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Rating:  -
I have shown many prints of King Kong, both in
35mm and 16mm, and have never encountered the
level of grain as seen here. It is certainly
sharper and with more detail than the 60th
anniversary Laserdisc. The track is better than
anticipated. This grainy quality is also
present in the recent "Top Hat" issue.
Rating:  -
king kong is a american classic and now everybody's favorite ape is getting the star treatment in this special edition dvd ...all i can say is its about time:)
first off this is the original 1933 print (minus the missing spider pit scene..but peter jackson did a great job creating his own version of it..they should have cut it into the actual film though) that was cleaned up and digitally remastered and kong looks as great as he ever did..in fact better:)
you all know the story, so im not going to go into that here..but i will say this the stop motion animation done on kong is fantastic..in fact he looks more realistic than some cg characters these days(can we all say the hulk movie)..the animators gave kong total personality and he looks like he has heart..in my opinion kong is not a special effect but rather a actual character..just look at the emotion on his face when he discovers that hes bleeding when hes on the empire state building he looks like hes starting to cry and wondering why are they shooting at him? hes in love thats all..the beauty made the giant weak..
this movie is well paced from start to finish and besides kong my favorite character in this film is filmaker carl denim played by robert armstrong..he gives a energetic feel to the movie..
king kong is a special effects masterpiece(for its era anyway) that should not be passed up..i can only wonder how peter jacksons version of kong pans out but thats another review for another day....get this movie and not the version from the 1970s...unless you want to see a kong with a high sex drive LOL
Rating: -
That King Kong is an undisputable classic that not only unshered in a whole new era of special effects and has influenced EVERYONE since (ask George Lucas and Jim Cameron, for two), but is also timeless as a classic in and of itself is a given for anyone who knows anything about movies, so why even get into that?
What makes this DVD a complete gem is that the presentation is absolutely flawless. The film itself is complete and razor-sharp; It looks as if would had they found a pristine never-shown print somewhere.
The extras are simply tremendous, and completely fascinating without ever being idol worship or techno-boring. It answers every question you've ever had about KK, and probably a few that never occurred. The spider pit sequence is absolutely incredible on several levels, the test footage is very cool, and the documentary on Cooper himself is interesting.
And the inclusions are very cool, too. If you consider yourself a film fan, buy this right now. It's an absolute must.
This is how all classic films deserve to be treated on DVD!
Rating: -
It's about time that the King came back to reclaim his crown as the 8th Wonder of the World. I'm happy to report that this DVD release of "King Kong" is a breath of fresh air since the only other edition available was the cheesy remake with Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange and Charles Grodin. Why did it take so long? Because the nitrate negative is long gone and Warner had to painstakingly find the best film elements to bring Kong back from the brink of death.
"King Kong" is a pivotal film in the fantasy genre. Calling something a pivotal film can sometimes lead to disappointment particularly for contemporary audiences jaded and spoiled by CGI effects. "Kong" established the benchmark for nearly 25 years. Animator Willis O'Brien (a former newspaper man) had worked on "The Lost World" for director Harry Hoyt. O'Brien began world on "Creation" a film about sailors who find a lost world not unlike in the silent film by Hoyt. The project was abandoned when O'Brien and his collaborators began work on Kong the 8th Wonder of the World. O'Brien developed stop-motion animation techniques and models (with model designer and builder Marcel Delgado) that would ultimately revolution visual effects. Director/writer Merian C. Cooper ("The Most Dangerous Game", "Dr. Cyclops") and producer/writer/director Ernest B. Schoedsack ("Son of Kong", "Mighty Joe Young") created a riveting fantasy film unlike anything ever seen before.
A beautiful looking transfer from Warner Home Video enhances this classic film which has been in very poor condition for a long, long time. The image clarity is exceptionally good as is the sharpness of the picture with rich, detailed vistas that haven't looked this good since 1933. Grain is noticeable but that's not a surprise given how far away from the original missing nitrate negative these elements are from. The DVD transfer minimizes grain as much as possible and analog artifacts in the form of dirt or flecks are minimal. The mono sound is also quite good benefiting from a substantial digital clean up that makes the dialogue clear and gives presence to Max Steiner's classic score.
