This is a message thread copied from the IMDB board. I think it's a great topic and I want to save it here so others can take part:

1933 audience by sanookdee Wed Oct 29 2014

I watching King Kong on TV with my dad when I was just a lad (early 60's). Dad had seen it in the theater in 1933 when he was a boy. He made a comment about the differences in attitudes between then and now. He said that, when Kong was killed, the audience in 1933 cheered and how different that was a couple generations later. He said he had cheered too but, 30 years later, he saw Kong being killed as tragic.

by shulesjo2 Tue Dec 30 2014 IMDb member since August 2008

I had a similar experience, my dad woke me up around 10 pm one evening and told me to come with him downstairs. We watched King Kong that night and I've never forgotten it.

by corckball Thu Jul 2 2015 IMDb member since April 2006

Wow!! Fascinating stories! Wish i was alive back then. I was 18 when i watched the new king kong in 2005 and my dad was born in 1958. That movie made me wanna live life in america in the 1930s. I am an indian from India.

by Kawada_Kira Sun Jul 19 2015 IMDb member since March 2011

That movie made me wanna live life in america in the 1930s.

Lol that was during the Great Depression. Life sucked pretty hard for most people in America in the 1930s.

The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of history. -Mao Zedong

Cyclo Rider Fri Aug 21 2015 IMDb member since July 2001

I imagine the numerous scenes of Kong as a nightmarish beast killing innocent humans for no reason may have had something to do with that.

by joe_538 Mon Oct 12 2015 IMDb member since February 2009

A lot of those scenes were gutted after the original release and still absent in the sixties. Still, he killed the sailors on the log and wrecked the train for no good reason. He was mean.

by heyuactor Mon Nov 30 2015 IMDb member since April 2009

He was mean.

Survival/territorial instinct maybe?

by joe_538 Mon Nov 30 2015 IMDb member since February 2009

He killed the sailors because they were there, he destroyed the train because it was there, he chewed on a man who wasn't threatening him, and dropped a woman to her death out of indifference.

by TheGuyWithTheFeet Mon Jan 4 2016 IMDb member since August 2009

He's a wild animal. He's not sitting in his cave reading Emily Post. He's in situations that he's not used to being in and he's acting out.

When there's a shark attack, does everyone say "oh, that shark was just being mean"?

by joe_538 Mon Jan 4 2016
IMDb member since February 2009

A shark attacks because it's hungry, not to kill random people. Kong went out of his way to kill the sailors on the log he'd never seen before.

by TheGuyWithTheFeet Mon Jan 4 2016 IMDb member since August 2009

A shark attacks people it's never seen before too. So, Kong should be polite because he hasn't met these sailors properly?

This is a monster movie. You're trying to put motivation behind a monster movie villain's actions.

by joe_538 Mon Jan 4 2016 IMDb member since February 2009

But sharks kill for food. Kong simply sent them to their deaths for the sake of it, he didn't know the sailors' intention of saving Ann. At that moment, they were just trying to escape a dinosaur.

I'm not talking motivation, I'm saying a lot of his killing was unmotivated or unjustified. Hence, killing the sailors or wrecking the train "because they were there."

by elena-28 Wed Jan 13 2016 IMDb member since December 2003

I disagree there was no motive - to me, Kong sees the sailors, Driscoll and Denham as invaders in his territory. There seems to be an understanding between the tribe and Kong: people on one side, Kong on the other; and perhaps Kong permits the people their space as long as they provide him with their periodic sacrifice. He understands the process of the ritual - watch him acknowledge the tribe members' cheers as he takes Ann and then departs. And clearly, he deals with humans on a different level than the various dinosaurs and such, with whom there seems to be no communication or deals.

In any event, I interpret this as the understanding that humans live on this side. The rest of the island is Kong's territory. Territory is important - animals of all sorts of varieties - humans included - will kill over territory.

So Driscoll, Denham and company streaming through the gate after Kong have already broken one branch of the "alliance" between the tribe and Kong. Kong, I think, would also be aware that these invaders are specifically trailing him, and therefore constitute a wrong that needs to be dealt with - after all, if these interlopers get away with this, then other humans will too, and this, for whatever reason, must not be. I find myself thinking of a lion killing a cheetah for invading the lion's territory. In no way is the cheetah a threat to the lion, but the cheetah is hunting in the lion's territory. This, to the lion, cannot be allowed.

So here are, to my way of thinking, at least two motives for Kong to act as he did on the island.

Then. It turns out that the survivor of the log adventure is after Kong's Blonde, who is the gift of the tribe to Kong, and, if my reasoning is correct, the bond that allows the tribe to exist in their portion of the island. By taking Ann, Driscoll has broken the pact between Kong and the tribe, and not only that, but Ann appeals to Kong in a way the other gifts have not, and so the retribution of the broken pact is exacerbated by the fury of losing a special gift. (So yes, according to Kong's perception, humans on his side of the wall are bad).

So to me, trying to see things from Kong's point of view, there is motive.

by jckmccoy Fri Jan 8 2016 IMDb member since June 2015

He wasn't mean. He was an animal.

by joe_538 Fri Jan 8 2016 IMDb member since February 2009

Temperamental animal.

by jckmccoy » Sat Jan 9 2016 IMDb member since June 2015

He was a wild animal confronted with many strange things and people. It was wrong to take him out of his element and expect to control him. Some people underestimate wild animals.

by richard-III Fri Feb 19 2016 IMDb member since March 2002

I saw this movie first when I was six. To me, Kong wasn't an animal, but a monstrous god who took wrath on those who challenged his sacrifice (didn't use those words back then, mind you).

-I don't discriminate between entertainment and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

by bobsivick Fri Dec 9 2016 IMDb member since October 2004

I first saw this movie when I was about 6 or 7 years old. I loved it because of the adventure and it's the greatest monster movie of all time. Years later when my daughter was about 6 or 7 she watched it with me for the first time. Unlike myself, she saw it as a tragic love story with Kong dying to protect his one true love. I suppose what makes this movie so great is everyone sees it in a unique way.