Monarch: L'héritage des Monstres

Binge watched the show today and found it underwhelming compared to the movies that legendary has made since Godzilla(2014). The show has potential and I hope they utilize it better in the next season.

The scenes with Keiko, Shaw and Bill Randa are the ones that make the show worth watching . Everyone else just felt like dragging the show. The CGI wherever used is top notch and the screen presence of Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell made it 7 out of 10 else if would have been around 5.5.

Apple has confirmed that it has been renewed for another season atleast, hope they bring Kurt and Wyatt back for it.

I was super excited for this show but it has been a super disappointment (at 8th episode so far). Only the first episode was good, it all becomes downhill after that. Only Apple TV was still producing big budget sci-fi like Foundation and Silo. Now they are also going to invest less in big world building saga citing the failure of Monarch.

The characters in the present time are so immature especially the teacher from San Francisco who seems to be a teenager living in an adult body. She is such a turnoff with her attitude similar to teenagers. May is useless and the brother from Japan, while not annoying, is so weak and useless.

I really don't care about their family drama or each of their backstory. This is a show about MONSTERS !! Why are we spending 90% of an episode with character backstory and their feelings, especially when none of them are likeable ?? Where are the MONSTERS? Where is the story about their habitats, their backstory, how they have been hidden for thousands of years, what is common between them, where do they come from? These are the elements that make a fantasy sci-fi interesting, not the annoying, unlikeable teenager mindset adults and their story.

They could have just kept this story in the 1940-50s and gone full on Monsters backstory, some WWII and Cold War drama about how many world powers were vying for the power of the Monsters and culminates in how this set off an underground Cold War that was hidden from the rest of the world with Monarch. Subsequent seasons could be what happened in the 70s-80s and so on culminating in D-day. Then once they catch up to current time, new seasons could be in between storylines between blockbuster Godzilla and Kong movies. This Monster universe could be the Marvel universe of this decade. Why are these Hollywood companies these days ruining entertainment ? People just want to be entertained, why is that so hard to understand? And the ironic part is that they could make a ton of money doing that.

I've been looking forward to Monarch: Legacy of Monsters ever since I first heard about it. Then I saw the trailer and my excitement grew even more. I can say without a doubt that this series did not disappoint. First of all, Kurt Russell is in this. That's reason enough to watch it alone. His son Wyatt also stars. But throw in Godzilla and other monsters and you have a hit. This series digs into the Monarch agency and their role in keeping these monsters under control. It also shows how everyday people are affected by these monsters being let loose on the world and the role it takes. It takes place in two different time frames, the 50's and today. It's gotten great reviews by both critics and fans as it currently has a 87% on Rotten Tomatoes.

This is a great series to watch if you're stuck on a plane with nothing else to do. It filmed better than most of the generic blockbusters but it has the writing of a CW show.

On the acting side, I am a diehard Kurt Russell fan, however, Wyatt steals every scene he's in and was the sole standout of the show. Joe Tippett, Anders Holm, Anna Sawai, and Mari Yamamoto are able to lift their thinly written characters, and Kiersey Clemons is serviceable in a role where her character sucks. However, Ren Watabe is a standout for all the wrong reasons. His wooden delivery behind a nonsense annoying character really took me out of any scene.

With all that said, it's worth watching if you like spinoff streamers that have more dialogue and less action than their movie counterparts, and it's worth watching Kurt and Wyatt Russell play the same character.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is every bit as good as I was hoping for. It takes place after the Godzilla movie that became out a few years ago. Monarch is the agency that researches and tracks other titan monsters such as Godzilla. The series follows several of those Monarch agents. It covers when monarch was originally formed in the 1950's and also after the last Godzilla movie in the 2010's. A-list actor Kurt Russell plays a monarch agent in tr my oday's world and his real life son Wyatt Russell plays a younger version of his character in the 1950's. Both Russell's are terrific. In fact, the entire cast is great. This series does exactly what it set out to do and that is expand this monster universe and make people excited for what comes next. I hope they do several seasons of this.