Nature is Terrifying: Kong: Skull Island

Kong: Skull Island is the second installment in Legendary entertainment's Monsterverse franchise. If the films continue to be profitable. With a gross of $566 million, edging out 2014's Godzilla, and definitely trumping Pacific Rim, it seems likely that the franchise will continue. But it's interesting that both the Hollywood Godzilla and Pacific Rim franchises are all from the same production company: Legendary (recently purchased by the Wanda Group). Kong: Skull Island had a lot to carry, both as an introduction of Kong into the new monster universe, to distinguish itself from previous Kong remakes, and to whet the audience's appetite for the next Godzilla film.

This is not, thank the heavens, yet another reboot. This is en entirely new story. Kong never leaves Skull Island, doesn't rampage in New York, doesn't get killed. Which is what the franchise needed: a new human story. This is something that The Host demonstrated. A new human plotline, drawing from other genres. This is the culmination of Shin'ichi Sekizawa's idea that the human stories and the kaiju stories should interact. Before him, the humans simply reacted to the presence of the monster. Sekizawa tried, and succeeded, to the best of the technology available to the films he wrote, to have the stories touch and impact each other. Early examples of this include the extensive use of spy tropes and ideas in films such as Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla and Godzilla vs Biollante. With CG allowing the human characters to seem to touch the giant monsters, new stories and new interaction can be achieved. This even goes as far as the big battle in the end. Weaver lands a flare on the side of Ramarak’s (the big skullcrawler) head, distracting it. When Kong is chained and helpless, the humans fire their very large gun to keep Ramarak from killing him.



Kong: Skull Island pulls the majority of its human story from the Vietnam era and Vietnam films, specifically Apocalypse Now. This is, very specifically a war story. The emotional beats, the slow and difficult to predict elimination of the cast. The film rewards those who can think outside of their circumstances. Marlow and Japanese pilot Gunpei fight each other, only to stop when Kong arrives. In the tense confrontation between Colonel Packard and the civilians (Conrad, Weaver, and Marlow), soldier Slivko realizes Marlow is right, and switches sides. This saves him. Packard, Ahab-like in his thirst for vengeance infected by war, refuses to retreat, and is casually killed by Kong.



The film is also a meditation of the effects of war on the individual. Gunpei and Marlow become good friends once they are isolated from the world. On Skull Island, the war of their societies no longer dictates their actions. The film's attitude towards war is best exemplified by the death of Cole. Tired of running from skullcrawlers, Cole decides to sacrifice himself to take down Ramarak, walking towards it with armed grenades. Instead of eating him, it smashes him with its tail, killing him when he impacts a cliff, when his grenades go off. His sacrifice, which he had hoped would save his comrades, is useless.



Kong is, literally a reflection of what people bring with them. He is seen as a god and protector by the people who live near him, the Iwi. Colonel Packard sees him as a threat that must be destroyed, even after Kong’s relative benevolence is explained. But Kong destroyed Packard’s helicopters, and he has to pay for that. The film moves us from being hostile to Kong to being sympathetic to him, and Packard goes from being sympathetic to the enemy. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts hammers that point home with a repeated image: a figure standing against a bright light in the darkness, fists clenched. At the beginning of the film, the figure is Kong. Toward the end, it’s Packard.



This also means that Kong: Skull Island has a very different approach to the military than other kaiju films. Very often, the powerful military commanders are front and center of a kaiju film, as they watch their plans unravel as the kaiju proves difficult to kill. But where Ishiro Honda played the military purely for show, and the 1998 Godzilla played them for expendable chumps, this film shows us the humanity of the soldiers. Chapman is writing letters to his son, and the other soldiers razz him for it. These are very human characters, and their lives are on the line when the kaiju attacks. Or is attacked. Kaiju film characters have previously been military men, for example Ford Brody in 2014 Godzilla, but he didn't spend much screen time with his unit. The relationships, in their complexity, are showcased here. Mills, Cole, Sivko, and Reles support each other, mock each other, and express doubts about Colonel Packard's orders, even as they carry them out. Edit: I had forgotten that this is literally the approach of Monsters: Dark Continent. However, I will say that the character development is significantly better in Kong: Skull Island. The unit in Monsters: Dark Continent are also significantly more on edge. But the cast in Kong: Skull Island us much more interesting.



