King Kong thoughts
Jan. 14th, 2006 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valis2I realized last night after chatting with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rexluscus that I never did post an entry about King Kong.
I must say, first of all, that I was rather surprised that Peter Jackson was attempting King Kong. I really thought about it, and talked about it with people, and my main thought was that the film didn't have a lot of relevance to today's society. To me, science fiction is often the product of the decade it belongs to, and the concerns of that decade (for example: radioactivity) often diminish or disappear in the next decade. KK is directly linked to Man vs. Nature, that classic theme, and even with that strong a theme, it still has its roots in the thirties, with exploration of the unknown, tribes of hostile people, etc.
That said, I was loudly thinking that it was going to be a flop. The only thing that could save it would be if it turned out to be an incredible film and the critics recommended it.
I was quite astonished when I saw that it had received tremendous reviews. My family wanted to see it, so over the New Years' break we all went to the theatre and sat down for three hours.
The film began, and I was entranced by the first hour. Certainly every scene/take seemed to hold for a few seconds/minutes too long, but I thought that PJ was evoking an earlier form of film-making, where a slower pace was the norm. The highlight was New York, in all of its thirties glory, beautiful, magnificent, and totally believable. I loved the opening song and images, I loved the stage, I loved how every character was allowed to be a character. I absolutely could not wait for more. I really was seeing true movie magic.
The boat scenes were the same. So believable, so inspired, with so much backstory and great imagery (loved the writer in the cage)...I was entranced. Totally fab. Except...well...the lingering of each scene was starting to irk me. It's almost like a hammer. "Did you see this? Did you? Well? Did you? Look again! Well? Did you see it?" But with interesting characters and OMG ADRIEN BRODY WITHOUT A SHIRT AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH and subplots I was still extremely happy.
The ship getting caught up on the rocks was so tremendously well done that I was clutching at the armrests.
And then they disembarked and went to Skull Island, and it all went to hell in a hand basket for me.
Let me explain my biggest criticism of PJ's LotR movies: horror. There is a difference between legitimate tension and cheesy horror. I am of the opinion that PJ went right into cheesy horror in one place: Shelob's lair. I remember sitting in the audience at that movie and thinking, wtf? The two problems with that scene: unconvincing props and a cheesy camera trick, i.e., blur and tilt. Any narrative tension was completely lost on me there.
And he brought both of those to bear almost immediately on Skull Island. I swear that we are treated to at least a minute of skull and bone shots. Granted, they were better than the papier-mâché skulls and bones of RotK. But we also receive the tilt and blur treatment, which is in such complete contrast to the long, lovingly composed shots nearly everywhere else in the movie that I was wincing.
As the movie progressed I began to amuse myself by devising different edit points.
Again there was a continuance of the More is More school of thought, and every scene continued past its logical conclusion.
And then the Ravine of Bugs. Which was absolutely preposterous and disgusting. The boat team could have simply rescued them from the ravine without need of that scene at all. I was very sorry that the kids behind us were so young, because I was disturbed by it, and had I been younger, I would have had terrible dreams after viewing something like that.
I felt sorry for Naomi Watts. She clearly received her share of bruises for this movie. Though her juggling form is terrible (they digitally added the rocks in afterwards; she's just moving her hands, and it's pretty obvious), she did a good job with what she had to do.
The most ludicrous scene is the Bat Spectacular. I believe that vampire bats in the wild usually feast while their prey is sleeping. So why is it, in this movie, that Adrien shows up and wakes the bats up at night when they already would have been active? And then the bats attack Kong, which is even sillier. They like sleeping prey! And then their escape with a bat made me want to shout WTF right there in the theatre. Seriously. That was the stupidest scene evah.
Okay, I do understand that logic is not really a component of many movies, and that one does have to suspend belief while watching a movie in many cases. But sometimes it just goes too far. I could not stop thinking about so many of the situations and how ridiculous it all seemed. Especially because, after setting up copious amounts of backstory and great characters, it all became a how-can-I-freak-the-audience-out festival, which just seemed to betray all that happened before. I was miserable.
Getting back to New York, I had hoped, would be a return to the beginning. While it did have a few good moments, overall it was rather pointless. The iced over pond scene...I won't even get into that. The theatre stuff was great. I loved that the actor guy was there, and was smart enough to get the hell out of Dodge when he realized that Kong couldn't be held by those chains. I loved the misdirection of having the blonde pop up out of the floor and scream.
The chase scene went on too long, but it was nice to see a bit more of Adrien. The reappearance of Naomi Watts was rather overdone. I absolutely loved the detail of Kong discarding one New York blonde after another. Kong scaling the Empire State did have a second or two of intensity, but the plane sequence seemed silly to me as well, with Kong standing on that small platform. And then with Naomi climbing ladders and such...well...ugh.
