King Kong- '33, '76, '05?

IMO 33 is a sort of haunting and surreal film. 76 is a waste of time. 05 is great if you skip the first hour.

 

Odd that I remember not one of those Kong toys. Definitely at that time my minor moneys were going towards KISS merchandise. Probably I was all consumed with KISS. I didn't know the toy figures market bloomed with Star Wars. Sounds likely. Wish I still had my Planet of the Apes and Evel Knievel stuff. Yes those King Kong posters are fabulous. Best part of the whole campaign.

 

...And another thing I detested about the '05 version is those darn slow motion shots, which cheapen the looks even more, down to that of an ordinary TV series!...

Slomo' is so corny!

 

TV was exactly what I thought also. I only made it half way through before taking a break. Will watch part 2 later. Jeez took the movie an hour to get to the island of Mordor and meet the village of the Evil Dead. I have not much fear for our heroes though as they're superhuman. The heroine's spindly arms were tied to leg thick ropes and the ropes snapped when Kong took her in his monkey mitt for a death defying run neck snapping shake / thrashing, which mussed her hair real bad. And Adrien Brody was smacked for a home run by a dinosaur tail. Thankfully a tree stopped his 100 mph flight and he only suffered a wrinkled shirt collar. I did like the earlier evil native pole vaunt onto the ship wondering how will he return? The crew needed boats to reach land! Of course, just walk the rocks. Hahaha. To be continued.

 

The 1933 Classic for me.

As much as I despised the 1976 version in 1976, I now prefer it to the really overblown and unnecessary "love" version of 2005.

 

2005 but not fond of any of them enough to devote the time to watching them again. Old one I found too primitive to enjoy, 70s one was bloated and dull, 2005 one was a competent modern entertaining movie. I guess the story is interesting enough that I spent 7 hours or so giving it 3 tries.

 

(my stressing above) That's it. I am all willing to suspend my disbelief for the sake of the internal logic of a fantasy, horror or scifi story, but... How could I put this any better?...

 

Yup, the recycling that toy companies like to do. Kenner also used the horses and the quick draw action for the Raiders of the Lost Ark Indiana Jones figures. Other examples were Mattel ' s Barbie corvette and camper in the 70's were used for their Big Jim line as his camper and laservette. Mattel also recycled the black panther from their late 1970's Tarzan toy line for the 1981 line Masters of the Universe, gave it a green paint job and voila, Battle Cat.

 

Meant for the previous message of mine to be a reply for this one. The phone messed it up.

 

My issue with the 2005 King Kong is I think it fails at making Kong a sympathetic character, it's all beast and very little of the tender side you see in the 1933 version.

 

Really? It's been a while since I saw it, but I thought the 2005 Kong worked overtime to make you love the big hairy bastard. I mean, there's that whole ice rink scene - Jackson practically smothered us with "tender side"!

 

I don't recall there being any tenderness in the '33 Kong, just Fay Wray screaming throughout.

 

I've always been semi-amused at Kenner's recycled toys. For instance, "Ewok Village" (right) got turned into "Sherwood Forest" (left):

 

Oh yeah, forgot about that one.

 

Here's a page with all of the stuff that Kenner recycled for Star Wars.

http://theswca.com/images-speci/recycle/


Mattel recycling their Big Jim products for Masters of the Universe.

http://jimsmash.blogspot.ca/2009/01/big-jim-master-of-universe.html

 

Awesome - thanks! I'm proud of myself for noticing some of those on my own!

 

Yes, and the sexual angle IIRC. I admit I haven't watch the '33 one in quite a while though.

I have seen it several times though in my life. Always with the same feeling of wonderment...

 

I was sort of left with the impression that if he wasn't entertained by Ann's routines he would have killed her.

 

Which I'd imagine is as it should be, when grabbed by a giant ape. Certainly not doing cartwheels for the big lug and skating, "Kong On Ice"-style. God, I hated that 2005 abomination.

 

I've actually still got my Ewok Village playset.... it's stored away somewhere but it's in perfect condition!

 

You have a point. But I got the impression that he fell for her once he saw that she stood up to him.

 

Maybe, but he still showed a tender side. I don't think he had to be a lovesick schmuck from minute one to qualify!

 

I guess I don't get why a gorilla would fall in love with a woman. Are there any examples of this in real life?

 

Koko, the gorilla, loved her pet cat. She thought humans had funny lookin' noses....

 

I love and own both the original and the Peter Jackson version.

If forced to judge one over the other, I'll duck and go with the 2005 film, which is Jackson's best, in my opinion.

It may be long, but it feels about a fourth of the length of that last Hobbit film...

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs