Episode 97: King Kong Tutorial

Topic: King Kong

 

 

The move is over, and we’re back with new episodes.  And we pick ourselves back up with one of our more recent topic, on our way to their epic faceoff, we’re studying King Kong, The Eighth Wonder of the World.  Unlike his nemesis, Godzilla, King Kong has a far smaller collection of movies by comparison, but his impact on American pop culture and history and certainly been around in America just as long as his Japanese Counter Part.  And as we await their epic battle, we learn a bit about the massive ape, and study his movies to see what we can gleam off the future encounter.

 

 

Creation

Created by Merian C. Cooper for his title movie, King Kong (1933), young Cooper was fascinated with primates.  Upon growing older, he eventually started working in the motion picture industry and after production finished on The Four Feathers(1929), he started thinking his next picture would be something to do with Primates.

 

A year later, he found himself at RKO, a major movie studio, and Cooper began development on what would be King Kong, deciding that his primate would be giant sized.  He had actually decided the ending of the film first, liking the idea of his giant primate fighting war planes atop of the New York Insurance Building.  Famously, Cooper liked the idea of pitting a giant primate against a dinosaur, but decided to focus on one main character instead.

 

The name for King Kong took some development however.  Cooper originally like names that started with a K, but found himself having a difficult time coming something that sounded mysterious and catchy.  In original scripts, the title monster was only referred to as ‘The Beast’, but the studio did not like the generic name.  Eventually, after notes from the studio, Cooper landed on the name ‘Kong’, but in worried it would sound like a docudrama instead, like other one word films at the time.  He added ‘King’ to differentiate it, thus became King Kong.

 

 

Fictional History

King Kong is a massive Monster Primate, who originates from ‘Skull Island’, a mysterious island that King Kong lives with other prehistoric mammals and creatures.  The island is thus named due to the skull shaped mountain that lies at the center of the island.  The island is also home to the ancestors of a once highly civilized nation that previously built a wall to keep in the monsters on the island.  Though the name was never used in the original 1933 film, the name was featured in the novelization that came out two months prior to the movie, and has since stuck.

 

Though described as prehistoric Ape, King Kong has a number of human like qualities, notably, his ability to walk upright in an anthropomorphic manner.  He is described as being upwards of 40-50 feet tall, he was later rescaled to be 18-25 feet tall in the original 1933 film.  In most initial western versions, King Kong is roughly 25 feet tall, however in later Japanese versions, he was scaled in size to be similar to Godzilla.  Most recently, in the 2017 film, he was 104 feet tall, and finally 337 feet tall to fight against Godzilla in 2021.

 

In most early versions of the character, King Kong is a villain, however, in more recent films, he’s given a sympathetic story, and is even the hero in some of these movies. 

 

 

History

While a major film icon in the west, the character’s intellectual property owners have been split between various parties through history, making the character a difficult character to track.  Initially, the rights were thought to belong with Cooper, but in 1962, when the character was licensed to Toho to make King Kong vs Godzilla (1962), Cooper sued RKO.  Even though there was quite a number of evidence in Cooper’s favor, some key documents were lost between his time in the military and his return home, which the courts found that RKO owned the character.

 

Eventually, concern over the rights would come up again in 1975 when Universal Studios were trying to make a King Kong Film.  Eventually Universal Studios went to court, arguing that the King Kong novelization and serialization were now in the public domain, but that Universal couldn’t infringe on the original 1933 film.  A later ruling affirmed that the Cooper estate has owned the rights to King Kong’s name, story, and character, which were later sold to universal in 1976. 

 

 

The character himself has appeared in less than a dozen films over the last 88 years. 

 

King Kong & Son Of Kong (1933)

The initial films released by RKO, with the success of the initial King Kong movie, a subsequent film was released later in the year.

