Product Description
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The King Kong Deluxe Extended Edition is an all-new,
action-packed DVD experience! Director Peter Jackson has added
more than 13 minutes of never-before-seen footage, including the
heart-stopping excitement of a charging Ceratops, the adrenaline
rush of a Skull Island underwater creature's attack and so much
more. Plus, this Deluxe Extended Edition is loaded with hours of
brand-new special features, including a riveting commentary,
behind-the-scenes featurettes, an outtake and gag reel, along
with over 38 minutes of thrilling deleted scenes!
Bonus Content:
* Feature Commentary with Director/Writer/Producer Peter Jackson
and Co-Writer/Producer Phillipa Boyens
* Deleted Scene Intros
* Deleted Scenes
* "The Eighth Blunder of the World" - The Must-See Outtake and
Gag Reel
* King Kong Homage
* A Night in Vaudeville
* Easter Egg: The Missing Production Diary
* ROM Scripts - Includes the 2005 and 1996 Scripts for King Kong
* The Present
* Teaser Trailer, Theatrical Trailer, Cinemedia Trailer
* Weta Collectibles
* Pre-Visualization Animatics
* ROM: 1996 Scripts
* Peter Jackson Intro
* Recreating the Eighth Wonder: The Making of King Kong
* Conceptual Design Video Galleries
Set Contains:
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The extended version of Peter Jackson's King Kong adds 13
minutes to the running time--fortunately those 13 minutes include
two dynamic action scenes and no material has been added to the
movie's belabored set-up, which tries to give depth to these
quintessentially b-movie characters with a clumsy patchwork of
melodrama and in-jokes. But once movie-maker Carl Denham (Jack
Black, School of Rock) and his crew finally arrive at Skull
Island, the movie kicks into gear with spectacular action,
technical wizardry, and genuine feeling. Though Kong seems
crafted to dazzle the eye on the giant screen, the overlong
structure improves when you can take an intermission at will. At
home, each scene can be approached on its own terms, be it the
insanely choreographed battle between Kong and three T. Rexes or
the subtle and multi-layered interplay between Ann Darrow (Naomi
Watts, Mulholland Drive) and Kong (played, through motion-capture
technology, by Andy Serkis, who previously played the similarly
animated Gollum in Jackson's Lord of the Rings). The addition of
a rampaging ceratops and an underwater race with what the movie's
crew dubbed a "piranhadon" not only add more eye candy, but
provide some valuable moments of character development. But in
the end, that's frosting on the cake; when the movie's weaknesses
and strengths are weighed, the emotional power of the fantastical
relationship between a woman and a giant ape is a real cinematic
achievement.
Much like the movie itself, the abundance of extra features on
the Deluxe Extended Version of Peter Jackson's King Kong mix
dazzling skill (the very in-depth "making of" documentary reveals
the staggering a of work that went into animating Kong) and
woeful bloat (do we need to know this much about the friends who
made cameos as biplane pilots?). As usual, there are mildly
interesting but expendable deleted scenes, goof-ups and hijinks
(some charming, some cloying), trailers, and outright
advertisements (a plug for fans to buy collectible
models--annoying until you learn from the doc how much obsessive
labor the designers put into these things). But the most
intriguing material provides a good long look into the
filmmakers' creative processes, both technical (among other
things, "pre-viz" animation shows how in some cases the action
sequences were conceived before the script) and human (endearing
glimpses of Jackson's stop-motion attempt to recreate Kong when
he was 12 years old). Jackson and his engaging design team (who
are much more interesting to listen to than the actors) clearly
revere the original film, and frequent excerpts from it reveal
why--but also demonstrate this movie's greatest weakness: "More
realistic" doesn't equal "more evocative." --Bret Fetzer