When it comes to fairy tales, perhaps the one that is examined and reexamined the most is the legend of Beauty and the Beast. Whether it’s in the 1980 fantasy-romance-crime drama TV series, the 1992 Disney movie, the story of a woman finding the humanity inside that which is considered “Other”, is heartwarming to many. Deep down we all long to find that person who can look past our own perceived beastly exterior, and find our humanity. Even if not finding our humanity, that this person may at least look inside and find something sweeter and more lovable.
Thus, it stands to reason that it is for this reason that this narrative is so explored in other narrative styles from comic books to fantasy films. From Betty Ross with the Incredible Hulk, Kim Boggs with Edward Scissorhands, or Jean Grey with Wolverine, these retellings tap into our deep longing for connection, belonging and friendship. Yet there is also a tinge of tragedy to these stories, as very often the beast and the beauty cannot be together.
Perhaps the greatest example of the tragedy of a “Beauty and the Beast” narrative comes in the iconic form of a giant gorilla scaling the Empire State Building battling biplanes as he clutches a beautiful woman in his hands. On surface level, we would be inclined to cheer for the pilots, hoping they can rescue the woman from the monster’s clutches. Certainly, small children may be inclined to think as much, seeing only a monster attacking a city, and in our deepest memories, of course the pilots rescuing the damsel are the heroes of the story.
However, to everyone who has watched this movie, really watched, it knows there is something much deeper at the surface as this gorilla was not actually trying to harm the woman and in fact he harbored a deep love for her. Thus, at the end, as he falls to his death, the man who tried to present this ape to the world as a Sideshow Spectacle, is forced to bemoan his passing, declaring at the end of the film,
“Twas not the planes that fell him. It was beauty that killed the beast.”
From then on, this great gorilla, known better by King Kong would become one of the most beloved icons in cinema history. Ignore for a moment how stunning, even by the standards of today, how incredible the special effects of his story are. Kong, the true king of all beast’s commands respect in a way few big monsters fully can. Even on his native habitat of Skull Island, he is treated as a god, with sacrifices made to him on routine basses by the inhabitants as they see him as their lord and protector of great threats from beyond.
In many ways the story of King Kong and his domains of Skull Island, and Hollow Earth in the later Legendary MonsterVerse of films descends directly from 19th century adventure novels like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, and Jules Verne novels like The Mysterious Island and The Journey to the Center of the Earth. In Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of King Kong we even see the ships navigation spin out of control as the Venture draws closer to the island, as though this uncharted island had a mysterious power of its own
As Mark Rubinstein notes in “King Kong: A myth for Moderns’ from a Spring 1977 edition of the journal American Imago, prior to the release of the 1977 remake of King Kong,
“Nearly forty years since its release in 1933, the motion picture studios are remaking the film classic King Kong. It may seem odd that a film based upon such fantasy should succeed where many others of a similar genre have faded with little recognition. But King Kong fascinates captures and fascinates us. It is an incomparable masterpiece of the fantastic and a worthy successor to the eighteenth-century fairy tale and the Gothic novel…We are swept up by the film’s events as though by a dream. And, as if in a dream, we become both participants and observers. It is this pervasive oneiric quality that is greatly responsible for the spell that the film casts over adults and children alike.”
After the discovery of the first dinosaur fossil in 1824, the world of pulp adventure novels saw no shortage of tales about daring heroes venturing to the deep jungles of Africa, South America and Asia, hoping to find some remnant of Earth’s ancient past. In the film Kong: Skull Island, the character of Dr. Bill Randa perfectly captures the allure of such a place, and the kinds of discoveries that only became more plausible thanks to modern technology. The Senator to which he pitches his proposal is skeptical at first, dismissing it is being fanciful garbage like the Bermuda Triangle.
Randa is resolute however, as he describes,
“This is a satellite photo of an uncharted island in the South Pacific. It has defied discovery until now. Many civilizations spoke of it in legends. Skull Island. The land where God did not finish creation. It’s notorious for the number of ships and planes that have gone missing there…but we like to think it’s much more than that. I believe there’s an ecosystem out there the likes of which we can’t imagine. And the place to find it is this island. A place where myth and science meet.
