Being 4 months and a wholenother year now,I believe that an update is in order.


At one starting point or another in all our lives, we've come to know the classic that is 'King Kong'.The iconic image of the 50 ft. gorilla's defiant battle atop the Empire State Building has forever left an impression upon filmmakers and casual viewers alike, as evidenced by Peter Jackson's astounding remake.What some may not be aware of is what truly gave it the life and soul that was loved enough to be reborn in the age of cgi.
Three years prior to 'King Kong',director Harry Hoyt and special effects pioneer Willis O' Brien, having met success with their 1925 dinosaur feature, 'The Lost World', had plans of doing a similar film entitled 'Creation'.The one year and resources spent on it resulted in a number of conceptual sketches, creature models sculpted by artist Marcel Delgado,a single movie still featuring a group of men being chased by an Arsinoitherium(more on that later),and above all, a test reel featuring a vengful mother Triceratops.However a project of this level of sophistication required an overall budget of 1$ million, and the worsening depression made it all the more difficult, considering that $200,000 was the ideal budget for a big time movie at the time.The test reel alone cost $100,000, and the distributor, RKO was on the constant verge of bankrupcy as it was.
With financial limits reached and a rather negative review of the story by Merian C. Cooper(a production executive at the time) who refered to it as "Just alot of animals walking around",'Creation' went the way of the dinosaurs themselves.But not in vain, for the dinosaurs sculpted found their way into 'King Kong', as well as some of the story elements.Although he considered the plot unimpressive, Cooper did like the stop motion technique enough to realize that this was the way to flesh out his "killer gorilla" film.Three guesses which one.


For some of you, this is all old info that sounds like a broken record up to now, and are porbaly wondering if I'm actually going somwhere with it.Well for you interested people, especially those who haven't seen the special edition dvd of Kong '33, I've taken the liberty of giving you a step-by-step synopsis of how 'Creation' would've played out:


40 degrees south of the equator, off the coast of southern Chile, not far from Patagonia, the luxury yacht 'Titan' is stationed.Its owner Thorton Armetage, a ruthless American tycoon is aboard along with his family, consisting of his 6 year old son Billy, young adult daughter Elaine, and overweight but soft sister Aunt Louise.Additional crew members include Elaine's arroagnt bastard of a fiance, Ned Hallet and Billy's tuitor, Steve.
Steve's current lesson is evolution and Billy likens each member of his family to a different dinosaur species.His aunt Louise reminds him af an Apatosaurus(Brontosaurus as some of you have grown up calling it),and his dad,a T-rex.The lesson is interupted by the arrival of Elaine who starts flirting with Steve.Thinking this is out of love, he grabs her in his arms and the two kiss as Hallet watches through the door.Meanwhile on an upper deck lounge, Aunt Louise calls evryone's attention to an approaching storm.The ocean becomes forbodingly still while ominous storm clouds form.
Below deck, Steve is furious to discover that Elaine considers the kiss a tribual thing and threatens to quit the cruise.The captain suddenly enters with a warning about the oncoming storm, which is worsening into a tempest.Through the swirling ocean, a submarine dispatched from the Chilean navy surfaces, and launches a small rescue boat for the Armetage party.
The sub's commander breaks up the party for evacuation to the sub.Armetage scoffs at the idea of abandoning ship, but his guests' fear speaks for itself.Out in the distance, a huge water spout blankets the sky,sweeping destruction in its wake. The Armetage party reaches the sub, just as the typhoon comes crashing down on them and dives just moments before the wirling spout sucks tons of water into the air.
The Titan however is not so fortunate, as it's seized in the water Tornado's grip and hurled away.Suddenly, a huge earthquake gives rise to a huge rocky promentory jutting out of the ocean.The once luxurious yacht is dashed upon this new island and destroyed.Millions of gallons of water are sucked down into the cavity caused by the rocky headland's rise,inturn causing the sub to hurl downwards and pandemonium breaks out in the control room.
Buffeted by the raging currents and thrown off course, the sub finds itself in a deep underwater ravine.The crew and passengers peer out through a porthole to discover murky,green water filled with exotic creatures, including a snake-like Elasmosaur.But their amazement is cut short by a sudden jolt, and the sub runs aground on a rocky volcanic shelf.As water rushes in, the crew and party hurriedly climb up and out onto the conning tower.
Emerging, they find themselves in the middle of a tropical lake surrounded by steep cliffs and lush jungle.Their excursion has apparently sent them through a series of underwater caverns that's brought them to the bottom of a long dormant volcano.With their sub destroyed, evryone's only optian is to go ashore and explore this mysterious garden of eden.