 

King Kong vs Godzilla (1962)

After the success of Godzilla in Japan, they looked to make further movies in the franchise.  This moving being the 3^rd movie in the Godzilla franchise, it was also the first time either character was portrayed in a color film, showing what they would look like in color.  This King Kong was different from its original western counter part, which included:

·       Coming from Faro island instead of Skull Island

·       Being able to absorb electricity

·       Being same relative size as Godzilla, (100 feet)

The film is famous for having to two creatures attacking different parts of Japan, before getting together on the summit of Mount Fuji and fighting each other.  In the end, both tumble in to the ocean, with only King Kong rising up from the depths and swimming back to Faro Island.

 

King Kong Escapes (1967)

In another first, predating Mecha-Godzilla, this 1967 film offered a Mecha-King Kong, a similar mechanical version of the title character.  The film sees a mechanical King Kong digging for a mysterious element, but the robot goes haywire, which results in our heroes capturing King Kong and taking him to Mecha-King Kong to finish each other off.  They eventually can’t do it, and instead somehow get to Tokyo from the North Pole, and recreate the famous ending of the 1933 film, this time using the Tokyo Tower instead.  After defeating Mecha-King Kong, King Kong swims back to his island, never to be heard again.  This is also the version time King Kong seems to have a handler so sorts, as there is a woman who has the ability to control King Kong. 

 

King Kong (1976)

A modern remake of the original 1933 film.  This film was what started the law suits with Universal Pictures, as Paramount Pictures and Dino De Laurentiis were attempting to remake the original film, and bought the rights from RKO-General.  The film is a largely faithful remake, but take places in 1976 instead of the original 1933 time frame.

 

King Kong Lives (1986)

A sequel to the 1976 film, King Kong had been alive the entire time, but is currently dying.  In order to save him, they need to transfuse blood from a similar creature, which is where introduce a ‘Lady Kong’, and another similarly sized King Kong primate who helps save King Kong. The film sees King Kong die after the events to save Lady Kong, but Lady Kong gives birth to their son, and returns to Borneo to live peacefully with their son.

King Kong (2005)

This is the Peter Jackson film that took 3 hour to watch.  A retelling of the 1933 film from a 1933 perspective, it focuses on a film maker, who hires a crew to get footage of the amazing creature, before bringing it back to New York.  The film was well received and earned top marks for its special effects and acting. It was also the first live action film in nearly 20 years.

 

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

As a part of Legendary’s MonsterVerse, which focuses on King Kong and Godzilla movies created in the west.  The movie take places in the same world as Legendary’s other 2014 and 2019 Godzilla movies.  The film follows Monarch, as it searches to map out the various ‘Titan’ monsters around the world.  The Film does a good job of introducing other monsters and setting up the world, and stars Tom Hiddleston and Samuel L. Jackson.  The movie also teases Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, which was the next major movie to come out.

 

Godzilla vs Kong (2021)

The newest feature, which is a sequel to the 2017 film and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

 

  

King Kong in Pop Culture

There have been multiple illusions to King Kong in various media over the last 88 years, ranging from parodies and humorous references, to near duplication.  Famously, scenes have been reference and re-used in various cartoons, such as the Simpsons, Futurama, The Muppets, and more.  Other movies have references scenes from King Kong as well, including the Nutty Professor, Lego Batman: The Movie, and even Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs were based off the films. 

 

Donkey Kong Franchise

The 1981 Nintendo franchise about hero trying to save his girl friend from the title character.  The fact that you travel up buildings that and face off against a large ape were clear illusions, as Nintendo wanted to make a King Kong game.  The character himself would continue on as something much different as the 90s moved on, moving in to a hero role, and being re-imagined as a primate family that fought to save their island.  He was named Donkey Kong, to mean ‘Stubborn Gorilla’.

 

Rampage Franchise

An 1986 arcade classic sees three Kaiju sized monsters destroying a city.  These monsters include a Godzilla/Ymir analog in Lizzie, a giant werewolf in Ralph, and a King Kong like gorilla names George.  The series has several remakes over the years, usually coinciding with new video game hardware and platforms at they came out.  It was adapted in to a film in 2018, which include the Rock leads a rare Albino-Western-Lowland Gorilla that knows sign language, and eventually grows to city-toppling proportions.