Kong initially attacks the expedition because the military is doing what they are told: deploying Monarch's seismic explosives, which were intended to bring whatever kaiju lived there to the surface. The helicopters are armed, so the mission is definitely to eliminate it. This is why Kong gets stirred up, and why lives are lost. The military is caught in the middle, obeying orders and taking the consequences and losses for those actions. So there's a fair amount of nuance in the film's approach to the military, which, again, stands in very stark contrast to the way they were treated in the 1998 Godzilla



Some of the baggage Kong: Skull Island rejects is the racist subtext of the previous Kong films, and this sets the film on a much more even keel. Kong is not captivated by a blonde. He is not captured and taken to New York, to be killed by the forces of the establishment. The Skull Island natives, the Iwi, aren't the degenerate troglodytes of the Jackson film, or the stereotypical Africans oddly inhabiting a South Pacific island as in the 1976 and 1933 versions. They are mysterious and complex. They appear peaceful, but have spears to defend themselves. The large wooden wall they have constructed has outward-facing stakes, and those stakes are bloodied. Hank Marlow, who has been living among them for more than twenty years, sort of understands them. But he neither an accepted part of their society, nor running it.



Further, for the first time, a Kong film gives me what I have always wanted: a beautiful Skull Island. Filmed in part in Vietnam's Ha Long Bay, the landscape is beautiful and feels fantastic and at the same time real. It also has a more developed ecosystem. Previous films have portrayed the island as relentlessly hostile, and nothing is introduced that isn't trying to kill the humans of Kong. This Skull Island isn't. There are huge yak-like creatures, deer, birds. Of course, there are hostile critters; the flying knives, the giant bugs, the skull-crawlers, and Kong himself.



Monarch is very different from the branded helicopter-riding group we see in the 2014 Godzilla. They are literally down to two men, begging for funds from a senator who has put them off four times already. Bill Randa is the sole survivor of the USS Lawson which, we see in a picture, was clawed by a gigantic creature. But we don't know which kaiju it was. Perhaps the next film in the series will tell us: Rodan, Godzilla, or King Ghidorah. It seems unlikely to have been Mothra.



I love the design of the skullcrawlers, certainly more than I liked the MUTOs. Clearly taken from the two-legged lizard from the original King Kong, they move very smoothly, and their biology looks interesting. It occurs to me they look like a less-mutated version of gwoemul, which also had that two legs forward ambulation. Whoever decided on their weird-ass tongues should be particularly commended. They are like land-traveling kaiju-scale crocodiles, lizard-like, threatening, and credibly swift. Although the fights with the small ones are easy wins for Kong, they also serve to get the audience familiar with their abilities. This way, we can anticipate the moves in the big fight at the end. Interestingly, none of the kaiju present with supernatural abilities, such as atomic breath or lasers from its back. Flying, fire-breathing turtle Gamera would feel very out of place on Skull Island.



Kong's design is also well thought-out. He looks like a modern, clearer vision of the 1933 Kong. With short legs, long arms, and upright posture, he looks a bit more like a missing link than a gorilla. As a result, he is unpredictable. We know gorillas. But how certain are we about Kong? Even our previous movie experience, which the film Jordan is well aware of, does not tell us everything we need to know about this Kong. He's god of the island, according to Marlow. And the films gives us ample opportunity to see why.



Kong demonstrates Cloverfield-level sneaking, which is to say being quiet by not being in frame, only once, when a gigantic oxen is trapped under a broken helicopter. Kong, to our surprise, lifts the helicopter, freeing the trapped creature. So there is room for compassion in him. Also, he's shown to be smart, and a significant portion of the Kong-Ramarak fight at the end is him learning. He uses tools: a tree stripped of branches, a rock, and the propeller from a wrecked ship. Among other things, this is better movie-making than having scientists tell us how smart Kong is, as in the American version of King Kong vs Godzilla. Kong is also described in a similar fashion to Godzilla in the 2014 film and Shin Godzilla: Not just a king, but a god.



