Kong: Skull Island

Double post, but I found this podcast with the director of the film on it: http://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/empire-podcast-kong-skull-island-spoiler-special-jordan-vogt-roberts/

And apparently he had an interesting idea for the opening sequence that I'm a bit divided on whether or not they should've kept in.

The original idea would've been to have a more elaborate beach sequence in the film, more action-y and violent before being interrupted by a giant ape that looked like the Peter Jackson Kong. The army kills it to make the audience think "Holy shit, did they just kill of Kong?" before the sound of a giant roar and the sight of even even bigger Kong is shown, to show that the film isn't like any previous Kong films. On the one hand, I like the idea of it, but on the other hand, I don't think it would've been too effective because we'd all know by now what the Kong in this movie looks like.

It also sounds kinda spiteful.

That too, yeah.

I'm a big fan of Peter Jackson's King Kong, so I would have hated that. Possibly more than I hated the T. rex crashing through the spinosaurus skeleton in Jurassic World.

On the Skullcrawler designs mentioned a couple of pages back, I actually think that there's an even bigger version of the ones we saw that will be revealed to be King Ghidorah. They're already pretty snake like and only have two limbs, so justhave it grow a little taller to where it's bi-pedal and give it a couple of more heads and lightning powers. Bam, King Ghidorah.

My girlfriend made a killer observation about the Skullcrawlers, and now I can't unsee it: they look like Dodongos.

I guess that's how the big one knew not to eat the soldier carrying bombs.

I'm going to see this tomorrow night.

I just got back from seeing it. It's fantastically amazing! As a matter of fact, I daresay I like this movie even better than the 2005 one.

edited 24th Mar '17 9:01:09 PM by Demetrios

So I saw it, and it was great.

... but my god, the Asian chick was the most blatantly shoehorned in "this character is only here to appeal to China" I've ever seen. And this is counting the Iron Man 3 doctors. It was genuinely impressive how pointless she was. Did she even have a name?!?

So do we have any official word on weather or not is the tree spider thing with the bamboo legs is supposed to be this verses version of Kumonga or not?

The only drawback of the movie was that it had a sad lack of Tyrannosaurus Rex. :(

Maybe, but she's cute as heck, so I didn't mind! And, I don't remember any of the human characters' names (except for John Goodman's Randa, for some reason; I'm one of those forgetful people who refer to characters by their actors' names), but she definitely had one.

You may be joking, but I agree! As much as I liked the movie, and I liked it a lot, Skull Island doesn't quite feel like Skull Island unless there are dinosaurs. But I'm not petty—the Skullcrawlers, that six-legged log monster, and the ramphorynchus-looking motherfuckers more than made up for the lack of dinos.

edited 29th Mar '17 5:28:15 PM by ThriceCharming

The Apocalypse Now edition of giant gorilla honestly impressed me. Great cinematography, great monster animation, good atmosphere and pacing, and themes that echo the original without beng bound to it. A rare film that delays the monster for quite a while, but had enough to go over that I didn't mind.

Kong has the face and fur of a gorilla but the stance of a human with longer arms and fights like a wrestler. And I prefer the original monsters to the dinosaurs of 1933: they looked out of place alongside a giant modern animal and were only there because they were left over from an earlier production.

I liked the grittiness and how the action all felt so immediate. However this was a bit let down by the campiness of the opening sequence (two planes coming down at once, they stand before each other almost posing, and somehow a katana can fit in a cramped cockpit) as well as the inherent silliness of the premise. (I feel this even more about Apocalypse Now, as it happens, it's gritty and telling but I can't take it seriously.)

What I didn't like was the natives; I could say that the original did them better, contrasting their harsh customs with the white man who doesn't know his own limits. Here they had the perfect opportunity to make them into mixed descendants of all the shipwreck survivors, brought together by everything around them, to contrast with the wars going on outside. Instead... they are a bad case of noble savages and bring nothing thematically.

But it does continue the theme of human control struggling against primal nature for supremacy, and adds in it jingoism, cold-war paranoia and hurt pride. Only the green-jungle-to-concrete-jungle is missing. There was a suggestion of superficiality and public manipulation with the journalist but it never got anywhere. Not as well done thematically as Fury Road, but enough to elevate it above dumb action.

A few small things:

- There are clearly three Hueys on the ship but they become twelve in the air. Really jarring with such attention to detail.

- Why do they fly with the side doors open? It's iconic, but that was for combat operations, not the middle of a storm.

- One death had a real feeling of "the cast are almost feeling relief, time to remind them who's in charge".