 

 

Homework:

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

Godzilla vs Kong (2021): Available on HBO Max, Other Streaming Services, and In Theaters

Episode 96: The Future that Never Happened

Topic: Movies and Franchises about the Future

 

This week, we’re looking at a collection of media about the future that either has yet to happen or never happened in our lifetimes.  In a lot of this, we really talked about what we all thought the future would be, and how quickly we thought it would happen.  Would you agree that the progress of the future is slowing down, or would you say we were just too unrealistic with the future?

All of this week's podcast started from this picture:

 

 

Futures that Should have Happened:

 

Star Trek

·       Tells of a war between 1992 to 1996 about the Eugenic War; a war where genetically altered humans attempted to take over humanity, causing nearly 37 Millions deaths.  This is the same Eugenics Wars as Kahn Noonien Singh. 

·       2053 - World War 3 ends after a nuclear exchange

·       2063 - We develop the First Major warp ship, which gets the attentions of the Vulcans and begins the early foundations of the federation and exploration.

·       2103 - Mars is colonized.

 

Thundarr the Barbarian

·       1994 – Premise tells of a runaway planet that drifts between the Earth and Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction and radically changing the Earth’s climate and geography

 

A Clockwork Orange

·       1995 – A future Britain is laden in crime, and a new technique that reforms prisoners with aversion therapy.

 

V for Vendetta

·       1995 - 1996 – In the Comic Version: Series of events highlight how a nuclear war year in the 1980 that leaves much of Africa and Europe devastated.  While Britain is not bombed itself, it feels the effects and the corporations and fascist groups take over the country, leading to the series of events.

·       2025 – 2026 – In the Film Version: As a result of the United State’s Second Civil War, a worldwide disease began to spread.  Britain is taken over by a neo-fascist, police state government which rounds up undesirable individuals, including political opponents, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, atheists, homosexuals, and others to be imprisoned and executed.

 

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

·       1997 – Tells that an AI will take over all computers and cause a war, leading to the near end of humanity.

 

Escape from New York

·       1997 – Humanity’s crime rose by 400% in 1988, and forced Manhattan island to be turned into a massive  prision.

 

Lost in Space

·       1997 - Jupiter 2 was said to launch due to overpopulation of the world.

 

Demolition Man

·       1996 – Cryogenic freezing of Criminals is established

·       2010 – A great Earthquake merged parts of Northern and Southern California

·       2032 - San Angeles, a merging of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara is a major megalopolis, and a utopia for the setting.

 

Knight Rider 2000

·       2000 – Predicts a future with Sonic Pistols, and talking Cars

 

2001: A Space Odyssey

·       2000 – Space travel itself is common place, with advanced AIs that help manage all the functions of these ships and people.

 

Mega Man Franchise

·       200X to 20XX – Stories tell of a Robotic evolution and development that replaces a lot of common jobs and functions with robots, leading to a peaceful future.  Mega Man battles with Dr Wily and his rogue Robots, which are often reprogrammed from their original function order and turned to terrorism.

·       21XX – Later version of the game sees X, the successor to Mega Man, being used to create the first series of Reploids(Replicated Androids) that have human feelings and personalities.  X fights against Mavericks Reploids, Reploids who have turned to crime or been infected with a virus, in order to protect humanity. 

 

Time Cop

·       2004 – Time Travel exists as a means of stopping Crime. 

 

Transformers: The Movie

·       2005 – The Autobots, giant transforming robots that turn into various vehicles and devices, have helped advanced human’s technology to the point of being similar to the Autobots.

 

Bicentennial Man

·       2005-2020 – Androids have become sophisticated butlers and house hold tools.

