The TVNZ 1 Peter Jackson ‘King Kong’ Comments

Transcribed by {TheWonders}

PJ: King Kong is important to me, I think for the most fundamental reason, which is if I hadn’t seen it I don’t think I’d have become a film maker. I think it’s that important. The moment when I decided that film making was what I wanted to do with my life was when I was nine years old and I saw King Kong on TV. It had such a profound impression on my, you know, my nine year old self. The escapism, the adventure, it was everything I thought good movies should be and it was really the type of movies I wanted to make in a way, escapist entertainment of taking you away from your normal drab world and whisking you off in some adventurous story and obviously King Kong with the hidden island, you know, the lost civilization, dinosaurs, a gorilla and ultimately a story that touched your heart.

PJ: One thing you want when you’re making a move is that your characters learn and alter and change during the course of the film, and everybody from Kong downward they go through their experiences and they’re changing as people as the story progresses and were trying to make that feel as real as possible

Naomi: What drew me to it was that it was an event film, that it is special effects that it is so huge in stature but it’s also got really interesting and important themes.

PJ: Capturing what is great about the original story of King Kong and presenting it in a way that has the technology that kids expect to see in a movie today is a good thing to do and it’s the right time to do it.

Jack Black: Its gonna satisfy all your excitement, rollercoaster needs. It’s just gonna be so awwwwwwwwwesome!!

PJ: He’s clearly the last of his species and so he has been, he’s a survivor and he’s only survived through brute force. He’s in the most inhospitable place on earth, which is what we tried to make Skull Island. Its populated by vicious dinosaurs and other creatures that we’ve created and he’s full of, he’s scarred he’s been brutalized and he is the most horrific monster that you can imagine and we're very careful in the way that we peel back those layers to reveal something of his heart because obviously what we do learn about Kong by the end of the film is that he does have a heart and he has feelings and he makes a connection. I mean his connection with Ann Darrow, who Naomi Watts plays, you know that is certainly the only time in his whole life that he’s connected with another living creature and we see the impact, that does obviously hold the true tragedy of the story, in that it is his downfall.

I hope that there are lots of nine years old kids out there that go and see it and become film makers in 21 years time.