It was Kong, however on film who popularized this image of a great creature from the past being brought for to the modern world for cinema goers, conveyed with the same sense of mystery and wonder as any story told around the campfire. This is best captured in Carl Denham’s words to Captain Englehorn in the 1933 original film, delivered in hushed tones in the galley of the Errant Venture as they study the maps and charts,
“Take it easy, Skipper. We’re not going thousands of miles. That’s the island we’re looking for… You won’t find that island on any chart…See, here’s what the island looks like …Here’s a long sandy peninsula. The only possible landing place is through this reef. The rest of the shore-line is sheer precipice, hundreds of feet high. And across the base of that peninsula, cutting it off from the rest of the island, is a wall…Built so long ago that the people who live there now have slipped back, forgotten the high civilization that built it. But it’s as strong today as it was centuries ago. The natives keep that wall in repair. They need it. There’s something on the other side – something they fear…Did you ever hear of — KONG?… Anyway, Monstrous, all-powerful – still living, still holding that island in the grip of deadly fear. Every legend has a basis of truth. I tell you there’s something on that island …”
When they arrive on the island the find this massive gates and witness as natives perform a ritualistic sacrifice in hopes of appeasing Kong by giving to him a virgin. The moment is interrupted when the tribe’s leader sees Denham with his camera recording and they give chase to the crew. However, later in the night, the story’s plot really kicks in as the chieftains arrange to sneak aboard the boat to select the next sacrifice for Kong, the beautiful aspiring actress Ann Darrow.
Jack Driscoll, a sailor, leads an expedition with Denham and some of the sailors to recover her and in the process encounter many prehistoric beasts, and even Kong himself. Then, once Driscoll and Dunne are safe on the other side of the gate, Denham makes the appalling suggestion to sue her as bate to lure Kong out, hoping to make millions of dollars by showing the creature to the world. Then as Kong grows closer both the inhabitants and crew of the errant Venture make a feeble attempt to hold him back. Their efforts, while well-intentioned do nothing and the great ape breaks free, determined to reclaim Anne as his own.
Appropriate Kong’s himself would then go on to inspire others in cinema, from the rugged heroic sailor Jack Driscoll serving as inspiration or the likes of Indiana Jones, and Dr. Alan Grant, and Owen Grady in the Jurassic Park, to a beautiful woman screaming her lungs out as we’ve seen in almost every summer blockbuster since. Further, adventure films since Kong have been shrouded in the same misty quality ever since, slowly urging the viewer through the narrative. Appropriately, the Jurassic Park films feature a direct call back to Kong, as not only would the film The Lost World: Jurassic Park see the T-Rex and his baby brought to the mainland of the Errant Venture, only to wreak havoc, but more to the point in the form of the massive gates in front of the Park that are a complete recreation of the one on Skull Island. Ian Malcolm can’t even help but ask in the first Jurassic Park film if they have King Kong behind those gates.
This in turn not only invokes the same sense of mystery as that of Skull Island but creates the same visual cue. InGen, like the islanders believes that they can contain and control this great creature from Earth’s past. However, it doesn’t take much in either case, be it a love-struck gorilla or an act of industrial sabotage for the illusion of control to be shattered and this great creature to break free.
More importantly, I would contend that it asks the audience a very serious, and frightening question about humanity. In King Kong, Denham refers to the practices of the islanders as “Heathen”, “Pagan” and “Savage” and a similar term is applied in the 1956 Godzilla, King of the Monsters, when a similar sacrifice is conducted for Godzilla. And yet, those ancient people with their seemingly primitive traditions aren’t the only ones making sacrifices to appease what would be identified in a nominally Judeo-Christian worldview as “false gods”. Denham in King Kong is willing to toss Anne Darrow back to Kong and use her as bait to lure out the titanic ape, John Hammond in Jurassic Park is willing to use his own guests and grandchildren as a sacrifice for his park, in the original King Kong vs Godzilla, it’s a pharmaceutical company making the sacrifice to Kong, wanting him to sell their product. In 2018’s Kong: Skull Island, Dr. Bill Randa is willing to not only lie but risk the lives of everyone in his expedition to prove his scientific theories, while Col. Packard is later willing to sacrifice the lives of all of the remaining men under his command to get vengeance on Kong for the death of one soldier, despite Kong having nothing to do directly with the death of the man in question, like Captain Ahab hunting Moby Dick. In 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters Dr. Emma Russell is willing to sacrifice her marriage and even her daughter in an attempt to harness the Titans like Kong and Godzilla to cleanse the Earth of humans. Thus, whether it is at the proverbial altars of Mammon and Moloch through the lens of “Scientific progress”, ‘Revenge”, or “money” for Denham, Hammond or Russell, are these “modern” humans really any better or more enlightened than the indigenous tribes who sacrifice unwed maiden to Kong for dinner? It may lack the pagan rituals, but it is a sacrifice to a false god none the less, one that can never be appeased.
