Skull Island

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Lore & Background

In the 1933 film King Kong, the island is never mentioned by name and is located at approximately 12°S 78°E – 2000 miles west from the coast of Periuk, Indonesia. There is a distinctive rocky knoll in the center of the island that is shaped like a human skull, called 'Skull Mountain'. According to the first film, the captain of a Norwegian barque discovered a canoe blown off course with only one native left alive. Before the native died, the captain was able to get a rough location of the island and some details on it, including a huge wall built by the ancestors of the natives back when they had high civilization. Other than being the 'slipped back' descendants of a high civilization, the ancestry of the natives is never explained. In the 1933 sequel Son of Kong, Skull Island sinks into the sea during a powerful earthquake. The term 'Skull Island' is never used in the original films; in King Kong, only 'Skull Mountain' is named, while in the sequel it is simply referred to as 'Kong's island'. In the novelization of King Kong by Delos Lovelace, it is called 'Skull Mountain Island', but RKO referred to it as 'Skull Island' in some of their publicity materials.

In Their Own Story

In the 1933 film, the protagonists arrive at the island and find, in addition to the expected natives, prehistoric creatures of all sorts and one extremely large ape, known by those on the island as 'Kong'. In Son of Kong, Carl Denham returns to Skull Island when there was a mention of some treasure that was hidden there. He also encounters a large white gorilla, thought to be the son of King Kong, whom he names Little Kong. Skull Island sinks into the sea during a powerful earthquake. Because his foot is caught in a collapsed mound, Little Kong drowns while holding Carl Denham above the water. Denham survives unscathed, while the treasure is claimed by him and the other three survivors. In the 1976 remake, Skull Island is mentioned as being 'the beach of the skull', located somewhere in the Indian Ocean, south of Java, covered by a permanent cloud bank. Various people are said to have visited the island through the centuries but returned with no clear proof. By the 1970s, it is an urban legend whose only evidence is in government secret files. It is also revealed to have a huge deposit of oil, which led a greedy oil company executive to go in search of it. Besides featuring a primitive native tribe and the giant, bipedal gorilla Kong, there is also a giant snake who appeared in Kong's lair and wanted to kill him and Dwan, but it was killed by the former.

Reader's Guide

In the 2004 illustrated novel Kong: King of Skull Island, Skull Island is far larger than originally thought. It is either the last vestige of a volatile volcanic series of islands or the remnant of a larger landmass. Skull Island is located in the Indian Ocean, west of Sumatra, and has several much smaller islands in various locations around its perimeter. Skull Mountain is riddled with caves and passageways carved out by natural erosion, but also man-made. In earlier times, these were often used by islanders to avoid the monsters on the surface, but proved to have a multitude of dangerous denizens of their own. These include previously unknown species such as snake-like amphibians with enormous heads capable of swallowing a human whole; foot-long creatures that combine squid and crustacean characteristics with bio-luminescent sails tipped with poisonous stingers; giant spiders with 7-foot bodies and 8-foot-long legs ending in hand-like appendages. The human civilization that inhabits Skull Island at least through the 20th century is the last remnant of a previously unknown super-race called the Tagatu (a combination of two formerly separate tribes: the Tagu and the Atu). The original culture is believed to have Asian origins that bled into an island group west of Sumatra that no longer exists. As a result of a natural disaster, they were forced to migrate to Skull Island untold millennia ago. It was they who originally brought the gigantic simian Kongs there for protection and who, with the help of the Kongs, built the iconic wall across the Skull Island's peninsula for protections against Skull Island's prehistoric denizens.

Did You Know?

• In the 1933 film King Kong, the island is never mentioned by name; only 'Skull Mountain' is named, while the sequel Son of Kong refers to it simply as 'Kong's island'.
• In the 1933 sequel Son of Kong, Skull Island sinks into the sea during a powerful earthquake, and Little Kong drowns while holding Carl Denham above the water.
• In the 1976 remake, Skull Island is covered by a permanent cloud bank and is an urban legend whose only evidence is in government secret files.
• In Kong: The Animated Series, the island was named Kong Island and was situated in the Bermuda Triangle, not the Indian Ocean.
• In the 2004 novel Kong: King of Skull Island, the human civilization on Skull Island is the last remnant of a super-race called the Tagatu, who originally brought the gigantic simian Kongs to the island.

