First "King Kong" Review -- SPOILER ALERT

[buckeyemike]

Peter Jackson's "King Kong" Review in Newsweek.

 

It sounds fantastic...a visual feast. And I noticed in the commercials that the movie apparently takes place at the time of the original in 1933.

 

I first saw the original "King Kong" on Thanksgiving 1977 on local TV (the PBS station here in Cleveland aired it in the evening that day). I was eight years old at the time. I watched it with my Dad, and I actually felt sad for the ape at the end. I have loved the original ever since.

 

Notice that I have posted a "Spoiler Alert"...I learned the last time from this topic six months ago.

 

Mike

[Rico]

I first saw the original "King Kong" on Thanksgiving 1977 on local TV (the PBS station here in Cleveland aired it in the evening that day).  I was eight years old at the time.  I watched it with my Dad, and I actually felt sad for the ape at the end.  I have loved the original ever since.

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If you haven't already gotten it, the original finally came out on DVD last week, along with Son of Kong & Mighty Joe Young. It is a spectacular set, my choice for DVD of the year. Kong never looked better, and the special features are loaded.

[buckeyemike]

New Review from the UK's London Daily Mail.

 

Mike

[R. Rich]

If you haven't already gotten it, the original finally came out on DVD last week, along with Son of Kong & Mighty Joe Young. It is a spectacular set, my choice for DVD of the year. Kong never looked better, and the special features are loaded.

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I will get the 'Collector's Edition' as opposed to getting the one w/ the other 2 movies included. I really like the original Kong, and my brother and I have been looking forward to this release for years, ever since we heard Jackson was getting serious about doing the remake (he was set to do it before the LOTR trilogy).

[Rico]

^^^^

 

At least skip the other 2, but get the original in the super neato ultra neat collector's tin.

 

Oh yeah, it's got the best special feature ever:

But the best extra is provided by Kiwi filmmaker Peter Jackson, who reveals himself to be this film's super-fan of all time and a man of uncommon good will. Already a collector of existing artifacts from the original shooting, he gathers together his effects crew to re-create the missing Spider Pit sequence. In what must be the most elaborate effort ever for a DVD, Jackson's crew painstakingly designs and builds five pit monsters and animates them the old-fashioned way, allowing us to appreciate what David Allen called the "Lost Art" of the stop-motion technique. Their re-creation is then cut into the existing picture (as an extra excerpt) to convincing effect. The WETA group also restores the Styracosaurus that was omitted from the original cut, even though the fleeing sailors are obviously being chased by something close on their heels. The 'new' sequence is in B&W and treated to match the original look of the film; they've even put flaws into the shots consistent with the effects in Kong -- some ghosting of images during compositing, etc. It's obvious that the Spider Pit was an unnecessary and overly gruesome digression, but we'd still like to see the original. That crazy two-legged lizard that climbs up underneath Jack Driscoll did indeed come from the pit below. The spirit of the sequence eventually found expression in O'Brien's The Black Scorpion; the inky-black spider puppet in that film (the one that crumples when shot) may have been originally built for Kong.  1

 

What the new Spider Pit sequence reminds us of most is Peter Jackson's Forgotten Silver with its painstaking recreations of antique filmmaking. And almost a bigger surprise is Jackson himself, who appears to have lost a huge amount of body weight. He's transformed into almost a different person! Although Jackson's new Kong remake is for a different studio the lack of any direct mention of it in the extras is a refreshing touch. Jackson's participation throughout speaks of filmmaking excitement, not marketing strategy.