In the film Godzilla vs Kong the conspiracy theorist Bernie even says as much as he carefully sneaks about Apex’s facilities and discovers with his younger friends, Madison Russell and Josh Valentine in the dark, dank, and smelly proving ground where Apex tests a monster killer against other, weaker monsters,
“Well, if there’s a corporate-friendly term for “sacrifice pit,” I’d say we are in it.”
Thus, it could be said that while Denham may dismiss the islander’s practices as “primitive”, they still marvel with tremendous respect at Kong and his power and know he is best left alone, a sense that Denham and other modernists like him appear to otherwise lack. The “unenlightened” pagan understands there are things in this world outside their realm of understanding, things beyond their control, and as such these things should be left alone and undisturbed. For the modernists, however, they believe that by making their own sacrifices, they can take control of that force for themselves, but then in the end, will only reap destruction.
As Sir Peter Jackson said in “Why King Kong Will Make You Cry” for Australian newspaper The Age, prior to the release of his 2005 remake of King Kong,
“He is an example, at the end of the day, of what humans tend to do with the most magnificent specimens of nature and most magnificent examples of the natural world. We tend to find a way to exploit them, denigrate them and make money out of them. It’s something humans have a habit of doing. It’s one of the metaphors of the film. We don’t just feel sad for Kong as an animal. We feel a certain amount of guilt about the way we have ended up doing this to him. It is something we have done many, many times.
Further, in taking Kong from his island and intending to parade him like a side show freak, Denham in turn make him as much another sacrifice to Mammon as he made his crew. As J P Telotte notes in “The Movies as Monster; Seeing in King Kong” from a Summer 1988 issue of The Georgia Review,
“I believe we should recall at this point that Kong is, first of all, a modern, movie-born myth that, unlike the Frankenstein monster or Dracula, was not sired by a long literary or folkloric history. He is a singular movie image that, by his longevity in the public consciousness and his ability to inspire sequels, underscores the power of film. Second, Kongs serves both as a monstrous threat to the status quo and its victim: a menace, but one snatched from an Edenic world and then sacrificed by society. This dual view, with its challenge to our sympathies, is common in such films. We need only think of the wolfman/werewolf, a figure that is by turns pitiful victim and frightening menace, ,or Frankenstein’s creation, which plays the roles of newborn innocent and monster. Such unsettling situations manipulate our response forcing us to identify with what also seems menacing, and thereby hinting of a human doubleness as well.”
The movie was a hit almost as colossal as it’s simian star, with Carl Denham’s words to the passengers on his vessel to Skull Island were an invitation to the audience as well.
“‘it’s money and adventure and fame. It’s the thrill of a lifetime and a long sea voyage that starts at six o’clock tomorrow morning.”
And it lived up to the character’s boasts. In the 1930s going to the movies was not necessarily a fashionable excursion, considered by many to be low brow entertainment, at least compared to the opera or the ballet. However, with the United States and Europe engulfed in the Great Depression, and World War II looming on the horizon, movies provided an inexpensive escape and many classic films released at that point in time, including King Kong went on to be some of the first true blockbusters, with many future literary luminaries in attendance, including CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien and Ray Bradbury.
Of Kong, Lewis who detailed in his journals of these excursions to the movies with Tolkien, gave a more mixed review of the finished product, saying in a letter to his friend Arthur Grieves,
“You will be surprised to hear that I have been to the cinema again! Don’t be alarmed, it will not become a habit…I thought parts of ‘King Kong’ (especially where the natives make a stand after he’s broken the gate) magnificent…but the New York parts contemptible.”
In direct contrast, Ray Bradbury, more of a student of film due to its advent occurring while he was still a child was enthralled with the story, saying in a brochure for an American Film Institute (AFI) film festival featuring some of his personal favorites,
“”When Kong fell off the Empire State he landed on me. Crawling out from under his carcass I carried on a lifelong love affair with that fifty-foot ape.”
