You should take a few minutes from your Monday to appreciate Mark Hamill singing a country song about King Kong's dong.

In these really strange times, Mark Hamill singing a country song about King Kong's dong size seemed to capture a rather perfect moment in time. So, I'm linking it below for your enjoyment. It really is worth a watch, if anything, because it's hilarious. Have a Happy Monday.

Why does Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of King Kong not have a prequel?

I was watching King Kong this weekend, the Peter Jackson version, which is overly long yet asks of the viewer a ton of questions...and I started to think to myself why there is no prequel to this movie/story? Seriously. We live in an age where there are prequels to everything. There are prequels to the X-Men story started by Bryan Singer (both on television and in the movies). There are Star Wars prequels as everyone well knows, and there are prequels to Batman (Gotham anyone?) as well as one that's planned for Lord of the Rings (recently announced by Amazon if I understand the news correctly). Star Trek the original series? Check for prequel. Raiders of the Lost Arc? Yup. Young Indiana Jones.

Look...King Kong has an audience. There are all kinds of people who are into kaiju, and the huge gorilla story is a really good one. But just set your criticisms aside for a moment and think of the possibilities of good television ala Game of Thrones quality or some movie wherein the timeline of King Kong is rewound a thousand years and the following questions are answered:

1) Who built the wall before the island started to sink? What was this great civilization like? I doubt it had anything to do with the savages that lived there in the 1930's version of the film.

2) Was the civilization a stand alone or did it have competitors? Was the island part of a larger continent that sunk beneath the waves? Did it trade with other civilizations like Rome or China (which would have been great at the time)?

3) How cool would it be to see the whole lost world aspect brought to the screen? Maybe there's an explanation as to the effect that creates the permanent mist around the island. Maybe there's a reason why the compass goes haywire there.

When I think about the possibilities of unmined story that are the essence of King Kong, I think that it's tragic that no one is looking into a prequel for this stuff. In the least, it could be a really interesting segway into some Cthulhu-esque territory of Great Old Ones and strange cities populated by beings not from this dimension who built cities using geometry that was very non-euclidean. At the most, it could be a fantastic setting for stories that depict the rise and fall of a great empire trying to protect itself via magic and technology from gargantuan creatures some of whom they worship as gods.

Anyway...just an idea...one that I felt was worth sharing.

A trip to Universal Studios Orlando to see the new Kong ride is what I need to make happen this year.

I gotta say, the new King Kong ride at Universal Orlando makes me think I need to make a trip to Florida. If not for that, to see Harry Potter World and of course visit the Disney empire. But as most of you know, there's always a special place in my heart for kaiju themed things. And this video teaser just sounds too cool to miss.

In case you haven't heard, this summer Universal Studios Orlando is opening a massive King Kong-themed ride called Skull Island: Reign of Kong. All of it looks pretty much like the Peter Jackson film King Kong that came out about ten years ago brought to life. I have always loved the King Kong story because I like the period it takes place in (the 1930's), and it kind of reminds me of some H.P. Lovecraft stories I really like--the particular element in this storytelling is that there's some ancient civilization out there in the ocean and we only see the remnants of it (big walls, etc.) and huge monsters. You've got to have kaiju.

Oh and if you watched the Oscars last night, you saw Mad Max: Fury Road get robbed! It was robbed right in front of everyone! Just sayin'...

Cthulhu

Today is my Monster Fest post for fabulous blogger/writer Sommer Leigh who runs one of the most professional websites that I frequently visit.  If you've never been to "Tell Great Stories" I truly urge you to do so. Sommer's posts are always cerebral and examine the world of writing and publishing from unusual and fresh perspectives.

[T]he nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh was built in measureless aeons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars. There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults...In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.

—H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

Artist rendering of the City of R'Lyeh where Cthulhu is said to dream.

Here is how Lovecraft describes Cthulhu...

