It also shows how much bigger of a threat the adult skullcrawler is compared to the smaller juveniles. Thanks to more experience it knew something was off instead of just eating him like a juvenile would
@@legna3407 Bro saw the prey walk towards him and immediately got suspicious. Smart boi. Established the crawlers as much more dangerous than just dumb giant monsters.
This film has the most solid scene in the entire Monsterverse in my opinion: Hank returning home. The entire film you think he's going to die or sacrifice himself for the rest of the group as is usual with this type of character, however...That doesn't happen. He survives, he returns home, meets his wife, sees his son for the first time, watches a baseball game with a beer in one hand and a hot dog in the other and gets a deserved happy ending.
Don't forget that he also basically tells his family to kick rocks so he can watch the game lmao the fact they aren't sitting next to him on the couch was always funny to me.
This movie is actually a pretty big deal in Vietnam because the majority of the filming actually took place in the country, which is fucking rare since the government is really strict with letting foreign movies, let alone a Hollywood blockbuster be filmed. The director even became a Tourism Ambassador for Vietnam.
As a Vietnamese, I agree. It was a very big deal. Mission Impossible was planned to show Hoi An but of course the government declined after the read the scripts, forcing them to move to Bangkok. This led a lot of controversial and people kept complaining about why Vietnam wasn't popular for movies yet while Vietnamese movies were overwhelmed with "instant noodles" movies
@@Windows11Official Lmao, does the gov still let Tran Thanh cook those noodle? not sure if it true but i remember reading somewhere that the aftermath of this movie's production was a shit show. Gov even tried to demolish the set at some points.
Fun Fact about the Skull Crawlers, they were built off of a monster from the original black & white film, that was made just to show up in one shot. It was when Kong knocked over the log bridge, and the main hero was hiding on the cliff. They had a two-legged serpentine creature come out of a cave real quick to raise the tension. Than it just went away. Now, its one of the most iconic villain monster designs.
It’s kinda funny to see how Kong has more or less became the main character of the Monsterverse in terms of GvK and The New Empire. Not bad for an ape that was best well known for getting shot off of the Empire State Building.
Ehh Godzilla is still the star of the show, no matter how much the movie expanding universe revolves around Kong or has plot revolving around Kong. Godzilla will always be the Main Attraction as much as I like Kong.
@@anubis8586That’s not true in terms of box office. Kong always does better in that regard. The highest grossing Godzilla film of all time is GxK, which is a Kong centered film.
John C. Reilly's performance in Kong: Skull Island deserves more appreciation. He really is the heart of the movie and way more dramatic than you would expect. The fact that he actually makes it home is a refreshing twist in this genre. And the way the Monarch series retroactively set this film up helps the story too.
Feel the same with Sam Jackson in the film too. By all accounts, he should be in full on cruise mode taking that paycheck, but he actually did a good job in representing his character's frustrations over feeling like he didn't get to put his best foot forward because of the heads, and seeing Kong open that wound again makes him want to do it right, regardless of if he dies or even if he kills Kong. All the same, he'll just feel like he finished the fight proper this time.
When he was working with Paul Thomas Anderson, I feel like that was when he was showing his true acting chops. I love his comedic era, but I feel like he’s at an age where he should go back to more dramatic roles
The aging thing actually makes perfect sense: kids tend to stop looking like kids pretty quickly when they live in high-stress environments and are subjected to a lot of traumatic events. Look up child factory workers from like the Industrial Age, and you'll see a lot of 10 year olds who look like they're pushing 30.
Look. I don't actually know how much you delved into the director, Jordan Vogt-Roberts. You did go into basically how he hadn't made any new movies since Kong Skull Island. There is a very good reason for that. Besides the gundam and solid snake movie you talked about, which I believe he is still working on, in between those two periods of time, he was a tourism ambassador for vietnam. During that time he...got very heavily assaulted in an attack against a night club he frequented. Afterwards, he had brain damage because of it and when he recovered he kind of just went 'Full-on Batman' trying to get justice for the people who were injured/dead. I will not spoil the journey for you, but it is a very interesting read.
