Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters Pokes Fun At The Most Famous Line From Godzilla
"Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" has been a great surprise so far. The AppleTV+ show takes the biggest criticism of the MonsterVerse movies — its underwhelming human stories — and makes that the entire central plot of the show ... but, you know, good. Godzilla does show up, and there is enough kaiju action to satisfy fans of the king of monsters, but the key to the series is a compelling character drama and an intriguing mystery. The show takes place across two timelines, showing the history of Monarch — the secret organization that hasn't really done much in the movies, to be honest.
Though not a huge part of the show yet, one of the biggest assets of "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" is Kurt Russell's Lee Shaw. Many of Shaw's lines are utterly ridiculous, and the fact that the character looks at least 30 years younger than he should be makes no sense. And yet, Russell's dry humor sells even the silliest aspects of the character and forces the audience to take him seriously.
Case in point, the latest episode sees Shaw being interrogated by Monarch, and snapping back in anger at what he sees as a failure to properly prevent or even prepare for G-Day — when Godzilla destroyed San Francisco while fighting the MUTOs.
What's more, he specifically picks a fight with the best line of the 2014 "Godzilla" movie by poking fun at Dr. Serizawa's (Ken Watanabe) plan to just "let them fight" — referring to Godzilla and the kaiju.
Let them fight
First of all, that line is the best part of that film. Is it over the top? Yes. Is it a little dumb even in context? Absolutely. But does it kick an insurmountable amount of ass? You bet it does.
And yet, Shaw isn't wrong to call out how bad that was as a plan. Monarch has had about 60 years to figure out what to do when Kaijus finally attacked a major city and the only thing they could come up with was to let two giant monsters fight it out? That's even dumber than seeing giant monsters destroy cities and deciding that making giant robots with swords is the best way to defeat them.
Now, Shaw does say something else, something with potentially big implications for this particular show. He asks his interrogator, "What if Godzilla had lost?" That implies that Monarch had long considered Godzilla to be an ally, at least compared to the MUTOs that he fought. How did they reach that conclusion? How many times did Monarch encounter Godzilla before G-Day that they decided to form an alliance?
Am I reading too much into a simple joke? Probably. But the joke works not only because it pokes fun at a great line of dialogue, but because of its meta implication for the whole history of the "Godzilla" franchise. Placing all of humanity's (or at least Tokyo's) hope on Godzilla fighting and defeating another monster has been the formula nearly every "Godzilla" movie has followed for decades. And somehow, it works every time. So, yes. Let them fight. If you can't count on Godzilla, who the hell can you count on?