The cherry on top of all this kaiju goodness is the end post-credits scene, in which Conrad and Weaver are inducted into Monarch. Drawing on the Godzilla opening credits, we are shown cave paintings of three opponents from the next Godzilla film:

Rodan



Mothra



King Ghodirah



Which means Godzilla: King of Monsters will have at least three kings in it: Godzilla, King of the Monsters, King Ghidorah, and the Monarch organization. And possibly a fourth if there is a cameo by Kong. I'm looking forward to 2019.

Kong: Skull Island, The Heart of Kaiju Darkness

The first thing I noticed, even in the trailers, is that Kong: Skull Island knows its roots. This is not Peter Jackson's unbridled King Kong. This is a movie that remembers the 1933 film, but at the same time is not enslaved to it. Kong's stature is erect, as it was in 1933, and more credible than in 1976. Kong battles an octopus-thing as he did in King Kong vs Godzilla. the Skullcrawlers are from the original film, and there is a giant spider in reference to the infamous lost and deleted scene. And, possibly because it's Legendary, there's a sly Pacific Rim reference when someone shoots a kaiju in the face with a flare.



One major thumbs-up for me is that Kong's island is in the South Seas, and the natives of the island are finally not African. Although Jackson's production used "a mix of Asian, African, Maori and Polynesian" actors, they do look very African. Not so in Kong: Skull Island.

For the first time, not everything is relentlessly hostile. Sure, the Skullcrawlers are just out for lunch, and the wee pterodactyls are pretty nasty, but Skull Island finally seems to have an ecosystem that doesn't try to consume every human that sets foot on the island. And because some of the shoot is on location, you can see the swarms of insects. It's a nice touch, although I suspect the actors were none too happy about it.

The Skullcrawlers, the main antagonists of the film, deserve some mention. Clearly modeled on the two-legged lizard from the original Kong, they've been upgraded. And they a good look. Like the MUTOs from Legendary Godzilla. Despite them being an homage to the original film, the feeling is that you have never seen anything like that before. Their movements are fluid for something that has such a unique method of locomotion. They're presented as frightening, and worthy opponents for the mighty Kong.

New Skullcrawler...


Old Skullcrawler...


The use of the military is interesting. Somewhat in keeping with the seventies end of Vietnam era. Col Packard (Sam Jackson) is a deeply traumatized officer who, on seeing his country leave a conflict unfinished, decides he is going to take no shit. Not from giant monsters, certainly. But his men are not quite as hell-bent as he is. So the military is not here for show, as it was in Ishiro Honda's work. But neither is the military turned into a bunch of clowns, as they were in the 1998 Godzilla. The military are depicted as individuals in a system, and the military is represented by different people. Which is, I think, pretty fair. Although I do take exception to Vietnam-era soldiers carrying poison gas grenades. But ultimately, in good kaiju film fashion, the military and guns are not the solution to the plot problem.

Kong downs so many helicopters I couldn't help wonder if he was still pissed off from the 1976 film, where he was shot off the World Trade Centers by helicopters with miniguns. But hey, they were dropping bombs...

It's a good film. Enjoyable, and I suspect it will stand up after repeated watching. I'll definitely be owning this one.

Next month, Colossal comes out, the Nacho Vigalondo/Anne Hathaway kaiju film. And you can bet I'll be there.

Two Trailers for Kong: Skull Island

The new Kong: Skull Island trailer is pretty interesting. First off, Kong looks like he did in the 1933 original. Short legs and erect posture. This makes him seem more human. The way people talk about him indicates he is not a raging beat, either. He also exists within a larger biome than he has been seen in previously. He didn't seem to really interact much with the other creatures of Skull Island in Peter Jackson's 2005 film. There is a greater diversity among the inhabitants, also. Not just classic dinosaurs, but also a giant mammal, what appears to be a water buffalo. Let's hope that some of the inhabitants show up and don't immediately get into huge fights.

John Goodman, I suspect, is our link to the American Godzilla films. He says he's been trying to convince people about Kong's existence for years, so I suspect he's part of Monarch. I'd also like to know the nature of the military involvement in what is seems to be a purely commercial enterprise. But that's me.



The initial trailer doesn't have the same punchy energy, but I think it tells us more about the film itself. At 1:52, you'll see a soldier firing off off a triceratops skull. Will they tease dinosaurs and not bring them out? The "Skull-Crawlers" are dinosaur-like, remind me of the serpent creatures in the Willis O'Brien original.

the film takes place in 1971, and there are a lot of visual references to Apocalypse Now, considered one of the definitive films about the Vietnam conflict.

