Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with an interview I did last week with Michael Pellerin, DVD producer and the man behind such DVD releases as the LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY, TOY STORY, the '33 KING KONG release from last year and all the KONG discs, including the big 3 Disc Extended Edition that comes out today. I've interviewed Pellerin before (you can read that here!!!), for the release of the '33 KONG and Production Diary DVD set last year and on this one I've tried to steer clear of covering the same ground, so we mostly focus on the development of the new disc, but we do talk a bit about what to expect in the big RINGS box set, what they were holding back. He told me that Peter Jackson knew the studio was going to demand many releases of the film and there was nothing he could do about that, so he went out of his way to try to make each release unique, without repeating material. So far, he's been true to his word and this KONG DVD is pretty nice, too. After the interview I'll write a little review of the 3 discer, but first... here's the interview from Mr. Pellerin's Hollywood offices, a bit before I saw the discs for myself. Enjoy!!!
QUINT: The first question anybody is going to have about the new KONG DVD is going to be about the features. It's a 3 disc set, right?
MICHAEL PELLERIN: It's 3-discs. The tricky thing was Universal wanted to release it on 3 discs. They wanted it to be 3, not 4.
QUINT: Do you know why?
MICHAEL PELLERIN: I don't. You know, it's the alchemy of... you know?
QUINT: Like cost per disc, etc?
MICHAEL PELLERIN: Yeah, exactly. It's that whole world of the cost of packaging versus the discs versus the shelf space. Not my world, but that was their thing. They wanted it to be three.
But this is the disc we started planning back in 2003, before RETURN OF THE KING even had come out, before we'd started work on KONG. This is the disc we were planning all these years. This is what we started out doing.
There's been the Production Diaries DVD and there's the Theatrical DVD, which had the rest of the production diaries, but that was the product that just kind of evolved, that was never in the original planning stages. So, we always knew from the beginning that there was going to be this DVD that was like the LORD OF THE RINGS DVDs in terms of scope, but we were planning it as 4 discs, just like LOTR.
So, we had to basically backwards engineer how to fit the same amount of content onto 3 discs, not 4. Fortunately, KONG is not as long a movie as the Extended Editions of the RINGS films, even at its Extended Stage.
So, they split the movie over 2 discs, but that also meant that we had a lot of room on those 2 discs. So, what would have been a 4th disc is really on discs 1 and 2, spread apart. And the 3rd disc is all (extra features).
QUINT: So, instead of the appendices having two discs to themselves you have one disc split on the actual Extended Movie discs.
MICHAEL PELLERIN: Yeah. The King Kong Archives... that's what we call it, like the appendices, but it's The King Kong Archives. Instead of having a bunch of bonus stuff, we wanted to have some sort of organization. The 3rd disc is really the 3 hour documentary split into, I think, 6 or 8 parts, so you don't have to watch it all in 3 hours. You could watch it in sections, but it was designed as a three hour (piece)... one thing flowing to the other to the other to the other.
Basically, the act breaks are where commercials would be. That was the thing that Peter (Jackson) always wanted to do. And we were, by the way, carefully protecting some of the best stories and the coolest stories, we were protecting them from the production diaries and the previous DVD release. It was always like, "Nope, nope, nope... that's for when we do the big DVD at the end of the line."
So, all the stuff like Peter's original attempt to make KONG when he was a kid on Super 8, the 1996 KING KONG story, including everything done on it, all the Bernie Wrightson stuff, all the footage they shot, in terms of test footage, CG footage, all that finally had a home. If you notice, we stay away from all that stuff... You know, the story of how they made King Kong as a character and the creature we completely steered away from.
There were a few things we could talk about that Peter was okay with, but the rest was, "Nope, we're saving that for the DVD."
And everything on it, we carefully made sure there was no repeat. Like, Peter went to go see Fay Wray, before she died, and the Empire State Building. He climbed up to the very top, the very top-top-top... all of that, footage from that, is on the DVD. It's all these treasures...
It's so funny... this is the 3rd DVD release and this is the one we were saving all this stuff for. So, the third disc is really mostly that documentary and the artwork, which we did differently this time. We did video galleries, as opposed to galleries that you navigate. You hit play and you get music and sound effects. It's basically like watching the movie through artwork, with music and sound effects which start at the beginning of the movie and rolls right to the end. Except for one that's devoted entirely to the 1996 film.
