Do you think King Kong (2005) is a masterpiece?

[Fancyarcher 350]

No, but I do like the movie a lot, and think that a lot of the additions that Jackson and co added were really good. I just wish the movie wasn't so indulgent and three hours long. A good forty minutes could have been trimmed at least. JNH's score on the other hand is just excellent.

 

I have fond memories of seeing the film in the theater with my family in 2005, too, which probably helps to add to my enjoyment of the film. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

And then he got cute and made an extended edition! Sheesh!

[Mephariel 451]

1. No

 

2. No

 

3. No

[publicist 4,643]

8 hours ago, crocodile said:

No, no and no. However, I do like the film for the most part and the score as well.

 

This.

[GerateWohl 4,357]

I think, the movie would have been better if they had hired an actor instead ofJack Black.

Still I like it.

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

I did a mass analysis of 2,000+ film critics to find those most similar to my tastes. Easy with computers. The strongest contender loves/dislikes all kinds of movies I love/dislike. Turns out he thinks King Kong (2005) is the most perfect movie made... Just goes to show how subjective it all is.

 

I will only use critics if one day people require me to go to the theater and pick out a movie.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,516]

Short answer?

No, no, and, indeed no.

The film is far too long (I know of someone who had their terminal event while watching the extended version), the silly lead blonde woman, whatever her name is - literally - can't keep her mouth closed, obvious toy town "special" effects, a hackneyed script, C grade performances: it really is a terrible piece of work.

It seems to be the sort of film that Jackson made because he could have and not because he should have. It's a vanity project of enormous amplitude. The only question is: which is worse? 3hrs. of festering turd Kong, or 12hrs. of festering turd Hobbit?

 

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

Mmm festering turd. You're starting to sound convincing.

 

This really shows Lucas is indeed a better director than Jackass I mean Jackson. Star Wars > LoTR. SW prequels > really obviously better than anything 

 

 

The question now is who's better, old Lucas or new Lucas?

 

 

[Thor 7,495]

By no means a masterpiece, but a pretty good film. Love the 'bug' sequence, in particular. Same applies for score. Would probably make my top 10 of 2005 if I were to make a list.

 

I have a nostalgic connection to the 76 movie, because I rented it on VHS/Moviebox for a birthday of mine in the late 80s, but it's a rather dusty affair. The 33 version has mostly academic value. So it's a toss-up between Jackson's movie and the more recent one. Ultimately, though, I'd say Jackson's is the best KONG movie of all time.

 

And for those of you who claim he's "lost his touch", have you seen the superb documentary THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD? It's one of the very best films from two years ago.

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

7 minutes ago, Thor said:

And for those of you who claim he's "lost his touch", have you seen the superb documentary THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD? 

 

No, I haven't.

[Jurassic Shark 12,067]

Nothing beats seeing the original Kong in theatres on premiere day back in '33.

[Chen G. 3,949]

16 minutes ago, Thor said:

And for those of you who claim he's "lost his touch", have you seen the superb documentary THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD? It's one of the very best films from two years ago.

 

Its very good.

 

I don't think directors really lose their touch (M. Night Shaymalan notwithstanding). I just think working in the creative fields yields anything but consistent results: one day you do something brilliant, the other day a stinker. That's the nature of creativity.

 

Kong is neither.

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

18 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Nothing beats seeing the original Kong in theatres on premiere day back in '33.

 

I loved the adult film 1993 remake, King Dong: Lost on Adventure Island. Really underrated casting and screenplay.

[Jurassic Shark 12,067]

Sounds like an episode of Lost.

[Thor 7,495]

22 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

I don't think directors really lose their touch (M. Night Shaymalan notwithstanding).

 

He may have lost it for a period time, but made an amazing comeback with THE VISIT in 2015. SPLIT was excellent too, as are the TV series WAYWARD PINES and especially SERVANT. So he's back to form!

[Arpy 4,145]

I haven't seen this film in a long time, mainly because it's four fricken hours long. I don't think it's a masterpiece but it definitely ain't the steaming pile of Kong shit I've seen woke critics and buzzfeed journalists claim it is. I loved it back when I saw it in theaters, I think we were all jazzed to see (what was at the time) an amazing CGI creation Kong was and I remember being so confident in PJ after LotR and was so compelled by the trailer. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,067]

It's got overlong action sequences and some very weak CGI (dinusaur stampede).

[Chen G. 3,949]

The length of the action sequences doesn't seem to be the problem of the movie.

 

It just needed to be a bit more economical all around, especially in the beginning. Jackson himself admits this.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,516]

2 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Nothing beats seeing the original Kong in theatres on premiere day back in '33.

