference like that? I'll let you be the judge.
As far as recommending this show goes, I'll put it this way: If you're someone who's really invested in the lore of the MonsterVerse like I am, then you're going to really like this show because it has a lot of lore to dive into. This show only exists to expand the lore, mostly the Monarch side of the lore as we learn the origins of Monarch, and learn of its history prior to the 1973 Skull Island expedition in Kong: Skull Island. We get to see how it opens up to the world, becomes more public, and becomes the organization that we see in the later MonsterVerse films post-Kong: Skull Island or post-Godzilla (2014) if we're going by chronological order instead of release order. We even get to learn the origins of Apex Cybernetics, the evil tech company that built Mechagodzilla and built the HEAVs, the first vehicles in history that can travel to the Hollow Earth 🌎 without needing to attract a Titan first, or being sucked up like a vacuum.
And the only reason why learn about Apex Cybernetics and why they're even apart of the story is that character named May Olowe-Hewitt formally known as Corah Mateo (Kiersey Clemons) has a connection to it. She hired by the head of the company, Brenda Holland (Dominique Tipper) back when it was called Applied Experimental Technologies, or AET for short. But then she was fired, and was on run from the company after she deleted some cybernetic research from their servers, the research that they would eventually use to create Mechagodzilla.
We even get to learn more about Hollow Earth 🌎 in this show, and how it works, even if some of the finer details don't exactly match up with that was established in the films. This series establishes that there was an expedition to Hollow Earth 🌎 prior to the one that Dr. Nathan Lind went on that killed his brother, and there had been people inside Hollow Earth 🌎 long before Lind, Andrews, Jia, Mia Simmons, and the other Apex people. It explains how the entry points work, how they're created (kind of), and how humans can travel through them even if it doesn't line up with what Godzilla vs. Kong or Godzilla x Kong show.
It even adds a new detail that time runs slower inside the Hollow Earth 🌎 than it does on the surface. What might feel like days or weeks may be years or decades on the surface. But like I said, that doesn't at all line up with what Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong established about how the Hollow Earth 🌎 works. They never indicated that there was any sort of time difference between there and the surface, and this was likely a detail they added specifically for this show to add more drama and explore a concept as high as "what if you're trapped somewhere for days or weeks or months, but when you came back home, it had actually been years, decades, or centuries." It's what Interstellar was all about.
The show also introduces some new Titans. We got the Mantleclaw, which I already mentioned earlier, you got that mole-like Titan that also has freezing abilities 🥶 called the Frost Vark, the beetle-like Titan called the Endopede, who's eggs Keiko, Bill, and Shaw disturb during their failed expedition, we got the Ion Dragon, which is this dragon-like Titan which is de facto the main monster antagonist in Season 1 and is the only monster that Godzilla fights on screen in Season 1, and this big swine-like Hollow Earth creature 🐗🌏 called the Brambleboar which has a body that's camouflaged to resemble a fallen tree trunk. That creature isn't a Titan, but it is a big creature and is cool and weird looking, and it's native to Hollow Earth 🌏. It reminds me of that other tree-like creature that was also native to Hollow Earth 🌎 in Godzilla x Kong, the one that eats the asshole pilot.
If you're someone who doesn't care at all about the lore of the MonsterVerse and is someone who cares about the monster spectacle and the crazy and ridiculous scenarios that happen in these movies, then you're going to be very disappointed because this show has very little monster spectacle to offer, and lacks the wacky and psychedelic tone of the later MonsterVerse movies, especially the ones directed by Adam Wingard.
Godzilla vs. Kong in some ways was peak cinema, and Godzilla x Kong was even peaker cinema as it centered pretty much entirely on the monsters and very little on the humans. The monsters got more screen time in Godzilla x Kong than they ever did in any of the previous MonsterVerse outings, including Adam Wingard's previous movie before that one, Godzilla vs. Kong. You know, Ilene Andrews was not the main character of Godzilla x Kong, nor was Jia, Kong was.
Those movies gave everything that a person who just cares about monster spectacle could ever ask for. This show is pretty much the exact opposite of that, where it has very little monster spectacle or monster screen time of any kind, and instead of focuses squarely on the humans and their drama. The stuff that a lot of those people would say is "boring," since they hate the "boring humans" in the movies.
The only time that Godzilla fans or kaiju fans or even people who aren't either of those things are just fans of movies have ever cared about human characters in a Godzilla movie was Minus One. In fact, everyone who has seen Minus One has said that it's good because of the human characters. I've never heard anyone say that about a Godzilla movie, or any other kaiju movie for that matter, ever. But, these are much different times we're living in. There's precedent for that sort of thing now. Just as there's a precedent for focusing an entire movie on giant monsters, and making the monsters main characters.
But, I doubt anyone has really said the same about this show, even if, for the most part, the fans seem to like it and want more of it. I wouldn't be surprised if people's main complaint about this show was that it didn't have enough monsters or monster action in it, and that they're hoping, praying, and keeping their fingers crossed 🤞 that there will be more monsters and monster action. Yeah, well they made a movie that had pretty much nothing but monsters and monster action, and they still found a reason to complain about it. Some of them said that it had "too much monster stuff." Some critics just can't make up their damn minds about what they want from this franchise. One critic said that Godzilla x Kong felt too much like a superhero movie. Can you believe that? Kaiju are way cooler than superheroes.
