Petrox Explorer
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- Dwan: “I really wish you wouldn't go ashore tonight.”
- Jack Prescott: “Oh, you think it'd be better to watch an old movie with the crew? There is nothing else to do on this ship.”
- ― Jack Prescott talking to Dwan about the Petrox Explorer (King Kong, 1976)
The Petrox Explorer is a merchant vessel of the fictional Petrox Corporation. It appears in the 1976 film King Kong, where it is piloted by Captain Ross and transports an expedition led by Fred Wilson to Skull Island.
Name
"Petrox" is a play on the Pet Rock fad of 1975 and early 1976.
Development
The Petrox Explorer was portrayed by the research vessel USNS Melville, which the U.S. Navy had on loan to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. Production managers Brian Frankish and Jack Grossberg scouted the Melville and secured its use, respectively; it was rented for $250,000. Modifications were made to the ship under the watch of production designer Dale Hennesy, including repainting the hull and building fake rooms on the decks. Shots involving the Explorer were taken in the Gulf of Santa Catalina in the last week of January 1976.[2] At the time of filming, the Melville was 246 feet long and 46 feet wide.[3]
History
- King Kong (1976)
King Kong (1976)
The Petrox Explorer was in Surabaya, Indonesia, where Fred Wilson, an executive of the Petrox Corporation, planned to sail to an uncharted island in search of oil. Hoping to get ahead of his competitors, Wilson insisted on sailing quickly, despite Captain Ross's warnings of bad weather. At night, as the last of the cargo was being loaded onto the ship, paleontologist Jack Prescott secretly boarded the vessel. A day after setting sail, the Petrox Explorer was caught in a storm, and the next day Prescott noticed a life raft from its board. On this raft was Dwan, the only survivor of the explosion of a yacht that was caught in the same storm. The ship reached the fog bank without incident, near which it stopped. Skull Island was spotted on radar, and nine people, including Wilson, Prescott, Dwan and Bagley, set out through the fog in a small boat. For the next three days the Petrox Explorer remained near the fog; coordination of actions on the island and communication with the outside world were carried out from the ship. Later, the vessel was no longer needed for expedition. The captured Kong was loaded onto the summoned oil tanker Susanne Onstad.
Trivia
- Along with the Susanne Onstad, which transports Kong to New York City, the Petrox Explorer fills the role of the Venture from the original King Kong.
References
This is a list of references for Petrox Explorer. 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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