💥Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters Showrunner Explains Why There Aren’t More Titans In Godzilla Show💥
0Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters Showrunner Explains Why There Aren’t More Titans In Godzilla Show
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters offered a ground-level look at the MonsterVerse, exploring the founding of its titular organization as well as the lives of ordinary people after the events of 2014’s Godzilla thanks to its two-timeline approach. The show fills in gaps between Legendary’s MonsterVerse movies, primarily between 2014’s Godzilla and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters, though its 1950s timeline sets up the events of Kong: Skull Island. The series also dives into the behind-the-scenes operations of MonsterVerse factions like Monarch itself as well as the morally dubious Apex Cybernetics.
Despite its name, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters spends most of its time focusing on its human characters rather than its actual monsters. Godzilla is a presence in the show and the Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 1 ending brings another exciting Titan into the fold, but the majority of the season dives into the mysteries of the Randa family and the Monarch organization. There are multiple reasons for this, as explained by showrunner Chris Black in a recent Screen Rant interview.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ choice to focus more on the Randa family tree than on Godzilla or its other Titans may be surprising to those expecting the same level of mayhem as seen in the MonsterVerse films, but its character-based drama ultimately makes for a more compelling sustained story. To Chris Black’s point above, the tense dynamics between newly-discovered half-siblings and their secret-keeping allies are ripe for exploration across Monarch: Legacy of Monsters nearly 10-hour runtime. Although Titans certainly deserve the spotlight, the fact that viewers invest in the budding relationship between series protagonists Cate and Kentaro, for example, makes the moments when those characters are in danger much more impactful.
Less time with Titans in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters also means that each appearance of the monsters is designed to be as important to the MonsterVerse as possible. From revealing what happened after the military tried to kill Godzilla to introducing the Titan that inspired the development of Monarch in the first place, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is written in a way that makes each Titan appearance a game-changer. As Black suggested, constant fights between Titans would likely create fatigue for many viewers; instead, each Titan appearance takes the story in a new direction.
The restraint Monarch: Legacy of Monsters shows with its Titans also ensures the show has room to grow in future seasons. Whether or not this is more of a happy accident than a calculation, the series is able to make certain huge end-of-season reveals in part because of how much restraint the writers exercised up until that moment. By keeping the same approach to Titans intact in season 2, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters could both create a compelling second outing while still leaving the door open for a third.