Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has wrapped its season, whose storyline serves as a gap-filling interquel for the Monsterverse movies (in timeline order) Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla (2014), Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and Godzilla vs. Kong. The timeline of Monarch’s story was ambitious from the start, with two main periods (the 1950s and 2015, after the events of Godzilla) as its main focus.
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However, (SPOILERS) Monarch threw in a major twist with the reveal of a bridge-point between Earth and Hollow Earth which is affected by time dilation, making hours in the monster world equal the passing of years on Earth. As such, the final timeline of the Monsterverse after Monarch has a few more entries to make note of – especially in how the show now relates to different events and developments of the films.
1950s-1960s (Monarch)
Monarch: Legacy of Monster’s flashback sequences track the formation of Monarch in the 1950s, as Bill Randa (Anders Holm), Keiko Miura (Mari Yamamoto), and Col. Leland Shaw (Wyatt Russell) all meet one another. Monarch’s story begins in 1952; and continues into 1954 when the trio and US military forces first encounter Godzilla; in 1955, when Monarch battles against being decommissioned and Rada pioneered the Hollow Earth theory; in 1959, when Keiko falls into a Hollow Earth portal and is assumed to be dead for years, and in 1962, when Lee Shaw takes the expedition into a Hollow Earth portal, and experiences time dilation that displaces him into the 1980s.
1973 (Monarch & Kong: Skull Island)
In 1973, thinking both Keiko and Lee were dead, an older Bill Randa led an expedition to Skull Island, hoping to find a portal into the Hollow Earth. Kong: Skull Island detailed just how badly that expedition goes – including Bill Randa being eaten by a Skullcrawler lizard.
However, the opening sequence of Monarch shows that before he died, Bill tossed his beloved case of Monarch research into the ocean, where it was eventually found and returned to the organization and Randa and Keiko’s son Hiroshi, helping spark renewed research that turned Monarch from a small collection of fringe scientists into a worldwide (and multi-dimension) research/peacekeeping operation.
1982 (Monarch)
Lee Shaw returned from his attempt to reach Hollow Earth in 1962, only to find himself in 1982. It’s revealed that Shaw spent the years between 1982 and 2014 (Godzilla‘s “G-Day” emergence event) being kept under surveillance and care at a Monarch facility, sedated on a regiment of meds. When G-Day happens it stirs Shaw from his long stupor and gets him back on the mission.
2014 (Godzilla)
The Godzilla (2014) movie and its Godzilla vs MUTOs battles have become the centerpiece of the Monsterverse franchise, an emergence event known as “G-Day.”
G-Day was the moment that Monarch’s theories became all too real for the world, as Titans and MUTOs suddenly emerged from the Earth and started wreaking havoc. Lee Shaw was the only original Monarch founder who was still around to see the validation – and horror – that G-Day brought.
2015 (Monarch)
The modern-day thrust of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters‘ story takes place in 2015, a year after the events of G-Day and Godzilla’s battle with MUTOs in San Francisco.
Cate Randa (Anna Sawai), tries to settle her father Hiroshi’s affairs, when he’s presumed dead. That search leads her to uncover a half-brother named Kentaro (Ren Watabe) and his hacker quasi-girlfriend May (Kiersey Clemons) and a lot more secrets her father and Monarch were hiding. The 2015 storyline culminates in a return to the Kazakhstan power plant where Keiko disappeared, and another disaster that sends Lee Shaw, Cate, and May all thrust out of time and into the bridge realm between Earth and Hollow Earth.
Kentaro and Hiroshi used years 2015-2017 to develop a method of mapping Hollow Earth portal points, and how to predict new emergences.
2017 (Monarch)
When Cate Randa, May, and Keiko all escape from the bridge realm between Earth and Hollow Earth (Lee Shaw doesn’t make it back), they return to find they are in the year 2017, two years after they left Earth. The trio returns to a portal point on Skull Island to find that Apex Cybernetics has set up a facility on the island and that Hiroshi’s mapping of portals allowed him to pull them back home.
The ending of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters sets up a potential Season 2 to fill in story elements of Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong – namely how Monarch comes to create Outpost 33 on Skull Island instead of Apex; how Apex develops Mechagodzilla (in Godzilla vs. Kong), and how Monarch develops a bond with Kong when Skull Island is nearly annihilated by its shield of brutal storms.
2019 (Godzilla: King of the Monsters)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters takes place in 2019, five years after G-Day. The discovery of King Ghidorah and the actions of scientist-turned-terrorist Dr. Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) caused a mass emergence event wherein Titans all over the world came out of dormant slumber and started to wreak havoc.
Monarch Season 2 could help fill in some gaps about what was happening on Skull Island and Outpost 33 leading up to and during King of the Monsters – and why so many Titans flocked to that location afterward.
2024 (Godzilla vs. Kong)
Godzilla vs. Kong takes place in 2024, five years after King of the Monsters. The world has become a very different place by that time, with Monarch and Apex acting as competing frontrunners in the race to study Titans and Hollow Earth. Apex develops crafts (HEAVs) that can finally bypass the time/gravity effect and reach Hollow Earth directly.
Apex uses Ghidorah’s corpse and May’s software to create a Mechagodzilla to fight Titans – but Ghidorah’s DNA takes over and the mech goes rogue. Godzilla and Kong united to end the threat of Mechagodzilla, but sequences in Hollow Earth revealed that the realm has a much deeper culture and history than we thought – and far more sophisticated than giant beasts roaming and raging.
TBD (Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire)
It has not yet been confirmed exactly when Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire takes place – but it’s obviously set after the events of Godzilla vs. Kong.
The synopsis for Godzilla x Kong hints that the mysteries of Hollow Earth hinted at in Godzilla vs. Kong will be explored in much greater detail:
This latest entry follows up the explosive showdown of Godzilla vs. Kong with an all-new cinematic adventure, pitting the mighty Kong and the fearsome Godzilla against a colossal undiscovered threat hidden within our world, challenging their very existence – and our own. The epic new film will delve further into the histories of these Titans, their origins and the mysteries of Skull Island and beyond, while uncovering the mythic battle that helped forge these extraordinary beings and tied them to humankind forever.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire has a theatrical release date of March 29, 2024.
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