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King Kong.

#61
abark000 said:
It was what I expected. An entertaining, easy to watch movie.
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I'm wondering what the hell everyone who thought it was terrible was expecting to see. The acting was a cue from the 20s/30s style melodrama acting (ala Sin City), like the first one, but it sounds like people were looking for something else. Makes me wonder if they didn't see the original King Kong. This isn't supposed to be "Waking Life" here, people.
 
#62
Bryan R. Tyler said:
I'm wondering what the hell everyone who thought it was terrible was expecting to see. The acting was a cue from the 20s/30s style melodrama acting (ala Sin City), like the first one, but it sounds like people were looking for something else. Makes me wonder if they didn't see the original King Kong. This isn't supposed to be "Waking Life" here, people.
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the only one i thought was doing the melodrama style was naomi watts.

the other actors were pretty modern, i thought.


...it's hard to do that style when being chased by (crappy) cg dinosaurs... then pitted against oversized creepy crawlies... then pursued by three tyranosaurs, etc. :D


my gripes are documented elsewhere in this thread.
 
#63
here's the response from the biology professor about both king kong and the creature from alien:

Hey Brad,

King Kong is definitely a good one...same allometric scaling arguments apply as the famous examination of the giants in Gulliver's Travels (type "allometry gulliver's travels" into google and you are likely to see an explanation).

OK, so the impossibility of Alien is related to energy budgets. The face-grabber plants an egg of a sort in the host's chest. The egg matures allowing a kind of pupa to grow (that worm thing that screams at everyone) which eventually bursts out of the host's chest and scurries off into a dark corner. Everything seems pretty good upo to this point Now, from here a large murderous giant alien stalks the crew and the kitty. Problem number one: where is the energy coming from that is being allocated to growth? One might argue that perhaps energy is being very efficiently re-allocated within the alien, but this seems doubtful. True the alien does appear to be ectothermic (a very efficient lifestyle to be sure) since it hangs out around those mysterious steam jets all the time (I'd hope that once deep space travel becomes common we are no longer using steam for power and also have a means of repairing leaks). However, the metabolic rate of an ectotherm increases rapidly with increasing temperature, so one would expect that this alien is actually wasting considerable energy on maintenance metabolism. As a result there would actually be little energy left over for somatic growth. It would appear that this alien violates the first law of thermodynamics: energy in = energy out.
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:cool:
 
#65
Saw it last night. Great and unsurpassable take on the story IMO. BTW, After watching it I remembered that I lived in a mistake for so many years: After the tragic 11/09/01 and all the talk about the WTC, I heard "the towers were built in 1973". I said "What? Weren't those the towers that King Kong climbed much earlier?" But I also knew about the Empire State Building, so after some research, I found the origin of my mistake: I saw the Dino De Laurentiis version back in 1977 (never seen the original one) and in that movie King Kong climbs the WTC and puts one foot on each tower. I clearly remember that the De Laurentiis version (starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange) was a commercial success (at least here) and I liked it, but after knowing how the story was altered there, I consider it crap now.

KingKong76.jpg
 
#68
MJ5150 said:
I didn't read any of the previous posts, I'm too tired.

So how does King Kong die in this movie? What do they do with his body? That's all I really want to know.

-Mike
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he died in the traditional way--climbs up empire state building and is shot down.

what happens to his body is left up to your imagination. most likely hot dogs, considering the historical context. :eek:
 
#69
I just went to see this with my son yesterday. Peter Jackson is a genius ... these were truly the best dinosaur dust-ups ever ... I especially loved the bronto chase on the collapsing cliff, and the swinging-chomping V.Rex's in the ravine (as well as what Jack Black and Adrian Brody found at the bottom). I think it could have been a 2 hour movie, but can't complain as it kept me interested (and my son as well) for the entire three hours. Brilliant!


BTW, I've seen the original 1933 film, and that was brilliant as well ... as I understand, the original Kong kicked off the f/x industry big time ... it was the first stop-action sci-fi film; it was truly gripping and one of the scariest movie classics of all.
 
#73
have you seen jurassic park?
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Yes ... Jurassic Park was my standard for comparison, and the original (the next two got better) had some seriously amateurish camera work (but decent CGI). Speilberg should be embarrassed about that one. Plus there was nothing as complex in any of the JPs as Jackson's dino-fights.

