Kong

Well, this was a great edit. Nicely paced, seamlessly edited... achieved everything it set out to do. Well done.

April 15, 2010

Kong by The Man Behind The Mask

review by boon23

Prologue:

I am a bit late to the party, wanted to watch it last month, but just never felt the necessary motivation to do so. Why? Because it’s a King Kong fanedit. I don’t love that movie. It is bloated, superficial, has a lot of the “Emmerich Godzilla” effect and simply just tells the plot from the wrong point of view IMO. Other than that it has some truly great moments and a wonderful finale. More was possible, more did not happen. Now I really like TMBTM personally and I think he is a super talented faneditor, so of course I wanted to watch his new fanedit – even though it was King Kong. My expectations were mixed, because I simply could not imagine this movie suddenly being good, when there is still Jack Black in it.

As for all my reviews: this is just my personal opinion of this fanedit. I cannot tell anybody else, if he or she will experience it in the same way or the opposite. So my review is not objective and does not reflect the opinion of fanedit.org.

!!!!This review contains heavy spoilers!!!

The edit:

We get a wonderfully condensed version of the movie. Nothing is missing even though almost half the movie was deleted, which is a truly incredible achievement and just shows how bloated the original was. Gone are all the tedious moments in the beginning, where the characters get introduced for a long time without getting anywhere close to Skull Island, because that’s where we want to be. Well, not exactly, there are still too many dinosaurs and too many victims to rescue one person. The reasons for the actions of the people are as odd as they are in the original. But at least we are getting to Kong and Anne quickly, which is nice, because it is just there, where the movie starts to build an emotional atmosphere. What TMBTM took away from these moments was for the truly greater good, without losing one bit of impact. Kong saves Anne from certain death, he is protecting her and taking care of her. While his fascination in an ant-like creature can never be really understood, her reasons to like him are way more obvious. They shared the sunset.

The hunch for Anne is still not great, most of all because I still don’t know what I am actually watching. Is it a monster action movie? Is it a love story? Is it an adventure? The scenes are not bad, but what is missing in both the original and the fanedit is the emotional impact. I don’t think anything can be done about that, so I just thank TMBTM for making it all shorter.

The part of Denham gets the biggest improvement (by cutting a lot of his scenes). The part of Driscoll loses most of what it had and makes his reasons to do anythign for Anne very obscure. The part of Bruce Baxter almost does not happen anymore.

The New York finale is very well done and absolutely the highlight if this fanedit, except for the “it was beauty that killed the beast” line. I will always hate it and I still do.

editing: 10 of 10 (great editing decisions, no hard cuts, perfect plot even though half the movie is gone.)

entertainment: 7 of 10 (I enjoyed it a lot more than the original, but it’s still not a great movie and I hope I will never have to watch it again – the original got a 5 of 10 from me on imdb )

Image and video quality:

Perfect.

Video quality: 10 of 10

Audio editing and audio quality:

audio quality was perfect.

audio editing: 10 of 10

sound quality: 10 of 10

resulting in a 10 of 10 for overall audio

presentation:

The fanedit comes with about everything a good presentation needs. Cool title, self made credits (although not really informative for the changes, they just give us the name of tmbtm), cover art, trailer, a bonus feature (which could have been longer), nice menus.

Great!

9 of 10 for overall presentation

Final result: 8 of 10 (because I stick to my opinion of not rating a movie more than 1 star higher than the overall entertainment was for me.

It’s not a great movie now, but truly an improvement over the original. It’s a fast paced and entertaining watch and I can recommend this version to anyone who has the need to watch King Kong again. This is the best version there is.

September 17, 2011

This was just fantastic! It’s about as perfect as King Kong could be. The main problem with Peter Jackson is his story-telling. He’s an incredible filmmaker but he’s decided to just throw out the tried and true Three Act Structure. His King Kong was amazing to watch… once. When I watched it a second time I skipped a lot of scenes. The way you put this together really follows a proper structure.

I was incredibly impressed by how well the first Act came out (the first 25 minutes or so). We understand essentially who the characters are and what puts them on the boat without making a big deal out of it.

As well, I was glad that you toned down the idea of Ann falling in love with Kong. That always disturbed me about Jackson’s film. Here you make it that she’s just a good person and doesn’t want to see him harmed.

