New Godzilla show 'Monarch: Legacy of Monsters' poses the question: Menace or protector?

Leave it to Godzilla to level up the “monster of the week” TV show.

The legendary reptilian kaiju, first seen on film nearly 70 years ago, is a key character in the new Apple TV+ sci-fi action drama “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” (streaming Fridays). But this isn’t just a creature feature: Starring Kurt Russell and his son Wyatt, the series has a relatable story to tell as it builds out the personalities connected to a top-secret scientific organization and weaves in aspects of the “Monsterverse” movies.

“As we get older and more sophisticated in our tastes and our experiences, Godzilla can come along with us and reflect different things, from just how cool it is when you're a kid to watch big monsters fight and knock down a city to the existential, allegorical kind of power you can find when we get older,” says writer and co-creator Matt Fraction. “For all the science fiction, it feels like a story very immediately about this moment.”

Here’s what Godzilla fans can expect from “Monarch”:

‘Monarch’ features multiple storylines

A year after surviving the Battle of San Francisco ― when the big guy threw down with two Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (M.U.T.Os) and wrecked the Bay area in 2014 film “Godzilla” ― ex-schoolteacher Cate (Anna Sawai) travels to Japan to find out more about her late father and discovers he had another family. She teams up with half-brother Kentaro (Ren Watabe) and his hacker ex May (Kiersey Clemons) to dig into their dad’s history with Monarch and the “Titan” monsters. Eventually, they go on a revelatory globetrotting quest with former military man Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell).

That tale intertwines with another set in the 1950s that goes back to the origins of Monarch, as a younger Shaw (Wyatt Russell), Japanese scientist Keiko Mira (Mari Yamamoto) and cryptozoologist Bill Randa (Anders Holm) – Cate and Kentaro’s grandfather – investigate the mysterious appearances of strange gigantic beasts. “We were really intrigued by this idea of creating a multigenerational story that talks about how the sins of the parents are visited upon the children,” says writer and co-creator Chris Black.

Kurt and Wyatt Russell play an important persona in ‘Monsters’ story

Playing Lee Shaw at different ages was an interesting challenge for the Russells. Not only did they have to craft a singular physicality for one man, several decades apart, but they also created a walking, talking metaphor for how human beings would see Godzilla and the existence of monsters over time. His character arc is “forged by his own personal loss and experience,” Black says, as Lee weighs the orders of his Army superiors against his feelings for Keiko.

Connecting the same guy over two time periods proved tricky. Godzilla and his ilk are “incredibly, horribly dangerous," Kurt Russell says. "And yet your response to them becomes different over time. No matter what it is, you begin to look at things differently.”

Adds Wyatt: “This story is about the monsters within and the monsters you're seeing on screen.”

A core question: Take down Godzilla, or let him cook?

Characters making hard choices about the monsters “reflects the evolution of Godzilla as a character,” Black says. In the postwar Japanese movies of the '50s, he’s a rampaging creature destroying cities and villages that mankind wants to kill. But later, he becomes a “beloved protector.” And in “Monarch,” that change is most represented by Cate. She first sees Godzilla as the source of “terrible loss and pain and trauma in her life,” he says, but when she looks into his eye she “sees something more than just a monster. That’s what we do as an audience.”

Godzilla isn't just “a hurricane with a face,” Fraction says, teasing “a third path that we start to explore" that's "much more complicated and much more difficult, but just as intriguing as ‘blow him up or leave him alone.’”

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‘Monarch’ presents a monster-ized version of our world

Developing the series during the COVID pandemic helped the writers craft a story about people coming out of the other side of a disaster that’s changed everything in their lives. When Cate flies to Tokyo in the first episode, she arrives to find Godzilla evacuation signs everywhere – akin to the occasional "stay six feet apart" social-distancing stickers in the wild.

The creators talked about how, instead of a 9/11 story, “Monarch” is a 9/12 tale. “The movies are about buildings getting knocked down. The show is about people getting up afterwards," Fraction says.

Kurt Russell says he sees it “as sci-fi connecting to real life. That was cool.” 

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“Monarch” features monsters of all shapes and sizes, and the Russells each have a fave: “My guy was without a doubt that pig with 25 crazy horns,” Kurt says. Wyatt prefers a winged dragon-like beast that emerges from a wrecked ship.

Black is a fan of the Endoswarm, comprised of little insectoids that “work together to create something bigger and more terrifying.”

Don’t worry, though: There’s plenty of the G-man, too. While “Godzilla doesn't work cheap,” Fraction says, it always feels special when he shows up. “He's the king of the monsters, baby.”

When does 'Monarch: Legacy of Monsters' release?

"Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" is available with a subscription to the Apple TV+ streaming service. The first two episodes are streaming now; eight more will be released, one per week on Fridays, with the finale due January 12.