On dinosaur anatomy, Jackson discussed this on his kongisking.com web. The T.Rex's (or V.Rex's as my son corrects me) had three digits on the front, rather than the anatomically correct two, because Jackson was true to the 1933 KK T.Rex's. In other areas, physics and anatomy gave way to artistic license by design (e.g., the people running between bronto legs, seemingly occupying the same physical space).

Jackson's work on KK is brilliant ... script, CGI, storyline all are very deftly handled ... remember, this is an homage to a great classic ... Jackson didn't have the luxury of a modern script by Michael Crichton just itching to be made into a movie.
 
#74
westland said:
Yes ... Jurassic Park was my standard for comparison, and the original (the next two got better) had some seriously amateurish camera work (but decent CGI). Speilberg should be embarrassed about that one. Plus there was nothing as complex in any of the JPs as Jackson's dino-fights.

On dinosaur anatomy, Jackson discussed this on his kongisking.com web. The T.Rex's (or V.Rex's as my son corrects me) had three digits on the front, rather than the anatomically correct two, because Jackson was true to the 1933 KK T.Rex's. In other areas, physics and anatomy gave way to artistic license by design (e.g., the people running between bronto legs, seemingly occupying the same physical space).
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having people in dinosaur's legs seems... well... amateurish. ;) :p


i'm not a huge fan of spielberg, either, don't get me wrong, but i think that ILM had WETA beat with their dinos. :cool:
 
#75
Brad Barker said:
having people in dinosaur's legs seems... well... amateurish.
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uhh ... I don't know that I said that they were actually in the legs ... Jackson has set the bar on openness (whereas Spielberg, directly as a result of his Jaws debacle, has sets that are ultra-secretive). His site kongisking.com was very open about editing decisions, as well as describing what was cut, and on this movie relating these decisions back to the original movie. Jackson had significantly harder problems to solve than Spielberg, and solved them well. Spielberg, on the other hand, had an 'unscrewable pooch' (to quote Tom Wolfe) ... dinosaurs, Crichton script, great reputation, etc. etc., and came up with a mediocre movie.

Mind you, I am a fan of Spielberg's, but I just thought JP was one of his weaker movies ... a by the numbers script, bad CGI, and .... worst of all ... Jeff Goldblum, who unforgivably was not eaten by the dinosaurs despite the fact that 80% of the audience was rooting for them. In fact, he regretably lived to screw up JP II
 
#76
I did not like this movie very much at all. While I appreciate the impact it will have on movie making(it was a well made movie, pretty and stuff) I could not get behind the story at all, I found myself, halfway through the movie giggling to myself "oh yea, this is a movie about a giant ape"

That said, the 10 minute long scene of brontosauruses tumbling over each other was priceless.
 
#77
Basschair said:
I've been a big Peter Jackson fan since Dead Alive came out some years ago. He did some great over-the-top horror movies that were hilarious, and very well done (for what they were). I always knew that he was destined to do something bigger and better, but I never expected this.

I haven't seen King Kong yet, and will wait until I can see the 1933 version again. I expect the new version will be pretty damn stunning.
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Which movie is dead alive? perhaps it had a different title for the US release?

...as far as I know Peter Jacksons catalogue includes : Bad taste, Braindead, meet the feebles, frighteners, LOTR trilogy and King Kong!

Interesting INFO, Peter Jackson used to be a plate maker at Wellington Newspapers in NZ, one day he walked into his bosses office (who I wont name) and told him he was quitting to make movies ....to which his boss replied "you will never make any money doing that" ..heh heh heh :-)
 
#78
Dead Alive was called Braindead outside of the US.

It's one of those movies I watched with friends in high school about a thousand times. We watched Heavenly Creatures and Meet the Feebles a bunch in college. Jackson's story preference sure has changed!
 
#79
Wrong Robot said:
I did not like this movie very much at all. While I appreciate the impact it will have on movie making(it was a well made movie, pretty and stuff) I could not get behind the story at all, I found myself, halfway through the movie giggling to myself "oh yea, this is a movie about a giant ape"

That said, the 10 minute long scene of brontosauruses tumbling over each other was priceless.
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I would have to agree. I would like to see him pull off something more down to earth. He could be one of these directors that needs FX to get his story across.

Perhaps he could remake "The Sound Of Music". :)
 
#80
Kiwi Kid said:
I would have to agree. I would like to see him pull off something more down to earth. He could be one of these directors that needs FX to get his story across.

Perhaps he could remake "The Sound Of Music". :)
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"Heavenly Creatures" had no effects. The majority of his early work is outrageous horror-comedy stuff though, so it's got kind of a different mindset to it.
 

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