Kong Mirrors Real Evolutionary Paths 185
CNN has an article pointing out that, though King Kong may be a little extreme, evolutionary gigantism is not out of the question on remote islands. From the article: "There are many examples of what biologists term 'gigantism' on islands. These include the Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards which can be 10 feet long or more and weigh up to 500 pounds. Found on a few small Indonesian islands, the Komodo -- a recorded man-eater -- is in many ways as chilling as anything from Jackson's fertile imagination."
Jackson's imagination? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Leave Jackson out of this! (Score:2, Informative)
That's funny, because even Australians know that spades and shovels are two different tools. A spade has a flat blade. A shovel is more like a scoop.
Foster's Rule (Score:5, Informative)
In my opinion, more interesting than the giant species are pgymy species also created by the same effect. Pygmy Mammoths likely survived far longer than their gigantic counterparts before going extinct, as there is evidence of them being alive as recently as 5000 years ago on a few select islands. In fact, if I recall correctly, there is an egyptian painting which many suggest appears to be the pharoah or some lesser ruler recieving one as a gift. My details on this are a bit sketchy, so those genuinely interested should take their queries to google . . .
Some of you may also remember the somewhat controversial discovery of a species of pygmy hominid described as "hobbit-like" that was discussed on Slashdot about a year back -- those fossils were also from a rather isolated island . . .
Re:Limit on size? (Score:3, Informative)
It's size that matters (Score:1, Informative)
There are exceptions and there is debate about the details of the island rule mechanism or whether it's even a valid idea at all, but the rule does NOT support the idea that a gorilla-sized animal would get even larger on an island. The factors that keep a large, top-tier animal from getting bigger - finite food supply, body design and that pesky square-cubed law - aren't likely to stop being issues on an island.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/eden/giants.html [pbs.org]
Re:Limit on size? (Score:4, Informative)
The real source (Score:4, Informative)
CNN has an article ------------ No. Nope. Wrong.
CNN is running an article. ------------ YES!
CNN is running a Reuters article. Learn to understand the god damn difference. This article is running on dozens of other sites out there, yet you just gave CNN credit for it. If I were one of these AP, Reuters, AFP, UPI, or [insert wire service here] writers, I'd be annoyed when nobody could figure out how to properly attribute my work.
Re:The real source (Score:2, Informative)
If the post had said "CNN have written an article" then it would be wrong, but there's nothing wrong with saying they have it.
Re:Leave Jackson out of this! (Score:3, Informative)
It seems these days that all Hollywood makes is remakes or rehashings of old ideas. Part of the reason for this could be that decisions to finance or distribute films are made with calculators. Let's face it, it's easy to predict that a remake of a loved film or a loved idea is likely to be successful.
Re:Leave Jackson out of this! (Score:3, Informative)
Don't know about Kong, but LotR is actually fairly different from the book. It was by many considered to be "unfilmable" and indeed, many parts were cut (Tom Bombadil), changed & added (helm's deep, Galadriel, gollum's demise, sam turning back), transplanted (saruman's defeat, descripion of gray havens), reshuffled (entire timeline of second and third book) and so on.
Not only do I think a lot of originality went into the film, I think "LotR the movie" was a better movie than "LotR the book" would have been, but that "LotR the book" is the better book (not that there is a book version of the movie). For Tolkien, it's all about the ring, Sam and Frodo. The little love story between two side characters are tucked away in a little appendix, and it sort of fades to nothing with them each going their own way.
What Jackson pulled off what is almost "LotR meets Romeo & Juliet", and by god, if you manage to look past the fact that it wasn't what Tolkien wrote, it is damn good. Her choice between eternal life alone in the gray havens or to sacrifce everything for love that "can't be" touches many people who couldn't care less about a magical ring that gives superpowers and a bunch of AD&D monsters.
The only thing I found ridiculous in the LotR movies was that they were able to hold off the nazgul, which are supposed to be so very dangerous... yet some guy and a few hobbits defeat them? That really lacked some workaround.
Re:Limit on size? (Score:3, Informative)
Now think about big mammals. Imagine the size of the heart that would be needed to pump blood against gravity into King Kong's brain. Imagine the muscles that would be needed to force enough air into the lungs. Gravity would collapse lungs over a certain size.
Now, I imagine giant reptiles would find it easier than giant mammals. Their metabolism requires less oxygen and thus the requirement to breate might be tolerable. Though I would hazard that the size of the biggest dinosaurs that did exist was probably the size of the biggest that could exist.
Additionally, it makes sense to me that of all animals an ape would be least likely to survive at that kind of size. Apes have the largest brains in land mammals (besides ours) and the glucose requirements for a brain like that would be phenomenal. So, King Kong could never actually exist.
But I will ignore that and go watch the movie anyway. After all Go-Jira is one of my favorite movies of all time.
What about whales? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Side note on Kodomo dragons (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting reference to the Komodo... (Score:3, Informative)
Let's see if I can find a reference for this. Ah, here we go... [newswise.com]
"Elements of the 1933 Kong movie are based on the 1926 real-life expedition of William Douglas Burden, a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History," says Mitman, an expert on how animals are portrayed in popular culture.
"Burden traveled to Indonesia to film and capture the Komodo dragon, which he thought was the closest living relative of dinosaurs," he says. "When Burden brought back two live Komodo specimens and housed them in captivity in the Bronx Zoo, they died. Meridan Cooper, producer of the 1933 film version of Kong, wrote at the time, 'I immediately thought of doing the same thing with a giant gorilla.'"
The same correspondence indicates that Burden attributed the Komodo dragon's death to civilization. "This is why Cooper chose the Empire State Building and modern airplanes to kill off Kong. They were fitting symbols of civilization and the machine age that many feared were destroying nature," Mitman says.
He adds that the film's enduring appeal (the current one adds to the 1976 version and the 1933 classic original) might be linked to the restorative properties of an unspoiled, natural landscape.
Re:Jackson's imagination?? (Score:5, Informative)
Which were not imagined by Jackson either. But his film does a great job of re-imagining them.
There were two instances of lost footage from the original King Kong. One was the lost spider pit footage. As in Jackson's version, this scene would have occurred after the crewmen were tossed from the log. The surviving crewmen were attacked and killed by spider and crab like creatures.
It's not certain how much of this scene was filmed, but some pre-production drawings were definitely done. If it was filmed, it's likely that Merian Cooper destroyed the footage since he felt it broke the momentum of the film.
The other footage was the material that was censored in 1938. About 4 1/2 minutes were cut, some of which is replicated in Jackson's film. Kong drops a woman from a building after finding it's not Ann Darrow, pulls off some of Darrow's clothing, grinds a native into the ground with his foot and a little more of the same. This footage was later found in an uncensored print from the UK and restored.
The new 2-disc DVD has the restored 1933 version and includes some pretty cool extras -- apparently, Jackson decided to do a little side project while making Kong. He shot some stop-motion footage to recreate the techniques used to animate Kong, as well as recreating the lost spider pit scene. The extras show this recreation in detail, including Jackson's trip to the hospital to x-ray his original dinosaur puppet from the 1933 film so they can recreate the armature for it. It's worth a look if you're a fan of the original film.
Re:Oh come on (Score:4, Informative)
Peter Jackson was famous in NZ long before he made LOTR, he made a lot of original stuff first.