History Series / MonarchLegacyOfMonsters

In the wake of [[Film/Godzilla2014 the Battle of San Francisco]], two half-siblings set out to uncover their father's secret history with the Titans and the titular organization. The series premiered on Creator/AppleTVPlus November 17, 2023. [[https://deadline.com/2024/04/monarch-legacy-of-monsters-renewed-second-season-apple-tv-1235882018/ A second season and an unknown number of spinoffs are currently in the works.]]

In the wake of [[Film/Godzilla2014 the Battle of San Francisco]], two half-siblings set out to uncover their father's secret history with the Titans and the titular organization. The series premiered on Creator/AppleTVPlus November 17, 2023. [[https://deadline.com/2024/04/monarch-legacy-of-monsters-renewed-second-season-apple-tv-1235882018/ A second season is currently in the works.]]

In the wake of [[Film/Godzilla2014 the Battle of San Francisco]], two half-siblings set out to uncover their father's secret history with the Titans and the titular organization. The series premiered on Creator/AppleTVPlus November 17, 2023.

* AcidTripDimension: The HollowEarth area called Axis Mundi is in some ways even more alien than the realm seen in ''Film/GodzillaVsKong''. [[spoiler:Despite the Earth-like forestry and crags, which Keiko explains as being the result of pieces of the surface world falling into Axis Mundi over time; the realm has a rippling, purple {{alien sky}}; the portals into and out of this realm are far more akin to outright wormholes and teleportation, manifesting when active as gigantic pillars of light which just ''teleport'' anything that comes into contact with them; the portals' activation causes an unearthly electrical discharge where currents of visible lightning run through the ground to specific spots where deadly lightning then strikes; and, most strikingly, [[YearOutsideHourInside time runs much slower there]] due to an intense gravitational distortion creating a time dilation akin to approaching a black hole, to a point where a day there is roughly equivalent to a year or two on Earth. Lee Shaw even comments that Axis Mundi probably isn't really in the same dimension as Earth at all and might be located in another reality]].

* AdaptationalFriendship: Colonel Lee Shaw is adapted from the ''Film/Godzilla2014'' tie-in graphic novel ''Godzilla: Awakening'', which the series otherwise unambiguously renders CanonDiscontinuity. Unlike Shaw's ''Awakening'' portrayal, who had no known connection to Bill Randa from ''Film/KongSkullIsland, Shaw and Randa in the show's version were explicitly close-knit friends who built up Monarch together.

* GildedCage: It's revealed that Monarch has a "retirement home" for high-risk retired personnel of theirs. It looks on the surface like a completely mundane and comfortable retirement home, but it's dotted with veiled surveillance that monitors the residents' every step for every minute of every day, and the residents are even forced to wear [[TrackingDevice electronic tracker anklets]], essentially acting as a cushy [[SealedBadassInAcan can]] for them. In the 2015 storyline, Lee Shaw has been stuck in this retirement home for 33 years [[spoiler:after he was [[ReluctantRetiree forcibly retired]] from Monarch]].

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Monarch truly mean well, and there are lines they won't cross, but they still are portrayed at their shadiest in this series: having initially continued to keep the world in the dark about their own existence despite G-Day, and overall their head honchos come across as hyper-focusing on human security breaches and controlling secrecy at the expense of being dangerously passive to the ''Titan'' threats which they're supposed to be countering, [[spoiler:causing many of the main characters in 2015 to lose faith in Monarch if they had any to begin with]]. The human antagonists of a significant chunk of the 2015 storyline are a RenegadeSplinterFaction formed [[spoiler:by Lee Shaw]] in response to Monarch's perceived shortcomings -- just like Monarch, they never stoop so low as consciously endangering innocent human lives, but they instead resort to criminal and much more radical actions to try and head off a future Titan disaster from happening after being disillusioned with Monarch's HeadInTheSandManagement, hijacking and raiding Monarch outposts with the threat (keyword) of armed assault.