The influence of Kong on Bradbury is clearly felt in his short story, “The Fog Horn”, which later served as the source material for The Beast from 20000 Fathoms, Bradbury’s collaboration with special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen. In the story, and the film it inspired, a pair of lighthouse keepers watch as a dinosaur emerges from the depths of the sea and seemingly time itself, summoned only by the call of the titular Foghorn. Bradbury’s dinosaur, like Kong is positioned as a last of his kind, and it is desperate for connection to another. In the case of Kong, it is Ann Darrow, while in the case of the dinosaur, it’s primitive mind leads it to believe it has heard the mating cry of another dinosaur.
As Bradbury’s narrator “Johnny” describes,
“A cry came across a million years of water and mist. A cry so anguished and alone that it shuddered in my head and my body. The monster cried out at the tower. The Fog Horn blew. The Monster roared again. The Fog Horn blew. The monster opened its great toothed mouth, and the sound that came from it was the sound of the Fog Horn itself. Lonely and vast and far away. The sound of isolation, a viewless sea, a cold night. Apartness. That was the sound.”
It is because of this sense of isolation and loneliness that permeates Kong that audiences feel for him. The range of expression on his face remind us not only of ourselves but to generations of school children brought up on the documentaries of Jane Goodall, or stories of Koko the Gorilla who masters ASL, and formed a loving bond with a kitten, we can’t help but feel for him. When he first meets Anne we see his expressions go from a range of shock at her screams to surprise, amusement and even attraction. It is as though he genuinely likes her, and perhaps because of the great volume of her screams compared to others he sees her cry as something that needs to be cared for. He even appears to try and tickle her, as though she were a small child he is trying to cheer up. Thus, when he is sent plummeting to his death and smashes into the cold concrete of New York City, he breaks the heart yet again in a way few movie monsters fully can.
Italian film producer Dino De Laurentis, who was the mind behind the 1977 remake
“No one cry when Jaws die but when the monkey die, people gonna cry. Intellectuals gonna love Kong. Even film buffs who love the first Kong gonna love ours.”
Like Frankenstein’s monster there is a level of empathy associated with the great ape note present in other giant monsters. With Ghidorah, we can’t wait for Godzilla to rip his throat out. We tremble in terror as Rodan soars from the heavens, putting the word “terror” in Pterodactyl. We even laugh with a sense of scorn at the outright cheesiness of the giants monsters and robots in Power Rangers show.
But with King Kong, however, it’s a different story. We don’t fear or hate him or cheer for his down fall. We only laugh at him when he does something familiar to us that we’d consider funny. We cheer as he battles prehistoric monsters and thrill as he tag-teams with Godzilla to battle MechaGodazilla in Godzilla vs. Kong. Then as our hearts warm to him, we can’t help but feel sorry for the gorilla. Here is this big hairy ape, with warm, lovable features, drug out from his familiar environment and paraded about like a side show freak to the mases in New York City.
This all conveys a perceived level of “humanity” to Kong that other giant monsters appear to lack. In their 2016 article “Kong in the Mist: Travel, Knowledge, and Emotion” from the journal KulturPoetik, that compared Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace’s novelization of the original film King Kong, and the nonfiction travelogue Gorilla’s in the mist noted,
“King Kong is by no means merely a figure of terror. The ape is the object of wonder and curiosity; he is dangerously appealing and at times irresistible. He can even evoke sympathy-both in the readers and in his antagonist. When fighting with other animals, be it dinosaurs, water snakes, or spiders, humans identify with him:…Thus members of the expedition go through a complex dramaturgy of affects. Fear, shock, disgust, as well as aggression, amazement, administration, jealousy, sympathy, and compassion…Just as varied as the affects towards King Kong are his own. The text specifies rage, fury, loathing, an enormous outburst, as well as cool self-control, ecstasy, and cautious apprehension, joy, satisfaction, and disappointment… The ape shows a certain desire for his female prey, but also tender care… (T)his attribution of tenderness towards the human female raises more questions than it answers. Can Kong’s interest in Ann be explained in a merely behavioristic framework? Is the ape drawn to the human…” or does the ape show a genuine appreciation of beauty? Does he possess aesthetic emotions….These words…, form the epithet for King Kong: ‘beauty killed he beast.’ Emotions are transformative, and they might make one valuable. This is the essence of this tragic tale of beauty and the beast: His humanity is Kong’s undoing.”
