Kong: Skull Island is packed with eye candy and giant monster fights, but director Jordan
Vogt-Roberts also stuffed the movie full of pop culture Easter eggs, referencing everything
from anime to Jurassic Park.
"Hold onto your butts."
"Hooold onto your butts."
And Kong is especially full of video game Easter eggs.
Here are all the ones you missed in Kong: Skull Island.
Metal Gear Solid
Jordan Vogt-Roberts is a massive Metal Gear Solid fan.
He told Den of Geek:
"That's one of the most important franchises to me on the planet.
Not even just as a video game, but as a piece of media."
So it's no surprise that the director couldn't help but put a little bit of Metal Gear into
Skull Island.
Remember the name of the ramshackle boat that John C. Reilly's character builds?
"She's called the Gray Fox."
If that sounds familiar to you, you've probably played a lot of video games.
Gray Fox is a recurring character in the Metal Gear franchise, and according to Vogt-Roberts,
Gray Fox was only supposed to be the tip of the iceberg when it came to Skull Island's
Metal Gear Solid references.
Screenwriter Dan Gilroy wrote a sequence in which Tom Hiddleston's character breaks into
a military base, and Vogt-Roberts claims he was going to "get very Metal Gear with it"
before the scene was cut.
The Legend of Zelda
Samuel L. Jackson's group of pilots, the Sky Devils, get a lot of screen-time throughout
Kong.
That gives viewers plenty of time to study their uniforms—and Zelda fans may have noticed
that the Sky Devils insignia looks a lot like the Hyrule Wingcrest, which made its first
appearance in The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (my favorite game of all time, FYI).
The resemblance isn't exact, but according to Vogt-Roberts, the similarity is 100% intentional.
Pokémon
Skull Island's scariest creatures aren't giant apes or bamboo spiders—they're those freaky
two-legged reptiles.
"The Iwis won't speak their name.
But I call them Skullcrawlers."
"Why?"
"Cuz it sounds neat."
But despite their ferociousness, the Skullcrawlers have a fairly cuddly origin.
According to a behind-the-scenes feature at Wired, Vogt-Roberts gave the special effects
team a single reference to get them started: Cubone, one of the very first Pokémon.
It's the kind of thing that's impossible to unsee: both creatures have long heads that
look like skulls and lizard-like bodies.
Of course, there's one big difference between the two: the Skullcrawlers just look like
they're wearing another creature's skull.
Cubone actually is—the skull belongs to his mother, which is much more terrifying.
Mega Man and Metroid
The Legend of Zelda isn't the only big video game franchise that snuck into the costumes
of Kong: Skull Island.
Some of the helmets donned by the pilots in the movie resemble those worn by the heroes
in Mega Man, Metroid, and the classic Gundam franchise.
Of course, Samus and Mega Man sport helmets with blocky extra parts.
The flight helmets in Skull Island are a lot more realistic, and you have to study the
designs closely to see the similarities.
3D extrusions like the caps around Mega Man's ears have been reduced to 2D paintjobs, and
the color schemes are totally different.
Still, if you look hard enough, you'll notice that many of Mega Man and Samus' iconic silhouettes
reappear on the helmets.
That's enough for us to count it, even if the geeks in us wish that the similarities
were just a little more pronounced.
Resident Evil
Kong: Skull Island introduced King Kong with a stunning 360-degree shot that zooms through
several helicopter cockpits while circling the giant ape.
It's an exciting way to highlight Skull Island's biggest star, and in the context of the movie,
it goes a long way towards showing just how big Kong really is.
Well, guess what?
Vogt-Roberts totally stole the shot from a video game.
He's not shy about it, either.
He said,
"That's a very video game shot to me.
That shot actually was inspired by a cinematic in a Resident Evil game."
Vogt-Roberts doesn't identify which Resident Evil he's ripping off—there are a lot of
games out there, and almost as many helicopter crashes in them—but fans think he's probably
talking about Operation Raccoon City, a non-canon third-person shooter.
Shadow of the Colossus
If you're making a movie about giant monsters, it makes sense that you'd look to the most
famous video game about giant monsters for inspiration.
That's exactly what Vogt-Roberts did.
He told Den of Geek:
"Shadow Of The Colossus was a huge influence on me on this movie….the colossi in those
games have such a slow, melancholy, morose quality to them.
And the sense of scale...I think and I hope that Kong has a similar vibe in the film."
In other words, if you go into Kong: Skull Island looking for visuals borrowed from Shadow
of the Colossus, you won't find them.
If you think of Kong as spiritual descendent of the titular Colossi, however, you'll spot
Shadow of the Colossus' influence throughout the film.
Like Shadow's Colossi, Kong is a majestic and tragic figure.
It's no surprise that they go hand in hand.
Journey
In Journey, your player has to cross a vast desert, trying to reach a glowing mountain
in the distance.
You can connect with other players, but you can only communicate with actions or musical
notes.
It's a strange, ethereal game that's been called "a kind of non-denominational religious
experience for players."
Kong director Jordan Vogt-Roberts' review isn't quite so wordy, but gives the game just
as much praise:
"Journey is one of my favorite things… ever."
As such, Vogt-Roberts snuck Journey's illuminated mountain into Skull Island's landscape.
The peaks are a little more jagged in Kong, but the silhouette is unmistakable.
Thanks for watching!
Click the Looper icon to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Plus check out all this cool stuff we know you'll love, too!