Wow - The Kings Kongs

Cafe Society
1

So AMC is showing the '80s version of the Kong flik and I am absolutely astonished at how awful it is.

The thoughtless business mogul idea is trite. The female character is simply eye candy (there is actually a scene where she’s rolling around on the beach having photos taken). The “good guy” played by an unfortunate Jeff Bridges is the guy who knows everything important that needs to be known.

I respected the original for its originality and the work that went into its creation. I somehow missed this version entirely over the years.

I’m not sorry.

Peter Jackson takes the original concept with ideas gathered in the '80s film and makes a really breathtaking picture filled with wonder, horror, the idea of expending nature for human advance and just appreciating things for what they are.

It also does it in a not utterly insipid manner.

His fluid filmography, use of technology and complete undertanding of the characters makes his film so much better than the '80s its rediculous.

Just some food for thought.

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Wasn’t that movie made in 1976?

3

Yes, the 1976 version was worthless tripe. Worse I saw it in the theater. I recall the publicity drive when the movie came out. All they kept talking about was the giant robotic King Kong hand.

I love the original and I enjoyed the newest version. I note the IMDB voters are with me on the ratings except they probably rated the 1976 version too high.

Jim

4

Oh, thanks. Not that it makes a big difference, but you are right.

I was thinking of some “1985” garbage I once heard of.

And why the heck do they always portray Kong stading upright just like a man? Jeez. What crap.

And when they introduce Kong - why the Hell does he knock down all the trees? It’s a lengthy scene but if he travels that way all the time, why are there trees anyway? I dunno. Just saying.

5

I was with you for the first half, but I was expecting you to compare the '70s train wreck with the '30s classic, not the ill-advised '00s remake.

The leads in the latest version seem to be in different movies, their acting styles are so different and the emotional connection between their characters is almost non-existent. Kong moves more smoothly and has a more expressive face than every before, but seems oddly weightless. And Jackson throws so many giant bugs and prehistoric beasties at Brody et al. that it just becomes laughable after a while that they aren’t all eaten or smashed.

The original version isn’t flawless: the special effects are of course primitive by today’s standard, the lead actress doesn’t get to do much besides scream for the second half of the film, etc. But as a product of its time it’s a much greater achievement than any of the sequels, remakes, or ripoffs.

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[QUOTE=Gorgon Heap]

And why the heck do they always portray Kong stading upright just like a man? Jeez. What crap.

[/QUOTE]

Because it’s a guy in a suit? I laughed when Jeff Bridges then says something along the lines of “you think a guy in an ape suit did this?” referring to the trees that were knocked down.

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[QUOTE=Gorgon Heap]
The female character is simply eye candy (there is actually a scene where she’s rolling around on the beach having photos taken).
[/QUOTE]

The “eye candy” was played by Jessica Lange. Her performance was so amateurish (we’re talking Elizabeth Berkley-in-Showgirls bad) that it her career was almost destroyed before it began. The fact she came back to become a respected two-time Oscar winning actress probably gives hope (albeit often false) to every young actress or actor who ended up face-planting in a “breakthrough” role.

8

[QUOTE=Gorgon Heap]
I was thinking of some “1985” garbage I once heard of.
[/QUOTE]
Probably Godzilla 1985.

I saw a bootleg of the Japanese version at a friend’s house and was blown away. So when it was released in the U.S. I talked a bunch of people into going to see it with me, not realizing that the U.S. distributor had butchered it. It took me a long time to live that one down … .

9

[sigh] Well, to each his own.

I still prefer the Jackson version,

And thanks, Pochacco, I knew I was missing something in there.

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[QUOTE=What Exit?]
I recall the publicity drive when the movie came out. All they kept talking about was the giant robotic King Kong hand.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, there was an entire, “life-size” robotic Kong, according to the PR. Unfortunately, it didn’t move much or look much like a giant ape and it appears in the film for less than a minute, which the PR did not mention. The hands themselves were actually kind of cool.

11

What do you wanr, Lorenzo Semple wrote the screenplay – and he was responsible for the 1960s TV Batman.
The movie was unbelievably bad. I reviewed it for our campus newspaper. It didn’t help that the movie came out just as Goldner and Turner’s book The Making of King Kong hit bthe bookstores, detailing how the original 1933 film got made, and looked so much better by comparison.
To give the film its due, Rick Baker’s face masks were gorgeous, and Carlo Rimbaldi’s articulated hands were much better than those makeshift items used in 1933. But the movie badly misread its material and its audience, and the overall effects were so bad for a 1970s movie that it’s embarassing. Star Wars came out only a year later, fer cryin’ out loud, with effects light-years better!

12

I saw it in the theater, and it totally blew me away. Of course, I was like 8 years old at the time.

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There is an (entirely forgettable) '80s Kong movie: King Kong Lives (1986), with a post-Terminator, pre-Beauty and the Beast Linda Hamilton. It was a dark time for guy-in-suit movies.