Well that explains why the Metal Gear Solid movie is taking so long to come out. Although, to be fair, I have no idea how you’d even be able to tackle making a Metal Gear Solid into a movie considering the numerous exposition dumps that are like 20 minutes long each.
@@atomic747 The reason I say 'spoil' is because it's a history that you get invested into and if I put it all out there, I feel like I'll remove the emotional impact it should have. Suffice to say, it just involves going against big time crime bosses from Canada.
I also do find it funny how they got two actors who were from Straight Outta Compton, to say the most funniest lines. “We just got attacked by a monkey, the size of a building!”
"There's one." **bird noise** "Sounds like a bird but it's a fuggin' ant." As someone who hasn't seen this movie yet, that's a fucking hilarious gag, really caught me off guard.
@gluever54 yeah they don't even have to show the thing for you to imagine it's size, how it sounds up close, and how vicious it probably is. Great world building indeed.
I think the intro is parodying Vietnam movies. It leans so heavy into that cheesy aesthetic and constant reminder with music. Then what happens? All of that dies after they meet Kong. Soundtrack shifts.
Personally I watched Kong skull island blind,no trailers no synopsis nothing, I thought it was just going to be about some soldiers who went to the island where Kong was from and basically face those horrors and the dinosaurs but without Kong this time, boy was I pleasantly surprised, so this switch in atmosphere hit me even extra because I thought that Vietnam war style aesthetic with wise cracking soldiers but with an island of monsters was going to be the whole movie then that scene happened when they saw Kong standing in front of the helicopters, my jaw dropped, since then I've been watching thriller and horror movies blind, always enhances the experience when you're just as ignorant as the characters in the movie about what's going to happen
@@liamphibia Basically the Showa Era which even Ishiro Honda, Tomoyuki Tanaka, and Eiji Tsuburaya established that path after creating THE essential J-Horror film. They were happy to have the films cater to children which I’m glad they did since music were the best thing to come out of the route. But it didn’t happen overnight. It slowly made the Godzilla franchise be more comical, eiyuu (heroic), and spectacular.
@@3takoyakis Not sure about that. 2014 Godzilla is grounded catasrophe movie, the one that came out this year, the empire whatever was just goofy as hell
The size scaling in this movie was PERFECT My personal favorite was when Kong went to drink water. To him, it was just a normal drink... but to us to it looks like a waterfall. That single scene alone blew me away with how perfectly sized up everything was.
@@godzillaandstuffproduction9383 *looks at godzilla being too big to walk through the golden gate Bridge which would realistically require him to be well over 600 feet tall to do when the water depth underneath said Bridge is deeper than he is tall* 💀....g14 has good cinematography but it too exaggerates it's scaling, all kaiju movies do
@Kaiju-bm4ts they also upscaled Kong massively in KSI I believe. It's not a matter if depicting these things only in their canon height, it's depicting them as the incomprehensibly massive creatures that they are. I stand by my statement of G14 being a great example of giving kaiju their weight.
Now that Wingard is out, I really hope the next director gets the scale back in order like this again. I don't mind the campy tone, I just want the scale to be consistent and feel big.
It feels joyfully shot to me a lot-like JVR was just going "can we do that? we can? ok great thats in the movie now" Compared to a lot of modern movies where the camera doesn't get up to much Skull Island is just a bounty.
Agreed! Telepathy was reserved for the Mother's twins but now it's not that special anymore. I bet once it gets revealed so many people are gonna say "that's just like Jia" or "didn't Jia have telepathic powers?"
@Flash-FireCC Kinda feels like the telepathy part was just a bullshit excuse to compensate for the fact that they ran out of ideas on what the Iwis are supposed to say or how do they communicate lmao It was prior established that Jia communicates through sign language and she was born and raised on the island so she isn't really a telepath.
What's even better is that director Jordan Vogt-Roberts actually got to be featured in Screen Junkies' Honest Trailers to talking about his movie. And guess what? He held no shame in admitting his movie's flaws and shortcomings. His helicopter rant had me *howling* on the floor. I wish more directors did what he did.
