It's not the size that matters, it's what you do with it.

Very nice post

Hmmm...perhaps I do have some baggage. I haven't seen the '33 version since I was a kid, and like most things, he seemed bigger back then. The images that stick in my head are him stepping on that dude () and him fending off biplanes from the ESB...both of which made him seem bigger. The other scene that really stuck out was of the girl tied up and the antication. I didn't remember dinosaurs at all.

So, the fact that I remember him being bigger doesn't necessarily make it so. Thanks for the correction.

He still looks about 10 feet short to me and Jack Black remains utterly impossible to take seriously.

It was a decent trailer/teaser. Not the best I've ever seen (this year), but certainly didn't turn me against the idea of seeing the movie.

I think it has (for me) a feel of been there/done that. I'm getting major The Lost World/Mummy Returns/Might Joe Young vibe...not the best vibes to have. I know all these films (maybe not Mummy) were influence by the original Kong, but still not feeling the super love I felt for the Batman or Star Wars trailer. Honestly, the Transporter 2 trailer I saw yesterday had me more jazzed.

Just look at any of the LOTR trailer effects shots (especially army shots) and compare them to the finished product. You'll see noticeable differences.

Studios have no choice but to use unfinished effects shots for advance trailers for big FX movies (unless they want to sit on the finished move for months.) These kind of movies aren't completed until the last possible minute: up until then the FX guys iterate and polish as much as they can. Kong is still about four months away from its drop-dead date, and that's a long time in the world of digital FX. Check out any of the LOTR effects commentaries--they'll confirm what Cygnet said.

You've got to be out of your mind to think Godzilla failed because of poor SFX work. I mean seriously...this is going to be another Godzilla because of poor effects? I remember Godzilla sucking, but I know for pretty damn sure that it wasn't bad effects that took people out of the movie. I don't even remember people really complaining about that. I'd rate the effects work in that film pretty decent actually (well, some of the helicopter flying through city shots I thought were weak, but the actual creature effects were fine imo). It was the bad acting, bad writing, and just overall awful movie that sunk that film. Not to mention I thought Godzilla's design left a lot to be desired, but not on a technical level. And there's nothing about Peter Jackson that makes me think he'll make those mistakes. He ain't Roland Emmerich.

I for one have never been a detractor of CG effects. I for one love them, and when used well enjoy the hell out of them. And when I say use them well, I don't mean perfcet technical integration so that one cannot tell reality from the other. Quite frankly, any truly outlandish CG like dinos and monsters and alien landscapes have always been quite easy to pick out, at least for me, but it's the quality composition, the good storytelling, the good design that means the most to me. To each their own though.

I would go further than that. The effects were very good. The film just wasn't.

Am I the only person who didn't have a problem with Jack Black? Seemed to me like he was doing a pretty straightforward job of what he is supposed to do, and that's be a fast talking Hollywood filmmaker from the 30s. I think that like the idea of the re-make itself, his casting just rubbed people the wrong way and regardless of whether or not he does a decent job in the role, people will not let that negativity go on hold.

FWIW, I remember not having very positive feelings about LOTR:FOTR until I saw the final trailer that was released in October of 2001. The first teaser for that in January '01 looked like a bunch of random footage with unfinished FX work thrown together, and I wasn't that stoked. I am a little more stoked by this, as it seems a hair above FOTR's original teaser.

I will say there is no way in my mind that this will be better than the 1933 version, but this preview already has me convinced that it will blow the 1976 remake out of the water. Would being better than the '76 version be considered an accomplishment?

I also thought his performance in the trailer was good. It seems to me that the people who think it was smarmy or out-of place are having trouble dissasociating him from his previous roles, or even his public persona.

http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/images/kkt/kk2b.jpg

http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/images/kkt/kk1b.jpg

A couple of high res screen caps. If that's crappy CG, well then color me a fan of it cause that's beautiful in my opinion. I can't wait to see this thing.

As for Jack Black...he doesn't bother me at all. Though I enjoy his comedy I must say.

I'm sold.

I have no problems with Jack Black either, but I wasn't too impressed with this trailer.

The T-rex looks amazing! Kong has a lot of scars

Those shots look fantastic. No doubt about it. But it's very easy to post extremely hi-res still images. I can post hi-res still images from Van Helsing that look incredible, and even though ILM did some very good work, it was not one of their shining moments. Then again it never is when working for Sommers. It's a whole other thing to make them look that good moving, in motion, interacting with each other and the people. The trailer didn't impress me FX-wise the way I felt it should. But I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.

That's probably my problem, but nothing I can do about it. I'll watch the movie, and I may change my mind in the whole context. But, currently, I don't like him.

