The one shot where the T-Rex steps out of the pen is CGI. Many of the shots around the jeep with the kids are of the anamatronics. A lot of people mistake the anamatronics with CGI.

And, while you are correct that realistic looking dinosaurs won't carry a movie on the novelty alone anymore, when you add realistic looking dinosaurs to a legendary movie icon like King Kong you've got something with some widespread appeal. Maybe not at Titanic or Jurassic Park levels, but certainly enough to draw some pretty big crowds at the theaters. The reasons I laid out above seem to have diminished Kong's box office performance a little, but the movie is still doing pretty well in the U.S. and it's doing fantastic numbers overseas.

Yeah, and costing more as well!

I agree that they should have waited a week, or even two days for Kong. My guess is they wanted its release to mirror the LOTR movies. However, Kong is not LOTR, and in terms of finals, I was not in college when they were released, but I do know that it was not finals week in the surrounding area. I also think Kong would have better chances with kids on vacation if he weren't going against the God of teens on break: Jim Carrey. In short, they should have waited.

The problem was, that Godzilla 98 was just as stupid and silly as teh Japanese versions, but with much higher production qualities. It may have tried to be serious, but it failed.

Emmerich makes visually splendid films, but in the end they're still dumb B movies. In the end, Godzillla was just not liked by the public. I don't think Kong is going to face that fate. The big similarity here is the soft opening weekend and ENORMOUS expectations for opening weekend. Beyond that, I think the similarities will not be there. Kong will have better legs I predict, and surely Godzilla wasn't on anybody's top ten list.

I completely agree. I thought Kong 2005 was horrifying on every level. Acting was bad (specifically Jack Black), CGI on all but Kong was lax, story was already known, movie dragged ON AND ON, going into depth on minor and charicature type characters like the cabin boy, and the one eyed sea pirate (arrrgh!) who were ultimately irrelevant and WORST of all the supposed 'romance' between Kong and Anne - just horrid, highlighted by an ice skating romp in the middle of widespread city destruction... Wow, too bad to count ALL the bad things - oh wait - the use of S-L-O-W motion incessantly on things that don't need it like skulls... I mean how much slow motion skull do you need?? Top this all off with a lack of all reality, such as Anne climbing on the Empire State building in her evening gown and no wind or coldness at all up there! Woah!

Agh, so much suck and all in one movie...

You know its funny I thought about this very comparison in my head before even seeing this thread when I walked out of the movie today. My big problem with Godzilla wasn't the monster, lack of fire breath of a cute sidekick character named Godzuki, it was straight up the acting, it was just terrible on so many levels, like someone was pretending to be serious instead of being serious. While the Japanese versions may have been crazy as far as plots went the acting was still very serious the majority of the time. Godzilla 98 just didn't have that.

Kong on the other hand had much , much better acting and kept the monster action we all know and love.

I have no idea why King Kong is underperforming. Big name director, well known story that (to the average cinemaplex attendee) desparately needs updating, and no real competition. Good reviews all around, plenty of cool promos. Maybe people really are CGI'd out. I think the final numbers for KK will be much better than Godzilla's final take, though.

As for Godzilla, it's painfully obvious why it flopped. No one in the production understood or respected the source material. They saw Godzilla as a concept they could ""fix" and "make better" for American audiences. Fans, both casual and devoted, didn't like it because it had no connection to the original. Add in a cast of terrible characters, rip off Alien and a dozen other movies, and you end up with a mess.

From the first hand experiences I've read here, King Kong is hardly perfect, but most of the flaws are relatively minor considering this is basically a vanity project for Peter Jackson. While he might have gone overboard, at least he respects not only the original, but the concept of a giant monster movie.

I didn't hear you mention Godzilla. Sounds more like a threadcrap and rant rather than a contribution to the discussion.

Jeez, a little sensitive? I was replying to the other guy on his post... He was talking about Kong and it's poor CGI and I expanded on it...