You've never experienced KING KONG until you've seen it in the original Klingon.

[Jurassic Shark 12,067]

1 minute ago, Chen G. said:

The length of the action sequences doesn't seem to be the problem of a movie.

 

It just needed to be a bit more economical all around. Jackson himself admits this.

 

Sure, it's Jackson's tendency of excess in full bloom after getting more and more apparent during the LotR trilogy.

 

I'd see a cut-down version with updated CGI.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

[Arpy 4,145]

I can't tell who's the ape in that scene.

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

That monkey looks like he's trying to help those gentlemen.

 

I bet if TV had smells, we wouldn't ever watch this scene. 

[Chen G. 3,949]

37 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I'd see a cut-down version with updated CGI.

 

Jackson proposed to make a shorter version for the film's 20th anniversary.

[Jurassic Shark 12,067]

Do it!

[Bilbo 3,709]

2 hours ago, Thor said:

And for those of you who claim he's "lost his touch", have you seen the superb documentary THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD? It's one of the very best films from two years ago.

It absolutely is and his Beatles film looks like it’ll be another winner.

 

I’d like to see him do more of this type of stuff. I’d love for him to do a WWII doc on the scale of The World at War but with the current technology. 
 

But first he must remake The Dambusters! 

[bollemanneke 3,343]

No, no and no. The movie is too long and the best theme of the score disappears senselessly.

[Chen G. 3,949]

15 minutes ago, Bilbo said:

But first he must remake The Dambusters! 

 

I believe that's been relegated for Christian Rivers to direct.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,516]

2 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

No, no and no. The movie is too long and the best theme of the score disappears senselessly.

You take that back! That's no way to talk about THE DAMBUSTERS!

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

How loud do you reckon King Kong's farts would be?

[GerateWohl 4,357]

The fight with the T-Rexes might be long but it is to my mind the best monster against monster fight scene ever.

[Edmilson 7,436]

Precisely. That scene is well directed by Jackson and has a great score. Puts to shame other monster fights like the T-Rex vs the Indominus from Jurassic World.

[KK 3,307]

8 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

It seems to be the sort of film that Jackson made because he could have and not because he should have. It's a vanity project of enormous amplitude. The only question is: which is worse? 3hrs. of festering turd Kong, or 12hrs. of festering turd Hobbit?

 

 

Easily 12 hours of festering turd Hobbit! Not even close.

[Richard Penna 3,686]

It's a decent film - just needs some serious trimming. I think that after LotR, the suits decided PJ could make a movie as long as he wanted.

 

JNH's score works great in the film, although I don't think so much in complete form on album. I'd go as far as to say that the album is one of the best-formed listening experiences of any score I've heard in recent years. It's well-paced and doesn't omit any major bits.

[Chen G. 3,949]

20 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

It's a decent film - just needs some serious trimming. I think that after LotR, the suits decided PJ could make a movie as long as he wanted.

 

According to Jackson in 2013:

 

Quote

 I recall we were very rushed in postproduction, and we really needed to get 15 or 20 minutes out of the first two-thirds of the film. We needed to tighten it a bit, but we could never figure out a way to do it in the time we had. So it’s a wee bit long, but I’m still very proud of it.

 

And in 2019:

 

Quote

We were in LA and I switched the channels and it was on, and I just watched [...] I wanted to recut that film so badly; it should have been half an hour shorter. [...] I actually sent Universal a note, "If you ever want to do a 20th anniversary version, DVD or Blu-ray, then I'll give you a shorter cut."

 

- Ian Nathan, Anything You Can Imagine: Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle Earth (HarperCollins: London, 2018), p. 870.

 

He elaborates on this in his Exeter lecture, putting this LA hotel viewing of the movie at 2015. So he already had a sense of the movie being too long even before he got to rewatch it. He also suggests that he and Dame Frances Walsh were unanimous on the need to have the film recut.

[LSH 968]

Not a single aspect of Peter Jackson's King Kong can be considered a masterpiece, surely? The score is good. Very good, even. I'm one of James Newton Howard's biggest defendants and he did an excellent job.

 

The film however is an overblown mess. I admit, I quite enjoyed it first time round in the cinema 15 years ago (when, incidentally, I was also aged 15) but on further viewings I can now see it for the mammoth fountain of toss that it is. There simply isn't space here to list everything wrong with it.

