Ok, one of the big movies slated to come out this Christmas is the SECOND remake of King Kong. The original featured those really bad "cutting edge" special effects. It's the kind of movie you watch in the middle of the night, chuckling to yourself, wondering how in the hell something that fake-looking could scare anyone.
The first remake improved on the special effects, have to give them credit for that, but the plot was so screwed up it ended up being just stupid. They tried to throw in all sorts of little messages and warnings about the environment and something to do with oil consumption. And don't get me started about the acting. At least the ape looked a little better.
Now we've got the second remake and judging by the little brief trailers and pictures that are making the rounds on the Internet, it's going to LOOK fabulous. That ape is pretty damn scary looking and Jack Black and Naomi Watts seem about as perfectly cast as you can get. Still, all that aside, there are some serious problems with the whole King Kong idea that Peter Jackson would be wise to deal with in his film.
These first three actually came from an episode of Robot Chicken on Cartoon Network. It's a claymation show done in little clips that parody other shows and movies. Runs at 10:30 cst Sunday nights and again on Thursday.
1. Ok, the natives have that big wall to keep their village safe from Kong and the other critters. They make regular sacrifices to him. Ok so far. But why did they make the damn gate big enough for him to get through? He's got no REASON to come into the village, why not just keep the gate small enough for people?
2. He's an ape for crying out loud. They make a HUGE point in the book and in the movies about how he likes to climb things. Do you honestly think he can't just climb OVER the wall?
3. You know there can't be just ONE giant ape out there. They don't live forever you know. The only way this works is if there's a FAMILY of giant apes. Better still SEVERAL families of giant apes so they can breed between families and last longer.
(here are some I thought of while reading the book)
4. When they capture Kong, they use three gas bombs. Throw bomb, bomb breaks, gas puts Kong to sleep for 6 hours or so. Works great. So how come no one had any gas bombs on hand when they were showing him off in New York? Seems to me that'd be a pretty elementary precaution, just in case.
5. How'd he manage to break out of those chains so damn easy? The Broadway show takes place MONTHS after his original capture. They had to drag his big ape butt onto the boat, carry him half-way around the globe, build a cage, put him in it, get the cage to a theater and on stage. All this time he was chained up and those chains held just fine.
--Ah BUT--
6. you say that it was the flashbulbs from the cameras that got him all worked up and that's what allowed him to break free. He was so worked up into a fury. Ok, fine, in that case A. Do you expect me to believe, seriously, that NO ONE photographed him at all, ever, in the entire time between capture and exhibition? And B. You think he wasn't pretty damn pissed off when he woke up on the boat? Or when he woke up in the cage? No fury there?
7. Earlier in the story, while they're on the island trying to track him down, they get off a few shots on Kong. The bullets don't do a damn thing other than piss him off a little. Given that this takes place in the 1930's, you have to remember that the guns they put on air planes aren't all that powerful. They're really just mounted versions of the guns people are carrying around or have on tripods. So . . . if the guns they use on Kong on the island don't work, if the bullets seem to just bounce off and maybe sting a little bit, why all of a sudden are these bi-planes able to mow him down on the Empire State Building? And why weren't the cops able to do any injury to him while he was getting there?
8. Seriously, are we supposed to believe that buildings in NYC are built SO well, or were anyway, that they took almost no damage when this HUGE ape goes climbing? I think a few of them should have fallen down. Certainly when he's on the rooftops, jumping from building to building, ONE of them would have given way and he'd fall straight through. He's a freakin HUGE MONKEY!
9. He got hit by a bus. A bus. Who is driving this thing? This guy has got to be the WORST bus driver in the history of busses. Think about it. You're cruising around the theater district, following your normal route when suddenly this giant ape just APPEARS out of nowhere? He's been throwing cars around and smashing things in general and this bus driver fails to even SEE him? If that guy survived the crash, I think he ought to get his walking papers or at the very least, an eye exam.
10. And this is really important. Who cleaned all that mess up? And what a HUGE mess it would be too. First you got all the monkey blood splatter up on the Empire State Building. This is the 1930's we're talking about. They can't just send up a helicopter with a high pressure hose. You've got Kong blood oozing down the side of the building at its highest point right? And all that fur too. Must be giant ape fur all over NYC. And then there's the point of impact. Monkey falls . . . a LONG way down. SPLAT! Somebody's got to clean it up right? Hmm, and now that I think about it, I don't recall anyone saying anything about monkey poo. Even on the island, no monkey poo. Lots of references to things eaten. And lots of references to Kong flinging stuff. So why no mention of the universal monkey motion of poo flinging?
You know, now that I think about it, maybe I'm not in such a big hurry to see the new King Kong afterall :-)
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Ok, somebody has to say it. The Astros once again managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory! You check out the morning paper or read about it online, they don't paint nearly as bad a picture. The Astros were ONE OUT away from going to the World Series. Oh no, it was worse. They were ONE STRIKE away from going to the World Series. How demoralizing was that? It's right there, in your grasp. All you need is just one more strike or a wimpy grounder or a pop-up. But no, the pitcher sends a fast one within range of the bat and BAM! Now we go back to St. Louis.
Just goes to prove what the FOX commercials have been saying all along: You can't script October.
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