This is again one of those Peter Jackson things where there is literally no space left anywhere... not one more thing. We carefully moved everything around so we just had enough room to fit everything... but we got it all on there.
It's interesting because this DVD release is somewhat different than the LORD OF THE RINGS because on LORD OF THE RINGS we were still holding back stuff for the box set, which we still plan to do. We talked about it recently, talked to Peter about it.
QUINT: Are you going to wait for the next gen format or an anniversary?
MICHAEL PELLERIN: I'm not sure. This one's going to be very... it's a whole other topic to talk about, but this one is going to be super Peter hand's-on. He's planning on making his own feature length documentary... like, for theatrical release. That'll be heavy-duty. If you notice there were a lot of things that never appeared anywhere, like the deleted scenes, the gags... that was on purpose.
Eventually this thing is going to HD and they're going to repackage it again, but let's continue the decision on not screwing people over on these releases. Let's make it so when you get the HD box set of all three films again, let's fill it with completely different stuff. Like not, "Oh, they're calling this the Uber-Doober whatever" edition. That's so lame.
The last time I looked, I'd say there's... I don't know... it's insane, there's like 36 hours of content or something crazy like that.
QUINT: Thirty-Six hours of all new content?
MICHAEL PELLERIN: This is new. I know it sounds insane... but it won't be that much. It won't be that much. That's in the ridiculous area, but there's certainly, I'd say, no less than 12 to 18 hours. It's a monster.
QUINT: Would you say that the LORD OF THE RINGS films are the most documented films ever made?
MICHAEL PELLERIN: Well... yes... or maybe KONG. Because we shot, from the very beginning when KONG started in earnest in 2003 we shot every day up until it's release in 2005. And I had multiple cameras. As you know, there's not just a director and a set. It's a director and a set, then over here there's second unit over here and over here is mini shooting and there's 2 minis units and there's Weta Digital and there's the Workshop...
I had 5 shooters... that was as big as it got, but still that's a lot of people covering a lot of stuff. So, LORD OF THE RINGS is absolutely the most documented film series, but KONG... man, I don't know how you can document more than what we did on KING KONG. There was 3400 tapes of behind the scenes footage shot. Three thousand four hundred, for KING KONG.
I remember for LORD OF THE RINGS we estimated... between the behind the scenes footage and interviews there was 14 million feet of footage. I know we've got some huge number like that on KONG. It was insane. Just thousands of tapes. And that's just behind the scenes stuff. That doesn't include the interviews and all the other raw materials. That's just our DV cam stuff.
All that stuff... yeah, it served us well for the production diaries, but this was the DVD set we were all working for because when you shoot like that... what it gives you is... I mean, it's a bit indulgent in that it's a heck of a lot to shoot for a behind the scenes, but with something as cool as KING KONG or LORD OF THE RINGS, where it takes so many years and there's so many interesting things that happen along the way it means that any time anyone has an anecdote or a story... more than likely there is footage to accompany. If you ask any editor, that's incredibly rare.
Usually stories are someone sitting in front of a camera going, "I remember a day when we did this..." and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, talking heads. But you can't show it because no one was there shooting. Chances are we were and that is a beautiful way to do a documentary because it's so... You don't think about it nor should you be thinking about it when you're watching the docs, but almost everything everyone is talking about you're actually seeing. If you do the math that means you have to be there all the time.
QUINT: I've been on a few sets where you hear someone... the director, actor, producer, whomever go, "That was great? Where the hell were the behind the scenes guys? The camera's here, but where the guy?"
MICHAEL PELLERIN: (laughs) You need a dedicated crew working all the time and Peter's been able to do that on this project. It's been a great way to work, but it's demanding. I mean, you're going 7 days a week. But at the end when you're sitting in that editing room, you've got all the footage.
You know... I was talking about the (LOTR) box set. We were always holding stuff back for the box set, but this KONG release I think Peter basically went, "You know? We're doing it up for this." In other words, this is sort of the no holding back, no regrets release, meaning everything and the kitchen sink is on this one. When this is out... I mean, I'm not speaking for Peter in some ways here, but I think it's kinda done. It's not like we're hiding the blah-blah-blah... I don't know what else.
He put the deleted scenes on this. He didn't do that for LORD OF THE RINGS. There's 37 minutes of deleted scenes, truly deleted, not the extended stuff. This is completely deleted. He didn't do that for LOTR. There are deleted scenes, but they have not surfaced yet. And he did intros for all of (the KONG deleted scenes) for all of them, so that you can understand where they were in the movie, what they're supposed to do...