Him appearing in honest trailers was actually the result of CinemaSin's awful skill Island video, I'm pretty sure his rant about helicopters was a reference to house CinemaSins sined there being a lot of helicopters multiple times
I always laugh just thinking about how unbelievably unsustainable skull island is. All of the predators can cross the entire thing in like 1 minute, but somehow they can naturally grow to those sizes, and the skull crawlers are ironically the reason Kong even has enough food to stay alive
I mean, this the Monsterverse. No creature in this is actually an animal. Basically, all of them sustain themselves with radiation and are something very vague thing from even before life on Earth actually existed. And I am not defending it, is honestly pretty shallow overall.
@@pacoramon9468 no he doesn't. He isn't like godzilla, he actually feeds on creatures he hunts occasionally. Even skull crawlers despite he hates how they tasted. This is literally explained in the gvk novel and kingdom kong
@@CoracaoAcidental98Honestly hate how they feed on radiation. A: How do they grow bigger then? B: How do they not die of super cancer??? . None of this is intended as a slight against you.
Well that and Dennis Hopper probably also wanted photographs of apes in war based on this clip (No worry, this ISN’T the Rick roll): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MdrlALQVEKM.htmlsi=rwJ44GgSXW3eH-JC
One of my favorite parts was Jordan Vogt-Roberts tearing cinemasins a new a hole and then going to Honest Trailers to show how you actually critique a movie
Cinemasins was a joke anyway. they just find random crap to whine about that doesn't really seem like it should even be a problem and then turning it to a problem just to add in a point. All that points does nothing in the end and it's just a number no one really cares or look up to.
At first they were fresh and funny but then it just devolved into them sinning stuff that they misunderstood or didn't pick up on, and sinning movies for stuff they praise other movies for @@Jin-1337
@@Jin-1337I think they were fun in the beginning just pointing out production mistakes and the like. Somewhere along they got really meanspirited and nitpicky.
The "group of people go to location full of monsters and get killed off one by one" is my favorite genre. When I saw the trailer for Skull Island I was absolutely livid cause it was practically like my childhood fantasy
@@Oinker-Sploinker meh, the instant teleportation stuff kinda ruined the hollow earth plot for me. and they do get picked off one by one every time they go down there.
I don't know what word you're searching for, but I'm confident you don't want 'livid' unless you were filled with jealous rage that you couldn't be actually in the movie.
There’s a manga by the author of Gundam Thunderbolt based off the video game series Front Mission, called Front Mission Dog Life and Dog Style. It’s a brutally violent anthology where the only reoccurring character is a war photographer otaku guy who absolutely loves war and war crimes. As the manga progresses he goes out of his way to set up soldiers with robots to fight each other with so he further document more war and he monologues about how much he loves it. Good read, I’d highly recommend it
@@leithaziz2716 i do hope people understand that optimus prime and optimus primal arent the same guy Like originally i thought everyone knew that already but the more people i ask the more im doubting that
@@Bebe_Hippo Nah, I know. I watched Beast Wars. I'm just quoting the meme. (If you only know about the Maximals from the film, please watch the show. It's very good once you get past the dated CG).
The worst part about this movie is John Goodman’s death. He’s a super important character for the Monsterverse and if you’ve seen _Monarch: Legacy of Monsters_ you’d wish he didn’t die due to his importance, but also because he’s just such an interesting character with some pretty incredible stories to tell.