I hasten to point out that I am hypercritical about things, and I am completely uninterested in the horror genre. I also have trouble relating to computer-generated characters. All of that combined to make the ending two-thirds of the movie completely boring for me. I was disappointed because I thought that the beginning was so promising. I spent the last thirty minutes thinking, can't he just die already?
The effect on the rest of the theatre was completely different. People really reacted to the things happening on the screen. My sister actually had to leave because she was so overwhelmed by emotion and didn't want to see Kong die. My parents actually were teary-eyed. I must mention that I have only ever seen my mother cry once before in my entire life, so I was very surprised.
Apparently I have a heart of stone. Kick me in the chest and you'll break your leg.
rexluscus that I never did post an entry about King Kong.I must say, first of all, that I was rather surprised that Peter Jackson was attempting King Kong. I really thought about it, and talked about it with people, and my main thought was that the film didn't have a lot of relevance to today's society. To me, science fiction is often the product of the decade it belongs to, and the concerns of that decade (for example: radioactivity) often diminish or disappear in the next decade. KK is directly linked to Man vs. Nature, that classic theme, and even with that strong a theme, it still has its roots in the thirties, with exploration of the unknown, tribes of hostile people, etc.
That said, I was loudly thinking that it was going to be a flop. The only thing that could save it would be if it turned out to be an incredible film and the critics recommended it.
I was quite astonished when I saw that it had received tremendous reviews. My family wanted to see it, so over the New Years' break we all went to the theatre and sat down for three hours.
The film began, and I was entranced by the first hour. Certainly every scene/take seemed to hold for a few seconds/minutes too long, but I thought that PJ was evoking an earlier form of film-making, where a slower pace was the norm. The highlight was New York, in all of its thirties glory, beautiful, magnificent, and totally believable. I loved the opening song and images, I loved the stage, I loved how every character was allowed to be a character. I absolutely could not wait for more. I really was seeing true movie magic.
The boat scenes were the same. So believable, so inspired, with so much backstory and great imagery (loved the writer in the cage)...I was entranced. Totally fab. Except...well...the lingering of each scene was starting to irk me. It's almost like a hammer. "Did you see this? Did you? Well? Did you? Look again! Well? Did you see it?" But with interesting characters and OMG ADRIEN BRODY WITHOUT A SHIRT AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH and subplots I was still extremely happy.
The ship getting caught up on the rocks was so tremendously well done that I was clutching at the armrests.
And then they disembarked and went to Skull Island, and it all went to hell in a hand basket for me.
Let me explain my biggest criticism of PJ's LotR movies: horror. There is a difference between legitimate tension and cheesy horror. I am of the opinion that PJ went right into cheesy horror in one place: Shelob's lair. I remember sitting in the audience at that movie and thinking, wtf? The two problems with that scene: unconvincing props and a cheesy camera trick, i.e., blur and tilt. Any narrative tension was completely lost on me there.
And he brought both of those to bear almost immediately on Skull Island. I swear that we are treated to at least a minute of skull and bone shots. Granted, they were better than the papier-mâché skulls and bones of RotK. But we also receive the tilt and blur treatment, which is in such complete contrast to the long, lovingly composed shots nearly everywhere else in the movie that I was wincing.
As the movie progressed I began to amuse myself by devising different edit points.
Again there was a continuance of the More is More school of thought, and every scene continued past its logical conclusion.
And then the Ravine of Bugs. Which was absolutely preposterous and disgusting. The boat team could have simply rescued them from the ravine without need of that scene at all. I was very sorry that the kids behind us were so young, because I was disturbed by it, and had I been younger, I would have had terrible dreams after viewing something like that.
I felt sorry for Naomi Watts. She clearly received her share of bruises for this movie. Though her juggling form is terrible (they digitally added the rocks in afterwards; she's just moving her hands, and it's pretty obvious), she did a good job with what she had to do.
The most ludicrous scene is the Bat Spectacular. I believe that vampire bats in the wild usually feast while their prey is sleeping. So why is it, in this movie, that Adrien shows up and wakes the bats up at night when they already would have been active? And then the bats attack Kong, which is even sillier. They like sleeping prey! And then their escape with a bat made me want to shout WTF right there in the theatre. Seriously. That was the stupidest scene evah.
Okay, I do understand that logic is not really a component of many movies, and that one does have to suspend belief while watching a movie in many cases. But sometimes it just goes too far. I could not stop thinking about so many of the situations and how ridiculous it all seemed. Especially because, after setting up copious amounts of backstory and great characters, it all became a how-can-I-freak-the-audience-out festival, which just seemed to betray all that happened before. I was miserable.