 

Freejack

·       2009 – The super wealthy have figured out immortality, by traveling back in time to just before a person dies and using their bodies as substitutes.  This is due to most of the population being on drugs and poor environment.

 

I Am Legend

·       2009 – 2012 - The film predicted an outbreak of a re-engineered measles virus in 2009 that kills 94% of the populace and mutates 5% into zombie-like "Darkseekers"

 

2012

·       2012 – Predicts that a solar flares from the sun will cause rising sea levels and rampant tsunami around the world, leading to various governments building Arks to protect up to 100,000 of humanity.

 

The Postman

·       2013 – Tells of a future after an unspecified apocalyptic events in 1997 that started a trend of militias leading hate crimes and other racially motivated attacks.

·       2043 – Due to the actions of the postman and the movement he started, the United States is rebuilt and much better afterwards

 

Back to the Future 2

·       2015 – Film travels to the future, where Marty must stop his son from ruining his life.  It predicts lots of various technology, most notably, Flying Cars.

 

Neon Genesis Evangelion

·       2000 – A worldwide event known as ‘Second Impact’ sees a meteor crash into Antarctica and devastates the populous, killing 2 billion people and raising the sea level

·       2015 – Majority of the story takes place, telling of a futuristic city of Tokyo 3 which has 26 story tall robots called Evangelions that protect humanity from the alien Angels sent to wipe out humanity.

 

Rollerball

·       2018 – In a future where corporations have taken over the government, a new sport, Rollerball is now the most popular Sport, with people being forced to watch it at home.

 

Blade Runner

·       2019 – Interstellar travel has been developed and becoming common place, with synthetic humans employed as labor.

 

The Running Man

·       2017 - The United States has become a totalitarian police state following a worldwide economic collapse. The government pacifies the populace through The Running Man, a broadcast game show, where criminals fight for their lives as "runners", fleeing from armed mercenaries named the "stalkers", to earn a state pardon.

 

Akira

·       1982 (1992 in English Adaptation) – Sees Tokyo destroyed by a nuclear bomb, starting World War 3

·       2019 (2030 in English Adaptation) – Tokyo is rebuilt as Neo-Tokyo on the artificial island in Tokyo Bay. Although the home of the 32^nd Olympic games, the city is gripped with Anti-Government protestors and gang violence.

 

Pacific Rim

·       2013 – Kaiju monsters start appearing from the ocean and destroying humanity.

·       2020 – Humanity has developed giant Robots piloted by 2 individuals in order to combat the Kaiju.

 

Edge of Tomorrow

·       2015 – An asteroid falls in Germany, carrying aliens that quickly take over Europe.

·       2020 – A small victory gives humanity hope an invasion of France is planned to retake the earth.  It’s discovered that the aliens use a system similar to ‘Goundhogs Day’ to return their memories to their past selves and alter events so that they go in their favor.

 

Johnny Mnemonic

·       2021 - "Mnemonic couriers" carry sensitive information in their brains; the world is dominated by megacorporations.

 

Futures potentially to be

 

Soylent Green

·       2022 - The effects of overpopulation, pollution, and climate catastrophe have caused severe worldwide shortages of food, water and housing. Soylent Industries controls the world's food supply, with their latest product, Soylent Green being various health and full of protein.

 

Repo Men

·       2025 – Advancements in prosthetics develop bio-organs, allowing the replacement of various internal organs.  They are sold by ‘The Union’, a corporation that sends out ‘Repo Men’ to repossess these bio-organs from people who are unable or unwilling to pay for them.

 

 

Children of Men

·       2027 – Humanity hasn’t had any children in 18 years, leading to various wars and global depression, which puts humanity on the brink of extinction. This has led Britain, one of the few remaining governments to become a police state, but also a haven for refugees.

 

Hotel Artemis

·       2028 – Water Privatization causes riots in Los Angeles, which leads to bank robbers getting injured and running to Hotel Artemis, a hospital/hotel for criminals.  There are robots doing surgery and also 3d printed transplant organs.

