Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Trailer Brings Mayhem to AppleTV+

Television

The monsters are coming! AppleTV+ has released a trailer for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, the upcoming TV series set in the “Monsterverse” – the universe established in the Legacy films starting with 2004’s deceptively named Godzilla. And the show seems perfectly aware that this is Godzilla’s universe because Monarch: Legacy of Monsters will feature the King of the Monsters; how heavily he’ll be involved is unknown, and if past is precedent, I wouldn’t be surprised if the trailer has shown us all of his scenes (which still puts it ahead of Godzilla). But there’ll be more monsters, and they’ll be joined by human actors like the legendary Kurt Russell, his son Wyatt Russell as a younger version of Kurt’s character, Ana Sawai, Kiersey Clemons, Ren Watabe, and, as revealed in the trailer, John Goodman (unless that’s reused footage from Kong: Skull Island). Created by Chris Black and Matt Fraction, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters will debut on AppleTV+ on November 17, 2023, and run for ten episodes. You can see the trailer below:

The trailer certainly makes Monarch: Legacy of Monsters look cool. I like the idea of revealing the truth behind Monarch, which is what they’re teasing – Kurt Russell’s “If you come with me, you’ll know everything; I promise” is directed at the audience as much as it is whoever he’s talking to on the show. This is their chance to make Monarch as cool as it should have been in the movies, where it was basically a bunch of guys standing around ineffectually. It’s a bit of a contradiction for me, as I’m of the opinion that these films should be about the monsters and not the humans, but if you’re going to throw a group like Monarch in there, you have to do something interesting with it.

Speaking of the monsters, there are quick glimpses of a few in the trailer as it builds to revealing Godzilla. I paused it a few times, but I can’t tell if that first one is a spider or a crab; if the latter, maybe this is Ebirah from Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster, which I recall being one of my favorites as a kid. Ebirah was actually a lobster, or closer to a lobster than a crab, but it could be a re-imagining, or maybe this is a sign of an Ebirah appearance down the line. I can’t make out the other two, who seem locked in combat; one kind of looks like Gaos, but he was a Gamera villain, not one of Godzilla’s. Maybe it’s Anguirus from (originally) Godzilla Raids Again. The speculation has me thinking how awesome it would be if the show were a weekly fight between Godzilla and a different evil monster, but they barely give us that kind of action in the movies, so that’ll be a pipe dream.