Kurt Russell's Monarch Character Existed Before The Show
"Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" is the best kind of TV show belonging to a cinematic universe. It works as a fantastic series in its own right, one with a compelling mystery box, cool and memorable characters you genuinely want to follow even when the monsters aren't around, and visuals that match the main movies.
Perhaps most importantly as part of a cinematic universe, "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" ties into the larger MonsterVerse without making either the series or the movies feel like chores. Watching the show enriches the movies and vice versa, but one is not necessary to watch the other.
The show takes place on two timelines. It tells us the origins of the mysterious organization Monarch, and it's also a story of a woman and her newfound half-brother in the aftermath of Godzilla's first reappearance trying to piece together how their father is involved with the organization. "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" includes characters we've seen in other movies, like John Goodman's Bill Randa. It also expands the world of the films by filling in the gaps that the movies didn't have time to show, like how the world reacted to the Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (MUTOs) and the city-wide preparations and protocols in place for the Titans' return.
One of the best parts of "Monarch" is the character of Lee Shaw, played by both Kurt and Wyatt Russell, which is one of the best pieces of casting for a TV series in years. Though we don't yet know a lot about Shaw or how he plays into the mystery — nor how he looks so young in the present — it turns out we've actually seen him in the MonsterVerse before.
A monstrous legacy
In 2014, a week before Gareth Edwards' "Godzilla" came out, the prequel comic book "Godzilla: Awakening" was published. That comic served two purposes: It tells the story of humanity's first encounter with Godzilla as he awakens due to the advent of nuclear power, and it also provides an origin story for Ken Watanabe's Dr. Ishirō Serizawa by way of showing how his father helped create the organization known as Monarch.
In the comic, we meet Lee Shaw (who both Russells play in "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters") back in 1946 when he meets Serizawa's father as a group of American and Japanese soldiers are attacked by a MUTO. Recognizing that the nuclear age has awakened an unprecedented enemy, General MacArthur — yes, that MacArthur — decided to create a new military unit with both Japanese and American soldiers called Monarch.
Does this matter to "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters?" Probably not too much, but it does feel like the show is serving as a pseudo-remake of the comic. After all, we're seeing the origin of Monarch and how humans first started observing and documenting MUTOs in the modern age. As for Shaw, his story is obviously changed for the series, given he seemed rather skeptical about Miura and Randa's talk about monsters.
It is entirely possible we'll see Godzilla make an appearance to fight another MUTO in the past timeline much like he did in the comic. The comic has Monarch use Godzilla to fight another MUTO before it could reach Tokyo, a classic Godzilla trope. As for Lee Shaw, there's still the question of how someone who was an adult back in the '50s looks like Kurt Russell in 2014. It is unlikely this will simply be ignored.