 

Ghost in the Shell

·       2029 – By this time, cyberization is common place, and humans have their brains protected with ‘Cyber Brains’ which allow interfacing with electronics and other tools.  There are fully cyberized people who are entirely artificial, save for their brains incased in ‘Cyber Brains’. 

 

I, Robot

·       2035 – Humanity has developed humanoid robots within the last 10 years that have taken over various jobs throughout the world.  The newest model and AI to run it run rampant as a result of the AI believing it is in the best interest of Humanity if robots ruled over humans in order to keep them from killing themselves.

 

The Martian

·       2035 – Manned missions to Mars is in their 3^rd wave, with humans living on Mars for roughly 36 days at a time, exploring and beginning the work of future colonization.  Mark Watney is left behind after an emergency exit from the planet following a storm, and is forced to live on Mars for over a year on his own.

 

Moon

·       2035 – The moon is being mined for a rare mineral that is needed for new super conductor electronics on Earth.  It’s ran by a singular clone and an advanced AI.

 

Meet the Robinsons

·       2037 – Major advancements in technology allow nearly anything to be real.  This includes flying vehicles, talking frogs, advances robotics and AI, and so much more.

 

Ready Player One

·       2045 – The world is plagued by an energy crisis and global warming, leading to economic collapse and widespread social problems. The only release/haven for escapism is the OASIS, a MMORPG/Social Community online that actually have the most stable economy in the world at the moment.

 

Event Horizon

·       2047 – Space travel is normalized and not unusual, with the main Ship, the Event Horizon, testing a radical new engine designed to travel through time-space rifts, and it brings back something it didn’t intend on bringing back.

 

Minority Report

·       2054 – Pre-cognition humans exist and are used to tell the events of future murders, which allows Pre-cog Police to arrest people before murders can take place.

 

Interstellar

·       2063 – Humanity’s crops and food supply is devastated, with people growing corn and major dust bowls coming to cause havoc on a daily basis.  Children are taught that space travel doesn’t even exist, in an effort to focus on survival instead of exploration.  Humanity/NASA sends one last manned mission in space to find a suitable new home for humans.

 

Oblivion

·       2077 – Humanity was invaded by Aliens 60 years ago, and as a result of the human using nuclear weapons to defeat the aliens, the few humans living on Earth are there maintaining drones that harvest the sea water for fuel sources.  Remaining humans now live on other planet, with the fuel being used to power their ships. 

 

Total Recall

·       2084 – Mars has been colonized and humans have the ability to take vacations via implanted memories of having adventures/vacations via a place called ‘ReKall’.

 

The Jetsons

·       2100s – A future where flying cars, apartments/homes in the sky exist, and humanity lives in almost pure luxury in the sky.

 

AI

·       2101 – Advanced robotics and AI end up creating androids that feel and fall in love.  One such example is an android child, that can replace a child in the home, giving the experiences of being a parent.  It can actually Fall in Love with a person, or atleast simulate it.

 

WALL-E

·       2105 - Humanity was devastated by over population/consumption, with too much trash.  This forced humans to leave the planet on cruise, vessels, while robots were meant to clean up the planet afterwards.  Humans never returned as the company ‘Buy n’ Large’ terminated the program to clean Earth as it felt it couldn’t sustain any life on the planet.

·       2805 – Humanity begins its return to Earth as life is discovered back on Earth, hoping to make it hospitable again.

 

Alien

·       2122 - Space transportation is typical and the crew of the Nostromo discover a distress beacon that leads to a horrifying end.

 

The Black Hole

·       2130 – Space travel is typical, with a crew returning to Earth, only to find a lone ship near a Black Hole, who is somehow immune to its gravitational constant.

 

Judge Dredd

·       2139 – Humanity has been forced in to Mega-Cities as much of the world has become a wasteland.  Humanity lives in these cities and are protected by the ‘Judges’, who act as both Police, Judges, Juries, and Executioners of the law.