You can bet I will be seeing this opening weekend.

Overindulgence and the Ape: King Kong 2005

By some strange law, once the Godzilla franchise goes on hiatus, it is time for another franchise to step up. This time it was Peter Jackson, who loves the 1933 Kong Kong. Jackson decided not to update the film, but expand on the original, using many of the original characters. Unlike the seldom-referenced 1976 version of the story, this is a period piece, taking place between 1931 and 1933. It does retain a few elements from the 76 version, however. Skull Island is described as being perpetually wrapped in fog, for example. But the primary text is clearly the original Willis O'Brien/Merian Cooper/Ernest B. Schoedsack film. Only expanded. A lot. The 1933 version runs a hundred and four minutes. Jackson's full remake is a full hour and forty minutes longer, clocking in at a whopping two hundred and four.



Despite the gorgeous scenery and lush color, the film features more black and white characterization than the original. Carl Denham, played by Jack Black, is a sleazy opportunist, and perfectly in character with the times. Denham was an opportunist in 1933, and the film touches only lightly on his past as a film maker. 1933 Denham is respected, freely given the money for his trip to Skull Island. In 2005, Denham is a maverick, and there are parallels to both Orson Welles and Peter Jackson himself. He rebels against the studio system, lying to his backers, taking what should be a backlot film across the ocean and onto location without permission. Denham literally kidnaps Jack Driscoll, but the film shows his sleaziness and manipulation as a way to success. He gets away with it. When people die around him, Denham says he will donate proceeds to their widows and orphans. But we know him well enough by now to realize that follow-through is unlikely, even if the characters around him don't. Because of Denham, people die, Kong dies, and Ann's heart gets broken.



For me, the most sympathetic character, after Kong, is Hayes. Hayes shows kindness and is a father figure to Jimmy. He is brave and cares even for the strangers aboard the Venture. He has back story, he was a soldier, he reads books. He is killed by Kong for his troubles. Denham gets a lot of people killed.



Sympathy for Kong in the 1933 version is entirely the work of effects master Willis O'Brien. Given the script, Kong could have been a rampaging monster, but O'Brien's obsessive devotion to the creature he was animating allows it to project a humanity, show concern, and awareness of its own mortality. These human traits come across more strongly than any of the scripted characters. In his remake, Jackson makes no mistake that Kong is the star of the film, and therein lies its flaw. We know he's going to die. Denham is an exploiter who pulls something unique and magnificent out of its home and hauls it in chains to New York City. And we get more screen time with Denham the jerk. And he gets the last line of the film over the protagonist's dead body.



The film does not entirely repudiate the unthinking colonialism of the 33 and 76 versions. The natives of Skull Island are stereotypically African on an island south of Java, primitives from a fallen high society with no indication as to why they have been so reduced. They kill one of the landing party for no perceptable reason other than that they are 'savages'. They crush another man's head with a huge mace, and celebrate afterwards. And of course, they are obsessed with Ann Darrow's blonde good looks. Once they show the explorers where Kong is, they become irrelevant and drop completely out of the film.



Ann Darrow has only a little more agency than she had in the 1933 film. Her Vaudeville skills entertain and charm Kong, but after that relationship is built, the inevitable Denham captures Kong, and she is then only there to witness to the tragedy of Kong's rampage and death.



Kong himself doesn't show up until 70 minutes into the film. But he's worth the wait. Jackson's King Kong won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, as well as the BAFTA, Saturn, and Las Vegas Film Critics Awards for visual effects, and it's not difficult to see why: Kong himself is incredibly detailed, scarred from many battles. His motion is fluid, his expressions understandable, the virtual sets are very good, and it's all pretty seamless.



Andy Serkis makes Kong an emotionally accessible creature. The perception of apes has changed a great deal since 1933, and even 1976. Kong never puts a human in his mouth. He is portrayed as an intelligent, emotional creature who can only communicate through body language. The emotional beats that physicality makes is very good. After defeating three dinosaurs, Kong has a moment when he sags, tired from the fight. Free in New York, he has a moment of play on ice, something he's likely never seen before. When Ann tries to cheer him up with juggling, he yawns. If Jackson has learned nothing else about Kong it is this, complexity and inessential action make Kong an understandably and therefore sympathetic character. Where Denham is painted in broad strokes, only obsessing over the film and sleazing his way through life, Kong takes a moment (from the 1933 Kong) to play with the jaw of a defeated enemy.



