I agree with Maverikk that Lucas would have had a much better opening with Kong. Lucas fans are very loyal Lucas. They can be trusted to follow.

But if you and baumer and BKB or any other loonie bashers get nothing else out of my posts, understand this: LotR loonies are NOT Jackson loonies. I'm sorry if you have trouble with this distinction.* LotR fans are NOT loyal to Jackson. They are loyal to Tolkien first and foremost. They are extremely difficult to please, believe me. I will not let go of Jackson's skill, if for only one reason: If Jackson were on the par of only Tim Burton, he would not have won over the suspicious Tolkien fans.

If you try to bash LotR loonies for Kong, the loonies will simply reply that PJ's Kong interests them little; it was Tolkien they loved. Peter Jackson was precious while he was making LotR, but once LotR was over, PJ was on his own.

Any praise of Jackson I make for Kong does not stem from my love for LotR, for you see, I do make that distinction. I base my Kong praise on the solid professional reviews, of which are there many.

(But I won't argue about Spielberg or Cameron. Terminator 1 and Aliens 2 are among the best movies ever made. )


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*on the contrary, I am convinced you are perfectly capable of making that distinction. But you would rather shoot fish in a barrel.

Another important distinction, while you're at it: True LOTR loonies are NOT Jackson LOTR loonies...

Bullshit. I fit both categories quite well.

hehe...the old "I pay attention to reviews only when they agree with me" philosophy. I love seeing that used as a last straw.

Erendis, if you haven't noticed, it's the usual suspects that have been insulting non believers. All of them are die hard LOTR fanatics. It might not apply to you, but the LOTR loonies have been in full force trying to support the precious one, Peter Jackson. All one needs to do is look at the King Kong thread and compare it to any LOTR thread and they'll see that it's not a case of it being a different group.

BTW...the cream of the crop has it at 76%. That would be a C grade in any school. Are you sure you really want to use that as your justification of quality?

Wouldn't that then be true of Erendis' original statement of distinction: "LotR loonies are NOT Jackson loonies"? The word implied with NOT, is necessarily - there are surely some poor misguided souls who are all three...

If it makes me a misguided soul, I'll gladly drink both Kool-Aid cups.

Here -- have a third on me...

You folks do realize that I meant that "there are LotR fans that are no longer PJ fans." OH, how I'm wanting a Venn diagram right about now. That would straighten us all out.

Mav, I see your point. I guess the Kong threads are populated by LotR Loonies who converted to Jackson Loonies. I lost my Jackson loonieism with TTT. Now I (try to) judge more objectively. Even if they are still LotR loonies, the point is that they took off their LotR loonie hat and put on their Jackson Loonie hat for the Kong threads.

Bash them all you want, as long as you call them Jackson Loonies. In fact, if they are such Jackson defenders, they ought to be out there getting better numbers for Kong. It's the mediocre numbers that started all this.

I don't want to pick on them too much. I really do feel badly about the situation, and I definitely didn't want Kong to disappoint at the box office. I'm as surprised about this as anyone (except BKB), as I thought for sure it would do better than it has up until now. There's still hope that it'll turn around. There was plenty of doom and gloom about Batman Begins and it made it to 200+ million, so we'll see. If it doesn't turn around, it's going to be very deflating, which is probably exactly what they deserve for all of the negative energy they've brought to the forum for years with the slamming of all other films while praising PJ's stuff, but I'd prefer that the illusion lives on in their minds for the sport of it.

Like I said in my Kong review, I'm glad Peter Jackson is in the game. Movies need filmmakers who can build a following. I do believe he needs to stand on his own two bare feet sooner than later and stop relying on standing on the shoulders of giants. That's the biggest thing seperating him from the A class filmakers, he's yet to have something original catch on. I don't want to see his fans abandon him the way the Warchowski's fans did. Remember, Matrix Reloaded was 75% cream of the crop and Kong is 76%. When the novelty wore off, the matrix loonies realized it sucked and crawled back into their holes, never to be seen again. Luckily King Kong doesn't suck, but it's flawed, and if this sinks in after time and after the novelty wears off, which I suspect it will, Jackson's cloak of invincibility will forever be stripped away. Look at how that very thing caused a backlash for Lucas with his diehards.

Excellent comparison...

I just have to respond to this. Matrix fans of course are many, but generally don't really care to bother with the obsessions of those who feel some need to act as if it did some unforgivable sin to them.

Plus, everything indicates that WOM was hardly as terrible as many like to make it out to be. It's far better then the likes of The Hulk and The Village, and other truely hated event films. Even Revolutions, despite having weaker WOM then Reloaded, sold nearly double as many dvds then either of those.

It's pretty well agreed, except for the hardcore Matrix fans, that much of that 75% rating for Reloaded was carryover love from the excellent Matrix 1. Reloaded itself got bad WOM, fast. I'm sorry DP, but "everything indicates that the WOM for Reloaded was hardley terrible.."...Everything, that is, except the second weekend drop. Isn't second weekend drop the gold standard for measuring WOM?

So, If we use the same RT reasoning, Kong's 76% comes from either

1. Carryover love from the excellent LotR, in which case LotR itself had to be loved.
2. Reviewers totally distinguishing LotR from Kong and judging PJ objectively. In which case, Kong isn't a masterpiece, but not terrible either.

I would tend to go with the second option. Carryover love is much less likely to happen for a totally different movie, whereas Reloaded was a sequel. But either option is not a bad thing for PJ. Right now, I think the primary disadvantage for PJ is that $200M price tag. He's going to catch hell in Hollywood for that.

I do like these director comparisons, but the topic is still Kong: What Went Wrong. Let's assume Mav is right, and PJ is a director that isn't quite up to snuff yet. If he had been a better director, would Kong have made much more money? What about Cameron or Spielberg? I'm still wondering about that source material.

And Mav, thank you for referring to the loonies "they."

Hehe, funny seeing all the PJ bashers now creeping out of their holes getting all vocal ("I told you so, he's overrated blah blah!")... Nothing has changed, PJ delivered another great movie and has once again proofed that he's one of the most gifted directors working today, putting to shame blokes like MISTER Lucas (yeah, i'm talking to you Mav). All that the box office of the first two days shows is that people weren't interested enough in a giant monkey movie to rush out and see it asap...

*Pencils Nazgul9 into the "Source material" column*

Does anybody not realize that ROTS had a 71% COTC.

So...?

Silly Nazgul, that was just one question/comment.

You should've answer with yes or no, not with so?.

No question mark, no question.

Yes, shooting fish is fun...especially in a barrel.

Loonies are loonies.

Not all of us have been hiding - many are on record here with saying that this retread was a bad idea many months ago, especially in the hands of Peter Hackson...

Nothing went wrong.

You're being ridiculous. Peter Jackson is anything but a hack.

Perhaps you'd prefer Peter Laxson or Peter SadSackson...

The hype for KK was created by the media. Universal knew as recently as last week that the movie was not tracking well among women (THR interview with Nikki Rocco), but still played along while changing marketing strategies in the last week.

KK proves my point that overly gushing reviews from "brown nose" critics and internet inhabitants mean less than zilch.