King Kong And His 90-Year Time Loop

This piece was initially published in issue 9 of Kaiju Ramen Magazine. Important to note that it was published before the Skull Island animated show was released on Netflix.

Ever since 1933s King Kong, the titular giant ape has been one of cinema's most iconic monsters. Throughout his 90 years, Kong has shown up in various live-action films and a few animated shows. To American audiences, Kong is the closest thing to Godzilla they have, but unlike his rival from across the pond, he doesn’t have 30+ films that introduce iconic villains and friends. For some reason, Kong has not seen the same success as Godzilla around the world. While the character is popular with American audiences, that same audience has a very narrow view of who Kong can be. Thankfully, in recent years, Kong may have finally expanded that viewpoint and can start his journey to standing toe-to-toe with Japan's King of the Monsters.

To American audiences, the Heart of King Kong is a tragic love story in the vein of Beauty and the Beast. This makes sense considering one of the most famous lines in cinema history came from King Kong. “It was beauty killed the beast,” says Robert Armstrong’s Carl Denham at the end of the film. With the exception of two sequels, every American Kong film before 2017 went the same way: Kong was taken from Skull Island, goes on a rampage in New York, and finally meets his tragic end at the top of the Empire State Building (or The Twin Towers in the 1976 film). Hell, there’s even an animated musical movie called The Mighty Kong that’s just the original movie with musical numbers. It felt like filmmakers were less interested in progressing Kong’s story and more interested in repurposing the same story over and over again. Like Kong’s personal Groundhog Day scenario.

There may be a perfectly simple explanation for this, albeit an unimaginative one. The three major films titled King Kong ended with Kong’s death. To put it bluntly, American filmmakers are often less imaginative than their contemporaries in other countries and they might have lacked the imagination to consider a story afterward. Death is often portrayed as the end of a story in American culture which reflects how the Western world looks at the concept. It isn’t the beginning of some new adventure, it’s the end of one. If a character returns to a story after having died, audiences grow confused. There are ways around this for audiences, however. Many storytellers will explain away a character's return by exclaiming that the character isn't dead if a body has not been seen. Comic books use this excuse more than any other medium, just by the very nature of their long-lasting existence. But audiences saw Kong’s body. He clearly dies at the end, and thus his story ends.

All this isn’t to say there weren’t attempts to continue Kong’s story. 1933s Son of Kong and 1986s King Kong Lives attempted to further the story beyond the definitive ending of their predecessors. Unfortunately, both movies were considered inferior to their predecessors at the time. Both films introduced a new Kong, a child in Son of Kong, and a “Queen” Kong in King Kong Lives. Of course, both films weren’t meant to kick start a franchise (would have been difficult anyway since King Kong Lives came out a decade later) which is evident, especially in Son of Kong's incredibly depressing ending. King Kong Lives did propose a story where Kong lived, though. Through the magic of science, he got a new heart and reunited with his queen. For giant monster fans, these stories are old hat, but perhaps they’re more willing to accept those things than mainstream audiences. 

Over the years, many have tried to find new stories to tell about Kong. Toho, the production company behind the Godzilla franchise, had the character fight Godzilla in the aptly titled King Kong vs. Godzilla in 1962, which they followed up with King Kong Escapes in 1967. As most fans are no doubt aware, King Kong vs. Godzilla started life as an American film called King Kong Meets Frankenstein that was pitched to RKO by the original animator of the 1933 film, Willis O’Brien. Eventually, the film got away from O’Brien and into the hands of the producer, John Beck who shopped the film overseas. Toho had the script heavily rewritten, most notably to include Godzilla. King Kong vs. Godzilla proved to be a major success and solidified Kong as an on and off-screen rival for Godzilla. Toho was interested in using Kong again but found the character to be too expensive to license, so his Japanese potential was limited to only one more film. Interestingly enough this wouldn’t be the end of Kong’s complicated rights history. 

King Kong Escapes is not a sequel to Godzilla vs. King Kong and does not exist within the canon of the Godzilla franchise. But its history is slightly less complicated than the previous film. King Kong Escapes was created in partnership with Rankin/Bass, the popular stop-motion animation company. This film is meant to be an adaptation of the animated series that Rankin/Bass had produced starting in 1966 called King Kong. In the show, Kong befriends a young boy and helps him fight bad guys. The movie keeps this setup, but since spy movies were very popular at the time, it adds new elements to adhere closer to the spy genre, such as the villain Dr. Who. These spy movie tropes would also find their way into Godzilla films.