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The only thing I remember of it was thinking Jessica Lange was smokin’ hot.

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[QUOTE=NDP]
The “eye candy” was played by Jessica Lange. Her performance was so amateurish (we’re talking Elizabeth Berkley-in-Showgirls bad) that it her career was almost destroyed before it began.
[/QUOTE]

I sort of half-watched about an hour of it last night – I saw it in a theater when I was 10 or 11, I guess. I have to say I was astonished at how bad Lange was – it’s almost Ed Woodian. And it’s not just her – her dialogue was awful, and I’m have to question the directorial decision for her to be afloat in a dinghy lost at sea with no sunburn and her makeup intact and hair coiffed.

Seeing Jeff Bridges’ beard, I was hoping to kind of amuse myself by pretending it was a prequel to The Big Lebowski, but that didn’t work so I gave up after the ape showed up and failed to impress. It kind of seemed more akin to Scott of the Sahara than anything else.

16

I much prefer the 1933 version to the overblown Peter Jackson one.

The huge difference, the big change the Jackson made was to have her fall in love with Kong. (and other people too) In the original, nobody in the movie loves Kong. Nobody feels bad about Kong in chains. Nobody feels bad about Kong being killed. Nobody, but the audience that is. And that’s the point. Who is the monster? Man is the monster.

Peter Jackson’s version puts it all on Denhem, but Denhem doesn’t get any sort of come uppance. Lousy ‘remake’.

17

[QUOTE=Ichbin Dubist]
I sort of half-watched about an hour of it last night – I saw it in a theater when I was 10 or 11, I guess. I have to say I was astonished at how bad Lange was – it’s almost Ed Woodian. And it’s not just her – her dialogue was awful, and I’m have to question the directorial decision for her to be afloat in a dinghy lost at sea with no sunburn and her makeup intact and hair coiffed.

[/QUOTE]

Yeah, in Lange’s defence, I’m not sure how well anybody could have pulled off her awful dialogue.

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Plus her character’s name was “Dwan”.

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In Time magazine they had some shots of Jessica Lange in Kong’s paw (Carlo Rambaldi’s mechanical paws), just before the movie opened. It showed Ms. Lange partially topless, with one boob out.

It’s one thing that might have helped that sorry film – but They Weren’t In The Released Film!
Heck, the “undressing” scene was one of the high points of the 1933 version (clipped on a post-Hays re-release, and thought lost until recovered circa 1970). And, as Esquire pointed out years ago, you can actually see Ms. Wray’s bosom pop out for about one frame, after she and Jack Drioscoll dive off the cliff.

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[QUOTE=Zebra]
I much prefer the 1933 version to the overblown Peter Jackson one.

The huge difference, the big change the Jackson made was to have her fall in love with Kong. (and other people too) In the original, nobody in the movie loves Kong. Nobody feels bad about Kong in chains. Nobody feels bad about Kong being killed. Nobody, but the audience that is. And that’s the point. Who is the monster? Man is the monster.

Peter Jackson’s version puts it all on Denhem, but Denhem doesn’t get any sort of come uppance. Lousy ‘remake’.
[/QUOTE]

I agree with this completely.

I like Jackson’s version less every time I see it, and it only looks worse in my eyes after having watched it on TNT this past weekend.

Kong generally looks okay (although he doesn’t even come close to having as much character or personality as the '33 Kong), but a lot of the film’s special effects are surprisingly horrible. The scene where they’re running amidst the dinosaur stampede looks worse than any given special effect in the '33 version of the film. It might have looked okay on the big screen, but on television it’s just laughably awful. Likewise, Kong running around the streets of New York City looks like something out of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

A lot of the movie is surprisngly dumb, too. I’m thinking here of Billy Elliot shooting giant bugs off of Adrien Brody while he’s wiggling all over the place. That kid must be some shot!

I think Jackson bungled the story, too. Part of the appeal of the original is that the story is so simple. At heart, King Kong is a fairy tale. It’s not something that you have to stack a bunch of dumb subplots onto, especially when they’re as groan-worthy as Billy Elliot and his laughably stereotypical Wise Black Mentor. Another example is Kong liking Naomi Watts because she can imitate Charlie Chaplain :rolleyes: There really shouldn’t be any elaboration on why Kong loves Ann other than that she’s the most beautiful thing that he’s ever seen.

In trying to make everything bigger and better, I think Jackson lost sight of what makes the story great in the first place. He had infinitely more money and better special effects at his disposal, and his twist on Kong’s fight with the T-Rex was to have him fight three of them… and it’s still not as dramatic or well-paced a fight as '33 Kong’s battle with the T-Rex is.

Almost everything that’s good about Jackson’s version is already in the '33 movie, and almost everything Jackson added sucks.

I’ve never seen the '76 version, but this thread has me curious. I know that it’s available as a rental on the iTunes store, so I may check it out tonight.