 

It's the fattest, most swaggering, numb-headed and pointless assault on the senses it's possible to imagine. What I can't understand is why I enjoyed it first time round. I suspect it was something to do with my state of mind at the time. I'd been Christmas shopping in a particularly miserable shopping mall - one of those modern ones consisting entirely of shiny floors and echoes, Apple stores and Nando's. I was thoroughly sick of it, and by extension, of life itself.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Despite my earlier negativity, I do really enjoy the movie from a visual standpoint.  It stands as the ultimate expression of the particular visual look that PJ and Weta created in the late 90s to 2005.  That specific style of set design/decoration with models and CG that you can see in LOTR and Kong that no movie has quite looked like since, certainly not the Hobbits.  I have so much nostalgia for that distinct blend that marks Kong.

[LSH 968]

I don't actually think the visual effects have aged that well at all.... apart from the New York sequences. The set extensions and the final aerial stuff over the city still look pretty impressive to be honest. Kong himself still looks good too.

 

The rest is looking kinda cruddy now. Especially the boat stuff.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

 

As you can see, the ride is way cooler than the movie. It's like going from Algebra class to doing coke and banging the hottest chick at the school.

[Datameister 2,042]

Long live the original King Kong Encounter! And Kongfrontation. Never got to experience that one in person but I can tell I would have enjoyed it. RIP. I do enjoy the PJ 3D attractions too, but for some reason the HFR doesn't look that great to me.

 

God damn, I miss theme parks in the "before times."

[Tom 4,654]

To the questions asked: no, no, no.  Many remakes are better, but I would vote 10 Commandments as the greatest remake ever.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

[KK 3,307]

1 hour ago, Disco Stu said:

That specific style of set design/decoration with models and CG that you can see in LOTR and Kong that no movie has quite looked like since, certainly not the Hobbits.  I have so much nostalgia for that distinct blend that marks Kong.

 

This is indeed sadly a lost art. I think LOTR and Coppola's Dracula are that last truly authoritative examples of all the tools of the trade operating at its peak in big budget cinema. 

 

There are just too many convenient "outs" that have replaced that kind of thinking and craftsmanship.

 

1 hour ago, LSH said:

I don't actually think the visual effects have aged that well at all.... apart from the New York sequences. The set extensions and the final aerial stuff over the city still look pretty impressive to be honest. Kong himself still looks good too.

 

The rest is looking kinda cruddy now. Especially the boat stuff.

 

It's been years since I've seen the film. But last I remember, all the New York stuff is still quite potent and compelling, and in large part thanks to JNH I think.

[LSH 968]

15 minutes ago, KK said:

It's been years since I've seen the film. But last I remember, all the New York stuff is still quite potent and compelling, and in large part thanks to JNH I think.

 

Well, I meant visually. The music that accompanies the last act in New York is top notch though. Some of JNH's best action music, in my opinion.

[Datameister 2,042]

24 minutes ago, KK said:

 

This is indeed sadly a lost art. I think LOTR and Coppola's Dracula are that last truly authoritative examples of all the tools of the trade operating at its peak in big budget cinema. 

 

There are just too many convenient "outs" that have replaced that kind of thinking and craftsmanship.

 

I mourn the decline of practical effects, but I don't share your view on the loss of thinking and craftsmanship. Working digitally still requires hard work and a tremendous degree of technical and artistic mastery; it just doesn't always have the same tangible "realness" that you get automatically with miniatures and so forth. That's a limitation of the tools, not a product of filmmakers taking an easy way out. Cheaper, in some cases, sure, but not easier. Perhaps more flexible.

 

Again, though, I wish practical effects were being used more alongside appropriate CG. The two can complement each other very, very well.

[KK 3,307]

23 minutes ago, Datameister said:

 

I mourn the decline of practical effects, but I don't share your view on the loss of thinking and craftsmanship. Working digitally still requires hard work and a tremendous degree of technical and artistic mastery; it just doesn't always have the same tangible "realness" that you get automatically with miniatures and so forth. That's a limitation of the tools, not a product of filmmakers taking an easy way out. Cheaper, in some cases, sure, but not easier. Perhaps more flexible.

 

Again, though, I wish practical effects were being used more alongside appropriate CG. The two can complement each other very, very well.

 

No, you're right. I don't mean to diminish the work being done on the digital front of the industry. But I think so much of is motivated by the appeal of technological advancement rather than what serves the film specifically.

 

Take for instance a film like Black Panther. On a design front, there's actually a lot of interesting ideas in there around what an Afro-futuristic aesthetic looks like. But most of it just looks like plastic (like all Marvel films), so few of those ideas and colours really translate.

 

I think I get annoyed about it all because of your last point. Because with all the tools at filmmakers' disposal these days, there is so much potential in how practical effects and CG can meet and heighten each other. There are obviously directors doing this in their own way (ex. Nolan, Villeneuve, Miller, etc), but too few and far between.

