I saw King Kong last week, and just so happened the original was on cable that night.
Gotta tell ya: the original is still the better of the two.
Don't get me wrong: this version was very good, but it was flawed in two respects...
- It was about an hour too long.
- Some of the action scenes (bronto stampede; tyrannosaur fight; airplane fight on the ESB), was too much happening too fast.
Basically, I walked out of the theater feeling more exhausted than entertained.
Watch the original. You didn't need all that intro in the beginning to understand Denham or Darrow's drive. Watch the tyrannosaur fight. A little slower, easier to track and absorb. Sometimes, less is more; bigger isn't always better.
Listen, when something is perfect, when the project is done, you leave it alone. Notice, there have been no remakes of Wizard of Oz or Gone with the Wind, or 2001: a space odyssey.
KK 2005 was a fine effort with great special FX. But the original (IMO) is still king.
King Kong was the longest, dumbest, most boring movie EVER... since the Titanic. Why make a 3 hour movie? Shit's so ****ing pointless. I shit you not, there were 2 people snoring loud as hell in the movie theatre, like 6 people walked out after 2 hours, there was like 8 or 9 people left. Then I look over my left shoulder and my brother is knocked out.
You might as well wait till this comes out on DVD so you can watch it chapter by chapter. Shit was a big ass snorefest.
Originally posted by Mindship
Listen, when something is perfect, when the project is done, you leave it alone. Notice, there have been no remakes of Wizard of Oz or Gone with the Wind, or 2001: a space odyssey.
I'm glad you realize that. But I guarantee those will be remade. It may not be soon, but one day. I promise.
Originally posted by NewJERU
Why make a 3 hour movie? Shit's so ****ing pointless.
The main purpose of making a 3 hour movie, is to cover everything when adapting some type of material. For instance, The Lord Of the Rings movies were over 3 hours long and still didn't cover everything. But were still great movies. It's not pointless, just longer than your normal 1 1/2 hour movie.
Originally posted by MandoThe main purpose of making a 3 hour movie, is to cover everything when adapting some type of material. For instance, The Lord Of the Rings movies were over 3 hours long and still didn't cover everything. But were still great movies. It's not pointless, just longer than your normal 1 1/2 hour movie.
I disagree, 3 hours was pointless. They stretched this movie entirely too long, they could have made it into a 2 hour movie, if they cut some of that depressingly slow and boring dialogue out. It was just unneeded. The movie started out tooooo slow, it just lagged. This movie is so overrated. Special affects and a bunch of computerized shit doesn't make a movie good.
But to each is own.
Originally posted by NewJERU
I disagree, 3 hours was pointless. They stretched this movie entirely too long, they could have made it into a 2 hour movie, if they cut some of that depressingly slow and boring dialogue out. It was just unneeded. The movie started out tooooo slow, it just lagged. This movie is so overrated. Special affects and a bunch of computerized shit doesn't make a movie good.But to each is own.
They didn't make it 3 hours just because. They made it like that so it would make sense. If they cut out the beginning we would have no idea why in the world they were on that island or who carl denham was and what his purpose was. If any part of the movie was cut up the rest wouldn't make sense. That is the glory of editing.
Originally posted by fini
they could have cut out that senceless Brontosaurus chase
That was a little important. If i remember right, that was the first introduction of the dinosaurs in the movie.
the giant insect scene
That scene was actually intended to be in the 1933 release. But they cut it out in the last minute and was said to be an urban legend. But then PJ finally added it in. I think it's in the DVD release, I'm not sure.
Originally posted by MandoThe main purpose of making a 3 hour movie, is to cover everything when adapting some type of material. For instance, The Lord Of the Rings movies were over 3 hours long and still didn't cover everything. But were still great movies. It's not pointless, just longer than your normal 1 1/2 hour movie.
He had nothing to "adapt" here, though. If Jackson was so fond of Cooper's original, why did he feel the need to make it approximately 2 TIMES LONGER than the original, by filling it with a bunch of overdone action sequences, and a heavy-handed humanization of King Kong, which teetered on beastiality?
A lot of it was indeed pointless, and did little more than fill time. This movie could have been equally as effective in about 135-150 minutes, and been a lot more effective.
Originally posted by Cinemaddiction
He had nothing to "adapt" here, though. If Jackson was so fond of Cooper's original, why did he feel the need to make it approximately 2 TIMES LONGER than the original, by filling it with a bunch of overdone action sequences, and a heavy-handed humanization of King Kong, which teetered on beastiality?A lot of it was indeed pointless, and did little more than fill time. This movie could have been equally as effective in about 135-150 minutes, and been a lot more effective.
Or we can think of it this way;
If it was the same runtime and covers the same exact events.
What's the point of seeing the movie? Eye candy?
Originally posted by Mando
Or we can think of it this way;If it was the same runtime and covers the same exact events.
What's the point of seeing the movie? Eye candy?
That's what he did. Doubled the run time, doubled the characters, as shallow as most of them are, added a bunch of special effects, and dragged out a humanitarian storyline.
I'm more impressed with the simplicity of the story in the original, the score, and most of all, the craftsmanship of the stop motion animation. CGI is impressive, but I'm a purist in many aspects of this particular film.
Originally posted by Mando
That was a little important. If i remember right, that was the first introduction of the dinosaurs in the movie.That scene was actually intended to be in the 1933 release. But they cut it out in the last minute and was said to be an urban legend. But then PJ finally added it in. I think it's in the DVD release, I'm not sure.
Wasn't the first dinosaur they encounter a Stegosaurus? It charged at them and then got knocked out by the grenades.
And then when they were on the raft, the brontosaur came out from beneath and overturned their raft. When they were scrambling onto land, it gave chase and then bit some random dude that climbed onto a tree. Evil, scary brontosaur. 😄
And yup, the insect/spider scene was cut out due to being too horrifying for audiences, if I recall. People walked out or something cuz it was so grotesque during that time.
As far as I know, there was never any insect scene in the original. There were scenes that were cut when the 1933 version was shown on tv decades ago (eg, Kong chomping on a native; pulling off Wray's clothing), but these were later put back in in the 1980s.
Yes, people fainted in the theater back in 1933, but this was because KK, as is/was, was something way beyond what audiences were already used to. Considering what today's audiences are used (slice-n-dice films), if there was an insect scene in the original, it would've been put back in a long time ago.