Jump to content

Howard Shore's King Kong


Recommended Posts

6 hours ago, gkgyver said:

What? The ending to Kong was ruined with Denham's comically over the top line "beauty killed the beast". The movie is an overlong mess.


I wouldn’t quite say that, but what is true is that Jackson turned Kong into a tragedy, and while its good, its not as earned as in The Hobbit.

 

There are two tragic threads in Kong: Denham “destroying the things he loves” and Kong dying before Ann’s eyes. But the latter is only tragic in that the character dies: neither Kong nor Ann bring this fate upon themselves through their actions, which is the whole point of tragedy. Like Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, they’re not tragic character, per se: they’ve just been placed in a tragic situation.

 

Denham is closer to the tragic, Aristotelian mould, but because he’s so nutty and consumed by his own ambition from the very beginning, there’s little by way of sense of a tragic fall about him. Reminds me of the girls in Heavenly Creatures in a way, or how Jackson introduces us to Denethor as an already power-hungry individual.
 

What’s more, when Kong dies the movie just...ends. Even tragedies usually have a denouement of some kind. Although the film is already so long that it’s hard to complain too much.

 

By comparison, Thorin’s death is classically tragic because it is the result of his own actions, which stem from his tragic fall; and we receive a wonderful denouement that doesn’t diminish the tragedy more than it has to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Jim Ware said:

 

There is a bootleg circulating which is entirely comprised of cues from John Frizzell's Primeval. 

 

I checked. Damn you are exactly right. I compared against the Primeval score on youtube and it is exactly that.

 

So then on which tracks in this album are from King Kong?

 

https://www.amazon.com/Palace-Upon-Ruins-Selected-Works/dp/B01MA5J2B9

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In my opinion, King Kong was leagues better than any part of The Hobbit.  Boiled down, The Hobbit only had two positives - Shore and nostalgia for the better earlier movies (which may even have been the trilogy's undoing - a good adaptation of The Hobbit would be incredibly tonally different than Jackson's LOTR.  Hopefully someday whoever does it next will lean into that). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Chen G. said:

By comparison, Thorin’s death is classically tragic because it is the result of his own actions, which stem from his tragic fall; and we receive a wonderful denouement that doesn’t diminish the tragedy more than it has to.

 

That may all well be. And yet, I well up when I see Ann look into Kong's eyes for the last time and feel absolutely nothing when Thorin finally leaves the picture.

 

23 minutes ago, mstrox said:

In my opinion, King Kong was leagues better than any part of The Hobbit.  Boiled down, The Hobbit only had two positives - Shore and nostalgia for the better earlier movies (which may even have been the trilogy's undoing - a good adaptation of The Hobbit would be incredibly tonally different than Jackson's LOTR.  Hopefully someday whoever does it next will lean into that). 

 

PJ knew he had a trainwreck on his hands well into production before the first film was even out. The great tragedy is that knowing this, he just had to ride through it.

 

It's a real shame Del Toro never got to stay on. Though ultimately, that seemed to pay off for him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, KK said:

That may all well be. And yet, I well up when I see Ann look into Kong's eyes for the last time and feel absolutely nothing when Thorin finally leaves the picture.


I feel for both, which is why - for all the issues - I do like King Kong. But I feel more for Thorin, throughout.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Throughout The Hobbit trilogy there are moments that shine, enough of them that I probably couldn't count them all off the top my head just now. What I mean is a really good Hobbit movie already exists, in amongst all that messy eye gouging excess. But if PJ was so inclined he could tear all the original film footage down, rinse all that vile colour grading out of it, delete characters wholesale, gut the stupidly long and overly elaborate action sequences to within an inch of their lives, and then carefully piece back together what is left into something much more effective, palatable and just better. But 1, he ain't interested and 2, he doesn't have the raw vision and filmic grasp he once had anyway. It's all there though, if he suddenly had a mind to do it. Those films needn't have been anywhere near as bad as they were. There's plenty of content in existence to make a fine version of Tolkien's The Hobbit.

 

That'll always be the frustration of it with me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess I understand what Jackson tried to do with his Kong movie. If on LOTR he was informed by the classic epic war movies of both his era and previous ages of cinema, on Kong he was inspired by the classic epic/tragic love stories of the past. 

 

My theory is that with Kong he tried to do a Gone with the Wind, Doctor Zhivago or Titanic type of romance, but between a lady and a giant ape (!), and mixing it with its own sense of pulpy adventure.

 

The movie is too silly to be a Titanic-like love story, and too serious to be a fun adventure on which peple escape from dinosaurs and a giant gorilla battles three T-Rexes. I guess that explains why the movie is so controversial until this day, and why its box office was less than any of the Middle Earth movies. Kong Skull Island isn't a great movie by any means, but at least it stayed truth to its purpose of just being silly and goofy, instead of trying to win 11 Oscars again.