On top of that he wants to see Ann, the only person with whom he has made any meaningful connection. He wants something familiar, and comforting, and thus when he breaks free from his chains not only do audiences thrill at his exploits, they understand why he does what he does. Not only does Kong want his friend, he also, and perhaps more importantly, he wants to protect her.
This is best seen in his reaction to the flashbulbs of the photographers in the original movie. Having just been hit with a smoke bomb only weeks before that operated under a similar principal, he perceives them as a threat and believes as they are taking pictures of Anne that the photographers are trying to hurt her., and as a result breaks free from his chains to protect her, leading to his perceived rampage through New York City.
We even see him react in fear to all the noise of traffic and the bright lights of New York City. The territory of the concrete jungle is as frightening and alien to him as the world of Skull Island is to humans, and thus he reacts the same way to any perceived threats. The L train that lumbers down the streets of New York may as well be one of the dinosaurs that inhabit the island, while he swats the biplanes as if they were flies. He even smashes the L Train tracks for the same reason he would smash a giant log in the way on his island: it’s an obstacle, and he’ll remove it as he sees fit. The only truly malevolent thing we see him do in the 1933 film is throw an innocent woman to her death for no other reason than she isn’t Anne.
Kong doesn’t intend to harm any of them, his only thought in those climactic moments is that of self-preservation. As Sir Peter Jackson said in “Why King Kong Will Make You Cry” and his response to seeing the character die on screen when he watched it for the first time at the age of nine,
“The significant thing was I burst into tears at the end of the film. A lot of people do. Still today watching the original Kong, it’s incredibly emotional and you get to the point where you don’t want Kong to die. That’s the reality of it. You empathize with him. He is an innocent. It doesn’t matter how many cars he wrecks or sailors he kills. He has no sense of judgement. His values are not the same as ours. He acts with the instincts he has been born with and possesses and we don’t judge him for that. In fact, we understand why he does these things. We understand why he is doing it.”
Later adaptions of the Kong legend would add dimensions to the sympathetic angle. In Peter Jacksons adaptation, Ann Darrow didn’t regard Kong with the same sense of fear and revulsion as Faye Dunaway in the original. Rather, his Faye was a vaudeville performer who managed to make Kong laugh, while Kong’s selflessness in protecting her from the other creatures of Skull Island drew her into him. As a result, Jackson’s Darrow also wanted nothing to do with the sideshow spectacle Kong was to be featured in, believing he should have been left on Skull Island. We even see her sign the word “Beautiful” to him upon watching a sunset on Skull Island, and in their brief interactions together, not only do we see Kong laugh, but display other human-like characteristics such as boredom when she performs an act he already saw.
Then upon finding her in New York, we see the two of them go “skating” together on a pond in Central Park. While on one hand moments like this feel right at home in movies like Love Story, or Ice Castles, for perhaps more appropriately for a character like Kong it feels like the scene in the first Rocky movie wherein the Italian Stallion and Adrian go skating together. The big lovable galoot is letting his guard down and letting this person in and in turn the relationship they share transforms them both. As a result, Kong’s actions in the climax are recontextualized. His being paraded on stage by Denham looks more like the biblical strongman Samson being shackled in the temple of Dagon for the spectacle of the Philistines, with his escape from the theater looking like the strong man brining their pagan temple down upon their heads. Then, Ann, deliberately goes to seek him out, hoping to help him escape.
Even his climb up the Empire State Building is rendered with more heroic. Kong doesn’t hold her in his clutches as he stands atop the building but rather, places her on top of the building and they sit next to each other, enjoying New York’s sunrise together in the same way she enjoyed a sunset on Skull Island with him.
As the screen play describes,
“Looking at MANHATTAN from the HARBOUR … the EMPIRE STATE BUILDING rises from the MIDTOWN area like a giant solitary finger, reaching for the heavens…. KONG climbing the EMPIRE STATE BUILDING, silhouetted against the LIGHTENING SKY.LOOKING DOWN … ANN clings to KONG’S SHOULDER, a DIZZYING 1000 foot drop to the street below. KONG climbs onto the OBSERVATION DECK of the EMPIRE STATE BUILDING. He gently places ANN down … a CHILL WIND catches at her DRESS. ANN looks up at KONG … BLOOD slowly seeps from his numerous WOUNDS …KONG sits still, staring out across the CITY …To the EAST the sun is rising, casting an soft glow over buildings … glinting off the WATERS of the EAST…KONG looks down at ANN … he gestures with his hands … touching his heart … ANN looks at him confused, he repeats the gesture: ANN, she understands.”
