Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
I've been saying for quite some time now that I think Apple TV Plus is one of the best streaming services out there. The cost is relatively low compared to many other streaming plans and given the budget that Apple has, they are putting out some really awesome content. Big name stars, mostly well written episodes, and fairly decent production value.
@mypathtofire might argue a couple of those points given his experience watching "Invasion", but I've seen him review some other stuff from Apple TV Plus and it has been pretty favorable.
@mrsbozz and I were watching "Lessons in Chemistry" (which is fantastic) and I happened to see the commercial for "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters". I didn't really know what it was about, but it looked cool, so I decided to give it a shot.
Little did I know, "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" was about Godzilla. More specifically, the people impacted and hunting Godzilla. In fact, I had a feeling it was going to be one of those shows where they shaved the budget by never actually showing Godzilla, but boy was I wrong.
I've gotta be honest, I have never really been into Godzilla. Lore in general is something that tends to bore me, I don't usually care how something originated or the history behind it, but Monarch presents the Godzilla story in a way that is engaging and leaves you ready for more after each episode.
Monarch fits into the recent cinematic universe that has been revived as of late. They actually call it the "Monsterverse" and it is pretty clear they have a planned roadmap for all of it.
In case you are wondering, I haven't seen any of the movies and I was able to follow along with Monarch pretty easily. I did have to Google a few things to make some of the puzzle pieces fit, but once I did that, everything kind of made sense.
Monarch jumps back and forth between a couple of timelines. One of them takes place before the events of Kong: Skull Island. The other timeline (same universe) takes place after the events of the 2014 Godzilla movie. Beyond the first season of Monarch, you then have 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters, 2021's Godzilla vs. Kong, and the forthcoming Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire coming out later this year.
I'm not saying all the special effects are top notch in this, but I have said before that I am willing to suspend belief at the expense of entertainment. I know some people aren't able to do that (my wife for example).
While a bit disjointed at first, I found you really start caring for the characters. Plus, it has Kurt Russell and his son Wyatt Russell, so that is cool. They are really sort of minor characters though. The real stars of the show in my opinion are Anna Sawai, Kiersey Clemons, Ren Watabe, and Mari Yamamoto. All of which I have never heard of before watching this show.
Monarch is one of those rare instances where the more I read about it, the more I started to get engrossed in it. It's also one of the rare cases that I couldn't wait until all the episodes were out before watching them. I had to wait for a new one to come out each week.
I remember when I was a little kid I used to watch the old Godzilla movies that were on in the middle of the day. I never really paid too much attention to the plot as I was more focused on the large monster smashing things.
Circling back now and watching these shows where they go in depth into the fact that Godzilla's radiation actually heals the Earth and other concepts like that is pretty cool.
If you looked really hard, you might be able to find some kind of woke agenda about the delicate balance of Earth and how humans are destroying it, but from what I could see, you really have to look to find it. Definitely much less than some other shows I have seen in the past couple of years.
I haven't looked into it too much yet, but I really hope that Apple TV Plus does a second season of Monarch. The show deserves it, the fans deserve it.
You need to check this one out! Even if you aren't a fan of monster movies. It's just that good.
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It’s all in the story telling, have a look at Japanese manga, you will be put of by the poor quality of the pictures. But if you can bring yourself to persist the depth of story with grip you.
The same is true for the new PlayStation games “final fantasy VII” the remake or rebirth due to come out next week, compelling story line.
Final Fantasy VII was awesome. I played the original when it first came out and it was so good. I loved X too. Lot's of hours put into both of those. I raced so many chocobo's and played so much blitzball!
We don't have Apple TV, so I may not see this. I've not seen any of the recent Godzilla movies, so I'm not sure what their angle is. I may have access to some of those, but I have so much stuff to watch. I saw Maestro this week and enjoyed it, but then I love the music of Bernstein.
It just makes me laugh when people say anything good is 'woke'. What is this mysterious 'woke agenda'? We might benefit from people being nicer to each other rather than all the division that some try to encourage.
I think the world needs a lot more empathy. I think that would go a long way. That being said, there are some shows that are pretty in your face about agendas in general and in those cases, it's a bit on the nose. The recent National Treasure show on Disney + was a perfect example of that. They went overboard trying to be socially acceptable that it became laughable. Most of the "woke" issues that seem to bother people don't bother me so much, but when you are super obvious about what you are trying to do it becomes a bit cringe.
I don't like 'woke' as an insult word. I take it to mean caring about others, which we can agree is good. Whose agenda would it be? Meanwhile we know there are agendas with serious money behind them in fossil fuels, weapons, tobacco and religious groups. Perhaps they have been promoting content with 'macho' men eating meat, smoking, driving big cars and winning wars against all the odds. We know some of them suppressed researched that showed the ill effects of their products. So it may seem strange when we see more compassionate messages.
Peace and love man :) Were hippies woke?
According to the definition they would have been. I honestly don't care one way or the other, but some people get triggered pretty bad when a show has stuff like that, so I just wanted to give them fair warning.
Apple TV have been putting out some good content and I have watched most of the recommended shows except this one. Like you, I am not so much into the Godzilla lore, so I have been hesitating. However, if Kurt Russell is in and you say it is engrossing, I could be next on my watchlist.
I think it's definitely worth it. At a handful of episodes you really aren't losing too much.
Apple TV recently raised their prices, didn't they?
You mentioned this Godzilla show to me before. I really should watch it. Godzilla is such a huge part of pop culture here that I really should learn something about him/it.
I think they did yes, but it is still less than a lot of the other services out there because they keep raising their prices too!
I don’t even know if we have AppleTV here and if we do so, it is not common
The common thing we have here is Apple Music
My nieces use Apple Music all the time. I am more of a Spotify guy.
As a someone who is an average Godzilla fan (I've seen everything since 2000 except for Minus One), I absolutely loved Monarch! There are some things about the timeline that get a little wonky, but I thought the story overall was quite fun and engaging. My wife and I were pretty upset when the season was over. I'm hoping for another season, but we'll have to wait and see what they do in Godzilla x Kong first.
Monarch actually made me want to go back and watch those movies which I think says a lot for the show.
I'm not a huge Godzilla fan either, it's kind of been overdone. Too bad they didn't make better use of the Russel's talent, but maybe they were having the namesake would attract viewers without having to pay huge acting fees. Would you watch it again armed with knowledge you have gained since you started watching?
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@bozz! Your Content Is Awesome so I just sent 1 $BBH (Bitcoin Backed Hive) to your account on behalf of @thebighigg. (5/50)
Oh yeah for sure, it was great and it has me fascinated by the whole universe they have created. More than I would have thought.
I don’t have any streaming subscriptions yet. I technically have a Netflix one that my daughter set me up with. Which I use, but i don’t pay for it.
I feel like I have all of them. I need to cut back on them at some point, but there are good shows here and there that I want to see. Eventually I will just need to accept the fact that I can't watch everything!