And there are dinosaurs. The middle section of the film owes a great deal to Jurassic Park, men fighting dinosaurs, and Jackson is not shy about whittling away the party to show how dangerous they are. In the original, of course, it was difficult to get humans and dinosaurs into the same shot, let alone interact with each other. With good CGI, it's now pretty easy. Unfortunately, Jackson ladles the dinosaurs on thick. Just having dinosaurs attack isn't enough. He has to have a stampede of sauropods come crushing down a narrow alley towards the humans. It all ends in a gigantic train-wreck pile-up of dinosaurs, having contributed nothing to the plot.



Because this is the second remake, and Kong didn't fight any dinosaurs in the 1976 version, Kong fights three Vastatosaurus rex (which look and feel like a Tyrannosaurus rex). The fight is inventive, partially because Kong has to keep Ann Darrow in one hand and out of danger. But there's a bit of repetition. Where 1933 Kong used the roll and throw once, 2005 Kong uses it three different times.

Jackson of course puts his own spin on the famous log scene, where Kong shakes the tiny humans off a log over an abyss. He also restores the spider-pit scene, a section taken out of the 1933 Kong for being too gruesome. True to his horror roots, he makes it pretty traumatic.



Kong gets his expected rampage across New York, but even New York in the thirties is too large for him to do the sort of damage cinematic descendents Godzilla or Gamera can. Jackson does add a tender moment, as mentioned above. Kong, carrying Ann, runs across a frozen pond in Central Park. After struggling a little, he masters movement on the low-friction surface, and begins to enjoy it. It's a wonderful moment, again, of watching Kong learn. Kong isn't just a dumb brute.



The end is inevitable, (although in the spin-off video game, you can save Kong and get him back to Skull Island). Kong takes Ann to the highest place he can, the Empire State Building. There he is shot to death by planes. Because of his inevitable death by planes, the military is not treated as show, the way it is in the Godzilla franchise. But Jackson in no way valorizes the military. A commander spouting military truisms is crushed as Kong runs past. But the planes get him in the end.



I remember disliking the 2005 Kong when I saw it in the theater. It was bloated, the fights too long, and we spend way too much time with unlikeable Carl Denham. And, unlike most Kaiju films, this one is more a tragedy than an action film or a disaster film. If Peter Jackson goes overboard with the Kong on dinosaur fights, the end of the film is still very affecting. It has an emotional edge that reminds me of Jackson's very real ability to create an emotional moment. He really is good, if in need of the occasional rein in.

It's Not All Glory Being the King: 1976 King Kong

The seventies were a time of transition for film industries, both in America and Japan. The Exorcist had rocked audiences, Dario Argento's Deep Red pushed the bounds of gore. Horror was changing, it was no longer a genteel fright that relied on a hidden monster. It didn't have to be a quick, cheap film. Large amounts of money could be wrung from the was not just a quick, cheap film. Universal had made a lot of money off the original King Kong, and so they decided to bring their monekmaker back in style, with an updated sensibility. The result, the 1976 King Kong remake.

But first a little explanation. King Kong would normall fall outside of my definition of a kaiju, and therefore My Year of Monsters, but as I have said in my work with the original King Kong, so much was born from Willis O'Brien's masterful film that leaving it out would be missing a significant chapter in the development of the film form. King Kong is so much the prototype of Godzilla: a strange monster out of its element in a city, so many tropes come from King Kong. But Kong is not a strange monster. He is simply a large ape. He lives with exaggerated monsters; dinosaurs and giant spiders, but he himself is nothing strange. No flight, no radioactive breath, nothing that makes it completely impossible. Yes, I understand that an ape that size is impossible, but Godzilla's heat ray, Varan's ability to fly, Ghidorah's gravity beams; all of these are patently, absurdly impossible, more the provenance of a fantasy film. This gives a kaiju film a more fantastic, even bizarre feeling than the giant creatire film. Them! is a great film, and a great monster film, but it's not part of the kaiju subgenre.