Getting back to New York, I had hoped, would be a return to the beginning. While it did have a few good moments, overall it was rather pointless. The iced over pond scene...I won't even get into that. The theatre stuff was great. I loved that the actor guy was there, and was smart enough to get the hell out of Dodge when he realized that Kong couldn't be held by those chains. I loved the misdirection of having the blonde pop up out of the floor and scream.
The chase scene went on too long, but it was nice to see a bit more of Adrien. The reappearance of Naomi Watts was rather overdone. I absolutely loved the detail of Kong discarding one New York blonde after another. Kong scaling the Empire State did have a second or two of intensity, but the plane sequence seemed silly to me as well, with Kong standing on that small platform. And then with Naomi climbing ladders and such...well...ugh.
I hasten to point out that I am hypercritical about things, and I am completely uninterested in the horror genre. I also have trouble relating to computer-generated characters. All of that combined to make the ending two-thirds of the movie completely boring for me. I was disappointed because I thought that the beginning was so promising. I spent the last thirty minutes thinking, can't he just die already?
The effect on the rest of the theatre was completely different. People really reacted to the things happening on the screen. My sister actually had to leave because she was so overwhelmed by emotion and didn't want to see Kong die. My parents actually were teary-eyed. I must mention that I have only ever seen my mother cry once before in my entire life, so I was very surprised.
Apparently I have a heart of stone. Kick me in the chest and you'll break your leg.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-14 06:38 pm (UTC)it still has its roots in the thirties, with exploration of the unknown, tribes of hostile people, etc.
Yes. Yes. God, yes. The "tribes of hostile (BLACK) people" almost made me get up and leave the theatre. There is no excuse for making movies like that anymore (if there ever was, which there wasn't). There is no great colonial unknown where crazy black islanders dance around and kill white people. It is so utterly offensive to me I could not believe Jackson had actually recreated that.
I'm one of those annoying PC-ers who objected loud and proud to the soldiers of Mordor in LOTR being vaguely "eastern" looking - some blanket mix of Arab and Indian and whatever else Western audiences would think was "foreign" fighting the blonde elves. Jackson cried "source material" on that score, and I bet he would do it again for Kong.
I'm afraid I say to Mr Jackson: you cannot hide behind
racistculturally insensitive source material anymore. You need to step up and answer for some of your portrayals, yeah? It's 2006, not 1933. The world needs to get past bullshit like the way those islanders in Kong were portrayed. Gah.Sorry. It still steams me. [stops hijacking your journal] :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-14 07:16 pm (UTC)I am also very uneasy with the presumed reason that Kong takes Ann Darrow in the first place...because she's blonde. There are issues there that I don't even want to go into in my journal.
The end result...I won't be purchasing this movie or seeing it again if I can help it...er...well, perhaps I will see it again just for AAAH ADRIEN BRODY HALF-NEKKID, but otherwise, not so much.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-14 10:31 pm (UTC)Let the complaints begin:
That damn movie was about an hour and a half too long if you ask me. I liked the beginning through the crash on the rocks. Then things got LONG. The natives and the scenery were weird and unrealistic. And then things got LONGER. All of the crap the guys had to go through to find Ann and Kong (like that stupid bug scene - WTF?). Plus the King v. Dinosaurs fight took too long as well and got increasingly ridiculous. And by the time they got back to New York, I just wanted the movie to be over. But of course I had to wait another hour for that. >_<
It wasn't all bad - the actors were good for what they had to work with. By seriously, I preferred the 1933 version in a lot of ways. I was disappointed with the Ann/Jack relationship that didn't develop. King Kong's friendship with Ann and Ann returning that friendship was a plus, but the movie was just so damn long. So many things should have been cut, and that movie would have been fairly excellent instead of just okay for me.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-14 10:48 pm (UTC)HELL YES.
I totally agree.
Nearly every scene went on too long. The entire Bug Ravine Debacle should have been completely excised. Escape Via Vampire Bat could have been retooled.
I really liked the beginning and was so unhappy after they got off the boat! heh.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-14 11:43 pm (UTC)Joe said it was terrible, the worst film he'd seen all year.
As you said, the first hour was great. After that, every scene was far too long.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-15 12:42 am (UTC)Whew! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-15 12:55 am (UTC)I agree with the first poster about the glaring and horribly out of place appearance of Al-Quaida in Mordor. WTF? Could we be any less subtle? Yeah, I get it. Black turban = bad guys.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-15 01:22 am (UTC)