In the end, the V-Rex didn't scratch his jaw for me. It's a little disappointing that he couldn't make a leisurely appearance, scratching his jaw like in the old days. But I'm very satisfied with the film itself. From the opening street scene of New York during the Great Depression, I was already excited. I enjoyed the dreamlike landscape of Skull Island (for some reason, the scene where the natives pole-vault to abduct Ann to the ship left an impression). I nodded along to the homages to the original scattered throughout, and marveled at the beauty of the Manhattan sunrise in the climax. Of course, I got to see plenty of dinosaurs, which was my biggest interest. Even though I had some criticisms, like "It's impossible for so many Brontosauruses to be crammed into such a narrow mountain," and "If Kong can be bitten directly by a V-Rex and not suffer a fatal injury, then the V-Rex has no standing!", the three hours flew by in a flash. It may sound obvious, but what I found surprisingly convincing was that dinosaur names were never mentioned in the movie. Dinosaur movies often have scenes where characters explain things, saying, "Oh! It's a Tyrannosaurus!" (For example, there's a famous funny scene in "One Million Years B.C." where a caveman calls a giant sea turtle "Archelon!"). However, it seems that none of Denham's party knew the generic names of dinosaurs, or even the word "dinosaur" itself. So why do the dinosaurs in the movie, including the V-Rex, have names? Putting aside the reason of selling figures, there's a proper explanation. Two years after Kong met his tragic end in New York, an expedition landed on Skull Island. A book compiling a detailed report of their investigation was published. This book, "A Natural History Of SKULL ISLAND," features not only the dinosaurs that appeared in the movie, such as the V-Rex (Vastatosaurus rex) and Venatosaurus (Venatosaurus saevidicus), but also a vast number of animals, from insects to fish, reptiles, birds, mammals, dinosaurs, and even therapsids, that were never even hinted at on screen. These creatures are presented with scientific names, illustrations, and skeletal diagrams, making the book in some ways even more interesting than the movie. As someone with no English ability, I would love to see this book translated. It seems to be comparable to "After Man" and "The New Dinosaurs." The extremely plausible setting is that the dinosaurs inhabiting Skull Island continued to evolve for 65 million years, and the V-Rex is, of course, a descendant of the T-Rex. For some reason, only the Brontosaurus (a good name, isn't it? In the 1930s, it wasn't an Apatosaurus, so the historical accuracy is meticulously preserved, which is admirable) has hardly evolved since the Jurassic period, remaining in the same genus, although it is a new species (baxteri).

I recreated a model of the comparative skull diagram of the T-Rex and V-Rex shown in the illustrations in this book (the illustrations also depict hypothetical intermediate species). The T-Rex is "Stan" from Black Hills, and the V-Rex is from the "WETA" skull series, which is my top recommendation among the Kong merchandise this time. In addition, highly detailed skulls of Venatosaurus, the briefly appearing supporting character Ferrucutus (a ceratopsian), and Kong himself are being sold as limited editions at a welcome price of around 5,000 yen. They are so meticulously crafted that one could almost write a scientific paper about them.