Further, kaiju films usually have a subtext that doesn't bother me. Godzilla was born of a nation dealing with an atomic detonation, and from the fallout of Castle Bravo, which threatened their food supply. Kong, and many of its imitations, are racism writ large. Why else would Kong, a gorilla, which is only found in Africa, share an ilsnad with natives who are always portrayed as African-derived, live in the middle of the Pacific? Shouldn't they look more like Pacific Islanders? This might have been excuseable in the thirties, but it has carried over into the 1976 and 2005 remakes. Further, Kong is the top of the island society, he is given bride sacrifices. However, the natives give him the blonde woman who comes with the party of white explorers. The maiden is distress is rescued, and the king brought in chains to the center of white civilization, New York City. Unable to deal with his imprisonment, Kong goes on a rampage and must be shot and killed for the good of civilization. The original King Kong could easily have had a much more offensive racial subtext if Willis O'Brien hadn't made Kong a fully realized, sympathetic character. This 1976 version makes Jack Prescott's assumption of Kong's sexual interest in Dwan quite clear. Many subsequent ape and giant ape films do not make their gorillas characters, and there's a limited amount of racism, veiled or not, conscious or not, that I'm interested in watching.



As the Godzilla franchise sputtered out, Universal was looking to reinvigorate the character of Kong. The idea was kicked around for a few years until it landed in the lap of John Guillermin. And there was life in the old monster yet. King Kong was one of the highest-grossing films of the year, and won an Academy Award for its visual efffects, despite mixed reviews. The 1976 King Kong was realized as a lush, epic film, filmed in gorgeous tropical locations. The roles of the original 1933 Kong were changed around a bit. Film maker Carl Denham has been replaced with Fred Wilson, an explorer for Petrox, a petrolium company. His balance, and the audience's sympathy character, is Jack Prescott, replacing Jack Driscoll, a long-haired, well-off associate Professor who stowes away on the exploration ship. Jack is the love interest, the guy who knows everything. Fay Wray's just-discovered Ann Darrow is replaced with hippy-dippy Dwan, rescued off the ocean.

Kong is presented with a different technology this time. Originally stop-motion animated, this time he is a man, Rick Baker, in a suit. The suit is no great shakes, but it's still leaps and bounds better than the immobile-faced Kong from King Kong vs Godzilla.



The film also echoes a lot of tropes that have been carried over from Kong into other films. Fred Wilson falls into Kong's footprint. Kong details a subway train. In a rare addition to the film from other giant monster films, Kong encounters power lines, in the same way that the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms does. Soldiers herd Kong with a flame-thrower, echoing Gorgo.



Dwan has a lot more interaction with Kong than Ann did. Where the 1933 Kong spent all his prize from dinosaurs, this film concentrates on his interaction with Dwan. It's a little difficult, since she alternates simpering with rage and appeasment which sounds to my ear a lot like a woman negotiating with an abuseive husband. Kong is more powerful than she could ever physically deal with, but he does show a gentleness, washing her and then blowing her dry. Beauty can calm the beast, until he is again provoked.



What is in many ways sad is that the award-winning effects of this Kong don't hold up against the brilliant work of the original. The fight with the snake, Kong's only clash with megafauna, is Rick Baker wrestling a static snake. It's not nearly as interesting as the many-layered fights Kong has as constructed by Willis O'Brien. And although we spend more time with Kong in the 1976 version of the film (it's thirty minutes longer), he doesn't have nearly the personality O'Brien infused his creation with. This makes Kong much more difficult to sympathize with, especially sicne we've got Jack Prescott as our caring human and Dwan's love interest. Several shots were made with a 40-foot movable Kong, one of the few lif-sized giant monsters ever made. The shots that use the giant remote-control Kong are very clear. It looks terrible. This film as a number of failings, and the inability of the director to successfully integrate the miniatures work with other footage is clear. Toho had been doing it for years, and their practice shows.



The unveiling of Kong to new York City is more grotesque than it was in the 1933 version. Kong wears a crown, imprisoned in a cage, rather than chained.



Notably, Kong is brought down by the military. Godzilla, Varan, Mothra, and their ilk are all immune to conventional weapons, forcing the humans to think of other ways to confine or destroy them. American monsters are subject to he law of the gun; weapons can solve the problem. This will happen in the 1998 version of Godzilla, also. Kong is, by the end of the attack, covered in his own blood before he falls from the World Trade Center. John Guillermin does manage to finally wring out a bit of sympathy for Kong, but he's spent a lot of time to get there.