I think Jack Black is a great actor, but he's more suited for comedy and he should have done at least a drama BEFORE he did this movie. This would have let audiences including myself take him more seriously. The last movies were what, Anchorman and Envy? Not the kind of character role you want to convey going over to a PJ film.

Robert De Niro would have been my choice for this movie. Jack Black's character is too young, and just seems like a teenager.

But I may change my mind once I see the movie. I rarely do, but I might.

The trailer overall was good though.

As I said before, if you watch the original and are familar with the character that Black is playing, it's not at all a "serious" roll. It's actually very good casting.

WOW!!! The work on those sure ain't shoddy. I seem to remember Hulk's FX being rather weak whenever it showed him in full, but the face shots were very impressive. Seems to be the case here as well.

I thought the trailer looked great! Kong looks a lot like Mighty Joe Young from the 1996 movie (which I really liked), but the atmosphere of the film is totally different.

I'm not a big fan of the Lord of the Rings movies, so all I came into this expecting was technical proficience in creating the visuals. I had serious reservations about the casting of Jack Black in the Carl Denham role - I thought he was too young and too geared towards comedy, but what do you know? I actually bought into the bits of his performance from the trailer. He seems to be channelling just a bit of the Robert Armstrong performance from the original movie - just enough to make his performance work. Maybe he's not too young after all. There were a LOT of filmmakers in their late 20's and early 30's back then (the 1930's), so maybe casting him was actually a stroke of sick genius. We'll know for sure when the movie comes out.

I am really looking forward to this movie now.

Like I said, I had reservations before, but now I'm more optimistic. Hell, at first I didn't even see the point of remaking Kong - but since the 1976 movie was so flawed, and the original was so beautifully primitive in its groundbreaking effects (in other words - it was BRILLIANT in 1933, and still holds up fairly well today, but it does still look like stop motion animation) when you consider that the abilities of filmmakers and FX people is so much more advanced today this story was just begging to be remade.

Same Here. I'll be seeing the movie in any event but I too thought the trailer was rather "lite".

Okay, maybe GODZILLA wasn't the best example (although I disagree with those who claim the effects were "good" in that flick), but the point I was trying to make is that if you have a decent story, but special effects that "take you out" of a movie because they are distractingly bad (or bad for the year the film is being released), it's going to affect your overall enjoyment of the picture.

Yes, JAWS had a fake looking shark, but that worked in 1975. Release JAWS today with the same effects, and people are going to laugh it right out of the theater...that's my concern with the new KING KONG.

Taking the effects out of the equation, I felt the tone was too light. Now, whether that matches up with the film as a whole remains to be seen. If everything's played for laughs the monsters aren't going to have much of an impact no matter how they look imo. I was hoping Kong would be more than a Stephen Sommers type film, but if it is I'm sure it'll be a fun ride. I'll just have to adjust my expectations going in.

Those high rez pics look great. But again, I'm looking more at atmosphere and 'feeling' and that can be hard to get from a trailer.

Out of curiosity, who cut the LOTR's trailers?

For some reason I seriously doubt that. Can you name one major film, any of the ones that regularly are bashed for so called poor SFX, that was hurt at the box office because of this? Star Wars? Van Helsing? Hulk? Spiderman? Matrix Reloaded? Mummy Returns? None of them seemed to be really affected by these CG complaints, and I really think less people are "pulled out of the movie" then some like to think. Granted, some of the films I named were considered disapointments at the box office, but it's a bit of a strecth to claim that had anything to do with the special effects quality.

Now, I suppose I could understand that some people might not think this looks that great, SFX wise. I don't see it, but ok. But I can't buy the idea that the stuff in this trailer is so bad people are going to laugh at it.

So, I can't tell anyone what's distractingly bad. I personally don't prescribe to the idea that if it's not up to the level of the year, then it's going to take me out of the movie. Actually, I don't understand it at all. These effects have never looked as good as some claim. Jurassic Park was never uber real, I could always pick out the CG shots if I wanted to think about it.

But whatever...this is PJ's dream project, and I've little doubt it'll be good.

While Kong still looks too tame IMO, he looks a lot better than the grinning idiot they turned him into in the 1976 version. The scars lend some realism to it, like he's spent his whole life having to fight off dinos.
I liked the way the 1933 version portrayed him as a feral creature, and PJ's 1996 script didn't paint him as a very sympathetic creature. Don't know if its retained for this one or a true spoiler, but In all honesty, if Ann develops feelings for Kong in this one, then giving him that past would not really make much since.

I haven't either, but I was aware of the presence of a badly stop-animated T-Rex.