Even in the midst of the attack of the planes, Kong’s main concern is her, as is seen when the ladder she is climbing is damaged and she falls. Earlier Kong would have focused his rage at the plane, but her Kong catches her and safely places her inside the observation deck. Kong even demonstrates intelligence in the fight as he uses some of the plans as projectiles against each other. Kong’s efforts are short lived as he is shot in the back, and ultimately falls to his death, as he did almost seventy years earlier. Either way it is a tragic ending for a creature that appears so noble and beautiful in his own way. We want to know more about him and his world more, and perhaps it is for that reason later movies like Son of Kong would introduce an offspring for him, or more importantly, the MonsterVerse of films like Kong: Skull Island, and Godzilla Vs Kong would establish that there had been others of his kin, but they all reside deep within caverns of the Earth.
Skull Island even establishes just why he may be the last of his kind on Earth. The movie utilities less Gothic horror imagery like in the original King Kong, and plays out more of a fantastic version of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, right down to two protagonists being named “Marlow” and “Conrad” after the central character and author of the novel respectively. Appropriately Jackson’s remake would see two characters even reading the Venture’s first mate Hayes and young sailor Jimmy reading and discussing Conrad’s novel, with Hayes directly quoting the novel as they approach the island, that perfectly captures the allure of Skull Island and it’s simian resident, in relation to why, like Marlow in Conrad’s novel these explorers in any iteration of the King Kong legend don’t turn back,
“There’s a part of him that wants to, Jimmy. A part, deep inside himself that sounds a warning, but there’s another part, that needs to know …that needs to defeat the thing which makes him afraid. ‘We could not understand, because we were too far … and could not remember, because we were travelling in the night of First Ages …… of those Ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign and no memories. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there, there you could look at a thing monstrous and free’.”
Kong: Skull Island not only seizes on that idea of traveling further down into that heart and facing that primal, but heavily leans upon the visual language on particular post-Vietnam War drama that was also inspired by Conrad’s novel: Apocalypse Now. The imagery is especially apparent felt in the MonsterVerse Kong’s establishing moments. No long hiding in the shadows like earlier versions or trapped behind a wall, this Kong is the true ruler of Skull Island, and as a result he stands tall, bathed in the warm amber glow of a South Pacific sunrise, helicopters swarming close to him, to the point one would be forgiven for expecting the soundtrack to que Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” as the US military approaches.
It would be fitting choices as Kong is now fully fury aroused. Thanks to the dropping of seismic charges to test if the surface of Skull Island does in fact lead to “Hollow Earth” the point of origin for these gargantuan monsters, it awakens nightmarish creatures known as “Skull Crawlers”, and thus Kong himself. It is revealed in the movie that there is as massive grave yard filled with skeletons of dinosaurs and others of Kong’s family who tried to battle Skull Crawlers and failed. It is also revealed in the film that a greater reason for this respect the natives have for him as it is discovered that not only does the wall keep out the creatures Kong fights, but he is the one who keeps them at bay, but it will always be on his terms. They islanders know Kong is outside the purview of their purview control, and it’s better to leave him alone, then to try and use him for their own purposes.
Kong is thus considered an apex predator who keeps pests like the Skull Crawlers under control and by killing him, it would only allow theses posts to proliferate at a greater rate. As Hank Marlow a US Airforce pilot who had been stranded on the island since 1944 points out, having spent time among the inhabitants of the island,
“The way they tell it for thousands of years, the people on this island lived in fear. That’s a hell of a long time to be scared. And then, one day, the damnedest thing happened. Some of the things they were afraid of started protecting them against the things that were eating them. But nothing lasts forever, I guess. And this is where they honor the last of their saviors. Yeah. That’s Kong. He’s king around here. He’s God to these people. Kong’s a pretty good king. Keeps to himself, mostly. This is his home. We’re just guests here. But you don’t go into someone’s house and start dropping bombs unless you’re picking a fight.”
