Titans
Add size joke here.
Apple TV's Monarch: Legacy of Monsters wrapped up its first season last week. It was the number one show on Apple TV+ during its run (and may still be) at the same time, the reviews were mixed. Viewers and critics appreciated the show's development of Legendary's Monsterverse, but some criticized its shallow characters and simplistic plots.
Complaining about characterization in a kaiju story reminds of the joke about two ladies at a restaurant.
Lady #1: "This place is overpriced. The food is terrible!"
Lady #2: "I know! And the portions are so small."
The premise of these stories requires a Godzilla-sized suspension of disbelief. Even if you make the giant monsters "more believable" by saying they come from a hollow earth, and then make the hollow earth "more believable" by adding Pacific Rim's interdimensional portals, it's still about giant monsters. People watching these films (and shows) aren't demanding deep characterization.
Godzilla Minus One's exploration of PTSD and forgiveness might change that. It proved kaiju can work in stories that explore larger themes, but it was also the sixth (Seventh? Tenth? Depends on how you count.) time someone made that movie. There's only so many things a giant radioactive dinosaur works as a metaphor for. Most of them are atomic weapons and (ahem) the countries that decide to use them. There’s already talk of a sequel, but what else is there to say other than Godzilla Raids Again?
Sometimes a kaiju is a just a kaiju. A big fun monster that breaks stuff.
Toho studios made Godzilla bigger when they rebooted him in 1984. Their reasoning was that the buildings in Tokyo were taller than they were in the 1950s, and he needed to loom higher than the highest skyscraper. They didn't realize they were kicking off a giant monster arms race, though. With all the kaiju to follow, the next version was (almost) always larger than the one that came before.
Who can forget this ad campaign?
You may have seen the rebuttal, too.
Brought to us by folks behind that cinematic masterpiece, The Phantom Menace. I guess when you're into midi-chlorians, size really doesn't matter. (And neither does dialogue.)
Big monsters are usually fun, and rarely frightening.
Big Worms
How big does a worm have to get before it's terrifying? How about 30 centimeters?
“Timorebestia were giants of their day and would have been close to the top of the food chain. That makes it equivalent in importance to some of the top carnivores in modern oceans, such as sharks and seals back in the Cambrian period.”
I’ll never swim again.
Alien Creatures
The Monsterverse has strange monsters coming to Earth via dimensional portals. We don't need that. We already have strange creatures right here.
Check these out!
Finally, here’s something from Bruce Sterling’s Tumblr:
Finally, an online comic to complement XKCD’s Duty Calls.
See you around.
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Eric Goebelbecker
Trick of the Tale LLC
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