QUINT: And this is the kind of material you said you're putting on the first 2 discs of the set.
MICHAEL PELLERIN: That's right. That's exactly right. The deleted scenes are there, all the original pre-vizs. Those HAD to be on the DVD. But the first two discs is stuff like that. Deleted scenes, it's pre-viz animatics, the blooper reel... We always wanted to do a piece that was sort of an expose on all the references to the original KING KONG in the movie, some of which are really subtle and if you didn't know... there's now way you'd know. We were able to string that together and point all of that out, like the entire web of the references.
And there is actually... hidden somewhere on the disc, is the very last... well, not the last, but a production diary that no one's ever seen, nowhere on the internet. And it's a funny one that was done by the cast members. They cooked it up. This was the final production diary to see the light of day and it was a doozy.
It was so funny when they were cooking it up, but we never got around to putting it together. We had all the footage, but it just kind of fell to the wayside, even though it was cooked up by Jack (Black) and Adrien (Brody) and Andy (Serkis) and Colin (Hanks)... they cooked up this... thing. This story of obsession and addiction and god knows what.
And somewhere on there is an original song by Jack Black. I think it's like 6 minutes long. It's epic. It's an epic...
Also, Peter was adamant, he wanted to put the '96 script on there and the 2005 script, which is good. They're printable. What else? Did you see the cast film... the film they made for Peter for his birthday?
QUINT: Nope.
MICHAEL PELLERIN: They put together a whole film called THE PRESENT, which was a present for Peter's birthday. All of them, Naomi, Andy, Jack and Adrien, Jamie... the whole gang of them. We were able to put that together and include it on the disc.
It's literally everything and the kitchen sink. I mean, there's nothing left out there... Universal probably doesn't want me to say that, but nothing that we came up and nothing the cast came up with and nothing that Peter came up with.
We've always approached it this way, but if the cast and crew picks up this thing and watches it, it's like their scrapbook. It's like their school yearbook for those couple years. All those goodies, all those bits and all those anecdotes.
QUINT: That's how the LOTR discs felt, too. It's really like getting to share the experience.
MICHAEL PELLERIN: We always thought that if we're happy and Peter's happy and the cast and crew watch this... Because before we're done with anything, we'd show it around to everybody. Like, we'd show it to guys at Weta Digital and Weta Workshop. We'd show it to cast members and go, "What does everybody think?" If that was the fun thing they wanted to watch, then we knew we got it.
To Universal and New Line's credit, we've never received one note, nothing. Complete creative freedom. Absolutely everything you want to do. It's incredible and I don't take it for granted. That is an incredible thing. It's part of the reason why I've stayed in this medium. Two things: Peter and that kind of freedom. Because I've done television and man... I used to save all my old cuts because by the time they actually went to air they were nothing like what I originally intended. I mean nothing like it. It was off on another planet by the time they'd have gone through a string of notes from various executives.
But DVDs, man. It's, "Peter, you okay with it? Good. I'm okay with it. Can we have fun watching this? Okay. Let's go make a few million copies."
QUINT: Well DVDs are pretty much guaranteed big income, right? So, I'd imagine the studios would want to put as much as they could in the way of special features to move copies...
MICHAEL PELLERIN: It's different at different studios. I know that there are studios that (have) executives that are very, very, very controlling.
QUINT: Oh yeah?
MICHAEL PELLERIN: Yeah.
QUINT: Studios that start with "Dis" and end with "ney"?
MICHAEL PELLERIN: (laughs) It's definitely like... whoa, man... Of course, when I did discs with them it was before it became like that. So, like, FANTASIA and TOY STORY and that stuff... again, it was like Peter's stuff. It was great. Working with Roy Disney and working with John Lasseter and making discs you're happy with and then you release it.
I worked with them during what I would consider the Golden era, like the best time to be a DVD producer working with Disney was back then because it was complete creative freedom and you could just have a blast. It was fun. If it stops being fun, then forget it. I mean, it's hard. God knows KONG '33... that was... Doing that on top of the Production Diaries and on top of all the other behind the scenes DVD duties was probably the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life.
All of a sudden you have a little film unit. You had the live-action shoot on the weekends and the animation units doing stop motion during the weeks and you had all the other stuff.
