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Jun 6 09 6:50 PM
Jun 6 09 8:28 PM
Grant wrote: This might not be just the right thread (as opposed to the right board) to go into it, but again, that's always been my problem with the original movie's following - people taking that anti-hero idea a little farther than it's usually taken, and glossing over certain things. Like the sacrifices on the island - you have to wonder now and again about what happened to Fay Wray's "predecessors." Or the scene where he smashes the natives between his teeth - it's been pointed out that the fact that he doesn't actually EAT them somehow "takes the curse off it" for the audience, which is kind of a comical technicality. And then there's probably the best-known one, where he drops the blonde woman after realizing she isn't Fay Wray - that should put a big dent in any sympathy he's gotten from the audience so far, but even the people who mention it don't seem any too bothered by it. Again, I've always LIKED the "anti-hero" idea in a lot of stories, but with most of the ones I like (like Bonnie and Clyde), there's a pretty large "body of people" who are against that attitude, which creates a kind of "healthy balance." With King Kong fans, I almost never hear about anything BUT the admiration for the character, in spite of some of the very bad (you might say "very human") things he does that really CAN'T be blamed on the human characters (like that last one I mentioned). All of this might be taking things too literally, but there's always that kind of risk in these discussions.
Jun 6 09 9:54 PM
For those of us who watched Kong'33 as kids, it was an important step in our critical thinking. We slowly came to realize that, big and scary as he was, he was ultimately the victim of others, and we felt sympathy for him. But it was subtle, and we felt pretty smart at figuring it out. Kong'76 continually hits you over the head with Kong as pitiful victim. The rest of the film wasn't good enough to redeem it from that flaw.
Jun 7 09 9:31 AM
Jun 7 09 9:11 PM
Jun 7 09 9:40 PM
Wich2 wrote: I saw him as BOTH Victim and Victimizer.
Jun 8 09 11:22 AM
Jun 8 09 3:43 PM
Jun 8 09 8:38 PM
Great Ape wrote: Kong is a Monster. But I always viewed our greatest "monsters" as misunderstood creatures. Kong, Frankenstein's Monster, The Wolman...all are dangerous and unpredictable as Monsters should be, but all are also victims of society.
Jun 8 09 8:50 PM
The Giant Pacific Octopus wrote: Great Ape wrote: Kong is a Monster. But I always viewed our greatest "monsters" as misunderstood creatures. Kong, Frankenstein's Monster, The Wolman...all are dangerous and unpredictable as Monsters should be, but all are also victims of society. I always thought the "Wolman" was the victim of a swarm of moths.
Jun 24 09 2:46 PM
Jun 25 09 12:18 AM
Speanistar wrote: Despite the fact that he did'nt eat people made it a bit more terrifying for some strange reason. .
Jun 26 09 8:54 AM
But he sure loved to chew on them.
Jun 30 09 2:11 PM
Jul 2 09 12:26 PM
Jul 7 09 3:04 PM
Jul 7 09 4:26 PM
Jul 7 09 4:45 PM
Ted Newsom wrote: Danforth was never involved in the deLaurentiis project, so he never "admitted" to it. Look into the history just a bit deeper and you'll discover that at the time there were TWO rival Kong projects, one via Paramount and one via Universal. Joseph Sargent was, I believe, slated to direct the Universal version, with Peter Falk as a rather severe Carl Denham (or Denham-type), in a 1930s period version rather than a modern update. The effects were to have been primarily stop motion. Since there was some question of whether the rights to the Delos Lovelace novelization and the story rights to the RKO film were separate, incidents which were only in the latter were off-limits; alternate action sequences & alternate dinosaurs were to be done instead. Eventualyl Universal decided to kill their project and settle with Paramount, letting the latter buy out any rights to the novel Universal had.
Jul 7 09 5:27 PM
Rakshasa wrote: The photo on the right was actually in Time Magazine (believe it or not). I was nine years old when that issue came out in 1976 and I sure couldn't believe it!
I first saw that issue of Time and this picture at a Cub Scout meeting when I was about 8 years old. The article on King Kong obviously attracted a lot of attention from kids that age. I swear, The Flash would have been envious at the lightning speed at which the den mother swooped in to confiscate the magazine and save our young, impressionable minds from the permanent trauma that image might cause. Alas, she was too late.
It seems like the Universal version would probably been a lot better.
Jul 7 09 7:51 PM
Count Brickenstein wrote: Rakshasa wrote: The photo on the right was actually in Time Magazine (believe it or not). I was nine years old when that issue came out in 1976 and I sure couldn't believe it! I first saw that issue of Time and this picture at a Cub Scout meeting when I was about 8 years old. The article on King Kong obviously attracted a lot of attention from kids that age. I swear, The Flash would have been envious at the lightning speed at which the den mother swooped in to confiscate the magazine and save our young, impressionable minds from the permanent trauma that image might cause. Alas, she was too late. It seems like the Universal version would probably been a lot better. Not if you believe what Bob Burns had to say about it. He stated that he did a screen test for the part and that Universal ultimately wanted to go for the man-in-the-suit approach, even going so far as to use a midget in an ape suit for long shots. He hinted that the Paramount version was the superior of the two (as sad as that may seem).
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