Overall, the 1976 King Kong is a bit of a misfire. Kong isn't well-presented, and the first hour drags a bit. Less flattering, the attention that King Kong garnered during production inveitably led to imitations. APE, Queen Kong, and Mighty Peking Man all came out within a year of Kong, and all borrowed major elements.

Next up, more stock footage than the mind can bear. Gamera is back.

The Royal Rumble: King Kong vs Godzilla

King Kong vs Godzilla is, I think, the first Godzilla film I remember seeing. I remember catching both it and Godzilla vs the Smog Monster on the Chanel 30's 4 O'clock Movie, and I can't say which one I saw first, but King Kong vs Godzilla was definitely more memorable.

Sadly, the Royal Rumble is one of the most heavily adulterated films that is not available in its original Japanese version in America. The difference is notable: the American version opens with an irrelevant news report by some reporter opens the film, which clearly has blessed nothing to do with the rest of the fim. The special UN reporter continually pops in to tell us what we've seen, or occasionally what we're about to see. Akia Ifukube's beautiful score replaced with recycled American film music. Nevertheless, the film retains a lot of appeal.



King Kong vs Godzilla owes it's origin to Willis O'Brien, who was looking to make another King Kong film. After several iterations, he attempted to sell King Kong vs Promethius (another name for the Frankenstein creature) to Hollywood, and then abroad. In a delightful irony, Toho bought it. Kong's role went to Godzilla, and Kong was put in the role of Frankenstein's creature. Which is why Kong is strengthened by electricity. O'Brien's history of disappointing unproduced projects makes it difficult to tell whether the unscrupulous character of Mr. Tako comes from O'Brien's original idea, or the influence of Gorgo. Regardless, the jerk entreneneur becomes a stock character and MacGuffin for many kaiju films, from Gorgo's Joe Ryan to Mr. Tako to Pacific Rim's Hannibal Chau. Chau, as the product of a genre-savvy director, manages to be a better-rounded character than Tako or either of the selfish businessmen in Mothra vs Godzilla.

The rewrite is pretty competent. The film acknowledge Godzilla Raids Again. Godzilla is released from an iceberg, which makes sense since he was buried in ice at the end of the last film. The American insert, unwilling to assume the audience has seen either of the previous films, just claims the monster has been frozen for 65 million years, ignoring the fact that they already know it's name and express no surprise that it has atomic breath.



King Kong vs Godzilla sets the standard for “versus” monster films to come, in much the same way that King Kong set the template for the single-monster rampage. The two monsters appear, and the humans are caught in the middle. The small human dramas play themselves out, as each makes a small contribution that either benefits humanity or makes life difficult. In the last half hour of the film the two titans clash, giving the audience what they've come for, and resolving all plotlines, occasionally by fiat of monster stomp.

After Godzilla awakens, Kong must be brought into the picture. The scenes from Faro Island scenes are careful studies of the original King Kong ones. I cringe at the portrayal of the 'primitive' people, dressed like Hollywood Africans, leaping and yelling like Hollywood Indians. They are astounded and won over by Western technology and cigarettes. According to David Kalat, the Japanese version is more of a satire than American version. Still, these stereotypes were only just beginning to fade from American films. However, if the Japanese film is more satiricial in tone than the American one, this may be intentional. It's difficult to say.



Kong's setup is very similar to that of the original film. He lives on an isolated island, is restrained from the human-inhabited part of the island by a great fence (much more flimsy than the orignal). Ultimately, he is hauled off the island after being drugged (in original Kong, Denham has gas grenades. Here, he drinks local berry juice, and listens to the drumming of the locals).



A fair amount of the film is homage to the original Kong. Tokyo, for example, lacked anything as tall as the Empire State Building, so Kong stands on the National Diet Building instead. It's about as tall as he is. But the military lights him up with spotlights, and he's got a girl in his hand. During the climactic battle, Kong shoves a tree into Godzilla's mouth, an homage to a promotional still that wasn't in the actual Kong vs tyrannosaur fight. Kong also throws Godzilla, something he did with the tyranosaurus, which Godzilla closely resembles. Legend has it that suit actor Shôichi Hirose threw the Godzilla suit with actor Haruo Nakajima inside, as a way of demonstrating his strength. If true, it's a hell of a throw.





