Monsterverse

Confident is the word that comes to mind after watching this premiere.

The world building and character development foundations of season one pay off immediately. I felt like I was watching a contender the strongest science fiction season premiere of the year.

Like many others, I hadn’t been sure where the mystery box of season one was taking us. Everything had seemed to be coming together in the first season’s final episodes, leaving me with a some frustration that we might not see where it would go if there wasn’t a second season.

Now, the narrative, action and character beats were all there as well as the monsters, MUTOs/kaiju/Titans — old and new.

Some deep cuts in there to rarely seen smaller monsters from what I could catch. The Skull Island and Hollow Earth scenes really give a richer sense of a broader ecology of monsters. The consistently excellent vfx make it unquestionably believable.

WOW.

Season 2 has been off to one hell of a start! Lots of action and more mystery around this new titan. I like seeing Skull Island and more of the creatures that are there. The animated Netflix Skull Island show featured a lot of other deadly creatures that are there, so it was nice to see the giant crabs and other flying creatures.

The desperation of Cate makes sense because she seems to be wanting some sort of father figure and Shaw was fulfilling that, plus he tried to save her in S1. Her relationship with her actual dad is very strained and she almost seems to be acting out to punish him. That being said, her actions were reckless and she is going to get a lot of people killed.

I can’t believe how quickly they just killed off Verdugo. Is Tim next in line to run Monarch or something now? Dr. Keiko Randa (she deserves recognition for her accomplishments) is too fresh to the modern world to run things.

The new titan seemed on the small side. Curious to see if this thing grows and evolves. I’ve seen predictions about this being the Monsterverse version of Biolante, which it does have a similar look so I think it’ll need to grow in order to take on Kong and/or Godzilla.

I can’t tell if Apex and Monarch are enemies, frienemies, or if Apex is going to be the evolution of Monarch. They’ve been kind of reckless with their tech but also seem to work alongside Monarch or under their watch.

Final thought is around the season’s episode titles that have been revealed on other sites. Are we going to be dealing with man and monsters coming to some sort of new age understanding? Past humans were connected to the titans, but current humans are in contention. The titles seem to possibly indicate everything is connected (String Theory, Ends of the Earth, Where We Belong).

All things said, I’m totally IN and can’t wait to see how this season unfolds! I recently rewatched all of the movies, read the tie in comics and watched tie in shows, and rewatched S1. My first watch I enjoyed it, but after revisiting everything, I am absolutely hooked and better understand all that was happening/care about the characters.