Man, that Collector's set with the Weta Kong piece looks great. Gonna have to order one.
Anyway, that was the interview. I have since been able to check out the discs and the 3 plus documentary on disc 3 is fantastic. Everything you'd come to expect from this team. Of particular interest are the segments on the beginning and ending of the 1996 version Jackson was trying to make and the lengthy piece towards the end focused 100% on how they brought KONG to life as a digital character in the 2005 film they made.
The Gag Reel (called THE EIGTH BLUNDER OF THE WORLD) is great, almost 30 minutes and filled with laughs and flubs. The Present film made for Jackson for his birthday is hilarious. The deleted scenes show you a great deal of insight on what Jackson was building his characters to, especially fleshing out the Hayes/Jimmy relationship a bit more, which it really needed.
As for the cut itself, I haven't watched the extended edition without the commentary by Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens, so I can't comment on how it flows as a story, but watching the scenes play out you'll wonder how the hell could he have cut out the raft sequence? There's also a great moment I won't spoil during Kong's rampage in New York. However, sorely lacking was the extra 3 minutes of silent character work that fat guy on the trolley was rumored to have delivered. Word is the pain of depression-era living was etched on his chubby features, telling a little 3 act story itself in as many minutes.
Anyway, thanks to Mr. Pellerin for spending his time talking with me about this release and thanks to you guys for sitting through it all. I'm about to unleash the flood gates here... tons of reviews and interviews... plus my holiday guide. Speaking of which, thanks to all of you who have contributed suggestions. Please keep them coming. The list is growing quite long, but I'm always open to hear more thoughts on what should be included. Email me at the link below!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
So, all the stuff like Peter's original attempt to make KONG when he was a kid on Super 8, the 1996 KING KONG story, including everything done on it, all the Bernie Wrightson stuff, all the footage they shot, in terms of test footage, CG footage, all that finally had a home. If you notice, we stay away from all that stuff... You know, the story of how they made King Kong as a character and the creature we completely steered away from.
There were a few things we could talk about that Peter was okay with, but the rest was, "Nope, we're saving that for the DVD."
And everything on it, we carefully made sure there was no repeat. Like, Peter went to go see Fay Wray, before she died, and the Empire State Building. He climbed up to the very top, the very top-top-top... all of that, footage from that, is on the DVD. It's all these treasures...
It's so funny... this is the 3rd DVD release and this is the one we were saving all this stuff for. So, the third disc is really mostly that documentary and the artwork, which we did differently this time. We did video galleries, as opposed to galleries that you navigate. You hit play and you get music and sound effects. It's basically like watching the movie through artwork, with music and sound effects which start at the beginning of the movie and rolls right to the end. Except for one that's devoted entirely to the 1996 film.
This is again one of those Peter Jackson things where there is literally no space left anywhere... not one more thing. We carefully moved everything around so we just had enough room to fit everything... but we got it all on there.
It's interesting because this DVD release is somewhat different than the LORD OF THE RINGS because on LORD OF THE RINGS we were still holding back stuff for the box set, which we still plan to do. We talked about it recently, talked to Peter about it.
QUINT: Are you going to wait for the next gen format or an anniversary?
MICHAEL PELLERIN: I'm not sure. This one's going to be very... it's a whole other topic to talk about, but this one is going to be super Peter hand's-on. He's planning on making his own feature length documentary... like, for theatrical release. That'll be heavy-duty. If you notice there were a lot of things that never appeared anywhere, like the deleted scenes, the gags... that was on purpose.
Eventually this thing is going to HD and they're going to repackage it again, but let's continue the decision on not screwing people over on these releases. Let's make it so when you get the HD box set of all three films again, let's fill it with completely different stuff. Like not, "Oh, they're calling this the Uber-Doober whatever" edition. That's so lame.
The last time I looked, I'd say there's... I don't know... it's insane, there's like 36 hours of content or something crazy like that.
QUINT: Thirty-Six hours of all new content?
MICHAEL PELLERIN: This is new. I know it sounds insane... but it won't be that much. It won't be that much. That's in the ridiculous area, but there's certainly, I'd say, no less than 12 to 18 hours. It's a monster.
QUINT: Would you say that the LORD OF THE RINGS films are the most documented films ever made?