Suddenly, Billy alerts the others to several huge footprints in the mud, which Steve identifies as dinosaur tracks upon examination.Everyone ridicules him for the idea, before an unearthly call is heard from nearby in the jungle.Turning, everyone is stunned to see proof of Steve's claims in the form of a mixed herd of Apatosaurs and Triceratops drinking and grazing at the nearby lake.Steve alarmedly urges everyone to flee to safety,but Hallet angirly objects to being ordered.
Just when Steve explains that they must use their superior intellect to overcome the lesser minded dinosaurs, one of the Apatosaurs threatens some of the sailors.Everyone runs in terror through the dense, primordial jungle until they getting stuck between the volcanic and a pair of bull Triceratops engaged in a rutting match.Their only means of escape is to climb to the safety of a projecting ledge high above them.Despite a sheer drop to the valley below, they have no choice but to scale the volcano somehow and reach the sheltered plateu.
Everyone struggles up the trail, exploring as they cautiously proceed.Steve and the sailors come to the edge of a rapidly raging river that cascades into a cavern in the volcano's side.He cuts a vine and swings Tarzan style to the opposite shore and just as he's about to the land, the vine snaps, causing him to fall and barely making the bank.On the other side, the sub commander orders his men to cut down one of the trees into a log bridge to span the rapids.
As they go back into the jungle for vines, a thunderous crashing is heard, and into the clearing springs not a dinosaur, but a giant prehistoric MAMMAL as big as 20 elephants.Arsinoitherium.Catching sight of the sailors, the beast lowers its two horned head and bellows defiantly.One man fires several shots, but does little more than enrage the giant.Steve hears the gunshots and runs back to the river's edge to the Arsinoitherium charging the men back toward their commander.
Their attempts at taking refuge behind a tree prove futile, as the beast wrenches it out by its roots and hurls it away.The tree crushes one sailor to the ground as another flees into the jungle with their aggressor in pursuit, eventually impaling him onto its horn.Others try to escape across the log bridge, only to be knocked off(sound familiar?).As the angry mammal continues to pursue the remaining men, one surviving crewman goes mad at the sight of the slaughter while another prays.The chase brings the sailors to the river's edge.Favoring chancing the rapids over being gored, they're swept away in the current and into the volcanic cavern to their deaths.
The scene has been surveyed from above by a pair of soaring Pteranodons that are attracted by the scent of blood.Like vultures, they proceed to land and scavenge on the bodies of the fallen meb, before the Arsinoitherium drives them off with its retreat into the jungle.One pterosaur carries a carcass with it in its talons.Steve meanwhile has been able to do nothing but watch the whole ordeal helplessly and is weak with horror as he runs back to the others,a lone survivor.
Upon reaching the group, he tells his account of the sailors' gruesome deaths.From the edge of their cliffside sanctuary, Steve and Elaine watch the dinosaurs go about their daily lives below and as she binds his wounds, he says, "It's like the begining of life."
Elaine responds, "Yes it's a begining."
Over the next 30 days, the castaways learn to survive by building a palm shack inside their elevated sanctuary.On the 30th day, an Apatosaurus watches them on the shelf as it browses peacefully.Ignorantly, Hallet empties his rifle into the harmless sauropod's face despite Elaine's warnings.The Apatosaur vengefully charges and smashes through the shelter like a house of cards.Elaine apparently has more courage than her fiance, as she drives off the enraged dinosaur by stuffing a burning torch into its mouth while Hallet simply cowers back.
The entire group is furious with Hallet for putting them in danger, and he storms down the trail into the jungle below.Meanwhile, not far away, a pair of Triceratops calves are playing a game of tug-of-war using a vine until their mother breaks them up.One of the youngsters follows a crane out of sheer curiousity, leading him strsight to Hallet at the edge of a clearing.While the calf looks at him curiously, a trigger happy Hallet takes aim at its eye and fires, killing it almost instantly.
The calf's anguished cry doesn't go unheard by its mother, who rushes to her offspring's aid too late.Enraged, the Triceratops chases down a fleeing Halet through the jungle until he tries to hide a tree, only to have the 3 horned behemoth knock it down on him, pinning him underneath.The evr vengeful mother delivers the coup de grace with a well deserved goring.With Hallet's passing, Steve is now officially in command and decides their best hope of survival is to salvage the radio from the sunken submarine.