Kong is even given a different relationship with Mason Weever, the female in this story, then in other incarnations of the King Kong mythology Mason, in Skull Island is less of an ingénue like any of the previous incarnations of Ann Darrow, and more of an intrepid reporter, akin to Lois Lane from the Superman mythology. Like Lois she is out to get the story of the century even at risk to herself, putting herself into potentially dangerous situations, having been embedded in the unit to cover their discoveries. Kong doesn’t even meet her in the same way he meets Anne, as she is not offered up to him as a sacrifice, rather it happens by chance.
Mason sees a prehistoric moose is trapped under a helicopter and she tries in vein to move the massive steel object only for Kong to reach down and pick it up for her, before turning and looking over his shoulder and regarding her with a “head nod”. Later, in the night, we see the two of them along with the form British Special forces operative James Conrad make contact, and in a few brief moments they make a connection.
However, it is not until the movies climax where we see Kong carry her as he carried Ann, but this time it is a genuine rescue. This a is a moment the movie had been building up to since a reference was made to the fable of the Lion and the mouse, wherein because a tiny creature helped a mighty one, the mighty one in turn paid it forward, Mason, along with Conrad and the small detachment of soldiers assisted Kong in battling the “King “Skull Crawler, allowing Kong the chance to gain a second wind after he is trapped by a sunken skip and defeat the monster. Then when she’s thrown to the water after a mountain collapses, Kong in turn reaches down to grab her and places her back on the boat with her friends.
It is not until the fourth movie in the Legendary MonsterVerse, Godzilla vs Kong, that audiences finally see this iteration of Kong in a full relationship with a human woman, Dr. Ilen Andrews and her adopted daughter, Jia. Dr. Andrews, in contrast to the fairy tale princess Anne Darrow, or the Lois Lane-esqe Mason Weaver is actually a renowned scientist and a brilliant researcher who has spent ten years of her life not only living with Kong, but actively studying him, thereby making her more akin to Jane Goodall. Meanwhile Jia has fully mastered the art of communicating with Kong via rudimentary sign language, effectively making her like the researchers who learned to communicate with Koko the gorilla. Because they have actually spent more than a day with Kong, Ilene and Jia have a real, genuine relationship with him.
As a result of these human interactions of which other versions were denied, Kong displays the most human-like characteristics of any iteration, albeit those of a slightly middle-aged man. When he wakes up in Godzilla vs Kong, we actually see him stretch his aching bones, scratch his massive behind and shower beneath a water fall, all before breakfast. When being taken near the arctic circle to battle Godzilla, he even appears to lounge on the boat listening to the music of Elvis Presley. When a multipurpose vehicle known as a HEAVE starts shooting at him, he doesn’t swat it away like a fly like earlier versions of his myth, he crushes it with such ease and disinterest that it may as well be an empty beer can. When he fights other monsters and gets knocked down, we even see him stagger to get up using nearby structures as support.
Where this Kong may be lacking in terms of physical prowess, this iteration is also perhaps more intelligent than previous versions. Earlier Kongs would engage in knock down drag out fights with dinosaurs of even smash a giant snake or a plesiosaur as effortlessly as The Hulk smashing Loki in The Avengers, but here we see an intelligent Kong, capable of using weapons found in his environment, furthering similarities to the biblical Samson who was known could use something as mundane as the jawbone of a donkey as a melee weapon. From a discarded ship propeller, to massive femur bones to a giant tree, anything Kong finds he can improvise into a weapon, and wield an axe fashioned from a tree trunk and the discard dorsal fin from one of Godzilla species.
With such weapons in hand, Kong completes his transformation into a force of biblical proportions, the Behemoth from the book of Job,
“Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox.
What strength it has in its loins, what power in the muscles of its belly! Its tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs are close-knit.Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like rods of iron.It ranks first among the works of God, yet its Maker can approach it with his sword. The hills bring it their produce, and all the wild animals play nearby.Under the lotus plants it lies, hidden among the reeds in the marsh.The lotuses conceal it in their shadow; the poplars by the stream surround it.A raging river does not alarm it; it is secure, though the Jordan should surge against its mouth. Can anyone capture it by the eyes, or trap it and pierce its nose?”
Later Kong movies beg the same question, while in Kong: Skull Island and the other movies in the series, the military hopes to use him as a weapon against other monsters like Godzilla, casting the big hairy ape as a simian version of Hercules to battle monsters like the hydra. However, the role of hero is something Kong doesn’t appear want.
