ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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This is an enjoyable video in which an actual palenontologiest examines the dinosaurs in many Hollywood productions.

I'm going to post this in other movies which feature dinosaurs.

___ Paleontologist Reviews Dinosaur Movie Scenes


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

When I first saw Peter Jackon’s remake of King Kong, I was shocked by just how embarrassingly bad it was. I mean, Ann Darrow gets to ride on the back of her pet giant gorilla as he slides on his belly across a frozen pond in Central Park!

How quaint.

Never mind the fact that a frozen pond in New York city couldn’t possibly support the weight of a giant ape. And the NYPD would have converged on the scene and gunned down the monster which had just killed numerous people in the streets a short time earlier!

Then, of course, there’s the sappy scenes when Ann Darrow stood in front of Kong on top of the Empire State Building and begged the airplanes not to kill her big hairy boyfriend.

I literally slunk down in my theater seat and hoped nobody with any intelligence saw me watching such a moronic movie.

Okay, guys . . . so here’s the remake that Peter Jackson should have made.
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The Skull Island scenes are pretty much as they are in the original, but then some new things happen!

Carl Denham gases Kong on the beach and then radios a request for several more ships to come to Skull Island. They will be used to transport a valuable cargo worth millions of dollars back to America.



While waiting for his fleet to arrive, Denham keeps Kong sedated with perioidic doses from the gas bombs.

Now, if that sound implausible, consider this.

In the 1933 movie, Carl Denham somehow managed to keep Kong sedated long enough to build a giant raft on the beach —

— then load Kong onto it (somehow), and —

— tow him out to the ship —

— then load him into the cargo hold —

— and take him to New York —

— where he unloads the giant ape at the docks without anybody seeing Kong and telling the newspapers —

— after which Kong is moved from the dock to a downtown theater and chained up on stage . . . in a standing position!

Now . . . if we can accept all that and still enjoy the classic original, I think we should be able to enjoy a remake that shows a somewhat more realistic version which makes the whole concept a bit more believable.
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And so, when several cargo ships arrive at Skull Island with all the facilities needed to do everything I described above (and a lot more), Denham concocts a clever plan to capture and bring back a T-Rex and a stegosaurus.

How does he do this? Simple!

He baits the dinosaurs to come in through the gate with the big doors, then his men gas ‘em, the way they did with Kong.





During this operation, they also manage to bring down a pterodactyl which attacks the village by gassing it as well



And so, the fleet of ships heads back to New York with its treasure trove of prehistoric beast — as well as Kong, The 8th Wonder of the Word!

Guys, I’m sure you can guess where I’m going with this.

Kong and the dinosaurs are displayed in Yankee Stadium — just as O’Brien originally planned.



But the T-Rex gets loose and terrifies the other dinos, causing them to break free. Kong is threatened by the T-Rex too, and he too breaks free to battle the T-Rex!

The T-Rex takes a beating and flees from the stadium, crashing through the gate and opening the way for the stegosaurus to escape as well.

On the way out they collide with the cage holding the pterodactyl, and it soars out over New York!

As Kong is escaping from the stadium, he sees Ann Darrow among the celebraties on field when the all flee, and he grabs her before climbing out of the stadium and rampaging through the streets of New York.

But the T-Rex is itching for a rematch, and when it spots Kong the T-Rex attacks him again. Kong places Ann atop the marquee in front of the Regal Cinema, and then battles it out with the R-Rex.

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Kong again defeats the Tyranasaurus Rex and leaves it lying dead in the street, blocking traffic as Kong goes back to retrieve Ann Darrow.

Meanwhile we see the stegosaurus being gunned down by the NYC police . . . causing more traffic jams in the Big Apple!

The scene cuts to Kong, desperately fleeing from the cops while he cuddles Ann to his chest to protect her. He looks up at the Empire State Building and begins climbing it to save himself and his little Barbie Doll.

We all know what comes next. The biplanes are dispatched to gun down Kong.

But what this version includes that new is sudden appearance of the escaped pterodactyl when it swoops in on the biplanes as they approach Kong! The dumb pterosaur thinks the planes are a smaller species, and it attackes them, hoping to snatch an easy meal!

However, the biplanes engage in a dramatic dogfight with the pterodactyl and succeed in sending it plummeting down on the street below — but not before the pterosaurs grabs one of the planes from above and yanks the pilot out, sending him plummeting the street below.

And now it’s time for the biplanes to focus their attack on Kong. The Peter Jackon movie does a fine job of this scene — minus the silly scenes of the misguided woman shouting at the planes.
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And that. folks, is what I would have done with a multi-million dollar remake of King Kong — instead of Peter Jackson’s bloated and embarrassing soap opera.

I rest my case . . .
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[scotpens]

[Bud Brewster]

[WadeVC]

[Bud Brewster]

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Today it occurred to that the two biggest problems with this highly flawed movie could be fixed with one skillfully applied action.

The aforementioned flaws are —

(1) an over-abundance of sappy scenes which show Ann Darrow's character acting like Kong's devoted lover, and —

(2) the fact that the movie is just too freakin' long!

The solution to both of these problems is obvious!

We need to simply amputate all the scenes which show Ann Darrow acting like a high school prom queen who's in love Kong like he's the captain of the varsity football team!


I mean . . . damn . . . what was Jackson thinking.

And for God's sake, lose that sappy crap when Ann and Kong go "ice skating" on a pond in Central Park!

Hell's bells, does any sane person really believe that a thinly iced-over pond in New York City could support the weight of a giant ape when he repeatedly belly-flopped onto it!

And for God's sake, I wish somebody would put the axe to all those embarrassing shots of Ann Darrow on top of the Empire State Building, acting like a complete moron by screaming at the airplanes that were attacking Kong!

Seriously, did she actually think the pilots would hear her useless pleas to spare the life of a monster who had rampaged down the New York street outside theater he'd crashed out of?

After all, Kong lumbered down the avenue while snatching up several poor blond women — and then tossing the terrified girls over his shoulder because they weren't the "love of his life"?

And while we're on the subject of the much-needed edits, I think that several scenes back on the island need to go.

For example, the astounding sequence which showed an acrobatic ape and several trapeze-trained T-Rex demonstrate too many skills worthy of the Barnum-and-Baily circus.

The entire scene was masterfully done, of course — but our suspension-of-disbelief suffered frequent blows while Ann Darrow was tossed around so often that every bone in her body should have been broken!

And finally there this — and I'm not sure how this problem could be fixed with simple editing.

Why the hell did Peter Jackson split the heroic character of
Jack Driscoll into both a Beverly Hills weenie and nerdy screenwriter?

Even worse is way Jack Black's portrayal of Carl Denham seemed like a sequel to his comedy, Shallow Hal!

Guys, I wonder if there's a fan-edit of this lousy movie that made some of the changes I've suggested. It there is . . . I'd love to see it.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)