Monarch: Legacy of Monsters on AppleTV+ [Weekly Ongoing Discussion]

[LegendZilla]

Extremely disappointed with direction they are choosing to go with this. I was really hoping we would get another Monsterverse movie, but if that is contingent on how well this apple series performs then GvK was the last movie of the universe.

What direction are you talking about? Do you consider making a TV show of Godzilla an innately bad idea?

[Voyager]

Extremely disappointed with direction they are choosing to go with this. I was really hoping we would get another Monsterverse movie, but if that is contingent on how well this apple series performs then GvK was the last movie of the universe.

What direction are you talking about? Do you consider making a TV show of Godzilla an innately bad idea?

Don't think that’s what he’s implying, but to me it feels like it’s cashing in on SW and the MCU.

[UltramanGoji]

Star Wars and the MCU didn't invent the concept of television series based off theatrical franchises.

[Voyager]

Star Wars and the MCU didn't invent the concept of television series based off theatrical franchises.

But guess what big-budget franchises are heavily invested in building a bigger (cinematic) universe through the medium? The same ones the MV has been copying for a while. I never claimed they invented it, I’m using common sense.

[DynomikeGojira]

Honestly I have more faith in this TV show than I do another film.

[GodzillaFan1990's]

What is it with the MonsterVerse for the most part having sucky characters? It's like they probably think audience are only in for the giant monsters and so don't even try to put effort in the characters like at all treating them like mindless zombies.

Seriously just because audience including us are here mostly for the giant monsters at least give us decent characters. I'm not asking for Shawshank Redemption or Citizen Kane mind you but at least what we saw in Kong: Skull Island or Serizawa and Joe Brody. Isn't that more then enough to ask for?

Legendary just needs to just fire their current writers notably Max Borenstein and hire new ones.

[UltramanGoji]

Love how we're complaining about the characters being bad before the fucking show has even started filming lmao

[miguelnuva]

It depends on who you ask, I just saw someone who said they likes Team Kong and Team Godzilla in the last one. To be fair GvsK just had a I don't care plot. Team Kong had good human character.

Team Godzilla just didn't have the best plot.

[king_ghidorah]

I think the lead characters of these films have been flat. Not bad necessarily, but flat. With the exception of GKOTM where the leads outside of Serizawa are actually unlikable.

I actually liked both “teams” in GvK though the Kong Team was certainly the stronger of the two.

Now. About the fact that we are already complaining. I think that’s ok….I feel like we’ve been measured. Few if any of us are writing the show off based on the character descriptions. I’m certainly still excited….way more excited for this than whatever Toho will do with the character based on their recent track record.

It’s just that these characters sound pretty generic and bland.

Two examples I’ll use.

There’s a show called Pennyworth about Batman’s butler in his early years. While the show may be written well, directed well, with great performances and engaging plots the question remains ….why this story? Is Alfred a favorite character among the talent on the show, so much so that there’s a genuine passion for stories featuring him? Just seems odd that in a library full of colorful and unique characters that they would pick the blandest one….which feels more or less like the MV so far.

Another example. Let’s make a parallel to the show The X Files…..what’s more interesting….a show about Mulder and Scully, BBC actually going on adventures and unraveling conspiracies or a show about their kids trying to figure out what Mulder and Scully did?

It just seems like both of these examples are apt here from what we’ve seen so far. They’ve taken a bland approach that is also unnecessarily convoluted.

Just make a show about a monarch team doing monarch stuff. It’s really not that hard and on its surface level it’s way more interesting than whatever this appears to be.

Oh. And lastly. These characters seems to be based on Serizawa and his family but apparently they’re not actually Serizawa/Ren….so why not just do something totally different OR actually use Serizawa and his family. It’s weird to do something so close when you already have access to the original characters. And if the talent isn’t interested, just do something different that doesn’t invite comparisons.

[jrock]

Extremely disappointed with direction they are choosing to go with this. I was really hoping we would get another Monsterverse movie, but if that is contingent on how well this apple series performs then GvK was the last movie of the universe.

What direction are you talking about? Do you consider making a TV show of Godzilla an innately bad idea?

No, the idea of a series I like if executed correctly, but the fact that apple has gotten a hold of this over the likes of Netflix, Hulu, or HBO max gives me ZERO faith in it being successful, especially when you combine that with the plot form for the series. Really the most concerning thing is Apple's platform has long history of being straight up garbage. Netflix, Hulu and HBO max are all supreme streaming services to Apple and they showed they have no faith in this series being successful otherwise one of them would have invested in it being how much more popular and marketable those services are to the public vs. Apple. All Apple did was make a grab for scraps off a table of leftovers that no one else wanted. I hope I am wrong and just overly pessimistic, but I just don't have a good feeling with how any of this unfolding.

[GodzillaFan1990's]

Love how we're complaining about the characters being bad before the skreeonking show has even started filming lmao

Aside from the cast of Kong: Skull Island, Dr. Serizawa and Joe Brody. When has any of the cast ever been good? Good reason to assume this will be the case as well.