Ksi was made when monarch wasn't even made yet. Monarch just grabbed a character who didn't do much in ksi and gave him more of a legacy prior to his death
@@TheMadTurtle not really, John Goodman was probably only around 50-60 years old by the time he went to Skull Island, it’s definitely possible that he could have survived to at least 2017 and seen the events of _Monarch: Legacy of Monsters_
13:45 the thing is, Kong is a teenager in this movie. He did look like suko proportionally when he was as young as suko, except more gorilla than orangutan. Also, take a closer look at Kong in this movie and then in The New Empire, bro’s torso is so massive now compared to what it was in this movie, and his fur is a lot more grey instead of stark brown, which was also how he was in this movie. I feel like there are plenty of changes in kong’s appearance from Skull Island to TNE, it’s just small changes that show the difference between a teenager and a 40-50 year old, which is essentially the age difference we have for Kong in this movie and Kong in TNE, meanwhile suko is an adolescent, a toddler, just without the stress-induced dwarfism that the great apes suffered from on skull, which was a very hostile environment when the skull crawlers were a numerous threat.
that spider scene has to be one of my favorite moments in the entire film with the soldiers bantering about stupid shit but then the sudden "oh fuck" from everybody seeing that soldier guy impaled was the cherry ontop for this film not to mention the spider design itself- spider legs being camouflaged in a bamboo forest is horrifying idea and iirc the bamboo legs suck in the organs of their victims (who are still conscious through the entire thing) this shit keeps me up at night
I think the intro is parodying Vietnam movies. It leans so heavy into that cheesy aesthetic and constant reminder with music. Then what happens? All of that dies after they meet Kong. Soundtrack shifts.
A small detail i really liked about Kong's introduction, he only attacked the helicopters in self defense/defending the island, if they hadn't dropped the bombs they'd all be alive.
The guy who failed to sacrifice himself was actually so sad to me, because he thought he was going to get horribly eaten cause the babies did that with reckless abandon but Ramarak was sadly smarter than that
Sounds like a atrocious b movie with a shoestring budget made by The Asylum. I demand it's existence, along with it's four unneeded and progressively worse sequels.
I think people really forget how important a good movie with a standalone story within a cinematic universe. I can recommend Kong: Skull Island to my cousin before he even knows about Godzilla or the monsterverse. MCU used to have those before Avengers Age of Ultron.
As someone who's first King Kong film was the Peter Jackson remake, Skull Island remains my favorite purely because thr big ape gets to survive in the end.
In King Kong movies, I love all the random insane stuff living in the island that picks off the humans. Such creative designs, and creative murder. I wish the Hollow Earth was like that when we go visit it in other movies.
Whatever you can say about this movie, it didn't make everything Grey and Black like every other block buster from the era. Honestly the cinematography and color grading is really great, and again it puts its contemporaries to shame visually.
As someone who's first King Kong film was the Peter Jackson remake, Skull Island remains my favorite purely because the big ape gets to survive in the end.
I’m gonna be honest, as a Godzilla fan girl, I think the choice to make Kong the narrative lead is a great balance to Godzilla being the powerhouse due to the fact of the type of movies these are Plus, Godzilla got two solo movies instead of one!
I am not joking when I say this. I unironically think and wholeheartedly believe that this is the best out of all the Monsterverse films. Heck, I honestly felt emotional with the footage attached to the end credits. Yes, I will gladly die on this hill.
It's really insane to me how, at least on some level, this movie has a driving theme that actually tackles the Vietnam war. The characters you care about are motivated by something to do with war, Kong being pissed off is in a way symbolic of the war, every brutal death as well. It's pretty impressively potent for a movie about big monkey fight, and the visual direction makes this astoundingly clear, too. Speaking of visual direction, coming off of Godzilla 'I can't see' 2014, it was a fucking awesome to see a kaiju movie of this quality with such distinct visuals.
She must've lost all her PR managers after this film cause man did her public image tank. It's as if the moment she joined Disney, her new team told her to be as confrontational & aggressive as possible.
2005 still tried to have a bit of realism, they even had a world book for it, even this movie based most of the monsters around animals and mythology you would find in east Asia.
The behind the scenes interviews with the cast were pretty interesting. I got the impression that the big MCU actors (Samuel L Jackson, Brie Larson, Tom Hiddleston) were all told that their characters were the main character. If that _was_ the case, it's an interesting directing technique. It definitely makes each character feel a little more realized if they consider themselves the hero. Like, how impressive was Gal Gadot's performance as Wonder Woman when she was third-wheeling Batman and Superman? Did Jesse Eisenberg ever genuinely think Lex Luthor was right? If nothing else, it was refreshing to see a female lead in a monster movie not screaming like a god damn banshee
17:39 I remember people hearing about this point in the movie when it came out and were like "wait that sounds so much more interesting, why isn't that a movie instead?"
