Netflix’s Skull Island has the best take on King Kong’s MonsterVerse

The structure of a King Kong story hasn’t changed much in the last 90 years: People find a big gorilla on an island, the gorilla falls in love with a girl and is taken to the big city, the gorilla escapes, and then the gorilla plunges to his death from somewhere really tall. This is the same storyline for both the 1933 original as well as 1976 and 2005 remakes. However, there are pieces scattered throughout other films, such those that deal with human relationships.Son of Kong, King Kong Escapes, Kong: Skull IslandKong’s removal from his family homeKing Kong vs. Godzilla, Godzilla vs. KongThe violent end (King Kong LivesThe damned heart transplant revives Kong Just click here to learn more.Then kill him at the very end.

With such a pre-destined trajectory for our most beloved giant movie apes, directors and crew of the movies are only really free to go bananas in the portions devoted to Skull Island, Kong’s homeland. There they can concoct all sorts of locations, creatures and situations to fill the ape’s world, from the prehistoric to the fantastical. The new Netflix animated series, “Apes in the Wild”, is a great way to get kids involved. Skull IslandThe show is almost entirely set in this location, which allows it to bathe completely in the sense of wonderful (and bloody!) freedom.

Being a part of the “MonsterVerse,” the shared universe featuring Godzilla and Kong as lead figures in an MCU-esque arrangement, means that Skull IslandBrian Duffield, creator of the.Love and Monsters) is tied to the rules of the live-action expanded universe — so don’t expect to see the Lost World of dinosaurs from the 1933 film or Peter Jackson’s remake. Instead, the show’s monsters, as Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts once put it, feel “realistic and could exist in an ecosystem that feels sort of wild and out there,” and “simultaneously felt beautiful and horrifying at the same time.”

The focus of the story is to fit monsters in their settings. Skull Island. Skull Island has become an omnivorous, human-eating habitat because of these predators. The characters must fight against a variety of creatures, including giant crabs who only strike when disturbed, mollusks with glistening innards which draw in their stunned prey, snakes that look just like tree vines and large rodents whose backs blend in with the grass around it. The cartoon is constantly trying to create mutated animals that blend in with their surroundings, like the spider that hides among the trees and impales future prey using its stalk-like leg. It’s great to see a show so consistently enamored with the idea that no matter where you try to hide, there is something around that sees you as lunch.

Image: Netflix

The fun-loving characters keep the environment alive, even if they spend most of their time walking and running around it. You’re constantly wondering “What lurks here? What monster is hiding out and waiting to devour you?” That feeling that defines some of the best moments of Kong’s history, from the first time the unlucky sailors traveled in a raft across the swamp in 1933, only to be dumped over by an inexplicably carnivorous brontosaurus lurking underneath. It’s that desire for thrill ride panic that gave us one of the eeriest scenes in blockbuster history: the “insect pit” sequence in the 2005 reboot in which every possible crevice was infested with flesh-eating bugs. This place shouldn’t exist (a grand majority of the people who find it think it’s just a weird jungle,) and Skull Island taps wonderfully into that moment of shock – When you discover that not only shouldn’t these lifeforms be here, but from the looks of it, you shouldn’t be here either. And it’s too late.

The story of King Kong is, inherently, one about mankind’s inability to leave nature alone. We will eventually destroy all the wonders of the world, including the franchise tentpoles such as King Kong. Godzilla vs. Kong, only an innocent child is able to befriend Kong, mostly because she doesn’t want to kill him, or worse, put him on Broadway. There’s plenty of those kinds of burgeoning relationships in Skull IslandBut it is balanced out by the fascination of the frightening potential in the environment.

After all, it’s on Skull Island that the tables are turned. Whether it’s a gaggle of dinosaurs, a place where giant creatures have alternately evolved over the years, or, as the MonsterVerse seems to relay, a tropical hideaway connected to some kind of “Hollow Earth,” Skull IslandIt’s a great place to have fun. Man’s greed and misguided ambition has no power in an area where the “beauty and horror” of nature is only limited by the creativity of the filmmakers, meaning that there is literally no end to what wants to eat you.

Skull IslandNetflix has now added the new Netflix Original.