The Key Way Godzilla Was Enhanced From The 2014 Reboot To Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters, According To The VFX Supervisor
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Although the new TV show Monarch: Legacy of Monsters marks Godzilla’s fourth appearance in the MonsterVerse, within the franchise’s timeline, we’re seeing him not too long after they’ve events of 2014’s Godzilla, where the reptilian monsters battled the MUTOs. Fortunately, he was in good hands on the visual effects side of things, as VFX supervisor Sean Konrad has history with the character from Godzilla and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. For the purposes of this new offering to Apple TV+ subscribers, Konrad discussed with CinemaBlend a key way that Godzilla was enhanced from how he was portrayed in the reboot that reintroduced him to Hollywood.
Konrad started out in the MonsterVerse as a digital compositor on Godzilla, then served as Godzilla: King of the Monsters’ VFX supervisor, and he’s now resumed those latter duties for Monarch. During my interview with him ahead of the show’s two-episode premiere, I noted how in production notes provided to press, it was a mentioned how Konrad and his team took into account how Godzilla’s spines had grown back differently following the events of the 2014 movie. I then inquired about if there any other notable tweaks/changes he made to the Titan, and he answered:
In Godzilla 2014, we never really get that close to his dorsal fins. There's a couple of shots, but they're dark. In this one, in the third episode, there's this great shot where we track off the back of the spines, and we were sort of looking at it from the ground, and water is splashing on the foreground. We never got that close in the 2014 film, which is the first version of the model in the assets. So the vendor who worked on it, Rising Sun Pictures, went in and added a whole bunch of extra detail to that to make it look more at scale than it would have. That's an example. We did other things like that all through the show to make it feel for the shots. And that's the standard thing you would do in any project. But it was really cool to do it.
You’ll have to see Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ third episode to learn what shenanigans Godzilla gets up to, but as Sean Konrad highlighted, this TV show allowed an opportunity to show off a specific aspect of the Titan’s anatomy much better than 2014’s Godzilla. That reboot, which followed 16 years after the critically-panned, Roland Emmerich-directed Godzilla, was often lit quite darkly, so it was harder to make out specific details for the character. But as seen in the Monarch trailer, we’ll get clearer shots of this gigantic monster rampaging across the world, and in one instance, viewers will get a much better look at those glorious dorsal fins.
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While Monarch won’t be lacking for appearances from Godzilla and other Titans, the main story points the spotlight on the title scientific organization, which has been studying these monsters since post-World War II. The Monarch: Legacy of Monsters cast includes Kurt Russell, Wyatt Russell, Anna Sawai, Ren Watabe, Anders Holm, Mari Nakamoto, Joe Tippett, Elisa Lasowski and John Goodman, who had one “concern” about reprising Bill Randa from Kong: Skull Island. Chris Black and Matt Fraction developed the series, and Matt Shakman directed the first two episodes.
The rest of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ eight episodes will premiere weekly on the 2023 TV schedule. If you’re craving more MonsterVerse content, the franchise’s other TV show from this year, the animated Skull Island, can be viewed with a Netflix subscription, and Max subscribers have access to the first four movies. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire will also open April 12 on the 2024 movies schedule.
