Back in July, Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts was a guest on ScreenJunkies News to promote the Blu-Ray release of his film. During the segment, the topic of ScreenJunkies’ popular series Honest Trailers came up and Vogt-Roberts agreed to help write the script for the takedown of Kong: Skull Island.
Fast forward to the middle of August, and Vogt-Roberts found himself embroiled in an argument with another popular web series, Cinema Sins. In a Twitter thread, Vogt-Roberts dissembled point-by-point how Cinema Sins is a cheap imitation of classic satire series such as Mystery Science Theater 3000. The entire thread is worth a look if you somehow missed the public dragging the first time around.
Mystery Science Theatre built something artful, endearing and comedic on top of the foundation other people's work. It had merit to itself.
— (((Jordan Vogt-Roberts))) (@VogtRoberts) August 15, 2017
However, Vogt-Roberts was quick to smack down any notion that he dislikes film criticism. “I love film criticism and I love reading negative reviews if the author makes compelling and well-written arguments. To anyone who thinks this video makes me mad or hurts me. It doesn’t. I just wanted to point out a few obvious examples that are just wrong,” the director clarified on Twitter. Then, just when that storm was dying down, the Kong: Skull Island honest trailer was released. In it, Vogt-Roberts declares “Satire is not bankruptcy. You can’t just declare it,” before ripping into his own work in a painfully honest way.
From the official press release:
Some of Vogt-Roberts’ biggest takedowns includes critiquing the film’s major structural problems; that spends the whole first act bringing the cast together only to split them all apart ten minutes later, the over-complicated plot, and the crowded cast. Despite the painstaking critique, the one critique that Jordan will not accept is the fact that the film had too many helicopters, because who wants to pay $15 to see King Kong not smash helicopters from the sky.
The video is a fascinating look behind the curtain as to what goes through a director’s mind. Like most creatives, it turns out filmmakers are their own worst critics. At least Vogt-Roberts channeled it into a few minutes of YouTube entertainment?