He dives into the lake, through the weird and wonderful waterlife, and into the sub's gaping hole.After many attempts, Elaine helps him pull the radio up from the depths while Armetage, Billy, and a cast away named Bennie erect the make shift aerial on the cliff.The radio however is in tatters, and Steve explains that if they can find the materials for a replacement laden jar, it might still work.A frantic search begins, as Steve, Elaine, Bennie, and Billy slash their way through the dense jungle, eventually coming upon the ruins of an ancient temple.
Here, they stumble upon a vast treasure of gold, diamonds and rubies, but all they're looking for is a jar to conduct electric currents for the radio.Elaine's pet monkey Chico(don't ask) escapes to a nearby tree top, and as she tries to reach him, the stones crumble beneath her feet and falls unconcious to the ruins below.Steve rushes to her side, but finds himself racing a Pteranodon that swoops down and seizes Elaine in its talons, before setting her down and plucking at her with its sharp beak.As bfore, Steve cuts a vine and swings across the moat, knocking the pterosaur off Elaine who's stunned and bruised but safe in Steve's arms.
However, their troubles are far from over when a Stegosaurus suddenly lumbers out of the jungle and blocks their only exit.Trapped on a narrow shelf, their only chance of escape is through the crumbling temple, but the Stegosaurus pursues them, hissing furiously.As if the situation couldn't get any worse, just ahead of them inside the sun god's temple is noneother than the prized fighter of antiquity itself, Tyrannosaurus Rex.Trapped between the oncomig dinosaurs everyone's fate seems to be sealed either on 4 high piercing spikes or bone crushing jaws.
Suddenly, the two saurians spot one another and become momentarily distracted long enough for the group to dash for their lives.As they flee, they wittness a ground shaking battle ensue between their pursuers.The Stegosaurus lahes out with its spiked tail, striking the T-rex who in turn leaps into the air, looking for a vulnerable spot in its armor plated opponent.Part of the decaying temple is knocked down by the Stego's tail lashing, but the falling debri doesn't stop the rex from jumping onto its back and tearing off its right hindleg effortlessly.
The Stegosaurus screams in agony as the T-rex continues to tear it apart, until the Jurassic giant dies from massive bloodloss and trauma.This particular Tyrannosaur seems to be a proud parent, as indicated by an infant T-rex that joins in the feast.Everyone stops at the lake edge, where they find Chico with the desired jar from the temple.Billy goes to fill it with water, but yells that the lake is hot.
Bubbles of steam rise from the water, a sign that the volcano is about to become active after all these years.But luckily the salvaged jar can be converted into the precious and necessary part of the radio.Back at the camp, the last few survivors are shaken by a series of volcanic tremors as Steve sets to work at lightning speed, creating a generator, preparing the laden jar in alst desperate effort to contact the outside world.The horrified roars of panicked dinosaurs mingle with the hiss escaping steam as they struggle blindly away from the boiling waters and shooting geysers.
Billy attaches a wire to the aerial and gets a good eyeview of the maddened dinosaurs stampeding in all directions.There's no time to lose, they take turns running the hand generator.Steve desperately attempts to get a spark to send a distress signal just as lava erupts from the lake below them.Billy faints from the unbearable heat and to make matters worse, just as Steve transmits his feeble signal, an escaping Pteranodon knocks the aerial to the ground, sending the pterosaur careening to the valley below along with the radio set.
The dinosaurs and other fauna struggle and fight one another in a tragic attempt to escape the exploding volcano.Boulders spit from the molten caverns and come crashing down on evrything in their path.Steve and Elaine, facing certain death realize their love for eachother and find their mpment of joy much too late.A delirous Billy begins to babble, "I can hear motors!"The burning lava lands on the surrounding trees, causing the jungle to go up in flames and burn trapped animals alive.
Billy calls to Steve, "Can't you hear the motors?!" Circling above, two small specks get closer revealing themselves to be seaplanes that've received the SOS and land on the boiling lake.The cast aways gather up and are flown out just as the entire island explodes in a blazinf fury, spewing mile high lava.Humanity's mind and ingenuity has survived what even the most succesful lifeforms ever, could not.
Safely ashore, Armetage is holding court, telling his story of encounters with living dinosaurs and the volcanic eruption.Naturally nobody's buying it.Then suddenly, out of the blue comes a surviving Pteranodon that collapses in front of Armetage, exhausted from its long flight.Armetage places a foot on the animal's nick and smiles triumphantly.Steve and Elaine share a laugh, as they look forward to their new life together,
As Steve puts his arm around her, we fade out(or would anyway).



........................Conclusion......................................