This show is much more closer in tone to Godzilla (2014), where it's a bit more be dark and serious, and tries to be a little bit more grounded 🤏. Which it makes so weird to go from the recent MonsterVerse movies that just throw caution to the wind, and go as crazy and out there as they can, to this show that tries maintain some veneer of groundness and realism. Though, to be fair, this show does get more "silly" and "ridiculous" as it goes along, especially once it starts delving more and more into the Hollow Earth stuff 🌎. Also, unlike 2014, the show actually shows the monsters fight when they do start fighting instead of constantly cutting away from it. That's why 2014 is usually everyone's least favorite MonsterVerse movie, unless they're a stuffy critic who hates fun, then that's their absolute favorite one. I'll put it another way to close this out: if you want to see a giant crab fight a giant spider, then this is the show for you. That happens at the beginning of the first episode.
I realized that I didn't really talk about the character, Lee Shaw that much other than that he was played by both Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell, and that he got trapped in Hollow Earth 🌎 for 20 years. I really did like Lee Shaw as a character. I thought that he added an interesting dynamic in the relationship with Keiko and Bill, how he was the military guy who spoke the military's language and translated it into something Keiko and Bill could understand, and would also translate whatever they said into the language the military could understand.
He was the guy that stuck up for them when the government and the military didn't believe in them, or believe in their organization or their mission, and pretty much got them funding, which they sorely needed, especially in the first decade of Monarch's existence. But, he wasn't just the military guy, he wasn't just the muscle 💪 or the piggy bank 🐷, he also had feelings for Keiko himself. They make that pretty obvious in the sixth episode, where he not only slow dances with her on the dance floor of that defense industry ballroom, but he also tries to bang her that very same night, but fails because Bill calls him and cockblocks him.
And when Keiko falls down that hole in the nuclear power plant ☢️ in the Kazakh SSR ☭ after getting covered in Endopede larvae, and everyone thinks that she's dead, Shaw takes it the hardest. Even more than Bill in all honesty, in fact, it was only when Shaw disappeared and got stuck in the Hollow Earth 🌎 that Bill lost his mind, and kept trying to prove Hollow Earth 🌎's existence, including by going to Skull Island. Worst decision of his life.
And in the present day, which isn't really the present day since it's still technically in the past since the MonsterVerse is way past all this timeline wise, he latches onto both Cate and Kentaro (hearing that name only made me think of the character from the Mortal Kombat games, Kintaro) and helps them on their journey to find their dad, who he considers his nephew. Not by blood 🩸 obviously, but in spirit or whatever. He's his honorary uncle I guess, and he's Cate and Kentaro's great uncle by his association with Hiroshi, and how he kind of became a second father figure to him after Keiko fell into Hollow Earth 🌏 and was presumed dead. And he talks about Keiko every chance he gets, and speaks only highly of her because he was in love with her basically 😍.
Even his "evil plan" to close up all of the known Hollow Earth entry points 🌎 by blowing them up 💥 is driven by some desire to regain Keiko, or prevent anyone else from meeting the same fate as her. The point is, he was doing it all for her. And when the two do reunite inside Hollow Earth 🌏, Shaw is overwhelmed with joy, crying tears of joy 🥹 basically, and being all sad 😭 that he's all old and she's still young, and that Bill's dead and the trio is down to just being a duo once again. It will never a trio ever again.
Then later, he "sacrifices" himself so that Keiko can escape and be with her granddaughter, Cate and reunite with her son, Hiroshi. I put sacrifices in quotes because I'm not entire convinced that he's dead. I'm sure he'll be back in Season 2. If not, then I guess that's it for Kurt Russell. They got him and his son for one season, and then they just bailed out after the last episode since their character was no longer needed anymore. It's just like with Bryan Cranston, Samuel L. Jackson, and John Goodman, although they did manage to get John Goodman to come back to shoot probably a weeks worth of shooting inside of a green room, not even a green screen, a green room, since nothing he was interacting with that prologue scene in Episode 1 was real. The jungle was fake, the rock cliff was fake, and of course, the creatures were fake. It was totally artificial. John Goodman didn't even have to go outside for real to shoot that scene.
Speaking of Shaw's supposed villain turn, I do like that they didn't actually make him a villain. I was worried around the eighth or ninth episode that he was going to be main villain of the series, or at least of this season, and I just going to chalk it up to being yet another instance where Kurt Russell is only relegated to just playing villain roles in his older age. And not only that, but it would the second time that he's played a "twist villain" after playing Ego the Living Planet in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
But no, they didn't do that. Shaw is not the bad guy, in fact, he isn't evil at all. He was just misguided, making a really stupid decision based on love ❤️. I'm sure a lot of people have been there. Granted, I'm sure most people haven't taken over a top secret government facility, or rigged a bunch of explosives 💥 to close up a bunch of holes that lead to an underground world inside of the Earth 🌎. But, you get what I mean. And as soon as he, Cate, and Corah (I'm not calling her May since that's not even her real name) fall down into Hollow Earth 🌏, and reunite with Keiko, he goes back to being the good guy he always was. And in the end, he does the right thing by helping Cate, Corah, and Keiko get out of Hollow Earth 🌏 and get back up to the surface to reunite with their families. It was thanks to him that Keiko got a second chance, a second life essentially.