* ScientistVsSoldier: In the 1950s storyline, the Monarch scientists (Keiko and Bill) tend to be more wide-eyed and idealistic than the military (Shaw, Puckett and Hatch), especially when it comes to the Titans. When Godzilla's existence is first discovered in 1954, the military is horrified and, instead of simply trying to lure Godzilla out for study as Monarch requested, they try to kill Godzilla with the Castle Bravo bomb, despite Bill being disgusted and despite Keiko being so distressed that she tries unsuccessfully to sabotage the detonation. Young Shaw, being a military man who's inside Monarch, is much more on the fence about Godzilla and the Titans, but he gives his colleagues the benefit of the doubt. [[spoiler:Lieutenant Hatch is dismissive of the threat that Titans pose because he, having never seen one and unaware of Godzilla's survival, thinks his "great nation" can just nuke them all to kingdom come if any more do turn up. Later, the InternalReveal of Godzilla's survival is precisely what persuades General Puckett to renew government support for Monarch and implicitly throw Hatch out of the organization on his face, because he's that terrified of the threat Titans can pose to humanity, although he reasonably never tries killing a Titan with a WMD again after the military's first attempt fails]].

* SwirlyEnergyThing: The pillar-shaped portals out of [[HollowEarth Axis Mundi]] form swirling vortexes on their surface when something is about to be sucked into them, at which point they're ''teleported'' back to Earth's surface through the ground.

** It occurs midway through the series instead of at the end, but a major stepping stone in Cate working through her unresolved PTSD from G-Day occurs during her return alongside Kentaro and May into the desolate ruins of San Francisco for the first time since [[CynicismCatalyst G-Day]].
** In a sense, InUniverse, Young Bill Randa ended his pre-Monarch journey at the same place he began it. Before discovering the Titans and joining Monarch, Bill became a cryptozoologist after experiencing the downfall of the USS Lawton by a marine Titan. During Bill's first meeting with Lee Shaw and Keiko Miura, he rediscovers the ''Lawton''[='s=] SaharanShipwreck in the Philippines, ending the cryptozoologist phase of his life and beginning his entrance into the fledgling Monarch.
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by the heroes in the 2015 storyline when they deduce that Shaw is returning to the Kazakh power plant where Keiko fell to her apparent death in 1959 at the first episode's end, and the heroes confront him there, [[spoiler:leading to his entrapment in the HollowEarth after HisStoryRepeatsItself with Cate, and his seeming death]].

* YearOutsideHourInside: [[spoiler:Lee's expedition into Axis Mundi lasted only about a week, but once he's sucked back to the surface, he finds out that twenty years have passed. For Keiko, it's even worse; she's been in Axis Mundi for 57 days, which equates to 58 years.]]

* AdaptationalFriendship: [[Characters/MonsterVerseMonarch Colonel Lee Shaw]] is adapted from the ''Film/Godzilla2014'' tie-in graphic novel ''Godzilla: Awakening'', which the series otherwise unambiguously renders CanonDiscontinuity. Unlike Shaw's Awakening portrayal who had no known connection to Bill Randa from ''Film/KongSkullIsland, Shaw and Randa in the show's version were explicitly close-knit friends who built up Monarch together.

** In their original appearances in ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' and the graphic novel ''Godzilla: Awakening'' respectively, Lee Shaw and Bill Randa had absolutely no known connection to each-other beyond that they both worked for Monarch during the 20th century. This series' take on them, however, portrays them as old friends who worked closely together in the 1950s -- and implicitly even entered Monarch together -- before they cut off contact.

%%* PlotParallel

* {{Expy}}: Monarch agent Michelle Duvall, a cold, dark-clad, French woman who is clearly among the most competent individuals in the show? They might as well have named her [[WesternAnimation/GodzillaTheSeries Monique Dupré]]

** In the series premiere's flashbacks, Cate screams several "no's" at the top of her voice when the majority of her schoolkids fall to their deaths on the Golden Gate Bridge. She screams an even more desperate "No" in her father's face when she learns the latter is going to leave her and her mother behind while Cate is freshly traumatixed.
** In the season finale, [[spoiler:[[ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated Keiko]] screams "No" when Shaw lets go of her hand to enable her and the others to escape Axis Mundi alive]].

