My $0.02 re Peter Jackson/s King Kong

[James Farlow <farlow@ipfw.edu>]

I saw the movie yesterday.  Parts of it I liked, but overall I was
disappointed.

I really liked the relationship between Kong and Ann Darrow in the new
movie.  It struck me as a reasonable interspecific friendship.

I also liked the take on Captain Engelhorn in the new version.  Very
amoral guy, and (since the movie takes place in 1933) I had little doubt
about which side he's going to be on when things get unpleasant in
Europe in 6 years.

I really liked the MANY references to the original version:  snippets
of musical quotations from the original soundtrack in the new one,
putting the embarrassing dialogue between Driscoll and Darrow in the
original movie into a scene between Darrow and the male actor from the
movie Denham is making, and putting the cheesy and rather racist stuff
about the Skull Island natives into the stage presentation of Kong.  My
favorite reference to the original movie, though, was the coversation
between Denham and his assistant in the cab, when they are trying to
think of a female lead for the picture, and dismiss "Fay" because Cooper
has her tied up in another production.  That one made me laugh out loud
with pleasure.  So I think Jackson tried to do a treatment respectful of
the original.

I thought the new version made an effort to portray Kong as a real
great ape--I liked the scene where he nibbles on foliage, for example. 

But why, if so much effort was made into making Kong more realistic,
didn't somebody stop to think how much he WEIGHS?  He bounces around
cliffs and buildings in the new movie like a balloon!  A REAL
multi-tonne ape (and don't forget that allometry would probably deform
such a monster from the proportions of a gorilla) would necessarily have
to move in a slower, more stately fashion.

Ditto the dinosaurs.  As I've noticed in a lot of computer-generated
effects in movies, the animals in stampedes or fights movd so quickly
they were almost a blur.  

I was disappointed by the dinosaurs in a lot of ways.  Most of them
just didn't look like real animals to me.  And there weren't enough
different kinds of them.  I was hoping for a Stegosaurus, and more than
a cameo shot by a ceratopsian.

And the tyrannosaurs...it LOOKED to me like one them bit Kong on the
arm, but Kong retains the use of said arm?  No way.  I would have had
Kong desperately avoiding those jaws as much as he tried to protect Ann.
 And WHY COULDN'T THEY GET THE PREMAXILLARY TEETH RIGHT!?!?!?!  It's
such a little detail, but attending to it would have meant so much to
me.  As was said about one of the cheesy movies given the MST3K
treatment, they just didn't care.  But I did.

And that scene where Kong and the tyrannosaurs moonlight as trapeze
artists?  I sat there thinking, this is just too stupid.

And those killer bats...Given that the remains of several generations
of Kong's species are nearby, obviously the apes have occupied the site
for quite some time.  So why would they choose to hang out among such
nasty neighbors?  And turning it around, wouldn't the bats have figured
out a LONG time ago that the big apes were difficult prey?

I missed the throwaway background scenery details that O'Brien put into
the original--gliding pterosaurs, scavenging teratorns, the bubbles as
the nothosaur/lizard/basal snake? thingy tracks Kong's movements in the
pool.  There wasn't so much of that in the Jackson version.

I liked all the nasty slimy things in the big ditch, but I wish there
had been less of them, and more dinosaurs.

So I'm feeling let down today.  I've waited with such eagerness for
this new version, and I just don't think Jackson gave the details the
attention they deserved.  I have watched the 1933 version dozens of
times, and I was prepared to like the new one even better.  I didn't,
alas.  I doubt I will watch the new version very often.

Sigh...the inner geek mourns...