"The figure, which was finally passed slowly from man to man for close and careful study, was between seven and eight inches in height, and of exquisitely artistic workmanship. It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters. The tips of the wings touched the back edge of the block, the seat occupied the centre, whilst the long, curved claws of the doubled-up, crouching hind legs gripped the front edge and extended a quarter of the way clown toward the bottom of the pedestal. The cephalopod head was bent forward, so that the ends of the facial feelers brushed the backs of huge fore paws which clasped the croucher's elevated knees. The aspect of the whole was abnormally life-like, and the more subtly fearful because its source was so totally unknown. Its vast, awesome, and incalculable age was unmistakable; yet not one link did it shew with any known type of art belonging to civilisation's youth - or indeed to any other time. Totally separate and apart, its very material was a mystery; for the soapy, greenish-black stone with its golden or iridescent flecks and striations resembled nothing familiar to geology or mineralogy. The characters along the base were equally baffling; and no member present, despite a representation of half the world's expert learning in this field, could form the least notion of even their remotest linguistic kinship. They, like the subject and material, belonged to something horribly remote and distinct from mankind as we know it. something frightfully suggestive of old and unhallowed cycles of life in which our world and our conceptions have no part."

R'LYEH

R'lyeh is characterized by bizarre architecture likened to non-Euclidean geometry. Norwegian sailor Gustaf Johansen, the narrator of one of the tales in the short story, describes the accidental discovery of the city: "a coast-line of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less the tangible substance of earth's supreme terror — the nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh...loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours". The short story also asserts the premise that while currently trapped in R'lyeh, Cthulhu will eventually return, with worshipers often repeating the phrase Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn: "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming".

Lovecraft claims R'lyeh is located at 47°9′S 126°43′W in the southern Pacific Ocean. Writer August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft and co-creator of the Cthulhu Mythos, placed R'lyeh at 49°51′S 128°34′W.[2] The latter coordinates place the city approximately 5,100 nautical miles (9,400 km) from the actual island of Pohnpei (Ponape), the location of the fictional "Ponape Scripture". Both locations are close to the Pacific pole of inaccessibility (48°52.6′S 123°23.6′W), a point in the ocean farthest from any land mass.  The city is said to rise from the deep on its own for one day every 1000 years.

THE AGE OF CTHULHU

Cthulhu is set in that same time period that we find King Kong. It's the 1920's...there's much of the world that is still unknown.  Pervading all of this are Lovecraft's short stories that hint of ancient civilizations hidden by the waves kinda like that huge wall in Peter Jackson's film and the ruins all over that island.  You have steam-powered schooners, flappers, old-style cars, detectives that look like Humphrey Bogart's character in Casablanca... and people smoking cigarettes everywhere because it's "glamorous".

The Setting for King Kong 2005 is very Cthulhu-esque. I think Peter Jackson could
make an outstanding Call of Cthulhu movie because it would have many of the
same elements as seen in this film with the giant monsters, the mysterious island
and the ruins of an ancient city emerged from the bowels of the ocean and surrounded
by a blanket of thick fog.

I'm not the biggest fan of Lovecraft's actual writing. I'm thankful that the stories are short. He's heavy-handed with his vocabulary and the stories tend to read much like a diary would so they are very dry. I think I would prefer being immersed into the story than have it be told to me in passive first person, past tense. And I don't like the way his stories end. It's like he takes you up to the point where there could clearly be more and then just cops out and says that the narrator went insane and thus, there's no more that's written.  However, his world-building is impressive. Boys in particular seem to be drawn to tales of dark and evil things as long as very little is known about them.  Something about this "unknown and mysterious element" appeals to their imaginations, and I think, is the reason why this kind of mythos continues to endure. Every boy at some point discovers Cthulhu...becomes intrigued by the weird sounding name, wants to know more and discovers that there is in fact, very little known about it outside of roleplaying games.

Buy the book that critics say
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My own writing has "Cthulhu mythos" inspired creatures and has been described by some reviewers as a "dark fantasy populated by terrifying monsters." Please give it a try if you like glass spiders, hockey sticks, and monsters from the id (subconscious). In "Slipstream", a dark god lays dreaming...