MICHAEL PELLERIN: Well... yes... or maybe KONG. Because we shot, from the very beginning when KONG started in earnest in 2003 we shot every day up until it's release in 2005. And I had multiple cameras. As you know, there's not just a director and a set. It's a director and a set, then over here there's second unit over here and over here is mini shooting and there's 2 minis units and there's Weta Digital and there's the Workshop...
I had 5 shooters... that was as big as it got, but still that's a lot of people covering a lot of stuff. So, LORD OF THE RINGS is absolutely the most documented film series, but KONG... man, I don't know how you can document more than what we did on KING KONG. There was 3400 tapes of behind the scenes footage shot. Three thousand four hundred, for KING KONG.
I remember for LORD OF THE RINGS we estimated... between the behind the scenes footage and interviews there was 14 million feet of footage. I know we've got some huge number like that on KONG. It was insane. Just thousands of tapes. And that's just behind the scenes stuff. That doesn't include the interviews and all the other raw materials. That's just our DV cam stuff.
All that stuff... yeah, it served us well for the production diaries, but this was the DVD set we were all working for because when you shoot like that... what it gives you is... I mean, it's a bit indulgent in that it's a heck of a lot to shoot for a behind the scenes, but with something as cool as KING KONG or LORD OF THE RINGS, where it takes so many years and there's so many interesting things that happen along the way it means that any time anyone has an anecdote or a story... more than likely there is footage to accompany. If you ask any editor, that's incredibly rare.
Usually stories are someone sitting in front of a camera going, "I remember a day when we did this..." and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, talking heads. But you can't show it because no one was there shooting. Chances are we were and that is a beautiful way to do a documentary because it's so... You don't think about it nor should you be thinking about it when you're watching the docs, but almost everything everyone is talking about you're actually seeing. If you do the math that means you have to be there all the time.
QUINT: I've been on a few sets where you hear someone... the director, actor, producer, whomever go, "That was great? Where the hell were the behind the scenes guys? The camera's here, but where the guy?"
MICHAEL PELLERIN: (laughs) You need a dedicated crew working all the time and Peter's been able to do that on this project. It's been a great way to work, but it's demanding. I mean, you're going 7 days a week. But at the end when you're sitting in that editing room, you've got all the footage.
You know... I was talking about the (LOTR) box set. We were always holding stuff back for the box set, but this KONG release I think Peter basically went, "You know? We're doing it up for this." In other words, this is sort of the no holding back, no regrets release, meaning everything and the kitchen sink is on this one. When this is out... I mean, I'm not speaking for Peter in some ways here, but I think it's kinda done. It's not like we're hiding the blah-blah-blah... I don't know what else.
He put the deleted scenes on this. He didn't do that for LORD OF THE RINGS. There's 37 minutes of deleted scenes, truly deleted, not the extended stuff. This is completely deleted. He didn't do that for LOTR. There are deleted scenes, but they have not surfaced yet. And he did intros for all of (the KONG deleted scenes) for all of them, so that you can understand where they were in the movie, what they're supposed to do...
QUINT: And this is the kind of material you said you're putting on the first 2 discs of the set.
MICHAEL PELLERIN: That's right. That's exactly right. The deleted scenes are there, all the original pre-vizs. Those HAD to be on the DVD. But the first two discs is stuff like that. Deleted scenes, it's pre-viz animatics, the blooper reel... We always wanted to do a piece that was sort of an expose on all the references to the original KING KONG in the movie, some of which are really subtle and if you didn't know... there's now way you'd know. We were able to string that together and point all of that out, like the entire web of the references.
And there is actually... hidden somewhere on the disc, is the very last... well, not the last, but a production diary that no one's ever seen, nowhere on the internet. And it's a funny one that was done by the cast members. They cooked it up. This was the final production diary to see the light of day and it was a doozy.
It was so funny when they were cooking it up, but we never got around to putting it together. We had all the footage, but it just kind of fell to the wayside, even though it was cooked up by Jack (Black) and Adrien (Brody) and Andy (Serkis) and Colin (Hanks)... they cooked up this... thing. This story of obsession and addiction and god knows what.
And somewhere on there is an original song by Jack Black. I think it's like 6 minutes long. It's epic. It's an epic...
Also, Peter was adamant, he wanted to put the '96 script on there and the 2005 script, which is good. They're printable. What else? Did you see the cast film... the film they made for Peter for his birthday?
QUINT: Nope.