[Monke]

Extremely disappointed with direction they are choosing to go with this. I was really hoping we would get another Monsterverse movie, but if that is contingent on how well this apple series performs then GvK was the last movie of the universe.

What direction are you talking about? Do you consider making a TV show of Godzilla an innately bad idea?

No, the idea of a series I like if executed correctly, but the fact that apple has gotten a hold of this over the likes of Netflix, Hulu, or HBO max gives me ZERO faith in it being successful, especially when you combine that with the plot form for the series. Really the most concerning thing is Apple's platform has long history of being straight up garbage. Netflix, Hulu and HBO max are all supreme streaming services to Apple and they showed they have no faith in this series being successful otherwise one of them would have invested in it being how much more popular and marketable those services are to the public vs. Apple. All Apple did was make a grab for scraps off a table of leftovers that no one else wanted. I hope I am wrong and just overly pessimistic, but I just don't have a good feeling with how any of this unfolding.

They all had a bid for this series, Apple just formed out the most money for it.

[miguelnuva]

Love how we're complaining about the characters being bad before the skreeonking show has even started filming lmao

Aside from the cast of Kong: Skull Island, Dr. Serizawa and Joe Brody. When has any of the cast ever been good? Good reason to assume this will be the case as well.

Jia and team Kong were great. Bernie was good as a humor character and MBB wasn't that bad in Godzilla vs Kong the plot was just not the strongest plot.

[king_ghidorah]

I think MBB is kind of unlikable in these movies but GvK wisely kind of leans into that and just accepts it.

And I’m all about the Bernie appreciation. I love him in the film. One of my favorite G human characters period

[Titanus_Rodan]

I'll never understand complaining/criticizing about anything. There's no fun in it.

I'm getting a Godzilla TV show. I have NOTHING to criticize or complain about. What would it accomplish for me? Looking "smart" to a bunch of strangers on the internet who I'll never meet?

[king_ghidorah]

I'll never understand complaining/criticizing about anything. There's no fun in it.

I'm getting a Godzilla TV show. I have NOTHING to criticize or complain about. What would it accomplish for me? Looking "smart" to a bunch of strangers on the internet who I'll never meet?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2sRS1dwCotw

….That’s not how any of this works.

It’s not “fun” to criticize things. I’m sure we would all love to just enjoy everything we get but the simple truth is that people don’t work that way.

Nor do I think anyone comes here, to a small Godzilla forum at the ass end of the internet, to look smart. The thing that drives us here is a mutual love of this stuff…

[Titanus_Rodan]

But what’s the point of criticizing something before the cameras are even rolling? That makes absolutely no sense

[king_ghidorah]

We are criticizing what doesn’t sit right while reserving the ability to change our minds when the series comes out, or even just a trailer.

If I were to see a cast breakdown of Aliens for instance it would look pretty basic and I’d think it would be a bad film. Paper thin characters etc. but in the context of the film, it all works, and it works well.

This is just what happens when we have a little news but not a lot of news. We just hyper focus on what little information we have. It’s neither good nor bad it just is.

And there is no point….beyond the exchange and conversation.

[GodzillaFan1990's]

I don't know what y'all are talking about. Bernie being a good humor character. Guy was damn annoying along with Josh.

The same guy which had the whole joke about "Consuming bleach". Humor about bleach of all things as if that was the best humor the writers could come up with. Oh and the whole hand sanitizer thing referencing COVID which irked me they had the nerve to put a reference to the damn pandemic in the movie.

Oh and whiskey saves the day pouring it over the control panel. That was literally the movie running out of time of ideas to come up with.

Seriously come up with better humor. This is exactly what I meant when I say most movies including MonsterVerse are desperately literally trying to copy the MCU especially in terms of humor. Keep that skreeonking formula out the MonsterVerse please. Even horror movies today apparently can't sway away from it.

MBB wasn't that bad in Godzilla vs Kong

Are you kidding me? Madison was more unlikable in this film. Bitchy, egoistical and skreeonking condescending.

The only good human characters in this film were Nathan Lind, Ilene Andrews and Jia, even then Kong had more character to him then the former two even did. Jia ironically being the best human character in the film, a skreeonking kid was better then all the other human characters.

[Spuro]

The same guy which had the whole joke about "Consuming bleach". Humor about bleach of all things as if that was the best humor the writers could come up with. Oh and the whole hand sanitizer thing referencing COVID which irked me they had the nerve to put a reference to the damn pandemic in the movie.

I really didn't notice any line about hand sanitizer, and I've seen the movie multiple times by now. Feels like you're kinda making a mountain out of a molehill here.

Oh and whiskey saves the day pouring it over the control panel. That was literally the movie running out of time of ideas to come up with.

More accurately, that was the movie subverting a common trope where the protagonists must shut down a machine by hacking into it. It also had a very minor impact on the overall fight. Mechagodzilla was stunned for a few seconds.