GBW #6: Gorilla Filmmaking (King Kong [2005] / King Kong Lives / King Kong Escapes)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Good, The Bad, and The What!? The show in which we discuss three films that we have deemed "good," "bad," or "what!?" within a subgenre, theme, motif, director or actor's filmography, and more! This week, we continue with the second part of our “Godzilla vs. Kong” primer with a discussion about the history of King Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World. We touch on nearly every “King Kong” film, but in the spirit of the show, we only go into complete detail on three. Last week, it just so happened that the “Godzilla” films we discussed went in chronological order for “good,” “bad,” and “what?” This week, they’re in reverse order, so we decided to flip our order so we could go chronologically and really contextualize the series and speak to its strengths and limitations. We start with our “what?” this time out, which is 1967’s “King Kong Escapes,” a co-production between Toho (it is directed by “Godzilla” mainstay Ishirô Honda) and Rankin/Bass that features an awesome Mechani-Kong and a terrible King Kong puppet. Then, we move into 1986’s infamous box office disaster “King Kong Lives,” which we argue should have really been called King Kong, uh, fornicates. Finally, we finish out the show discussing Peter Jackson’s brilliant, epic 2005 recreation of the original film, and how even within the limited confines of the “King Kong” series that he was able to find new ideas and textures to bring to the story. You can find this and future episodes on our website thegoodbadwhat.com. You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Anchor.fm, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, Google Podcasts, and more! Feel free to email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments, or just want to say hello. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram @thegoodbadwhat. You can also like us on Facebook. Our logo comes from Michelle Parkos, and our theme music comes from Paco.