If there's one thing I miss on fanedit.org these days, it's the news that a new TMBTM edit is in the works. Put simply, he's one of the very best editors to have ever graced the forum, so it was high time that I finally checked out his take on Peter Jackson's epic King Kong.

Firstly, let me be quite upfront with how disappointed I was with Peter Jackson's interpretation of King Kong. Whilst there's no doubting his love and enthusiasm for the original movie and that he carries that through into the passion that's clearly on show in his version, the fact that his movie runs over 3 hours in length, compared to the 1933 film's 1 hour and 40 minutes, does nothing but hinder any chance his movie had to flourish. Instead, it sank under a bloated storyline which attempted to flesh out characters, but only succeeded in making me want to watch either the original film, or the first remake in 1976 directed by John Guillermin. So, a streamlined version of Jackson's movie by TMBTM was a promising and exciting prospect to say the least. Could he succeed in making Jackson's Kong truly roar?

One of the best things about TMBTM's KONG is how much care and skill is taken in the editing choices he makes. It must have been very tempting to remove as much of Skull Island's over long monster sequences as possible, particularly as many of them feel like you're watching a video game (yes, some of the CGI really hasn't aged well) , and while you certainly get the impression that he wanted to trim as much as he could, the key here is that TMBTM only trims what he's able to as he knows he has to concentrate on keeping the flow and logic of the film intact. So, although the scene where the crew are walking in amongst the stampeding brontosaurus is pretty awful, TMBTM knows he has to keep some of it, as there are some crew casualties here. The same applies to the scene when the crew are attacked by an undersea creature - there's some awful CGI here, but again some people perish so logically some of the scene has to stay.

Of course, these are some of the reasons why I had so many problems with Jackson's King Kong. When it comes to his use of CGI, he feels like a kid in a sweet shop who doesn't know or want to stop eating the candy. He just keeps going and going, even though the CGI sequences become laughable and take you out of the film. One of the best fanedited sequences in KONG is the scene when one of the dinosaurs is trying to eat Ann (Niaomi Watts) whilst Kong comes to her rescue... in the theatrical version the sequence feels like it goes on forever and is frankly ridiculous and boring - here, it's quick, more believable and quite beautifully edited. This style continues, with the vast majority of this edit staying on Skull Island, meaning by the time we get to New York and Kong is advertised as the Eighth Wonder of the World, we literally only have about 20 minutes of running time remaining.

This is where TMBTM faces his biggest challenge. By removing so many character scenes, can the viewer believe a) that Ann has such feelings for Kong that she will risk her life for him and b) can we also believe the other love story in Ann's life, with screenwriter Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody)? The answer is not necessarily easy to decide. I'd be lying if I didn't say that having so much material cut which would contribute to both points, does make it somewhat harder to believe in Ann's feelings for both. However, I also think the trade off for a shorter, much more concise and entertaining film, is worth it. I would say that Ann's relationship with Kong fairs better than hers with Jack in this edit. The key in this is that TMBTM ensures that he keeps in the scene on Skull Island when Kong saves Ann from the dinosaur attack and quite beautifully then acts like he wants Ann to thank him. It's a great scene, and Naomi Watts executes it perfectly, making one believe that she now feels totally safe with Kong. Therefore, I feel in terms of narrative, whilst there are some characterisation sacrifices, the edit actually does a remarkable balancing act and still manages to maintain its core key story elements.

By the end of KONG, I was honestly elated with what TMBTM has achieved here. It's another shining example of just how good an editor he is. Granted, there are a couple of frame stuttering moments I noticed, but otherwise for a DVD standard definition version, the picture looked great when I watched it on my 55 inch TV.

All in all, if anyone wants to know just how good Peter Jackson's King Kong could have been, I implore you to seek out TMBTM's KONG. It will be the only way I watch the film from now on. Now, finally, Jackson's Kong can finally roar!

I enjoyed this edit. Kong IS, as promised, a "truly fast-paced adventure" and goes straight to the point. TMBTM's edit is NOT, however, for anyone who remembers little or nothing from King Kong.

Kong is Editing Galore, but with great skill. It is technically outstanding, yet leaves some holes in the narrative (meticulously noted by billy-batson below). These didn't bother me personally, I just had a good time with Kong. Pure adventure with hints of B-movie, more or less. No slow start; Kong opens when things already are in motion. This gave me quite a thrill, trying to remember or even fabulize the characters back stories. Great fun!

A fan edit of quality!