Netflix’s Skull Island offers the best version of King Kong’s MonsterVerse

The structure of a King Kong story hasn’t changed much in the last 90 years: people find a big gorilla on an island, the gorilla falls in love with a girl and is taken to the big city, the gorilla escapes and then… the gorilla falls off really high altitude to death. The 1933 original, as well as the 1976 and 2005 remakes all follow this blueprint, but parts are scattered throughout other films as well due to the connections to humans (son of Kong, King Kong escapes, Kong: Skull Island) until Kong was removed from his home (King Kong vs Godzilla, Godzilla vs Kong,) to violent demise (King Kong lives revives Kong with a damn heart transplant Only only to kill him again at the end of the movie.)

With such a predetermined trajectory for our favorite giant apes in film, it’s only in the sections devoted to Skull Island, Kong’s homeland, that the films’ directors and crew really have the freedom to let off steam. There they can invent all sorts of places, creatures and situations to fill in the world of the monkeys, from prehistoric to fantastic. And with the new Netflix cartoon skull island

Since it’s set almost entirely there, it gives the series a chance to bathe in that sense of glorious (and often bloody) freedom.

That’s what it means to be part of the MonsterVerse, the shared universe starring Godzilla and Kong in an MCU-like arrangement skull islandcreated by Brian Duffield (love and monsters) is bound by the rules of the live-action expanded universe – so don’t expect to see the Lost World of Dinosaurs from the 1933 film or Peter Jackson’s remake. Instead, the show’s monsters, like Kong: Skull Island Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts once put it this way:realistic and could exist in an ecosystem it feels kind of wild and out there” and “felt beautiful and terrifying at the same time.”

This focus on fitting monsters into their environment is clear from the start skull island. As such, many of them feel like extensions of their habitat, predators that have gone beyond mere camouflage and transformed Skull Island into a living, man-eating world. Characters consistently battle creatures like gigantic crabs that only attack when they sense movement, a giant mollusk with shiny innards that attracts its dazed prey, deadly snakes that resemble the tree vines around them, and even a large rodent with back moving into a field of tall grass. Like the spider in the movie hid among the trees

Before the cartoon impales future meals with its stick-like legs, it constantly attempts to create mutated creatures that are part of its environment. It’s great to see a show that’s so consistently intrigued by the idea that no matter where you try to hide, there’s something nearby that will consider you lunch.

Image: Netflix

This commitment to fun also keeps the setting alive, even though most characters spend all of their time just walking or running around the setting. You keep asking yourself, “What’s lurking here?” What monster is hiding, waiting to devour you?” That feeling has shaped some of the best moments in Kong history since the hapless sailors first rafted across the river in 1933 swamp only to be thrown overboard by an inexplicably carnivorous brontosaurus lurking beneath. It’s that craving for thrill-panic that gave us one of the scariest scenes in blockbuster history: the “bug pit” sequence in the 2005 reboot, which had every crevice imaginable infested with flesh-eating bugs. This place shouldn’t exist (the vast majority of people who find it think it’s just some weird jungle) and skull island captures that moment of shock beautifully – when you realize that not only shouldn’t these life forms be here, but by the looks of it, you shouldn’t be here either. And it’s too late.

By nature, the story of King Kong is about mankind’s inability to leave nature alone. We will inevitably destroy the wonder of the world and even the franchise tent poles Godzilla vs KongOnly an innocent child can befriend Kong, mostly because she doesn’t want to kill him or, worse, put him on Broadway. Such budding relationships abound skull islandbut he manages to be balanced by a fascination with the setting’s chilling potential.

Finally, it’s on Skull Island that the tables are turned. Whether it’s a flock of dinosaurs, a place where giant creatures have alternately evolved over the years, or, as the MonsterVerse seems to convey, a tropical retreat connected to a kind of “hollow earth”. is, skull island is a place to relax. Man’s greed and misguided ambition have no power in a realm where nature’s “beauty and horror” are limited only by the creativity of the filmmakers, meaning there’s literally no end to what eats you up want.

skull island is now streaming on Netflix.