Fun fact: Ted Cassidy provided the voice for Godzilla in that series. In addition to getting hit by Kirk's stone penis on Trek, he also was the voice of the Gorn.
Can we just have normal titles for fuck's sake? Anyway, this show is a prequel and a sequel at the same time. It's not up to Gareth Edward standards and reeks of CW writing at times, but looks great when the monsters are on the screen. I'm guessing Godzilla Minus One is probably better.
I have seen the first two episodes of Monarch and it seems like it might be pretty good. It is a bit bumpy with the extreme time jumps, byut they are trying to keep up the reveals. I get a bit annoyed because as soon as you are getting interested in one story they make a cliffhanger and then maybe they will get back to what was happening when you get back from the other story, or maybe they will have another flashback to a point in the story that would have helpes you 20 minutes ago. There is a point where non-linear works, and then there is a npoint where you are making it deliberately confusing for the sake of audience discussion. I call it the Pulp Fiction effect where you substitute pointless time jumps and confusing mumbo jumbo to keep the audience talking about what might be happening rather than there isn't much actually happening. It is not bad but every time the monsters come in it cuts away. A main character just died, it cuts away. Then after we get back to the character that died it is to the part where she meets the people she is with sometime before she died. That might have been a helpful thing to understand twenty fucking minutes ago in the show when we saw three people we hardly knew in a perilous situation and had no idea of their character dynamics.That does not reveal much as both plotlines have three people. It is entertaining and looks like it will be good eventually when they get out of introduction mode, but right now they have teased multiple monsters, three different timelines, and the last time I saw something this fragmented it was Memento.
I'm enjoying the fuck out of this show, and E3 really lands where the first two were headed. I was initially confused because I thought they were trying to make the guy with two families the same character played by Ken Watabe in the 2014 film but my son pointed out that that doesn't ft because that dude knew his son and we saw the character in the film in relation to mechagodzilla. So I read a little explainer and I think I have the relationships right now I also learned that Billy is the young version of John Goodman's character which - stretches my disbelief about how much he would have to age in 20 years to be that guy. But that quibble aside, I really like the multi-generation connective tissue they are using to stich this together.
So, Wyatt Russal is 37. If he were playing his age in the 1959 scenes, the character would have been born in 1922 which would make Kurt's version 101. Conversely, Kurt is 71 and if he's playing his age in the 2015 scenes then he'd have been born 1944 which is impossible given the man we see in 1952. At best we can assume Shaw is 20 in 52 at a minimum. That means Kurt's version is at least 83 and Wyatt is (as is common) playing a character (at least in some scenes) a lot younger than the actor. Going back to Bill Randa, John Goodman is 71 now, but we can assume that he's not playing that age in the opening scene (1972). The young Randa is played by a 42 year old actor (Anders Holm) If he's 42 in 1952, then he's 62 when played by Goodman in '72 (and if he's 42 in the 1959 season then Goodman is playing 55 in 1972 which...doesn't seem a better conclusion. Finally, Ren Watabe is 24, and Anna Sawaibi is 31. Counting back from 2015 Cate would have been born in '84 and Ken in '91. This works as one can assume the missing/presumed-dead father was born sometime in the 60's.
I try not to have the character's age be the actor's age. As long as I get the idea that it is younger version, older version. If they are going to do that with someone iconic like Kurt Russel it would be much better if they upped his kurt russelness and had the kid try to act like him. Sort of like how they did it in looper. You should chose an actor with a presence and then have the younger version work with them and try to mimic their mannerisms. I have not seen this well done in monarch yet, but if you have someone like Kurt camp it up a bit more and show rather than tell. I am still waiting on seeing episode three as I agreed to watch with a friend.
I saw Godzilla Minus 1 yesterday with my kid. If it weren't for him, I probably would not have. It was pretty good. The story is told from a completely different perspective than the Godzilla stories I remember. Worth an evening out for sure.
My younger son is to Godzilla as I am to Star Trek. I reminded him that I had said of Strange New Worlds that it was like they made TOS but today and ask him, since he's well versed in all the old Toho stuff, if he'd say that Minus one was like if they had made the first Toho movie today and he agreed. I loved it (and as a rule I kinda hate foreign language stuff) and he said at a minimum it was a top 3 Godzilla film ever. (pending the one next year) I'm really enjoying Monarch but this movie is a whole 'nother universe of "wow"
Godzilla minus one needs to be seen on the big screen. It is just a fun Godzilla movie. Godzilla is pissed and we get a great view of the big G. As for monarch it is less about the monsters and more about chasing someone down. There is plenty of opportunity to talk about the monsters, and they have a huge data dump, but we are not going to focus on much of that. There are monsters, but they just seem to be background obstacles to a rather boring plot about finding dad so we can ask him why he had two families. I came for the monsters and the story about them. Why are you teasing me with that story while this other much less interesting family story is going on? Please monsters eat these fucking people.
OK, so being an idiot I missed the whole Godzill 2014 and king of monsters. I did not realize the series was based on their mythology. Monarch makes a bit more sense now, but is it before King of monsters? I think it is. It would make some sense being an explanation for Monarch before king of monsters happened. I am wondering where all the fucking footage of G-Day is, and holy shit if I just did some research this would have been better. This new Godzilla thing is total cultural appropriation. The G man is a killer of Japan. America was supposed to make their own big giant monsters, and Godzilla is Japanese. G does not go stomp SF or Boston, he stomps japan. Godzilla is their thing, We have king Kong and the cloverfield monster. Stop stealing Japan's shit. Do cloverfield king of monsters if you want to wreck Boston. Really, why are monsters even fucking with that hole in the earth? Fuck Boston entirely. Fucking Ben Afleck and his Bourne boyfriend can go fuck right the fuck off with their shitty accent and annoying whiny masshole selves. All the monsters should just go to boston to shit right in that fucking place. That is the monsters destroy boston movie I want to see. Boston is a fucking toilet.
the bulk of "present day" MonarchLoM is set in 2015 with many flashbacks. That's after the 2014 movie and before the rest of them including KotM and GvK
I have less dislike for the Monarchverse than for the MCU. I think it is because they have not made me watch so many things to get to their endgame. At the end of endgame I was ready to dump the MCU for a long time. I felt very used, especially after iron man 3. If it wasn't for the tonal shift in Thor Ragnarok they might have lost me. However this one was a stealth universe for me. I caught it in the middle and wanted to catch up on the two prongs of godzilla and kong. I view monarch as the tying bonds. I could go for another series of monarch. They are going to have to be careful to keep the stories together at this point, or to give a good reason for a singular story aside from it is too big for the budget. I get they were going to do it because new empire seems to have been a hit. Beat the horse until it is dead and leave them regretting seeing that last entry rather than wanting more is the motto of hollywood. This would be a good cut off point, but if they got a decent plot and some nice destruction I am up for some fresh cheese from time to time. Maybe don't try to outdo the previous movie and just do a good next movie.