 

That said, I myself like AUJ more than Kong. However, I prefer the giant monkey over DOS and BOTFA any day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, Quintus said:

You'll get no arguments from me on that. I think definitely think Armitage is a weak link.

 

Indeed. Talk about stale rage...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The failure of the Hobbit movies is the very idea of them.

 

 The moment they became “movies”, they died. It is a single slim volume aimed at kids 9 to 11. Why the fuck would it need to be 9 hours?

 

It needed to be a single 3 hour film. When they said, it was going to be two parts, I recoiled in disgust because I thought why is this 2 movies. Imagine my horror when they converted it into a trilogy partway through the production.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It may be slim but it's tightly packed and a lot is happening. 2 big movies like it was planned would have been perfectly satisfactory without achingly cutting any episodes out, and some necessary restructuring they did get right like introducing Bard earlier instead of pulling him out of nowhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Holko said:

It may be slim but it's tightly packed and a lot is happening. 2 big movies like it was planned would have been perfectly satisfactory without achingly cutting any episodes out, and some necessary restructuring they did get right like introducing Bard earlier instead of pulling him out of nowhere.

 

I think it would work best a breakneck speed matinee adventure, essentially a comical accruing of perils large and small.

 

The tone that Jackson adopted was completely wrong.

 

The film should have been funny and ridiculous - in a good way. Not the lumbering portentous solemn epic n nonsense that PJ put up.

 

It shows PJ as a failed one trick pony. He lacks a light touch. And with the Lotr trilogy in the rearview mirror, aging indifferently in the general counsiousness, I don't even know what PJ's reputation should be today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All fair, but assuming that PJ was the only one who wanted or expected the Hobbit films to mirror the tone and form of LOTR would be naive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/26/2020 at 11:53 AM, Doug Adams said:

 

The dinosaur stampede was scored and recorded. I believe it was the only island sequence that had enough footage ready at the time ... and even then, it was a significantly different effort. Still, it exists!

 

Any chance Shore's score could be released in the near future, @Doug Adams ??

 

Having it alongside JNH's fantastic score would be wonderful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 9 months later...
On 2/25/2020 at 9:36 PM, gkgyver said:

 

What? The ending to Kong was ruined with Denham's comically over the top line "beauty killed the beast". The movie is an overlong mess. 

There are plenty of iconic moments in the Hobbit films. 

There's a video where Jackson explains he'd intended it to be an old woman who says is... intended to be played by  Faye Wray. But she passed away just before filming began. So it sounds like the decision to use Denham is... almost a "well, we had to use someone."
 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, GoodMusician said:

There's a video where Jackson explains he'd intended it to be an old woman who says is... intended to be played by  Faye Wray. But she passed away just before filming began. So it sounds like the decision to use Denham is... almost a "well, we had to use someone."
 

 

 

That's even worse. How would a random old woman know the story of a giant ape?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

So, apparently, some cues from Shore leaked on certain websites. 

 

And it's not great.

 

There's a lot of electronics mixed with some highly dissonant and harsh action music for orchestra. It sounds like a blockbuster score from the 2010s, not 2005. The leak didn't include the music for the softer, more romantic scenes, so I don't know if Shore recorded them. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're probably hearing John Frizzell's score to Primeval, a promo for which has been passed around for Shore's rejected score for years.

 

https://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/14248-myth-or-fact-there-is-a-howard-shores-king-kong-bootleg-out-there

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't believe that after 16 years, this Primeval hoax is still a thing. 

 

How about a revival of "Back To The Future by John Williams"? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, gkgyver said:

I can't believe that after 16 years, this Primeval hoax is still a thing. 

 

How about a revival of "Back To The Future by John Williams"? 

 

Didn't John Williams also do Batman?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

"...Jackson turned KONG into a tragedy"

 

".... on LOTR he was informed by the classic epic war movies of both his era and previous ages of cinema, on Kong he was inspired by the classic epic/tragic love story....."

 

 

 

He ripped off both elements from Loerenzo Semple's screenplay for KING KONG , directed by John Guillerman

Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, The Big Man said:

Films

 

Score's okay I guess, but I'd never wanna slog through all that

The radio station that plays film music has a few cues on their playlist.

That's all I know of the series but it's good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

I didn't find the answers reading back through this thread:

 

Do we know if Shore performed any of this music in concert at any point?

 

And where can we find the material he re-worked from the score that has been released so far? Which tracks specifically please, if any one knows.

 

 

 

This is easily my most wanted rejected score release and I don't think we should ever stop talking about what a crime it is we haven't heard it yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, blondheim said:

I didn't find the answers reading back through this thread:

 

Do we know if Shore performed any of this music in concert at any point?

 

And where can we find the material he re-worked from the score that has been released so far? Which tracks specifically please, if any one knows.

 

 

 

This is easily my most wanted rejected score release and I don't think we should ever stop talking about what a crime it is we haven't heard it yet.

http://www.howardshore.com/a-palace-upon-the-ruins-selected-works/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.