[Datameister 2,042]

10 minutes ago, KK said:

 

No, you're right. I don't mean to diminish the work being done on the digital front of the industry. But I think so much of is motivated by the appeal of technological advancement rather than what serves the film specifically.

 

Take for instance a film like Black Panther. On a design front, there's actually a lot of interesting ideas in there around what an Afro-futuristic aesthetic looks like. But most of it just looks like plastic (like all Marvel films), so few of those ideas and colours really stick.

 

I think I get annoyed about it all because of your last point. Because with all the tools at filmmakers' disposal these days, there is so much potential in how practical effects and CG can meet and heighten each other. There are obviously directors doing this in their own way (ex. Nolan, Miller, etc), but too few and far between.

 

Agreed 100% on all points!

[LSH 968]

Let's not forget that, despite all the wizardry and super magic tools at the disposal of talented visual effects artists.... at the end of the day it all comes down to money and time.

 

The laughable visual effects in Black Panther came about not because of the skills of the CGI personnel involved but the time contraints. 

 

Visual effects artists nowadays are capable of stuff beyond magic. But it costs money, and time.  Sometimes productions get everything right logistically, with no hiccups (some of the lower budget films seem to get this balance right more than most these days).  

[scallenger 483]

This film is not a masterpiece (the original is in comparison to this, and for PJ personally Lord of the Rings will always be his masterpiece and best work), but it is an awesome film! I saw it a bunch of times in the theater and it was amazing each time... especially seeing that T-Rex fight, holy crap. My excitement for this film was INSANE, and it came out right after I got out of High School. So I think I was at a great age for it. The score, like the film, is not a masterpiece to me but it is one of my favorite JNH scores. Both film and score are, as most people say, just too dragged out. Oddly enough, for me it doesn't drag in the beginning... it drags in the final act. I don't know WHAT it is, but after the Rex fight... the movie just loses all steam for me. I can't quite explain it. I still enjoy it, but something about it feels... like maybe it took itself too seriously? This is also why it isn't the best remake ever, but despite those issues I do think it is VERY close. How many remakes can so lovingly pay homage to the original every chance it gets? It doesn't ever try to trash the original or forget about it like so many remakes, but it just embraces it so much. I don't see how one can't at least admire that aspect about the film.

 

Honestly though, what I remember THE MOST about King Kong 2005 were the production diaries as it was being made. It was I think the first of its kind really, or one of the first. They uploaded a 5 minute or so segment every week I believe that it was filming, and each one would focus on a different aspect of filmmaking, or something they just wanted to generally show off what they were filming that day and tease you. And they would even have some really fun and goofy episodes where they just ran around and had fun, and even added (cheap and quick) sfx to them haha. In 2005, this kind of access to a film before it even came out was incredible. And honestly... I sort of enjoy rewatching them more than the film! It was great to see what looked and felt at times to be a natural bond of the cast and crew working together or at least being able to have fun and it was just infectious. It eventually became "post-production diaries" counting down the weeks to go until the film came out, which felt even MORE exciting at the time of course... and you could definitely see the pressure everyone faced, especially PJ. And honestly, by the time the final episode happened... there truly was a sad feeling that it was all over. It was probably the closest one could feel to how everyone who actually works on a film feels when the movie is wrapped, released... and you move on. Very bittersweet.

 

And also... those diaries were educational as hell! There are a ton of good "making of" documentaries that have been made on films over the years (a truly dying art, it appears), but I still think I learned the most from this one. I mean, it even has an episode on the damn clapperboard! LOL. It goes into every nook and cranny you could imagine, and even not, in making a big blockbuster-style film. I'm sure much of it is still the same process today, except obviously on some of the more technical SFX levels. And getting this process taught to you in a sort of real-time way was just so cool. You always had that feeling of "oh wow, and they JUST did that!".

 

So yeah... I don't think I have ever been more happy that a film was made so I could see HOW it was made. I don't know if it would feel as special for someone new to watch it today, but for those of us who eagerly awaited those diaries like I did, it almost feels like you're part of that special group who went through a whole experience together. And side note: PJ and his crew also worked on the "making of" docs for the original King Kong, and I will NEVER forget how freaking excited I was to see them having recreated the STOP MOTION lost spider-pit sequence! Maybe this remake was a farce by PJ just so he could also get funding to have made that, too!

 

EDIT: I will also echo that the Kong ride (in Orlando moreso than Hollywood) is quite amazing, if just for that final animatronic! WOW! Having been on the ride in-person (thankfully in 2019 before the pandemic), the comments made about it in this thread aren't wrong. I don't know why, apparently, people were disappointed by it? It was better than I expected. Hell, even just the queue!

[LSH 968]

I'm sure you have some good points to make but I'm not reading all of that.