Home to the "Eighth Wonder of the World" and some of the most incredible adventures put to screen, King Kong's Skull Island is one of the most iconic locations in cinema. King Kong movies tend to be Hollywood spectacles that portray colorful characters, pulpy adventures and giant monsters. However, as audiences look to the big screen for wonders, they can also be found in nature, speaking volumes about Earth's natural ecosystems and how they can be just as wild as the human imagination.
An ambitious film for the time, 1933's King Kong unleashed an entire modern mythology upon its audiences. They take place on the fictitious Skull Island, an isolated landmass with an ecosystem similar to Avatar's Pandora, full of deadly predators, forgotten peoples and other mysteries lost to civilization. And due to King Kong's nebulous public domain status, over the years, it seems many have had their take on the lost world, from Peter Jackson's King Kong to the Netflix series Skull Island to an upcoming series slated for Disney+, the monstrous island has become as recognizable in modern lore as the lost city Atlantis and just as fantastical as its legacy continues to grow.
The Secrets of Skull Island, Explained
Skull Island is known most for being the home of Kong, but despite its varying portrayals depending on the auteur, one thing is always consistent the bizarre wildlife. Skull Island, though fictional, supports an entire ecosystem of unique animals that were either considered extinct or unknown to the natural history catalogs. Interestingly, scientists and explorers have discovered similar scenarios in the real world. Science has documented how life can evolve into bizarre and wondrous directions and how the homeland of the heroic King Kong could come to be.
Attributed to a controversial colleague of naturalist Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, the field of biogeography explores why some organisms exist in some locations and not others. Wallace traveled the world collecting animals and visiting remote areas such as the Amazon and the South Pacific for places undisturbed by the rest of the world. Because of Wallace's overshadowed discoveries, scientists later understood that concepts such as continental shift, climate and geological location allowed life to evolve in wild ways when isolated.
Skull Island is an isolated land often protected by violent storms, giant ocean predators and jagged rock formations preventing most things from leaving or entering. Having broken off from other landmasses in the South Pacific and sometimes connected to the Monsterverse's Hollow Earth, prehistoric wildlife thrived, establishing the lush ecosystem and unique climate that it adapted to uncontested, creating a bizarre gene pool that has produced giant bats, bugs and, of course, King Kong himself.
How Lost Worlds Are More than Legends
Lost worlds, such as those depicted in popular sci-fi series like Jurassic Park, Land of the Lost and the Monsterverse, have captivated audiences by showcasing environments where life evolved independently and gave rise to extraordinary creatures. Real-world locations mirror this concept, showcasing the development of unique organisms in isolated ecosystems. For instance, the Galápagos Islands are renowned for their fauna, including the Galápagos tortoise, a reptile known for its colossal size. Similarly, Madagascar is home to a variety of peculiar primates like the large-eyed aye-aye.
These examples demonstrate how habitats separated from the rest of the world can facilitate the evolution of distinct and sometimes gigantic organisms akin to the inhabitants of Skull Island. The story of 1933's King Kong itself draws influences from expeditions to Indonesia, particularly the shocking discovery of the Komodo Dragon, the largest lizard in the world. Furthermore, places like the Galápagos, Madagascar and Mount Roraima boast delicate yet prehistoric ecosystems, serving as inspiration for stories like 1912's The Lost World.
Nature has yielded many incredible discoveries, and while Skull Island has plenty of bizarre lore, perhaps the strangest thing about it is that places similar to it exist in real life. In a shrinking world, audiences continue to seek giants on the big screen. Skull Island is where the truth is, at times, just as strange as the fiction crafted by various storytellers. King Kong may have earned the title of "Eighth Wonder of the World," but in real life, the wonders of nature and the mysteries it harbors often surpass the wildest imaginations.