I also like the dynamic that he had with the modern-day characters, Cate, Kentaro and May AKA Corah. He was like the older mentor or guide for them, who was leading them on this journey to find Cate and Kentaro's dad, and he was teaching them about Monarch and the Titans since he knew way more about it than any of them did. He was a founding member after all. They kind of go from not really trusting him, to trusting him, and then back to not trusting them, all over the course of probably a few days. It's a very interesting dynamic, and one that I felt made sense given the circumstances.
I mean, if you were in Cate, Kentaro, and Corah, would you trust this old guy who you barely knew and was babblering on about a secret government agency that studies, contains, and/or neutralizes giant monsters, and who was secretly in love with your dead grandma who isn't actually dead, but was trapped in a secret underground realm for 58 years and is still the same age that she was in the 50s? I doubt very many people would unless they provided some pretty solid and substantial proof, which Shaw does admittedly provide.
Although, Cate, Kentaro, and Corah also end up following other characters who also are older than them after they're separated from Shaw. Like, the follow around Cate's mom and her new boyfriend for a bit while they're in San Francisco. Then they follow around Tim for a bit after they split from Shaw again after Godzilla rises up from the sands of Algeria 🇩🇿 after being woken up from his slumber by Hiroshi and the Monarch agents led by Tim in the helicopter, and they lose trust in Shaw after he admits that he's trying to help Godzilla, and is working with some rogue Monarch agents including the French lady 🇫🇷♀︎, who also made a deal with Corah to help her reunite with her family if she agreed to ditch Cate and Kentaro and sell them out to the feds. Then the three of them just start working with Monarch for a bit, despite them all equally distrusting them that organization, after Verdugo tells them that Shaw's plan to seal all the Hollow Earth entry points 🌎 will just destroy the world rather than save it.
That is until they all get separated with Cate and Corah falling down to Hollow Earth 🌏 with Shaw where then bump into Keiko who turns out to still be alive, while Kentaro is hospitalized for some time and then sent back to Tokyo to live out his normal life, where he then reunites with her Hiroshi, who randomly shows back up again to try to patch things up with him and propose a partnership with him, which Kentaro sharply declines, not wanting to have anything to do with Monarch or Titans ever again, and being mad at his dad for cheating on his mom, and then abandoning him and his mom to go run around the world studying Godzilla and Hollow Earth 🌏 😡.
Then, Tim shows up again because he's been fired from Monarch by Verdugo for daring to suggest that they send out a rescue mission down to Hollow Earth 🌎 to try to rescue Cate, Corah, and Shaw and find the source of the signal embedded in the gamma ray signatures that they've been detecting god forbid, and Tim suggests to Kentaro that they work together to find a way to rescue Cate, Corah, and Shaw.
He agrees, and they go to Hiroshi to ask him to help them in their rescue mission, and while he's hesitant at first, not wanting to work for Monarch ever again, Tim suggests that they work with Apex Cybernetics instead to bring them back, and he agrees. It's not Monarch, so why not? Then of course, they all end up on Skull Island, the place where Bill died, some heartfelt family reunions happen, and then they all run inside due to the storm raging outside ⛈️, and also because Kong shows up, and they're all worried that he's going to starting tearing shit up. Although, he's probably just checking to see what all the commotion is.
I do think it was pretty genius to cast both Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell, and have them both play the same character at different ages. That is a great use of a parent/child acting duo, and I'm surprised no else has thought of doing that before. Like, what didn't Will Smith ever do that with Jaden Smith? Or Denzel Washington and John David Washington? Or Ice Cube and O'Shea Jackson Jr. AKA OMG? Yeah, I know that O'Shea played his dad in the Straight Outta Compton movie, but that's different from what I'm talking about. Or even Jane Fonda and Bridget Fonda, when she was still acting? It's instances like these when being a nepobaby comes in handy. Seeing these two in this show playing the same character so effortlessly and seamlessly, makes me wish that Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning would do another movie together even more.
Not necessarily the same thing of playing the same character but different ages because they've already done that (in the movie, I Am Sam), but do something creative in that vein where it took advantage of the fact that they're siblings and that they're blood related 🩸without just casting them as sisters. It's the reason why Kurt and Wyatt even agreed to be in this show because it wasn't just them playing father and son. That would be the obvious and trite choice. Instead it was something more creative and ingenious than that by having them play the same character but different ages with the father playing the old version of the character and the son playing the younger version. I think Dakota and Elle need something like that for them to agree to do another movie together, this time as adults. Maybe, they could be in a movie where one of them plays one of their conscience, or one of plays the other's clone or something like that.
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