Operation Robinson Crusoe: King Kong vs. Ebirah
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Operation Robinson Crusoe: King Kong vs. Ebirah (ロビンソン·クルーソー作戦 キングコング対エビラ is an unreleased Robinson Kurūsō Sakusen: Kingu Kongu tai Ebira)King Kong film planned by Toho for release in 1966.
Plot
After his brother Yata is lost at sea, young Ryota steals a yacht with his two friends and a bank robber. This motley crew runs afoul of the sea monster Ebirah, and washes up on the shore of Devil's Island, where a terrorist organization manufactures heavy water for their nefarious purposes, as well as a chemical that keeps Ebirah at bay. The organization, the Red Bamboo, has enslaved natives from Infant Island to help them, but the natives hope to awaken a sleeping Mothra to rescue them. In their efforts to avoid capture, Ryota and his friends, aided by a beautiful native girl, stumble across King Kong sleeping within a cliffside cavern. The group devises a plan to defeat the Red Bamboo and escape from the island. In the process, they awaken King Kong using a makeshift lightning rod. King Kong fights Ebirah, but the giant shrimp escapes. King Kong is then attacked by a giant condor and a squadron of Red Bamboo fighter jets, but destroys them. The humans retrieve the missing Yata, free the enslaved natives and King Kong begins to destroy the base. King Kong smashes a tower that has a self destruct button that makes the island unstable. King Kong fights Ebirah and defeats it, ripping off both Ebirah's claws and causing it to retreat into the sea. The natives summon Mothra to save everyone; however, King Kong challenges Mothra when she gets to the island. Mothra manages to push King Kong away with one of her wings and carry the people off the island. King Kong also escapes from the island just before it explodes.[1][2]
History
Following the success of their animated TV series The King Kong Show co-produced with Toei Animation, Rankin/Bass approached Toho with the rights to King Kong to produce a live action film based on the series. Toho began production of Operation Robinson Crusoe: King Kong vs. Ebirah, but Rankin/Bass rejected the screenplay on the basis that it did not follow the series closely enough. Rather than completely discard the screenplay, however, Toho replaced King Kong with Godzilla and slightly tweaked the film into Ebirah, Horror of the Deep. This explains why Godzilla displays uncharacteristic behavior in the film, such as him drawing strength from electricity, his curiosity towards Dayo, his use of boulders to destroy the Red Bamboo's base, and his hostilities with Mothra (despite them being allies as of Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster). Toho would eventually produce the film King Kong Escapes the following year, which followed the animated TV series much more closely.
Trivia
- Due to this unreleased film being the precursor to Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, almost all the major elements of its plot can be seen and have been used in that film.
- King Kong and Ebirah later appeared together in a drawing in the 1992-1993 television series Adventure! Godzilland.
- King Kong would eventually meet Mothra in the 2024 film Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, six decades later.
References
This is a list of references for Operation Robinson Crusoe: King Kong vs. Ebirah. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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