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Technofiction Review of
by Roger Bourke White Jr., Dec 05
Introduction
The 1933 King Kong movie and the 1931 Dracula movie began the action and horror
movie eras in talking movies (Nosferatu was an earlier silent movie version
of Dracula). Both have spawned hundreds of similarly themed movies in the decades
since. What makes the 2005 King Kong different is only that it tries to retell
the original story with updated effects.
It’s been a long time since I saw the 1933 version. The shortcomings that
I remember from that movie were:
First, that Kong kept changing in size – at some points in the movie he is
three times man-size, at others he is three stories tall, and when he gets on
the Empire State Building, he’s about nine stories tall. He’s always a terrific
mover and shaker, but the size thing kept bugging me.
Second, people’s motivations in that movie were always wacky, although I don’t
remember details.
On to the 2005 version…
Peter Jackson in the 2005 version has gone all out to show a real, moving-about
gorilla that is 25 feet tall. In this movie height does matter, so Kong is
pretty consistently the same height throughout. His movements and fur are good.
I saw these problems with Kong:
- Minor problem one: there are a couple scenes while he is on the Empire State
Building where his fur is supposed to be moving in the wind, but it looks
more like it’s creeping under its own power. That was kind of eerie.
- Minor problem two: Jackson reuses his animation of certain Kong scenes on
Skull Island two or three times. They looked reused, so it cheapened the
whole big-budget effect.
- Minor problem three: On most of New York’s buildings, Kong would rip the
façade to shreds when he came in contact with it. On the Empire State Building,
all of the façade held up flawlessly. He didn’t even break out any windows
climbing up. Likewise, the Central Park ice didn’t moan or groan one wit
while he was slip-sliding around on it. Even foot-thick ice creaks and moans
when a human weight is put on it. (two inches of ice is thick enough to hold
a human.)
- Minor problem four: The guns on the airplanes of 1933 were .30 cal machine
guns. The bullets in those are the same as those used in the rifles on Skull
Island, and they have roughly the same stopping power as the bullets in the
Tommy Guns being used by the Skull Island crew. Why is it that Kong is essentially
bullet-proof on Skull Island, but bullet vulnerable in New York City?
- Major problem one: There is a reason people, and gorillas, aren’t twenty
five feet tall. It’s called strength of materials. It’s not that real-life
elephants don’t want to jump around like gazelles – they would if they could
-- but they are doing all they can with flesh and bone when they simply walk
along and push over trees.
Yeah, Skull Island is fantasy, but the scenes with the T-Rex’s and Kong hanging
in the vines are so over the top....
Those are Kong Problems. There are also problems with Skull Island.
Skull Island Problems
Skull Island is a typical “island of mystery” of the pre-satellite days. (Once
we had observing satellites in the late 1960’s, there could be no more undiscovered
mystery islands.) Such islands are always fog shrouded, always jungle covered,
always found using some kind of pirate map, and always have a mystery city.
(These rules about lost islands are so “hardwired” that when I tried to run
a fantasy role playing scenario involving one, all my players guessed all of
the above as soon as they found out the adventure was about a lost island!
As a Dungeon Master, my jaw dropped. I thought I’d created a pretty neat island
of mystery, but in reality I’d created an island of no surprises. Ah well....)
The problem is: there are no surprises on the island of mystery, and Skull
Island is no exception.
- Major problem one: The captain of the Valiant does not steer clear of Skull
Island. It is calm weather when he enters the fog surrounding the island.
He can always just reverse the engines to get out. The movie is not clear
about how the boat gets so deep into the rocks, or how it gets back out to
clear water, or, how it finds a place to anchor after it has spent time on
the rocks. Likewise, it’s not clear how the long boats find places to land.
- Major problem two: There is a lost city, but it’s now in ruins. What sustained
the city when it was a center of civilization? Where are the fields, forests
and quarries that provided food, fiber and stone to make the city? If they
are all on the wild side of the wall, what was the wall protecting against?
- Minor problem one: Where is the rest of Kong’s family? We see plenty of
dinosaurs, but only one gorilla.
- Minor problem two: People get lost and found seemingly at random.
- Minor problem three: In New York City, Kong gets to meet about twenty five hundred
percent more blonds than he has ever seen in his life. Somehow, he can tell
“his” blond from all the others?
Conclusion
All-in-all, it’s a fun movie to watch. Its long, but the minor players do
a lot in the movie, which helps make it interesting. The authenticity of Kong
as looking like and moving like a real gorilla is hyped by the media, and it’s
a nice thing, but it’s not essential to the movie. He is, after all, not a
gorilla, but a twenty five foot imitation of one. In reality, he should move
like an elephant, not a gorilla.
Likewise, the motivations of the human characters is improved from the 1933
version, but there are still some holes. In sum, we have a highly watchable
movie here, and better than average technofiction.
-- The End --
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