Godzilla was horrible for all the reasons other people listed above. I agree with them all.

i LOVED King Kong, and Godzilla is an okay movie, it would be better it they called it something else and was just a monster movie, but its godzilla and the us godzilla looks like a lizard. great special effects in godzilla though and i liked all the stuff leading up to seeing the giant lizard.

King Kong though was amazing movie, one of the best of the year

what the hell? King Kong was an amazing movie. the acting wasnt bad at all, the visuals were amazing, they were stylized somewhat. and the romance between Kong and Ann was fantastic, the Ice scene was one of the best in the film.

and you said one of the bad points was the story was already known. DUH! this is a remake, everyone knows king Kong,

Maybe we have different standards... If great acting is a Digital monkey staring at a woman or a woman staring at a man or a cabin boy staring at the first mate, I guess this was your film. There was more pregnant staring in this movie than in the beginning of all the 2005 boxing matches this year. Jack Black was simply in over his head - his line delivery bordered on the absurd. His eyes darted back and forth at times like he was in the circus. Someone remind me again what Adrian Brody was doing in this movie? Running around and staring?

For all of the reasons I listed above, this one was a stinker. I am glad though that some enjoyed it. I myself laughed my butt off at some of the absurd scenes. My buddy was cracking me up the whole time - when Jack Black offered the native child a candy bar (which again was lamely delivered) and said 'want some chocolate?' - my buddy quipped 'it looks like he's been dipped in chocolate!'... I lost it. At the end when Anne climbs up 3 stories of ladder to stray into gunfire in her evening gown in sub-zero altitudes my buddy said 'damn, I get winded climbing my 15' ladder to the roof!'... Classic...

Did you say that stuff out loud? Hope I never sit around you guys in a theater. Sounds like you have trouble suspending disbelief and buying into stuff like this in general.

Actually it was whispered, but it didn't matter, there were only like 4 couples in the theatre anyways...

Actually I have no trouble suspending disbelief. What I do have trouble with was the 400 lb. gorilla of a bad movie I sat for 3 + hours to watch... It was just bad.

I love the original '33 Kong - it has charm and it worked for it's time in movie history. This Kong and this Godzilla, were mishandled movies for this generation. Both were sloppy and poorly implemented.

I blame both cases on overhype.

With Godzilla, they were showing teasers the year before with a Godzilla foot stomping on a T-Rex skeleton in a museum, and of Godzilla popping out of the water in front of a fisherman. It was designed to be HUGE. A lot of people actually WERE excited to see it. But then it came out and wasn't that great, and it didn't live up to the hype.

With King Kong I think everyone overestimated the appeal. I don't think people were necessarily clamoring for another Kong film. I'm not saying there wasn't interest, but that the idea of "Peter Jackson's King Kong" didn't necessarily excite people in general as much as it did the Internet dwellers.

I think I'd agree with this. It's not that there wasn't interest in Kong...there just wasn't as much interest as some people thought. People were clamoring for a good version of Lord of the Rings for years, so there was a lot of interest when that came out. People loved the Harry Potter books, so there was a lot of interest in the movies. Most people are absolutely fascinated with dinosaurs so they were excited about Jurassic Park when that came out. And there are many more examples too. I just don't think very many people were hoping against hope for a King Kong remake and that's why it might not be performing up to expectations, but like it's been mentioned numerous times...it's still doing well, but it just isn't the world beater many were expecting it to be.

I don't think that the widespread derision this movie received was the result of its failure to satisfy the relatively small contingent of hardcore Godzilla fans, though it may have satisfied monster movie fans if it hadn't dashed those expectations.

The problem with the movie was that it is big, dumb, and pointless.

It's a really good movie, and it's going to attract audiences with favorable word-of-mouth. People weren't lining up to see it opening weekend, like they might for franchises with built-in fans, but they will see it. "Titanic" didn't have a franchise type draw, and it was slow off the starting block, but the box office take for that movie ended up being pretty respectable, if I remember correctly.

