Monster Hunter: Legends of the Guild is a 3D animated film directed by Steven Yamamoto, co-animated by China's Base FX and Malaysia's The Monk Studios, and based on Capcom's massively popular Monster Hunter franchise, released on Netflix on August 12th, 2021. The movie sheds some light on the Ace Hunters from Monster Hunter 4 and serves as an Origins Episode for Aiden, the Ace Cadet of the Ace Hunters who reappeared as the Excitable A-Lister in Monster Hunter: World.
Set sometime before the events of 4, the movie follows Aiden (Dante Basco), a young man and aspiring Hunter living in a quiet village in the Old World. When a solo expedition to track a monster leads to him biting off more than he can chew, he is suddenly rescued by Julius, the Ace Commander, who has arrived to warn Aiden of an Elder Dragon migration that is threatening to destroy his village and everything he loves. To stop the impending devastation, Aiden becomes a rookie Hunter and teams up with Julius's squadron of elite Hunters called the "Ace Hunters".
This movie provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: The film shows feats of the hunters that are far stronger than those in the Monster Hunter games show even in cutscenes or are not present there, such as Julius slaying a Velocidrome in one strike with Dual Blades (noted for using Death of a Thousand Cuts instead of single deadly strikes), the Ace Gunner firing her Heavy Bowgun while running full tilt, and the Insect Glaive user Mae riding her Kinsect like a surfboard.
- Adaptational Wimp:
- Overall, Monsters and Hunters take damage a lot more seriously(arguably realistically) than they do in the games.
- Deviljho is hit with this badly; while it triumphs over the Congalala it fights, it actually struggles to defeat the usually weak monster and it doesn't have its status of being The Dreaded as in the games with the hunters treating it merely as an unexpected inconvenience before going down in a few strikes to the Ace Hunters' attacks after being paralyzed. To be fair though, it was not a single Hunter, but a full team it had to deal with.
- Its armor also proves useless in protecting against Lunastra's fire, whereas in the games Deviljho armor is one of the strongest non-Elder Dragon armors and is not weak against fire even if it does not resist it.
- Big Bad: Lunastra serves as the main antagonist of the movie since her migration route guides her right through a populated village and it's an Elder Dragon that generates explosions as easily as it breathes. This makes it a threat to anything in its path and therefore forces Aiden and the Ace Hunters to slay it lest it destroys Aiden's village.
- Bittersweet Ending: Lunastra is successfully stopped and the village is saved, but Ravi, Mae and her Kinsect are all killed in the fight.
- Black Dude Dies First: Ravi is the first hunter to bite the dust in the hunt against Lunastra, getting incinerated by her fire and reduced to dust.
- Call-Back: In the games series' lore, it is considered bad luck to hunt with 5 or more members in a party as a result of the Kokoto Chief's wife death in a hunt against a Lao-Shan Lung which was followed suit by 5+ member hunts also going awry and result in the deaths of hunters. Here, the six member group that fights Lunastra lose two of their members, Ravi and Mae, in the fight.
- Continuity Nod:
- Julius mentions that once upon a time there was no regulation to hunting and countless dragons were slayed without stop, leading to nature getting unbalanced and eventually leading to the creation of the Guild to regulate hunting as much as possible which are references to the story of the Ancient Civilization that abused dragons and was ultimately destroyed by Fatalis as retaliation for their crimes against Elder Dragons.
- Julius' failure at saving his master from a Kushala Daora that ambushed them in a Rathian hunt is brought up by Nadia when the latter is trying to talk some sense into him.
- The Elder Crossing is brought up as the reason for the Lunastra's migration and that of other Elder Dragons.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Ravi gets incinerated alive and turned into dust by Lunastra, while Mae gets torn apart by the Elder Dragon's jaw.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Velocidrome attacking Aiden is easily killed by Julius the moment the latter strikes it with one of his Dual Blades
- Curb Stomp Cushion: Deviljho easily kills the Congalala the moment he takes the fight seriously, but at the same time the pink monkey takes quite its few potshots at the large Brute Wyvern and even knocks it down a couple of times.
- A Day in the Limelight: The movie stars three of the Ace Hunters, who, despite their title, were infamously delegated to getting worfed to play up the threat of the Gore Magala in 4.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Nox the Melynx's fairly snarky remark in the trailer.Nox: Buddy, if we run into trouble, Plan A is to run away. Plans C, D, and E are hide, negotiate, and run away.
- Giant Wall of Watery Doom: A good version. Aiden blows up the village dam and the resulting deluge of water proves enough to sweep Lunastra away.
- Gory Discretion Shot: When Lunastra crushes Mae in her jaws, the camera cuts away from the carnage.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- Ravi goes mano a mano against Lunastra to defend the disarmed Julius and even tells the others to fire the Dragonator through him before he's burnt to ashes.
- Mae attempts to solo Lunastra when it's in range of the villagers as the only one with a working weapon left. She manages to get its right eye before it chomps down on her.
- Lame Pun Reaction: Mae has a less than enthusiastic reaction to one of Aiden's bad monster puns in the middle of a heated situation.Aiden: Time to kick some Lun-ass-tra!Mae: Really?
- Leitmotif:
- Monster Hunter 2 (Dos)'s leitmotif is heard when Julius starts explaining to Aiden the importance of the balance of nature and the story of the Ancient Civilization and its abuse of dragons that led to its end.
- The Lunastra's appearance in full when it reaches the village is accompanied by a snippet of her and Teostra's theme from the video games.
- Mêlée à Trois: After a botched attempt at capturing the Congalala, Aiden is saved from an onrushing Deviljho when the pink monkey tackles the big pickle to the ground and diverts its attention long enough to let him and the others think up a new plan.
- Noodle Incident: Numerous hunts Julius and Nadia took together are brought up with little elaboration on what happened, such as a Ludroth, a Gypceros, and a time when Julius stormed a Rajang's mating grounds unarmed.
- Not Quite Dead: Lunastra goes down from the Dragonator which has the villagers celebrating and the hunters taking in Ravi's death until it growls and gets right back up.
- One-Hit Kill: The Velocidrome attacking Aiden is downed in one attack of Julius' Dual Blades.
- Prequel: To Monster Hunter 4, depicting the adventures of Aiden before he officially joined the Ace Hunters and how he became one.
- Put on a Bus:
- The Ace Lancer is not present in the trailer. It's worthwhile to note that Monster Hunter 4 states that the Ace Lancer was part of the Capital C Caravan for an indeterminate amount of time before rejoining the Ace Hunters prior to the events of the game.
- This is the only installment in the entire franchise so far where the mascot, Rathalos doesn't makes even a passing cameo. He does get mentioned in passing however.
- The series' main theme Proof of a Hero is nowhere to be heard.
- Saved by Canon: Adien, Nadia and Julius are all safe from suffering death or worse given that the film is a prequel to 4. The opening scene even features a scene taking place in the events of Monster Hunter: World.
- Two Girls to a Team: In addition to Nadia, the Ace Gunner, a woman named Mae who wields an Insect Glaive joins the existing trio in their quest to stop Lunastra.
- Uncertain Doom: Lunastra is last seen getting dragged away by the flood that Adien causes to drive it off and is never seen again though it is never outright confirmed that it drowned or was killed.
- Weapon Tombstone: Ravi and Mae are buried with their Switch Axe and Insect Glaive as the grave marker.
