Jackson's King Kong: 3 Hours.

[Joshua Randall]

I read (in an article in Wired magazine) that Jackson deliberately chose a more "retro" look for the dinosaurs -- in other words, he wanted them to look more like the dinos in the original King Kong, and less like what we currently believe dinos actually looked like.

 

[Desdichado]

Huh. Really? That's pretty cool. As much as I love the modern conception of dinosaurs, I do kinda miss the days when we talked about Brontosaurus and Trachadon sitting in the swamps sometimes. The retro, nostalgic feeling, of course. Now we have to talk about Apatasaurus and Edmontosaurus cruising through forests, and some of the mystique gets lost.

 

[demiurge1138]

Supposedly, the production design team was inspired by Dougal Dixon's concepts of dinosaurs continuing to evolve past the Cretaceous. So the dinos in King Kong purposefully aren't actually the dinosaurs of the Mezosoic era, although they are analogous to them. The T-rex that Kong fights, for example, is actually a "V-rex" (Vastatosaurus rex), and very purposefully has more crocodilian skin (for that retro look), three fingers, and a shorter skull.

And at least one of the "dinosaurs" in the movie (Foetodon) actually is an evolved land-crocodile.

Demiurge out.

 

[Desdichado]

Supposedly, the production design team was inspired by Dougal Dixon's concepts of dinosaurs continuing to evolve past the Cretaceous. So the dinos in King Kong purposefully aren't actually the dinosaurs of the Mezosoic era, although they are analogous to them. The T-rex that Kong fights, for example, is actually a "V-rex" (Vastatosaurus rex), and very purposefully has more crocodilian skin (for that retro look), three fingers, and a shorter skull.

Yeah, I noticed that from the toys, which are starting to pop up all over the place. Although the video game demo still calls that the T-rex scene where Kong fights one for Darrow. I didn't know about that crocodile retro look being purposefully a retro thing, but I did certainly notice that the dinosaurs were extremely crocodilian in appearance. It's not just he crocodile skin that the dinosaur is wearing, it's also the way the teeth are set in the jaws, the lack of lips (dinosaur skulls showed muscle attachment sites that indicate they did have lips, while crocodiles do not) and a few other things.

And at least one of the "dinosaurs" in the movie (Foetodon) actually is an evolved land-crocodile.

Yeah, I saw the toy for that and knew that it was no dinosaur, although I thought maybe they intended it to be a "thecodont" or something like that. A terrestrial crocodile, though--there's some basis for that. There've been a handful of terrestrial true crocodiles in the past. Cool. Is there an online article anywhere that discusses these dinosaur design decisions anywhere?

 

[demiurge1138]

I haven't seen any online articles - my source has been "The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island". It's a coffee table-esque book about Skull Island and its fauna, based on all the production art made for the movie. I love that book.

Looking through it, there does seem to be some differences in opinion for the production design. The designer of the V. rex, for example, gave it crocodilian teeth and no lips, so that's what it has in the movie. The Venatosaurs' designer, on the other hand (a Venatosaurus is a giant dromeosaur), gave his dinos lips and socket teeth (although some illustrations by different artists have more crocodilian teeth). So how they are in the movie, we'll have to wait and see.

But really, I'm not watching King Kong to see super-accurate renditions of dinosaurs. I'm looking for very cool renditions of dinosaurs, and how they fight with oversized gorillas. Sure, scientific accuracy would be nice, but as long as the movie's entertaining, I can live without it.

Demiurge out.

 

[Desdichado]

Oh, I'm not either, I'm just too much of a dinosaur nut to not notice.

I'll go check out that book; presumably its on sale now?

 

[demiurge1138]

Yeah. I found it at Borders about a week ago.

Demiurge out.

 

[Desdichado]

Just flipped through it at Borders a few minutes ago myself (I have one a few minutes from my office, luckily.)

Awesome, awesome book. Beautiful, intriguing. Right up my alley. I'll definately be picking up a copy, and soon.

If you like that kind of stuff, you might want to check out Greg Bear's novel Dinosaur Summer too--it's kinda the same premise; what if there was an area where dinosaurs survived and had 65 million more years of evolution than we actually saw. Here, though, the premise of the novel was the Professor Challenger's expedition to The Lost World of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fame was real, and the novel takes place several decades later. It has cameos of a lot of folks who went on in the real world to become famous monster movie guys, like O'Brien, Harryhausen, etc. Just for fun. Plus, the books illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi.

 

[farscapesg1]

Personally, in my opinion the longer the movie, the better. That way I get more "bang for my buck". Of course, if the movie isn't any good, then it isn't such a good thing. What whas the name of the latest civil-war based movie that was 2 1/2 - 3 hours? I think i was about to fall asleep in that one.

Of course, now that the wife is 5 months pregnant, she doesn't share my desire for long movies Before that, we both felt that if a movie didn't hit 2 hours, it was a waste of money to see it at the theater instead of just waiting for it to come out on DVD.

 

[Desdichado]

Of course, now that the wife is 5 months pregnant, she doesn't share my desire for long movies

Women are so weird.