As Gabriella Chasin Simon notes in King Kong vs Godzilla: When Worlds Collide, released to celebrate not only the respective 90th anniversary of King Kong and the 70th anniversary of Godzilla but their third cinematic rumble in the form of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,
“The MonsterVerse is a cinematic universe that provides a context for giant creatures. Spanning multiple movies, this world features iconic beasts whose unique attributes and abilities represent a mix of nature’s forces. Godzilla, inarguably the alpha of the group symbolizes the raw power of nature itself, while Mothra queen of the monsters, embodies grace and benevolence. King Ghidorah, the three-headed dragon-and Godzilla’s arch nemesis-signifies destructive chaos. The MonsterVerse not only focuses on epic battles between monsters but also examines how humans cope with the existence of these creatures, and the consequences that arise form poking these bears. King Kong’s role in the MonsterVerse is a little like The Hulk’s in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; a gentle giant capable of empathy and love, but also a nightmarish beast bent on mass destruction when he and his allies are threatened.”
If there is any unifying trait between this intelligent, Hulk-like Kong and his earlier versions, it’s his overwhelming desire to be left alone. In the film Kong: Skull Island we see him, seemingly a bask in the pace and serenity of a Southern Aurora over Skull Island, a faint smile on his face, much like how he appeared to enjoy the sunset over the city of New York in Peter Jackson’s 2005 King Kong film.
Yet, like previous iterations this Kong cannot be contained, especially because he can sense there is another apex predator out there in the form of Godzilla. He’s even seen grabbing tree, remove its branches and hurl it at his containment dome like a spear, hoping to break free and challenge this rival. Thus, like a silverback gorilla and a crocodile fighting over a watering hole on the African savanna, the two are destined to battle of over resources and territory in an attempt to prove their dominance over the other. To put it another way, as Dr. Alan Grant said of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, “they aren’t monsters, they just do what they do.”
As Dr .Andrews says in Godzilla vs Kong,
“The island is the one thing that’s kept him isolated. If he leaves, Godzilla will come for him. There can’t be two alpha Titans. The whole theory of an ancient rivalry stems from Iwi mythology. He’s gotten too big over time. This environment won’t sustain much longer. It’s too unstable.”
King Kong has played an important role in the cinematic landscape. His is a story that is equal parts heroic, romantic and tragic as he captures the heart in away few big monsters fail to do, save for Godzilla. With out either of them none of the great bests that have dominated our cinematic landscape for almost a century would have been possible. From genetically resurrected dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, to the giant bugs that were part of the silly B movies that dominated the 50s, to the menacing Shark in jaws, each one owes its existence to these two monsters. One can even see both of their influence on the cover of Tales to Astonish #13 from 1959, the first appearance of Groot as the giant monster sized Groot advances through New York City, and later on the cover of Fantastic Four #1 as the monster breaking through the streets of New York clutches Sue Storm in the same way Kong clutched Anne Darrow.
Thus, if Godzilla were truly the only one of these giant monsters who were created as a result of Kong, then it stands to reason that only Godzilla could challenge him for the crown of King of Monsters. It makes it all the more fitting for the two to go head-to-head to prove who is in fact the superior monster in terms of strength and power. Like all great alphas these two must prove their dominance.
Its perhaps why we thrill at watching this majestic creature scale to the heights of those landmarks and our heart breaks when he falls. After all, for great creatures like this, as we’ve seen with Kong scaling the landmarks of New York City, aren’t here to be exploited by the likes of Carl Denham, rather the great cities of the Earth are their playground.
As Dr. San and Dr. Houston Brooks remind Conrad and Weaver at the end of Kong Skull Island,
“This Island is just the beginning. There’s more out there…This world never belonged to us. It belonged to them. The question is how long before they take it back. Kong…is not the only King.”
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PHOTO CREDIT:
1933. RKO Pictures.
2005. WingNutFilms/Universal Studios.
2017. Legendary Pictures/Warner Bros. Entertainment.
DISCLAIMER:
This blog is not authorized, endorsed, approved, or affiliated with any individuals or entities involved in the creation of King Kong, Godzilla or any other related characters. The views and opinions in this blog strictly reflect those of the author and do not reflect the views or ownership of RKO Pictures, WingNut Films, Universal Studios, Legendary Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, The Toho Company, LTD., and Jewell Enterprises.
Jonathon D. Svendsen 