Re: Kong Credits

[Guy Leahy <xrciseguy@sbcglobal.net>]

According to the latest issue of Cinefex magazine, the
Kong special effects technicians do not appear to have
used any scientific consultants for most of the
animals.  They did conduct some research on gorillas
to try to make Kong appear reasonably accurate.
The sauropod and dromaeosaur ("Venatosaurus") were
based on designs from an earlier intended 1996 remake
of Kong which Universal Pictures cancelled in 1997
because the studio feared the film would be lost
amongst other big monster pictures which were in
production at the time (the Godzilla and Mighty Joe
Young remakes.)  One sentence from the article
shouldn't surprise anyone on the DML who has seen the
film: 

"Designs (for the dinosaurs) deliberately departed
from paleontological research."

Another quote from the article from Peter Jackson in
regards to the sauropod design:

"Everybody calls these things 'Apatosaurus' these
days" Peter Jackson remarked. "It will always be
'Brontosaurus' to me! We  made a traditional one, not
quite a tail dragger."

The Kong effects design team wanted the dinosaurs to
look more like the original 1933 Kong dinosaurs than
those of Jurassic Park.   They did base the V-rex head
on a T. rex skull, but added "bony protrusions" to the
skull based on the belief that the Skull Island
dinosaurs had been isolated for 65+ million years and
had evolved enough to differ from their Cretaceous
relatives. Some of the Spider Pit critters were based
on real insects, and the "Wetasaur" which Ann Darrow
encounters before the Kong/V-rex fight was based in
part on a Komodo dragon.

Guy Leahy

--- "Williams, Scott" <Scott.Williams@burpee.org>
wrote:

> -I checked out the complete credits for Jackson's
> King Kong, and was
> unable to find any credit for scientific consultant.
>  I saw a listing
> for a music consultant, but that was about it.  Does
> anyone know if
> there was a consultant, perhaps I missed it?
> 
>  
> 
> Scott Williams
> 
> Burpee Museum
> 
>