- I also felt that San was useless, but she really needed a bigger role because she was the only one not of American/British demographics, despite recruiting people in Vietnam. Hollywood is now willing to give roles to black actors, but remains in a parochial mindset regarding race.

Managed to find a second run theatre and saw this finally. Viet Kong is still one of the best movie ideas of the last few years.

Hey, Michael from Other Space was in this. That's great.

...This is a freaking miraculous cast. I still wish Sam Jackson and John Goodman got to act off each other more, though.

Thanks to whoever said the Skullcrawlers look like Dodongos. That's pretty perfect.

This movie deserves so much more attention than it got. With this cast, and this much spectacle, I really wish the audience was there to bring us more movies like this.

edited 8th Jun '17 1:08:17 PM by Unsung

Damn it, why didn't I go out and see it during its first release?

Should get it for DVD or Blu-Ray.

edited 7th Jun '17 11:55:13 PM by kaalban

I mean, I loved it, but it was one of the most "shut your brain off and enjoy the movie" popcorn flicks I've ever seen.

It was well-acted, the dialogue was great, excellently shot, the action was amazeballs but the sheer amount of Fridge Logic, Contrived Coincidences, sheer ridiculous luck and stuff that didn't make sense rubbed me the wrong way on a second viewing.

So then I shut my brain down and "BOO-YAH! FUCKING PROPELLOR MORNING STAR, BITCH!" and I'm happy again.

I object to the idea of shutting one's brain off; instead, I propose leaving it on and simply embracing that it's okay for a monster movie to eschew stone-cold logic in the name of spectacle. The filmmakers, actors, etc. didn't go through the trouble of giving us an amazingly kickass new Kong flick for us to go, "Yeah, you'll enjoy it... If you watch it like a stupid person."

I don't mean to sound aggressive. The "turn your brain off at the door" thing is a pet peeve of mine, is all.

(Also, my girlfriend was the one who compared Skullcrawlers to Dodongos.)

Get the two-in-one kind.

I don't think the country where I live has that. Is there something speical if I get that one?

Ah, I see...

edited 8th Jun '17 7:54:04 PM by kaalban

Not really. Blu-ray players can play DVDs, so basically it's insurance in case one of your discs gets lost/scratched.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/godzilla-kong-finds-director-adam-wingard-1008773

We have a director for Godzilla vs. Kong. Apparently his films already have some acclaim behind them, so this might be good.

Zhang Ziyi joins the cast of Godzilla: King of Monsters (source).

Not that anybody asked, but I had such a crush on her circa Memoirs of a Geisha, and I hadn't seen her in forever. Now I have two reasons to watch this movie!

So, the movie dropped on Netflix and I thought "it has good actors, so why not" and gave it a shot, even though I am not into monster movies.

And overall I enjoyed it. I mean, I won't watch it again anytime soon, but it is certainly a solid franchise starter. The basic concept is brilliant, and the whole "the earth isn't owned by humans" approach is the update those whole monster movies desperately needed.

I have only three points of criticism:

1. They were very, very lucky that the movie was cast that well. Because there are way, waaaaaay too many characters in the movie, and it spends way too much time to give everyone some sort of basic backstory and motivation so that nobody ended up fleshed out fully. The only reason why it works at all is because the actors make more out of the roles than there is. Hiddleston and Larson practically carry the movie over the line. Ironically the character I ended up liking the most was the young soldier, even though he was kind of the one on which they spend the last time. But he somehow ended up being an actual character, while the others are more potential characters.

2. They should have killed off the American Soldier off-screen and let the Japanese one survive. For one, this would have underlined the message of the movie and two, thinking ahead he could then provide a Japanese perspective in future movies. Gozilla aso are Japanese franchises after all. Plus, it was a very, well, trite storyline they did with the American Soldier which could have been more fresh just by having a Japanese one instead. I mean, how DO you tell someone that his country not only lost the war but was hit by two nuclear bombs? Either someone lacked the balls or the perspective…

3. And finally, some CGI was a little bit goofy. I doubt that it will age particularly well. But that is a minor point. The scenes which had to work, worked.

Seeing as John C. Riley was one of the best parts of that film, no, they really shouldn’t have killed him off.

Yeah, going to agree that killing off the American soldier would be to its detriment both thematically (this is, after all, the "American" half of Godzilla vs. Kong) and casting (as yeah, John C Riley was easily the best part of the human cast).

To be perfectly honest, your post kind of reminds me of how... wasted the cast felt. Like, everyone was well-acted and stuff but I don't think I actually liked any of the characters. Just didn't form much for feelings about them in general.

Except the Chinese girl who was freaking terrible.

Edited by Larkmarn on Feb 6th 2019 at 4:01:10 AM