MICHAEL PELLERIN: They put together a whole film called THE PRESENT, which was a present for Peter's birthday. All of them, Naomi, Andy, Jack and Adrien, Jamie... the whole gang of them. We were able to put that together and include it on the disc.
It's literally everything and the kitchen sink. I mean, there's nothing left out there... Universal probably doesn't want me to say that, but nothing that we came up and nothing the cast came up with and nothing that Peter came up with.
We've always approached it this way, but if the cast and crew picks up this thing and watches it, it's like their scrapbook. It's like their school yearbook for those couple years. All those goodies, all those bits and all those anecdotes.
QUINT: That's how the LOTR discs felt, too. It's really like getting to share the experience.
MICHAEL PELLERIN: We always thought that if we're happy and Peter's happy and the cast and crew watch this... Because before we're done with anything, we'd show it around to everybody. Like, we'd show it to guys at Weta Digital and Weta Workshop. We'd show it to cast members and go, "What does everybody think?" If that was the fun thing they wanted to watch, then we knew we got it.
To Universal and New Line's credit, we've never received one note, nothing. Complete creative freedom. Absolutely everything you want to do. It's incredible and I don't take it for granted. That is an incredible thing. It's part of the reason why I've stayed in this medium. Two things: Peter and that kind of freedom. Because I've done television and man... I used to save all my old cuts because by the time they actually went to air they were nothing like what I originally intended. I mean nothing like it. It was off on another planet by the time they'd have gone through a string of notes from various executives.
But DVDs, man. It's, "Peter, you okay with it? Good. I'm okay with it. Can we have fun watching this? Okay. Let's go make a few million copies."
QUINT: Well DVDs are pretty much guaranteed big income, right? So, I'd imagine the studios would want to put as much as they could in the way of special features to move copies...
MICHAEL PELLERIN: It's different at different studios. I know that there are studios that (have) executives that are very, very, very controlling.
QUINT: Oh yeah?
MICHAEL PELLERIN: Yeah.
QUINT: Studios that start with "Dis" and end with "ney"?
MICHAEL PELLERIN: (laughs) It's definitely like... whoa, man... Of course, when I did discs with them it was before it became like that. So, like, FANTASIA and TOY STORY and that stuff... again, it was like Peter's stuff. It was great. Working with Roy Disney and working with John Lasseter and making discs you're happy with and then you release it.
I worked with them during what I would consider the Golden era, like the best time to be a DVD producer working with Disney was back then because it was complete creative freedom and you could just have a blast. It was fun. If it stops being fun, then forget it. I mean, it's hard. God knows KONG '33... that was... Doing that on top of the Production Diaries and on top of all the other behind the scenes DVD duties was probably the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life.
All of a sudden you have a little film unit. You had the live-action shoot on the weekends and the animation units doing stop motion during the weeks and you had all the other stuff.
Man, that Collector's set with the Weta Kong piece looks great. Gonna have to order one. Anyway, that was the interview. I have since been able to check out the discs and the 3 plus documentary on disc 3 is fantastic. Everything you'd come to expect from this team. Of particular interest are the segments on the beginning and ending of the 1996 version Jackson was trying to make and the lengthy piece towards the end focused 100% on how they brought KONG to life as a digital character in the 2005 film they made. The Gag Reel (called THE EIGTH BLUNDER OF THE WORLD) is great, almost 30 minutes and filled with laughs and flubs. The Present film made for Jackson for his birthday is hilarious. The deleted scenes show you a great deal of insight on what Jackson was building his characters to, especially fleshing out the Hayes/Jimmy relationship a bit more, which it really needed. As for the cut itself, I haven't watched the extended edition without the commentary by Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens, so I can't comment on how it flows as a story, but watching the scenes play out you'll wonder how the hell could he have cut out the raft sequence? There's also a great moment I won't spoil during Kong's rampage in New York. However, sorely lacking was the extra 3 minutes of silent character work that fat guy on the trolley was rumored to have delivered. Word is the pain of depression-era living was etched on his chubby features, telling a little 3 act story itself in as many minutes. Anyway, thanks to Mr. Pellerin for spending his time talking with me about this release and thanks to you guys for sitting through it all. I'm about to unleash the flood gates here... tons of reviews and interviews... plus my holiday guide. Speaking of which, thanks to all of you who have contributed suggestions. Please keep them coming. The list is growing quite long, but I'm always open to hear more thoughts on what should be included. Email me at the link below! -Quint quint@aintitcool.com