24:21 "Like an angry crocodile" describes it so well in Godzilla x Kong. I haven't watched many of the monsterverse movies, but the way they did him there was extremely funny to me. I personally feel like Godzilla works best as something in between a force of nature and a protector of the earth's natural balance (not that other versions of him can't also be interesting/fun), which is what I think they were kinda going for. But the way it contrasts to Kong is just hilarious.
yeah because to be fair the spider was wrecking shit before godzilla comes to put in its place. really i feel godzilla had the message something is coming in his head and that he needed more power but wasnt told what was coming so he just kinda attacked everything. he just needed his wife to point his anger in the right direction
That was the point in Godzilla's first two movies but ever since Wingard took over his personality has been completely changed to a raging monster, which is not a good comparison when your frienemy is a smart monkey. Before he was more thoughtful and reserved like how he only used his atomic breath when he really needed to but now he just spams it.
@@Flash-FireCC On the other hand, you see with Scylla and Tiamat desperately trying to keep Godzilla's mouth closed that his atomic breath is a big enough threat for them because they know for a fact they cant tank it Plus, the dude is juiced up with more and more radiation with each passing movie. He has the supply for it, and he KNOWS it
22:48 You hit right on the nail with that one. KSI was the ideal way the Monsterverse should've gone with. Great action, plenty of monster screen time, and most notably likable humans and more. Its end credits gave a massive tease for what was to come making Godzilla fans ecstatic for the future and boy were we hyped. I do hope we return to this style because while GvK and New Empire are fun, they seriously lack in substance.
@@thesteelsquid863 What I meant was choreography. GvK has some of the best battles for sure but it can't compete with Skull Island's incredible camera work and combat.
I like that that guy's wasted sacrifice is used to highlight that the Skullcrawler isn't just a dumb animal. It's been chasing these guy down to eat them the whole while, and suddenly one of them just offers himself up as a snack? Something fishy about that. YEET!
Honestly, of all the shared universes that followed the MCU, the MonsterVerse is the only one to really succeed. It didn't start straight away with slapping "It's all connected!" on it and the movie that expands the universe, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, is actually a pretty great movie for what it is. Sure, that might be personal, but I loved it. (Maybe also because that movie is as close as we'll ever get to a B.P.R.D. movie.)
Honestly I love the plot/idea of just monsters in a largely populated area. Could be one big monster, bunch of smaller monsters, both a-la Cloverfield, whatever. For whatever reason I just really like horror in an urban and populated setting I guess.
The bad anime Godzilla trilogy had a book where a horde of 1998 Godzillas swarmed France, I hope that they do something like that with the skull crawlers, they are too cool to be left aside as fodder for future monsters.
Speaking of GxK, I'm really happy I'm not the one who couldn't help but notice how much Kong and that little orange ape (Suko) resemble *Kratos* and *Atreus.* Lmao
I think Kong looking like a grown ass man ape dispite being a lil kid monkey is like with those medieval paintings of Jesus where he looks like a grown man-baby creature. So, Kong is Monkey Jesus
I love that time when people on Twitter tried defending that pointless sacrifice scene as if it was supposed to show that life doesn't go your way or that sacrifices don't always go to plan yadda yadda, when the scene is clearly meant to actually make the sacrifice pointless to be funny
It was also to highlight how smart the Skullcrawlers are. "Ok, this guy is clearly trying to get me to eat him. Something's up, I'll be extra careful when killing him."
I thought it was kinda weird how John C Riley's family in the movie had years to get over the fact that he might be dead but little Timmy or whatever his name is doesnt even get told what happens to his dad that was eaten by that first skull crawler. Like sucks to be you I guess jimmy.