I think it's a little early to say that Kong has been underperforming - there's still X-mas weekend to account for. I've heard so many reasons why this movie isn't perfoming as expected, but I don't think the film is to blame. It's an imperfect film, but I think the comparison to Godzilla 98 is unfair. When my wife and I saw the teaser for Godzilla back in 98, I leaned over to her and said, "There better be a guy in rubber suit or this movie is gonna suck", to which she replied, "Your breath smells like nacho cheese." But that's neither here nor there. Godzilla failed because it didn't live up to the expectations of the original - Kong lived up to it's predecessor admirably. This is a just a downturn in attendance and I don't think any movie would have turned this year around.

I agree. I liked the movie a lot. It's much better than any Spiderman or Harry Potter movie out there and light years beyond the Star Wars prequels so the only reason I could imagine why it won't perform as well as those movies is because of the length. However, it will never come close to Titanic's level of business. I'm not knocking Titanic because I actually enjoyed that movie too, but the ONLY reason it made so much money (and it's no secret) is because 12 year old girls went to see it 6,7,8 times. That's why it started "slow" but just hung around because the horned up teenage girls kept going back every week to drool over Leo. That aint gonna happen with Kong, but I predict it will still do respectable numbers.

Well, that's why I said the movie would've done "ok" and not "Blockbuster" had it been true to G-fan expectations. With that said, you shouldn't underestimate G-fan numbers. Godzilla is part of Pop-Culture so there are many many casual G-fans out that swell the ranks.


It was a big action/adventure flick. A "popcorn movie" and nothing more. But I think everyone knew it would be at least that.

Do tell, what point should a movie about a Giant Lizard have?

I don't think spikes on his back and fire breath would have redeemed the movie in the minds of any fans.


Well Peter Jackson's movie about a giant monkey has a point. Spielberg's alien invasion movie seemed to have some kind of a point to it as well.

I don't really understand the idea that any inanity can be forgiven in a "popcorn" movie. A lot of good work is done in genre films, and there's enough justification there to avoid the real stinkers.

I think it's reasonable for a "popcorn" movie to have an engaging plot, believable characters, and engaging set pieces.

And the point was?

Well people don't go see a Godzilla movie for the human characters, they go see it for Godzilla.

The human parts of the movie are (thinking of the older movies) throwaway parts. The destruction of city sets and two men in rubber suits slapping each other around are the main appeal.

The newer G movies are better with the human parts but its still Godzilla you want to see.

Perhaps that might be part of why G '98 is so bad...they tried to take the overall focus from Godzilla and place it on the humans.

All this talk reminds me of the episode of "Robot Chicken" where the guys who made Godzilla 98 were asked to re-make the movie only they made the movie worse. Ice skating Godzilla babies.

I LIKED Godzilla, and i'm a huge Godzilla/Power Rangers fan. First of all, let's take a look at some of the common criticisms lobbed at Godzilla:

1. The baby Godzillas totally ripped off Jurassic Park

Really? and you don't think it's a coincidence that Kong had 3 T-Rexes when the previous movies had 1 and then 2 together?

2. The CGI Godzilla didn't do the monster justice

Ok, so you want an outdated form that was created because of the limitations of technology at the time and was based on now-outdated information regarding how dinosaurs looked like?

3. The movie had too many improbable situations

I'm just going to leave this alone. Naomi Watt's Blouse is probably just made out of the same material as the Taxi Cab in Godzilla.

4. It was a bloated action fest

They both were, but they were fun as hell.

5. They really missed a lot of elements that were critical to the franchise

I don't like to niggle over small details like that...but seriously, the movie had the "heart" of a Godzila movie. At the end, he was really the hero of the movie.

If that Lizard was GODZILLA and not...just a lizard, it woulda been tons better than what it was. Still not great, but at least there would've been an honest attempt to pay respect to the Original.

Hell, Godzilla was ALWAYS about Nuclear Energy/The A-bomb. I'll admit they at least kept that aspect in G98.

I agree.


Sure, but you can still fudge it a bit with "popcorn movies".