Lessons from King Kong

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I just came back from the movie "King Kong" with my friends and boy was it a very long show... 3 hours long... sit until backside pain.

King Kong,
courtesy http://www.kingkongmovie.com

An Experential Movie of Epic Proportions
Anyway, the movie was good and there was enough action to keep you at the edge of your seat. In fact, I think the movie was so experiential enough that the girl beside me was basically dodging left and right and retracting her legs very quickly when the dinosaurs came to chomp chomp chomp at the actress' feet. Everything was in gigantic proportions, including the gigantic centipedes and cockroaches so for those who are scared of creepy crawlies, do avoid this show :)

Inconsiderate Blokes!
A lesson to those who are inconsiderate when watching movies: STOP IT! You will never stop to be amazed how some inconsiderate some people are when watching movies e.g. talking loudly, taking phone calls in the middle of movies, continuously kicking away at the chair... this happened to my friends who were sitting behind me. Apparently, they did not really get to enjoy the show because these 2 teenage boys kept kicking away behind their chair. What nuisance!

Lessons
Now all movies will mean different things to different people and similarly, I took away different lessons from this movie.

1. Power of Influence - It spoke of the power of influence, how some people in the world are just so good with their gap that they can easily talk people round to pursue their cause or to influence perceptions of things. Just like in the movie how Carl Denham, who was the "never-give-up" movie director who used his gift of his gap to convince people to do his movie. There is nothing wrong with being focused and wanting to fulfill your dreams but it is a different thing to be so focused you forget others and use them as means to your ends. Someone mentioned in the movie that "man destroys the things that they love" and Carl Denham similarly caused the lives of 2 of his team mates and eventually the life of King Kong because he made everyone believe that King Kong is evil and dangerous, which in the end got King Kong killed at the top of the Empire State building because everyone thought he was a stupid primate out to make trouble.

2. Humans = Stupid - There was like almost a tint of sacarsm when King Kong was shot dead and feel to the base of the Empire State building with many curious on-lookers gathering around his body to examine him. There was this guy who called King Kong a stupid primate. Now, if humans evolved from apes and King Kong is a stupid primate, what does that make us? King Kong lived in a brutal world where it had to defend itself from dinosaurs, bats and many other dangerous creatures and have not felt empathy before but it learnt fast and he is considered stupid... what does that make us; people who are supposed to be more civilized, only to go round with weapons and weapons of mass destruction, wiping each other out from the face of the earth. Smart huh?

3. Our Behaviours Shaped by our Past Experiences - King Kong lived in a harsh world and had to defend itself for survivial. But yet it was tamed by the lead actress which King Kong grew to like and when he was brought to New York, he was chained down. Coupled with its life experiences of having live in a harsh world where expression of violence means survivial, it is no wonder it acted out so violently against humans after it escaped from the theatre where it was "exhibited". It was yet no so when he was with the lead actress who has taught him love (of course, I can't help but feel that some may even think that a sub-lesson here is that women=trouble, that's why King Kong died; because of a woman. But I leave you to draw your own conclusions on that).

I choose to believe that he attacked the planes in the end because he associated flying things with the loss of his "loved one" just like how he lost the lead actress back in the jungle when he was attacked by flying bats. So it may be argued that he was in a way attacking the planes to protect the lead actress and to prevent losing her again. But King Kong was seen, also thanks to Carl Denham, as a dangerous creature capable of being ruthless. King Kong was the way it was because of its life experiences just as how we are all different because of our different life experiences which shaped our values system and the way we think, feel and behave.

4. Love Transcends Language and Looks - Or at least I got a feeling that King Kong and the lead actress somehow like fell in love with each other, even though they didn't speak the same language. Do you call that love? Maybe it is just appreciation of each other? Up till today, I do not know if it is love between the lead actress and King Kong. Things are made especially more confusing when in the end, King Kong died and fell off the building but enters the male lead and after a moment of griefing, the female lead ran into the arms of the male lead... embracing each other like lovebirds.

OK, maybe I am just reading too much into a movie but then that's me... trying to always make sense of movies. Or maybe what I had just mentioned just doesn't make sense at all? Just go catch the movie and draw your own conclusions.