** Although Word of God claims that the events of the ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'' tie-in graphic novel ''Aftershock'' are still canon, the sole reference to those events (which occurred in 2014) is that Godzilla's dorsal spines in this series have switched from their distinctive 2014 design (which is reused in the 1950s and 2014 flashbacks), to their traditional maple leaf-shaped design from ''King of the Monsters'' onwards by the series' 2015 time frame[[note]]''Godzilla: Aftershock'' explains the design discrepancy between the two movies away by indicating that Godzilla had to regrow his dorsal spines with a new shape after his 2014 spines get shattered in battle with Jinshin-Mushi[[/note]]. Apart from that, it's entirely as if Godzilla's re-emergence alongside Jinshin-Mushi didn't happen at all, with Monarch not making any reference to Godzilla's post-G-Day reappearance in ''Aftershock'' and speaking as if G-Day was the last time before 2015 that Godzilla or any Titan was seen.
** Once again, the pocket of the HollowEarth portrayed in this series is an entirely new region, with different rules from what's been portrayed previously. [[spoiler:Unlike in ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'' and ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'', the Axis Mundi in this series is located inside a [[YearOutsideHourInside black hole-like time dilation]], and instead of being accessed through indirect passages which threaten to damage or rip apart any human craft, surface portals to the Axis Mundi (which Monarch are aware of) can transport unprotected humans fully intact without killing them (the difficulty of sending humans into the Hollow Earth in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' without them being ripped apart despite past efforts by Monarch was a key plot-point in that movie)]].

** Duvall reveals in Episode 6 that events depicted in ''Film/Godzilla2014'' played a major role in her backstory. [[spoiler:She's in fact the sister of Sandra Brody who died at Janjira in 1999, which also makes Duvall Joe Brody's sister-in-law and Ford Brody's aunt]].

* DisneyDeath: [[spoiler:Keiko survived her encounter with Endoswarmers, and ended up in Hollow Earth]].

** Hiroshi is bitter that his parents and his [[HonoraryUncle uncle Lee Shaw]] all promised him that they would come back to him, before their respective deaths and disappearances across 1959, 1962 and 1973. [[spoiler:Lee made it back to Hiroshi twenty years late after he was caught up in Axis Mundi, while Keiko is revealed to be alive and returns to Hiroshi decades later. Bill Randa, however, really is dead and so can never fulfil his promise to Hiroshi]].

* FlatEarthAtheist: Some {{conspiracy theorist}}s are insisting a year after G-Day that the disaster and the {{kaiju}} were all faked using CGI as part of a conspiracy to fuel the military-industrial complex. This includes a taxi driver in Tokyo, who finds this to be a more believable explanation for why there are long-range ballistic rocket launchers being built all across the city's urban areas.

** In "Aftermath", Kentaro assumes that his American half-sister doesn't speak Japanese and insults her in his mother-tongue while he's in the room -- which [[BilingualBackfire backfires]] when Cate subsequently casually reveals that she ''does'' speak Japanese. On the other hand, Kentaro's mother Emiko apparently doesn't speak English, which Cate uses to make a few rude comments in her presence without her realizing during the episode.

** Cate and May grab and hold each-other's hands a ''lot'' later in the series as they grow close, [[spoiler:emphasizing the ShipTease occurring between them]]. The flashbacks in "[[Recap/MonarchLegacyOfMonstersS1E5TheWayOut The Way Out]]" to before G-Day also feature Cate and her [[QueerEstablishingMoment then-girlfriend]] in San Francisco doing a lot of hand-holding.

* ConnectedAllAlong: In their original appearances in ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' and the graphic novel ''Godzilla: Awakening'' respectively, Lee Shaw and Bill Randa had absolutely no known connection to each-other beyond that they both worked for Monarch during the 20th century. This series' take on them, however, portrays them as old friends who worked closely together in the 1950s -- and implicitly even entered Monarch together -- before they cut off contact.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: In the 1950s storyline, the male military characters are often surprised by meeting Keiko for the first time and learning she's a woman with a doctorate. She also faces anti-Japanese racism, with General Puckett's best attempt at a compliment being that she's [[YouAreACreditToYourRace "one of the good ones".]]

** Although Word of God claims that the events of the ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'' tie-in graphic novel ''Aftershock'' are still canon, the sole reference to those events (which occurred in 2014) is that Godzilla's dorsal spines in this series have switched from their distinctive 2014 design (which is reused in the 1950s and 2014 flashbacks), to their traditional maple leaf-shaped design from ''King of the Monsters'' onwards in the series' 2015 time frame[[note]]''Godzilla: Aftershock'' explains the design discrepancy away by indicating that Godzilla had to regrow his dorsal spines with a new shape after his original spines get shattered in battle with Jinshin-Mushi[[/note]]. Apart from that, it's entirely as if Godzilla's re-emergence alongside Jinshin-Mushi didn't happen at all, with Monarch not making any reference to Godzilla's post-G-Day reappearance in ''Aftershock'' and speaking as if G-Day was the last time before 2015 that Godzilla or any Titan was seen.
** Once again, the pocket of the HollowEarth portrayed in this series is an entirely new region, with different rules from what's been portrayed previously. [[spoiler:Unlike in ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'' and ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'', the Axis Mundi in this series is located inside a [[YearOutsideHourInside black hole-like time dilation]], and instead of being accessed through indirect passages which threaten to damage or rip apart any human craft, surface portals to the Axis Mundi (which Monarch are aware of) can transport unprotected humans fully intact without killing them (the difficulty of sending humans into the Hollow Earth in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' without a protective craft despite past efforts by Monarch was a key plot-point in that movie)]].