 

The Matrix

·       2199 – Humanity created robots, and the robots, being advanced AI, develop sentience causing a revolt with humans.  Because the robots are powered by solar energy, Humans blot out the sun with dangerous black clouds.  The robots, eventually enslave humanity, forcing them to be born like crops and using them as batteries for their own powers, all while humanity is tucked away in a virtual landscape known as the Matrix.

 

Fifth Element

·       2263 – In a future with interstellar travel is typical, humanity had degraded to large high rise cities, with flying cars, and even genetic recreation of humans in a matter of minutes, potentially bring people back from the dead or from serious wounds.

 

Zardoz

·       2293 - Following a nanite plague that left most of the world uninhabitable, the human population is divided into the immortal "Eternals" and mortal "Brutals." The Brutals live in an irradiated wasteland, growing food for the Eternals, who live apart in "the Vortex," leading a luxurious but aimless existence on the grounds of a country estate. The connection between the two groups is through Brutal Exterminators, who kill and terrorize other "Brutals" at the orders of a huge flying stone head called Zardoz, which supplies them with weapons in exchange for the food they collect.

 

Logan’s Run

·       2274 - The remnants of human civilization live in geodesic domes, a utopia run by a computer that takes care of all aspects of life, including reproduction. The citizens live a hedonistic lifestyle but, to prevent overpopulation, everyone must undergo the rite of "Carrousel" when they reach the age of 30. There, they are killed under the guise of being "renewed”.  To track this, each person is implanted at birth with a "life-clock" crystal in the palm of the hand that changes color as they get older and begins blinking as they approach their "Last Day.” Most residents accept this chance for rebirth, but those who do not and attempt to flee the city are known as "Runners”. An elite team of policemen known as "Sandmen”, outfitted in predominantly black uniforms and serving in an agency of the city called "Deep Sleep”, are assigned to pursue and terminate Runners as they try to escape.

 

Starship Troopers

·       23 Century – Humanity has colonized various planets in the solar system, and developed interstellar travel.  However, they meet a race of non-technological aliens, later called the Arachnids, or ‘Bugs’, which humanity presumably provokes and causes an all out interstellar war.  The Bugs are led by super intelligent bugs that eat human brains to gain further intelligence.

 

Idiocracy

·       2505 – Over the course of many years, intelligent people chose not to have children, worrying about over population, while less intelligent people continue to reproduce indiscriminately, leading to a dumber and dumber society that over relied on corporations and automation.  As a result, laws and rules in place have no human oversight, and most humans are blindly ignorant of how the world actual works, with most automation being place to basically keep humans alive.

 

Planet of the Apes

·       2015 – A drug that repairs and enhances neural links in the brain is tested on chimps, with one young chimp Ceasar developing with humans and gaining insights and human knowledge.  The development leads to a new drug that makes Chimps and other primates smarter, but causes a world wide pandemic. 

·       2025 – Only 1 in 500 are immune to the pandemic, but in San Francisco, the Chimps lead by Ceasar rule over the forests and cities, with humans trying to reestablish their civilization has it’s been taken over by intelligent primates.

·       3978 – Human astronauts from 1972 find themselves warped to the future and discover that Primates have evolved similar to humans, and now rule over the planet.

 

 

Movies with no Set Times

 

Mad Max

A near-future dystopian world where the world has been ravaged by wars and is now low on critical recourses, such as gas, water, and the such.  

 

Gattaca

·       Eugenics is common and widely used, with those human not genetically altered limited from certain careers and opportunities, acting as second class citizens, forcing them to menial labor.  Biometrics can quickly determine if someone has been genetically altered and what qualities of the alterations they have.

 

Mortal Engines

·       Following a war using an impossible destructive weapon, mobile cities have been developed that travel across the world, eating up other cities that help fuel their existence and survival, with technology of the past being relegated to history.

 

Source/reference assistance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stories_set_in_a_future_now_past