With the aforementioned Rankin/Bass series, there have been three animated shows centered around Kong, including Kong: The Animated Series and Kong: King of the Apes (the most recent). These shows were meant to appeal to a younger audience but exhibited more imagination than their theatrical counterparts. Kids are often more willing to accept “outlandish” stories and villains. These shows had the opportunity to create new scenarios to put Kong in, such as fighting various aliens and other monsters, discovering Atlantis, and generally protecting humanity. Kong: The Animated Series showcases the most potential for what Kong can be when he’s given free rein to grow. Unfortunately, these shows have been largely forgotten by history. 

With the exception of King Kong vs. Godzilla, none of these previous examples were particularly successful and none of them changed the public perception of Kong. Audiences still demanded the greatest hits: fall in love with a pretty blonde, rampage through New York, and finally die. Like demanding a circus monkey to dance over and over again, audiences demanded Kong die over and over again. Rinse and repeat for 84 years, until 2017 with Kong: Skull Island. Legendary Pictures originally started production on a Skull Island film with Universal Studios but when the decision was made to move the film to Warner Bros., (More of that complicated rights history) the film evolved into Kong: Skull Island. This is where a larger opportunity began to form. After the success of 2014s Godzilla, Legendary became interested in developing their own shared universe in the vein of the MCU, called the MonsterVerse. The idea was that this film would set up a new version of Kong that would lead to a cinematic rematch between the two rivals. But this meant Kong needed to live at the end of the film.

Kong: Skull Island makes a few changes to the mythos of Kong and the island he calls home. Along with Kong’s massive increase in size, the island is now populated with a host of giant “superspecies” instead of various prehistoric animals like some sort of lost world. Prior to this, Kong fought dinosaurs and a giant snake, but no original monsters were ever made in his American films. Part of the time loop that audiences demanded Kong to participate in was that he had to fight a dinosaur. Peter Jackson got close to an original monster with his evolved T-Rex, the V-Rex, but most audiences aren’t aware they’re meant to be different. Probably the most important additions Kong: Skull Island makes to Kong’s mythos were the Skullcrawlers. A superspecies that lived beneath the surface of Skull Island and would destroy every creature on it if left unchecked. The Skullcrawlers were the first truly original Kong adjacent monsters to come from an American filmmaker. They were massive, scary, and had a unique design that made them instantly recognizable. Like Godzilla and Ghidora, Kong now had an adversary to face. 

At the end of every good time-loop movie, something happens to break the hero out of the loop so they can continue their lives as a changed person. Kong: Skull Island was that moment. Kong didn’t get captured, and most importantly, he didn’t die. While it was always known that the plan was to have Kong and Godzilla fight in 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong, it wasn’t clear if there was something that could come after that. Audiences had to wait to find out if Kong’s new future would be taken away from him at the end of the big rematch. Luckily, Legendary knew that there was more that could be done with the big ape. At the end of Godzilla vs. Kong, Kong receives a drastic new status quo, which has the potential to breathe new life into the 90-year-old character. Kong finally had a future.

Godzilla has an almost 70-year head start on Kong but the future is brighter than it has ever been before. Audiences are finally ready to see Kong break from his time loop. Kong is now the protector of the Hollow Earth in the MonsterVerse, an unexplored world at the center of the Earth that is ripe for development and could lead to new adversaries and friends. Future filmmakers could design dozens of new monsters for Kong to go up against. which would allow him to have what he should have had all along. Time will tell if he’ll ever get the movie count to rival Godzilla’s but for the first time in 90 years, the possibilities are endless.

Kong is a character that has been trapped in a 90-year time loop. Forced to play out the same tragic story over and over again. Even though attempts had been made to free him from this prison over the decades, audiences were just not ready. Now they are and it’s time to show them the untapped potential this character has always had. With two new shows on the way, and a co-starring role in the next MonsterVerse film, Kong's exciting new era is just beginning. Like he once broke free from his chains, he has now broken out of his time loop and is ready to prove that he has as much to offer the world as his overseas contemporary. Hopefully, future filmmakers won’t fail him.