%%* GenderEqualEnsemble: Lee Shaw, Kentaro, Cate Randa and May.
%%* GoodLipsEvilJaws

** Bill Randa in the 1950s in this series is a WideEyedIdealist who is awed by Godzilla, a contrast to how his original ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' portrayal believed all the Titans to be mindless forces of mass destruction until he started seeing Kong's intelligence. [[spoiler:Whilst it's not impossible that Bill losing both [[TheLostLenore Keiko]] and [[ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated Lee]] could have caused a change in perspective on the Titans, the series doesn't really address ''why'' he switched from one view on the Titans to the other before ''Kong: Skull Island'']].
** Although the series explicitly states multiple times that Monarch was still founded in the 1940s, per earlier Franchise/MonsterVerse supplementary materials stating it was founded in the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing (which is itself a Broad Stroke to the original ''Film/Godzilla2014'' which claimed Monarch was founded in 1954), it comes across as an InformedAttribute. No other Monarch operatives outside of Lee, Bill and Keiko (who join in 1952) are seen or referenced, and they're not shown joining a pre-existing Monarch: in 1952, they meet each-other and have their first Titan encounter, and then in 1954, they're the sole three members of a Project Monarch which hasn't yet gotten off the ground.
** Although Word of God claims that the events of the ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'' tie-in graphic novel ''Aftershock'' are still canon, the sole reference to those events (which occurred in 2014) is that Godzilla's dorsal spines in this series have switched from their distinctive 2014 design (which is reused in the 1950s and 2014 flashbacks), to their traditional maple leaf-shaped design from ''King of the Monsters'' onwards in the series' 2015 time frame[[note]]''Godzilla: Aftershock'' explains the discrepancy away by indicating that Godzilla had to regrow his dorsal spines with a new shape after his original spines are shattered in battle with Jinshin-Mushi[[/note]]. Apart from that, it's entirely as if Godzilla's re-emergence alongside Jinshin-Mushi didn't happen at all, with Monarch not making any reference to Godzilla's post-G-Day reappearance in ''Aftershock'' and speaking as if G-Day was the last time before 2015 that Godzilla or any Titan was seen.
** Once again, the pocket of the HollowEarth portrayed in this series is an entirely new region, with different rules from what's been portrayed previously. [[spoiler:Unlike in ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'' and ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'', the Axis Mundi in this series is located inside a [[YearOutsideHourInside black hole-like time dilation]], and instead of being accessed through indirect passages which threaten to rip apart any human craft carrying them, surface portals to the Axis Mundi can transport unprotected humans fully intact without killing them (the impossibility of sending humans into the Hollow Earth in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' without a protective craft was a key plot-point in that movie)]].

* FireForgedFriends: At the start, biological half-siblings Cate and Kentaro reasonably aren't too keen on having much to do with each-other after they become aware of each-other's existence and their distant shared father's [[SecretOtherFamily deep double life]] is exposed -- likewise, May is bitter at Kentaro and is mostly just out for herself. After they endure going on the run from Monarch, trekking around the world together, and several Titan-related life-or-death situations together, they become a lot closer-knit. [[spoiler:By the last few episodes, May is unwilling to do anything to betray the Randa siblings again, and she has some significant ShipTease with Cate; and Cate and Kentaro have become good friends and are comfortable referring to the other as their sibling]].

** The penultimate two episodes see Shaw and the 2015 cast go to the same abandoned Kazakhstan power plant where the 1950s Monarch trio lost Keiko at the end of the first episode. [[spoiler:At the end of Episode 9, history rhymes when Cate ends up dangling over the plant's HollowEarth portal with Old Shaw trying to grab her hand, much like what happened between her grandmother and Young Shaw in that same place in the first episode]].

* {{Bookends}}: The first scene in Season 1 is a flashback years before the main story on Skull Island with a shot of Kong, and [[spoiler:the last scene in Season 1 is a TimeSkip two years after the main story, again on Skull Island and with a shot of Kong]].