lunes, 19 de abril de 2010

King Kong vs Godzilla - action figures and a weird movie

Godzilla action figures fans know Godzilla is a Japanese creation by Toho Company in 1954. King Kong Toys fans know King Kong was born in the US in 1933. So, how come these two monsters, from so different backgrounds, came to create the movie King Kong vs Godzilla?

King Kong vs Godzilla - two monster together by first and only time so far.

Many people think it was King Kong who inspired the Japanese to start their movie monster genre known as Kaiju. The 1933 movie was released in Japan was very successful. By 1962, Toho had already created two Godzilla movies; Godzilla was still a villain that continuously attacked Japan. King Kong, instead, was a hero. So, when Toho was offered the opportunity to make a movie with King Kong in it, its immediate condition was to have King Kong and Godzilla together. One would think Toho would pay tribute to King Kong... but the only possible intention in this direction was to set King Kong to win the battle and to use King Kong first in the title.

At the time, Toho was thinking of giving Godzilla a less serious tone and give a more humor cut so it was appealing to a broader audience, including the Japanese children. So, the movie where King Kong vs Godzilla was meant to be a comic movie. Yes, the two most worldwide known monsters got together to create a funny movie!

Well, to make things weirder, Toho created a very nice more-dinosaur-looking suit for Godzilla (Godzilla action figures fans love it) and a ridiculous and laughable-at suit for King Kong (there are not too many King Kong toys released after this appearance). And with this physical look, Godzilla was increased in size so it was as high as Godzilla. Later in the movie, Kong was lifted by yellow balloons after being narcotized and taken to meet Godzilla.

King Kong is lifted by yellow balloons and taken to meet Godzilla


Finally, as if this movie was not different enough, the Hollywood distributors decided they did not want a comic movie and heavily edited the film to make it a science fiction movie. That didn't happen and this US version passed to history as the most altered Godzilla movie in the English language.

Having being prevented, you now have some criteria to understand King Kong vs Godzilla. Hopefully you get to see both versions of King Kong vs Godzilla and draw your own conclusions.