Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

by **jellydonut25** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:24 pm

My favorite Kong film is King Kong vs. Godzilla...or is that cheating?

by **king_ghidorah** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:29 pm

King Kong (2005)

I need to vent. This movie. This piece of OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE movie.

I don't think I have ever been so excited to see a movie in my life with maybe the exception of The Lost World in 1997. Flash foward to 2005 where I was living in Japan, away from home for the first time, and life as I knew it revolved around the upcoming King Kong movie. I played the game for PS2, watched the original again, along with Mighty Joe Young, and Son of Kong. Read the book King of Skull Island. I was in a Kong mindset. I've always loved Godzilla and Gamera growing up, but I always had a softspot in my heart for Kong too (I'll admit, the story of Kong is probably the best involving a giant monster)

Kong is a Lovecraftian version of Beauty and the Beast (yes, Lovecraftian, no not all of Lovecraft had to involve tentacles or Cthulu) mixed in with dinosaurs and 1930's pulp adventure. It really is the perfect story.

I had all of this in my mind as I went to see Kong in a Japanese theater. I left the movie that night lying to myself, trying to concvince myself that I liked the movie more than I actually did.

Thing is, I've done this several times over the years with this film. I convince myself that I'm being too hard on it, and then I watch it again.

This film. This piece of OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE film.

Almost an hour and a half until we see Kong! WTF! That's not dramatic tension, it's just boring. It could have been dramatic, but with the lackluster characters involved, and the fact that we know Kong is coming and we payed to see a giant ape, it's just an exercise in the more is more mentality that dominates this film.

One t-rex in the first film, THREE OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE V Rexes in this film!!! Kong isn't Superman! He'd get his butt kicked by 3 V/T Rexes! One of the great things about American monsters is that they are mortal, and when we care about them, we worry about them cause we know they can die.

The human characters are irrevelant.

Peter Jackson's directions is a hinderanceto the wonderful world that WETA creates. Although even then, they are not without blame...the Brontosaurus stampede is one of the worst things I've ever seen in the history of film making. Not to mention, over the course of the movie, the ecosystem of Skull Island gets totally destroyed...there can't be that many large herbivores on an island that small, and if Kong takes out three V rexes too, well...you begin to see the picture.

Brody typing S K U L L I S L A N D is one of the most unintentionally hilarious things I've possibly ever seen

Kong is one of my favorite, if not tied with Godzilla, Gamera and the Gillman, characters of all time and this film in my mind was worse than GINO. I can watch GINO because eventually, it doesn't resemble a Godzilla movie in any way, shape or form. But with Kong 05, you can see the spectre of the thing you loved, pumped full of artificial crap and lousy directing (I'm not convinced at all Peter Jackson is a competent director, I've never enjoyed one of his films)

This f'n film. But damnit if I don't own a Mezco figure of Kong from it, the one thing this film got right were the majority of the creature designs. Kong looks perfect in this film. Sadly, he's not enough of a monster for my tastes in this film, and his entrance lacks any sort of build up, the 76 film did Kong's entrance much, much better.

Something about Kong being forced down our throats as sympathetic actually makes him less so in my book. I miss the old, scientifically incorrect, carnivorous, pissed off ape who eventually was revealed to have a kind, and gentle soul...

Also, the score for this film sucks. I don't think Kong has any real noticeable theme.

So, venting completed for now.

I'll stick to watching the 33, or even 76, version of Kong supplemented with the awesome Natural History of Skull Island book that Weta came out with.

Peter Jackson...F U

by **RaymondBurr** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:40 pm

I'm not an apologiest for Kong 2005. It undoubtedly is a bad movie, but I still enjoy it. (We are all fans of bad movies here, no matter how much scholarly language and nostalgia we drown Godzilla in, they are still not the pinnacles of cinematic expression...).

Jack Black did great in the film portraying a man increasingly consumed by selfish obsession. He wasn't what most fans wanted in a Carl Denham though.

I think the biggest problem with Kong 2005 is the same root problem with the Star Wars prequels--all the power was given to ONE film maker, and no one had any power to edit, or otherwise critically comment on, the project. Peter Jackson spent the social capitial he had built up via Lord of the Rings on his pet project, and no one else had any significant say in it. Just like Lucas's films, we end up with bloated, unfocused "epics".

There is plenty to like in Kong. It's just surrounded by plenty more other stuff.

by **jellydonut25** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:52 pm

I want an edit of the 2005 film that trims it down by an hour. it could pretty easily lose at least half an hour and would make it actually a good film. maybe. i think.

by **Alpha OTS** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:01 pm

by **Thomas** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 5:47 pm

by **MouthForWar** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 5:49 pm

by **Dr Kain** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 9:18 pm

by **MouthForWar** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 11:47 pm

by **Dr Kain** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 12:33 am

by **MouthForWar** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 12:38 am

by **king_ghidorah** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:48 am

I've seen some of his older stuff and I guess I enjoy them a lot more then his newer stuff. He's kind of like Spielberg in the sense that he's lost his edge as he's gotten older.

by **MouthForWar** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 5:33 am

by **MekaGojira3k** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 8:22 am

by **Outkaster** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 8:53 am

by **jellydonut25** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:04 am

I don't dislike the ice skating scene because it is tonally inconsistent with this take on Kong, I dislike it because it is weird for the pace of the film, to me.

I've never even seen the extended cut of Kong...I saw the regular length one and I had no desire ever to see a LONGER version...The first hour of that movie could EASILY be trimmed down to 20, maybe 30, minutes.

Trim the first hour down to roughly 20 minutes, take out the stampede, cut down the length of the V-Rex battle, take out the ice skating scene (a scene which I should emphasize I dislike more for pacing reasons than anything else), cut out all the Hayes/Jimmy CRAP, trim down the involvement from some of those secondary/tertiary characters (Colin Hanks, Kyle Chandler's character), and just generally trim the fat here and there (almost every action scene [actually almost every scene in general] goes on just a little bit too long) and you'd have a movie that runs just about two hours and is MUCH more enjoyable.

by **MekaGojira3k** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:18 am

by **Dr Kain** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:38 am

by **The Real McCoy** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:43 am

by **jellydonut25** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:45 am

by **Dr Kain** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:59 am

by **MekaGojira3k** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 10:09 am

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