My Re-Analyzing of King Kong (2005)/Analysis of the Extended Edition · 12:23am Nov 25th, 2021
Greetings and salutations, my friends.
This is your top-of-the-line film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.
Today, for the 6th installment of this year's "Thanksgiving Treat", I'm gonna give you guys something different:
A review on the extended edition of "King Kong (2005)"/Re-Analyzing of the film.
Considering the fact that the summary of this movie was already explained in my review of the theatrical version, I hardly think it's necessary to spill what the movie's about here.
If you'd like to know what the movie's about and check out what I thought of the movie's theatrical version, click on the link below:
In all honesty, I was originally going to make a complete review of the extended version. As I thought about it more, though, I began to think it'd be better to classify this as a re-analyzing of the film as a whole instead since I was basically doing a take on the same movie, only longer and with more scenes.
Coming from a guy who finally saw it by renting it on AppleTV, I really must say that the extended edition of "King Kong (2005)" is way better than the theatrical version. When I was watching the scenes that the theatrical version didn't have, I realized that they were ones that shouldn't have been cut in the first place. They helped the editing and pacing be more smooth-flowing, and they were essential to the story too.
A prime example comes from the part where the rescue party for Ann Darrow is crossing the swamp using rafts. In the theatrical version, the entire search party is shown to have stopped at the edge of a swamp before Bruce Baxter decides to go back to the ship. The next scene featuring the search party showed them crossing the log bridge to King Kong's cave, with no explanation as to how they got past the swamp and their journey to Kong's cave being unnaturally short. In the extended version, though, it's shown that the search party got past the swamp by using rafts to transport themselves across the water, although it wasn't without running into more danger.
Narrative-wise, the whole scene featuring the swamp-crossing was so valuable that nothing would make sense without it. It's also the case with every other scene the extended edition had but the theatrical version didn't have.
The additional scenes in question were also of great benefit for many of the film's characters, most notably Carl Denham and Jimmy.
Unlike the theatrical version, the extended edition gives a greater glimpse into how mad Denham was becoming in his obsession over making his movie or to simply achieve success again, even after the camera was destroyed. A similar thing was happening with Lumpy the cook, in that the longer he was traveling on Skull Island the more paranoid he was becoming because of all the creatures he was encountering.
The extended edition also gives more time for audiences to see Bruce Baxter being someone with courage instead of a coward. Despite not addressing how this change came about, the longer aftermath of the bug pit battle shows that he must've decided before that he couldn't bear the thought of leaving everyone else behind and was willing to help the others even at the cost of his life.
In addition to this, Jimmy has a larger amount of screen-time to show how much he developed as a successor to Englehorn's first mate, Benjamin "Ben" Hayes, who is also Jimmy's adoptive father. There's also more screen time to showcase and further develop the friendship between Jack Driscoll and Preston.
With all this in mind, it dawned on me that without the special scenes like the ones I mentioned, the individual character developments outside of Ann, Jack Driscoll, and King Kong were getting undermined.
As for the special effects...just like the usage of them in the scenes from the theatrical version, the effects used to create the creatures and sceneries for the additional scenes were pure awesomeness. If I had to pick out what the best of them were, it'd be the underwater sequences in the swamp and that of the gigantic Piranhadons.
In regards to if there are any nitpicks in this movie, the only thing I'm still not exactly fond of is the cussing that the film featured. The movie would've been so much better without the slight use of profanity. I don't consider the Skull Island natives as much of a problem by rating-standards anymore, but I still think they were terrifying enough to where I wouldn't recommend the movie as something for anyone under 13 years of age.
In conclusion, though, the extended edition of "King Kong (2005)" is way better than the theatrical version, and the reasons for why come from all the things I mentioned. It makes me wonder why Universal wanted these scenes to not be included in the theatrical version to begin with, because while it did turn out well the choppy editing and pacing would likely make itself apparent in years to come.
With that in mind, I hereby rate the extended edition of "King Kong (2005)" 4½ out of 5 stars.
As for the theatrical version of the film...well, I pretty much consider it non-existent now.
I think I saw this movie and I fine it cool to watch
I loved the Peter Jackson King Kong. I saw it in cinemas, and have both the director's cut (which is nothing special, just added commentary and Skull Island lore) and the extended edition as you reviewed above. I also have the original black and white from 1933, and it's 1935(I think) sequel, Son of Kong. I'm a sucker for good "monster" movies. When you think about it, it's an interesting take on the story Beauty and the Beast.
I wasn't too thrilled with the 1973 remake, or Kong: Skull Island. I only acknowledge the latter because it plays with the monsterverse, and is a prequel to Gojira v Kong.
Once again, I love this movie.