Geographic Origins and Physical Landscape

In the 1933 film King Kong, the island is located at approximately 12°S 78°E – 2000 miles west from the coast of Periuk, Indonesia. There is a distinctive rocky knoll in the center of the island that is shaped like a human skull, called 'Skull Mountain'. In the 1976 remake, Skull Island is located somewhere in the Indian Ocean, south of Java, covered by a permanent cloud bank. In Kong: The Animated Series, the island was named Kong Island and was situated in the infamous Bermuda Triangle, not the Indian Ocean. In the 2004 novel Kong: King of Skull Island, Skull Island is located in the Indian Ocean, west of Sumatra, and has several much smaller islands in various locations around its perimeter. Skull Island contains two main mountains, the larger being shaped in the visage of a human skull. Skull Mountain is riddled with caves and passageways carved out by natural erosion, but also man-made. In the 2005 remake, Skull Island's position west of Sumatra remains the same, in a region afflicted by magnetic anomalies and violent sea storms.

Inhabitants: Prehistoric Fauna and Giant Apes

Skull Island is the home of King Kong and several other species of creatures, mostly prehistoric and in some cases species that should have been extinct long before the rise of the mammals, along with a primitive society of humans. Kong and his son appear to be the only giant gorillas on the island. However, the 2005 remake shows skeletons of Kong-sized gorillas, indicating that there was once a group of many such creatures on the island. Additionally, 2017's Kong: Skull Island shows the skeletons of Kong's parents. In the 1976 remake, besides featuring a primitive native tribe and the giant, bipedal gorilla Kong, there is also a giant snake who appeared in Kong's lair. In Kong: The Animated Series, various prehistoric creatures are seen living there, and Kong Island also contains some ruins where one of them serves as the prison of the demon Chiros. In the 2004 novel, previously unknown species include snake-like amphibians with enormous heads capable of swallowing a human whole; foot-long creatures that combine squid and crustacean characteristics with bio-luminescent sails tipped with poisonous stingers; giant spiders with 7-foot bodies and 8-foot-long legs ending in hand-like appendages. Among the many mysteries revealed is the reality that on Skull Island the dinosaurs never died out, but continued to evolve over the intervening 65 million years, resulting in strange variations on previously known species, as well as many new ones. Chief among the latter is a race of sentient dinosaurs, called Deathrunners.

The Tagatu Civilization and Ancient History

In the 2004 novel Kong: King of Skull Island, the human civilization that inhabits Skull Island at least through the 20th century is the last remnant of a previously unknown super-race called the Tagatu (a combination of two formerly separate tribes: the Tagu and the Atu). The original culture is believed to have Asian origins that bled into an island group west of Sumatra that no longer exists. As a result of a natural disaster, they were forced to migrate to Skull Island untold millennia ago. Drawn to its spectacular makeup by their insatiable curiosity, the Tagatu believed their mastery of biological and organic sciences could overcome Skull Island's dangers. It was they who originally brought the gigantic simian Kongs there for protection and who, with the help of the Kongs, built the iconic wall across the Skull Island's peninsula for protections against Skull Island's prehistoric denizens. In the story, Carl Denham's son Vincent (now a paleontologist) and an older Jack Driscoll return to Skull Island in 1957 to discover pieces of the earlier civilization's history and relationship to the island through an enigmatic Tagatu elder simply called the 'Storyteller' as well as in the form of archaeological discoveries such as specially pigmented paintings in underground passageways that move when illuminated by torchlight to reveal past events on Skull Island. Primary among these is the discovery of remnants of 'the Old City', which was established by the Tagatu at the zenith of their civilization in the center of the island in an ideal valley between the two mountains. The Storyteller's tale, along with Vincent and Driscoll's findings, suggest that the eerie skull visage that gave the island its name may have been the work of human hands.

Cinematic Evolution and Narrative Fate

In the 1933 sequel film Son of Kong, Skull Island sinks into the sea during a powerful earthquake. Because his foot is caught in a collapsed mound, Little Kong drowns while holding Carl Denham above the water. Denham survives unscathed, while the treasure is claimed by him and the other three survivors. In the 1986 sequel film King Kong Lives, Skull Island does not appear, but it was mentioned by adventurer Hank Mitchell (mistakenly calling it Kong Island), who believed that the islands Borneo and Skull Island were once a part of the same landmass in the past. The fate of this incarnation is unknown. In the 2005 remake, according to the book The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island, Skull Island was geologically unstable and has been slowly sinking into the sea for the past thousand years. By 1933, the island was on the verge of destruction. Fifteen years after its discovery by the modern world, Skull Island finally sank into the ocean. In its prehistory, Skull Island was a refuge for a variety of prehistoric creatures. Over time, more and more species arrived either by swimming, flying, rafting, or migrating through temporary land bridges. As the island slowly receded into the sea, life was forced to adapt, resulting in an ecosystem of bizarre and nightmarish creatures. Three thousand years before, an advanced civilization from Southeast Asia migrated to Skull Island, bringing with them domesticated animals such as Gaur and the giant ancestors of Kong. This culture eventually died off, leaving behind only gigantic eroding ruins scattered around the island (such as the enormous wall) and a small society of primitive people that became the Skull Island natives.