The Kong suit doesn't look good. His face is very immobile, and the costume looks sewn together. However, the Shôichi Hirose, the suit actor who showed up in a lot bit parts in Kurosawa's work, looks like he's having a wonderful time, and attacks the role with a lot of energy. Godzilla has also gotten new suit, with clawed hands and larger eyes to make him look more intelligent. The neck is more stocky, and the head set into it, rather than perched on top.

Director Ishiro Honda had not yet shifted the film's completely into fantasy. In keeping with the real world, rather than showing us the human cost of the devastation the monsters' rampage, we instead use the unique device of following Fumiko Sakurai, played by future Bond babe Mie Hama. As the love interest of Kenji Shara and desgnated princess-to-be-rescued, Fumiko has train encounters with both Godzilla and King Kong. The Godzilla encounter is similar to the one in the original Godzilla, and the Kong attack is rather different from the one from the original film, since Kong is so much larger. Still, Fumiko gets to play tiny Fay Wray to gigantic Kong. I imagine that after this experience, Fumiko will never take a train again.



There's a strange technical effects goof when Kong stands on the Diet building. Rockets are being fired off artillery pieces. The rockets themselves are animated onto the artillery barrels, probably because they had no way to make the models launch convincingly. The first round goes off fine, but in the second shot each rocket leaves a black negative of itself on the film after it is launched. It's an odd error, and the shot is as quick as possible to prevent the viewer from noticing.



This is the beginning of the regrettable stone-throwing, which infests the franchise for the next five or six films. It's silly and I find it uninteresting time-filler.



The military has a different trick up its sleeve. this time, rather than running the usual ineffective wires, they dig a trench and fill it with gasoline. Godzilla falls in, and explosives are detonated. This, predictably, does not stop him. However, the high-tension wires do. We aren't given an explanation for this, given that high tension wires didn't stop him in the original Godzilla. Perhaps these carry a higher voltage, what with Japan's surging industrial capacity and power production.

The climactic scene, unlike that of later versus films, is surprisingly short. But if you look for screenshots of the film, or remember it for yourself, those are hugely memorable eleven minutes. The fight is fast and furious, filled with building-stomping action, gigantic fires, and several reversals. Initially, Kong doesn't come off too well. He's knocked unconscious, or at least unresponsive twice in four minutes.

The fight also includes the only bit of stop-motion Godzilla footage ever filmed, in a jump kick that sends Kong sprawling. This could not have been done by suitimation, and I wonder if Honda created the scene to keep Tsuburaya in practice? There had been a single scene of stop-motion in the original Godzilla, also. Perhaps it was included as an homage to O'Brien. It's good quality, I might add. I wonder what might have happened if Toho had had enough money to pursue a fully animated Godzilla film. There are a few scenes with puppets, also. While unconvincing, they are quick enough that it's difficult to tell.



Only after Kong is struck by lightning (since he's the Frankenstein of the fight) does he gain enough strength to deal with Godzilla on a more even footing. And he seems to be able to channel the electricity through his hands, which hurts Godzilla. This will be an important part of Godzilla vs Mothra, the next film in the series, and later contradicted by Ebirah, Horror of the Deep and Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla. In these films, Godzilla gains strength from lightning.



As with Godzilla Raids Again, the end comes as the two monsters destroy a castle, Atami this time, and plunge into the ocean. The fight up till this point has been furious, once of the most intense seen in the series.



Despite being flawed in several critical ways, King Kong vs Godzilla remains a touchstone for many of us who stumbled on it flipping channels. Although Godzilla vs Megalon is said to be the most seen Godzilla film by American audiences, King Kong vs Godzilla seems to be the one that is most remembered. Megalon was never referenced in The Simpsons, for example. This is a clear reference in the episode “Wedding For Disaster”



Let's hope that Toho and Sony will release the Japanese version of the film, as they have with every other Showa-era Godzilla film. Perhaps in the lead-up to the release of the 2014 Godzilla

Next up, Godzilla faces his weirdest opponent with a exceptionally strong script.