We learn quite a bit about "Kong" and other films in the two documentaries included in this set. "I'm King Kong" focuses on director Merian C. Cooper's many exploits. It's clear how Cooper's life influenced "Kong" once you see the documentary. The documentary runs about an hour. My only complaint is that there isn't a documentary devoted exclusively to Willis O'Brien as part of this set. There's also the wonderful recration of the cut spider sequence. It wasn't integrated into the movie because it's a recreation and it was felt that wouldn't be appropriate. It does give us a flavor of what the sequence might have looked like. Jackson and WETA recreate the sequence using the exact same techniques that O'Brien used and even get the grain and imperfect mattes, well, perfect.
"RKO Production 601: The Making of Kong, Eighth Wonder of the World" runs about 2 hours and gives you a complete history of the production. Featuring interviews with Ray Harryhausen, Peter Jackson, writer-director Frank Darabont and others, it's an excellent glimpse into the atmosphere that produced the big ape. We also learn a bit about Willis O'Brien as well. "Son of Kong" comes only with the original theatrical trailer and doesn't have any of the frills of the other two movies.
King Kong" comes with an exceptional commentary track featuring Harryhausen, visual effects Ken Ralston and snippets of audio interviews of director Merian C. Cooper and actress Fay Wray. Harryhausen is really the expert on "Kong" though as he worked with O'Brien on "Might Joe Young"and had a chance to pick his brain. He uses his experience as a stop-motion animator and visual effects technician to provide interesting insights on the production of the film whether it be on the use of painted class backgrounds (to give depth to the miniatures) or the use of miniature projection of live action into the miniatures to create a sense of realism.
Long Live the King! I'm still looking forward to Peter Jackson's remake and am hoping it can do justice to the original.
Rating: -
Yes, its' only a RECONSTRUCTION of the "Holy Grail" of all stop-motion animation--but it is MASTERFULLY executed by Peter Jackson and colleagues...with ONE reservation.
Since I went directly to the Sequence at the bottom of Disc 2's menu (as opposed to the chapter in the full documentary), I thought I was watching the REAL THING!! I was awestruck...and yet I had one teeny, tiny reservation about it that helped give it away.
These guys went through amazingly painstaking, detailed work to reconstruct the scene. They studied and compared the original script with other scenes in the film to establish the "rhythmical" relationship between printed word and finished film, intentionally LIMITED themselves to the technology of 1932 in armature building and all other aspects of the animation, including stick-like miniatures of the sailors fighting the horrors of the pit, slightly imperfect matte lines under the big spider, etc, they X-RAYED the original 1932 Styracosaurus puppet in order to recreate it's exact construction, they produced a FLAWLESS recreation of the jungle in all of its textures, details and lighting, FLAWLESS integration of sound effects and music track, intentional "degeneration" of the new footage to match up with the original----
SO, considering ALL of this incredible work, WHY didn't they
cast the sailor's roles to match up as NEARLY AS POSSIBLE with the actors in the original....ESPECIALLY their COSTUMES!!? Why go through all of the other work that I've mentioned, only to APPROXIMATE the sailors themselves? C'mon, guys...I could have done a better job matching up the costumes! Most notable is the guy who becomes spider food--the one wearing the striped "sailor" t-shirt. In the original film, the shirt is CLEARLY non-white in tone--it looks like it may have been a brownish color--and the stripes are VERY THIN; that should have been SIMPLE to recreate, especially compared to the rest of what they accomplished! THe guy in the reconstruction is wearing a typical short-sleeved shirt--rather floppy (instead of tight-fitting), with a bright white background (instead of brownish) and big, wide stripes (instead of thin).
Am I being too picky? I don't think so, considering the absolute
perfection of the overall illusion these guys created.
But it's still fabulous! You will NOT believe your eyes....it's the closest we'll ever get to seeing this sensational lost sequence from the greatest, most outrageous fantasy film of all time!
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