KING KONG vs. GODZILLA
Or Godzilla vs. King Kong if you saw it in Japan. The first question anyone has about this 1962 film is, 'who won?'. Well that again depends on where you see it. The film has a slight variation between the Japanese and American versions. In both King Kong swims away, but in the Japanese version you can hear Godzilla roaring off-screen. So in the Japanese version Kong is fleeing, rather swimming a victory lap. A fun, but not fair match. Who do think would really win in a face off between a giant rock throwing ape versus a giant fire-breathing, laser-eye-beaming lizard monster?
GODZILLA vs. THE MOONWOMEN feat. MONSTER ISLAND POSSE
In the year 1999, all of Earth's monsters have been confined to a small island near Japan, aptly named 'Monster Island'. That is until the Kilaaks, a race of aliens from small planet in the asteroid belt releases Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra and company, controlling them and sending them out to trample all cities of the world. It's up to a daring crew of astronauts to pilot their X-2 to the Kilaaks secret moon base and regain control of the monsters.
KING KONG & BOBBY BOND
A bizarre little short-lived animated series in 1966 teamed King Kong with adventuring young pal, Bobby Bond. Treading the same ground as the popular adventure series, 'Jonny Quest', the Kong series also featured Tom of T.H.U.M.B., a six inch tall secret agent. As if King Kong weren't big enough they had to team him with the world's smallest super spy. Like me, you most likely have never seen or heard of this show.
GODZILLA vs. DISCO LANDO
Mini-spoofs are all the rage these days, but this one dates back to 1998 and is sheer classic. It has a disco version of Lando Calrissian, Admiral Ackbar and Obi Wan Kenobi dealing with life, love and a Y-Wing fighter battle with the king of monsters, Godzilla. Yoda gets strapped with dynamite and tries to take out the monster Jaws-style, by leaping into Godzilla's mouth; the results are fruitless leaving nothing but a flaming burp.
TOWERING APE
In the original script for the 1933 version of King Kong, Kong was going to climb the Chrysler Building. You see, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building were both being built at the very same time and the Chrysler Building was suppose to be the taller of the two. But, as there was a battle to see who could build the tallest building in the world and the Empire State Building creators added an observation deck and mooring mast at the last minute, making it the world's tallest building. The script was changed and Kong climbed it making the Empire State Building not only the tallest building in the world but also the most famous. In the 1976 remake starring Jeff Bridges, Kong instead climbs the World Trade Center. In Peter Jackson's 2005 remake, Kong will once again scale the Empire State Building as the film is faithfully set in the 1930's.
TOHO SHOWDOWN
Despite all the mudslinging that occurred due to public and fan backlash with the new Hollywood version of Godzilla, the reality was Toho, Godzilla's creator company, was closely involved with Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich during the pre-production of the new Godzilla. They had their say and input at the time, it simply just didn't work with the fans.
KING KONG vs FRANKENSTEIN
For trivia's sake, King Kong vs Godzilla was originally set up to be a battle between King Kong and Frankenstein, seeing how they both had established movie franchises at Universal Pictures. Luckily for us, the two monster giants had their time in the ring going toe-to-toe, although Kong would fare much better against a stitched together man than a fire-breathing lizard.
TO DIE FOR
The original damsel in distress has been played by Fay Wray in the original, by Jessica Lange in the 1976 version and will now be played by Naomi Watts in the new 2005 remake of King Kong. On the Godzilla side of things, there has been Maria Pitillo in the Hollywood Godzilla of 1998 and a slew of women in the original Japanese made flicks. Momoko Kochi starred in the very first Godzilla film in 1954 as Emiko Yamane and then reprised the role 40 years later in her last film, 'Godzilla vs. Destroyer' in 1998.
NEW KONG
'Lords of the Rings' director, Peter Jackson, is now in the process of taking on the giant ape. Word has it that in this version King Kong is a firebreathing giant gorilla that can transform into a computer virus in an attempt to rid the world of spam. Well, that's just one story I over heard while standing in in the 90-minute-long line for the 90-second-long Mummy's Revenge Ride at Universal Studios. Our peak at the new script revealed that the film is a retelling of the 1933 original, complete with Skull Island, dinosaurs, giant spiders and bi-plane attack action. Odds on, the effects will be pretty spectacular and the cast with, Naomi Watts, Jack Black and Adrien Brody it should be pure cinema dynamite.
BATTLE OF THE NETWORK STARS
Other than this new King Kong, 2005 will give us some other cinema magic with the last installment in the new Star Wars trilogy, 'Revenge of the Sith', Tim Burton's 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', Robert Rodriguez's adaptation of the 'Sin City' comic book, Joss Wedon's big screen adaptation of Firefly called 'Serenity' and Steven Spielberg's epically-budgeted 'War of the Worlds' starring Tom Cruise.
GODZILLA vs. GODZILLA
Godzilla has a face-off with his revamped Hollywood self in the Godzilla 50th Anniversary Commemoration Production that came out this December 2004. However the 1998 Hollywood version of Godzilla is renamed as Zilla. He is also referred to as Jira in the film as Godzilla's Japanese name is Gojira. In the film the newer Godzilla is an 'assassin monster' engineered by the aliens from Planet X in order to hunt down and kill the original Godzilla. Director, Ryuhei Kitamura said he named the Hollywood version of Godzilla as simply Zilla because he felt that the 1998 Roland Emmerich film had 'taken the God out of Godzilla'. The showdown between the two monsters takes place in Sydney, Australia. For those looking for it, the film is also known as 'Godzilla: Final Wars'.
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