The reason kong didnt look like a Baby on Skull Island, was because he wasn't. He was essentially a teenager. Thats why Suko actually looks like a kid, cause he is
That..doesn't entirely make sense still when suko as a kid is still taller than kong is a "teen" the movie even outright has hank saying kong is still a kid. He wasn't a teenager til the 90s or maybe sometime in the 2000s. He looks older because he always had to fight to stay alive since day 1. Suko waa born in what was the equivalent of a abusive household and didn't need to fight to stay alive. Just not anger skar king.
@@Kaiju-bm4ts i mean, people use teenager and kid interchangeably depending wheher you wanna downplay their age. i.e when you have a movie where a teenager wants to get involved in the fight and an adult say "stay out of this, kid"
@@merlin5662 True but kids and teens are still not the same thing as both are different in terms of growth development. But I do get what you mean. I'm just saying realistically kong was likely still a kid, like an actual kid but looked hardened due to his rough life
Because even though they will end up the same size, they are not the same species, so it is excusable for them to grow at different proportions and speed.
@Kaiju-bm4ts Thing is, you still got the Isular Dwarfism argument. Kong was smaller as a teenager because of the fewer resources available to him initially. It probably helped that once he killed the big Skullcrawler, he no longer had any form of competition for resources on the island.
@@aegis6485 Hey buddy, you just blow in from stupid town? He has another channel that came first called AlternateHistoryHub, and the first video was posted like 11-12 years ago
Glad someone else remembered the big swamp Buffalo. He is at peace even now, meditating in that bog. He and the Logbug meet up for Bridge games on Wednesday.
I mean, it’s not like anyone would want to treat Skull Island like a tropical resort considering that the smallest animals are literally human sized ants.
They need an excuse to keep Kong, his army and Shimo out of the picture though cause even if you revived Ghidorah and all the surface monsters teamed up with him they would still get curb stomped by Godzillas allies.
25:00 Skull Island and King of the Monsters had great post credits scenes that hyped you for the next movie and it suddenly stopped. I would have loved it they showed a teaser of Destoroyah.
That slow motion sword scene, Loki puts on a gas mask, slices and dices with the katana, then dramatically takes off his gas mask, while still surrounded by the gas, lol
Honestly, I'm fine with how the pivoted Godzilla in these films. I really didn't want him to be this big super hero for humanity. Giving that role to Kong was a much smarter choice. Godzilla's role is and always should be maintaining order via force.
Then if the series isn't interested in giving Godzilla the status he had at the start then they should just phase him out instead of playing the supporting player. He deserves better so either they give him the focus he deserves or they should just take him out of the series out of respect.
I agree this series always peaks with King Kong and with the existence of Shimo Godzilla simply isn’t needed anymore, GxK was worse with him in it by contacting screen time away from the villains and cutting away from kongs adventures, And by getting rid of Godzilla they won’t have Toho to restrict them and they might be able to get monsters like Gamera or other underrated monsters.
I wish this series gave each monster within it a larger purpose rather than relegation everyone besides Godzilla and Kong, Godzilla should always be a destructive force of nature and I think the balance of nature part should be given to Mothra to give her some agency, I saw a fan made thing on twitter and Mothra was an angelic creature sending Godzilla to do her bidding to punish mankind and I just think it’s a cool concept. Kong should definitely be a more of a berserker, I like what they’re doing but they are making him too human and kind of a pushover. I know Toho would never allow it but Gamera should be added and be the full time protector of humanity, he was made by humans with genetic engineering and it would but him into conflict with Godzilla for being an unnatural creature.
@@Oinker-Sploinker Well I'm so sorry the Legendary version of the character isn't what you expect from Godzilla. However he's so flexible you can just watch something else instead of trying to bring him down to make someone else look better.
@@Oinker-Sploinker Godzilla still has a place. Shimo clearly didn't want to be brought into conflict, she was forced to. Next movie, I think Kong needs a break and Godzilla needs an opponent. I wanna see Biolante, Space Godzilla, or something new, as well as a return of Monarch's big military force. We need another Ghidora level threat.
