Preston Packard
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We are soldiers! We do the dirty work so our families and our countrymen don't have to be afraid! They shouldn't even know that a thing like this exists!
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— Lt. Col. Preston Packard (Kong: Skull Island) |
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Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard is the human antagonist of the 2017 Legendary Pictures film, Kong: Skull Island.
Description
The battle-hardened leader of the Sky Devils helicopter squadron, which is set to be decommissioned in the dark final days of the Vietnam War, Packard is struggling to turn his back on a war he cannot win. When his team is offered an assignment to lead the airborne survey of Skull Island, he seizes the opportunity for one last mission before rotating home with men who have become closer to him than family.[1]
History
- Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Kong: Skull Island
In 1973, Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard was leader of the Sky Devils helicopter squadron, which was to be decommissioned as the United States prepared to end its involvement in the Vietnam War. Eager for action, he gladly accepted a mission to escort a Landsat expedition on Skull Island, an arrangement secretly made by another expedition member, Monarch agent Bill Randa. The Athena research and transport ship brought the Sky Devils near the island, where their helicopters could fly them through the massive perpetual storm surrounding it. After a perilous flight through the storm, during which Packard recited the story of Icarus to encourage his men, they reached the island.
Packard commanded his men to split up and take the Landsat team to the ground, while other Sky Devil began dropping seismic charges to the ground. The blasts angered the ape Titan Kong, who announced his presence by spearing a helicopter with a tree. Packard ordered his men to kill the monster, but he began to demolish the helicopters one by one. When Packard ordered a recovery team to retrieve injured men from a fallen helicopter, he could only watch as Kong crushed them. Packard's helicopter and another helicopter fired upon Kong as they closed in on him, but the giant ape leapt over them, causing them to fire upon and crash into each other, downing both of them. Packard managed to free himself from the wreckage and attempted to rescue another soldier inside, but Kong grabbed the other helicopter and tossed it away. As Kong dismantled the remaining helicopters, Packard developed a deep hatred of the Titan for killing his comrades.
Following the attack, Packard regrouped with most of his surviving troops, along with Randa. Having radioed Major Jack Chapman, who was alone with a downed helicopter and their remaining seismic charges, Packard planned to salvage whatever weapons he could recover from the chopper and use them to slay Kong. On to the helicopter, Packard's group encountered a Mother Longlegs in a bamboo forest after it killed one of his men, and after a brief clash, they brought down the spider creature, Packard finishing it off with several shots from his pistol.
Eventually, Packard's forces reunited with the other group of survivors - consisting of tracker James Conrad, photographer Mason Weaver, Monarch agents Houston Brooks and Lin San, Warrant Officer Reg Slivko, and castaway USAF pilot Hank Marlow - and the group traveled west with the stated intent of rescuing Chapman. After a clash with a Skullcrawler in a boneyard, Conrad showed Packard the recovered dog tag of Chapman and explained that Chapman was dead, but Packard insisted they continue onwards, revealing his ulterior motive of killing Kong. Marlow confronted Packard, but Packard knocked him down, and Conrad deescalated the situation by bringing the other civilians back to the Grey Fox, while Packard and his men traveled to the downed helicopter and gathered what they could.
At night, Packard prepared his trap, instructing his men to pour napalm into a lake, before setting off another set of explosives farther away to flush Kong out. The Titan appeared from the forests of Skull Island and charged towards his men through the river, and Packard lit the lake's surface ablaze with a torch. After a brief clash, Kong collapsed from severe burns. Packard then had his men lay down the remaining seismic charges around Kong's fallen body to blow him up, when Conrad's group intervened, resulting in a standoff. Suddenly, the Skull Devil emerged from below the lake, causing the survivors to fall back, but Packard remained behind, still determined to kill Kong. Before he could set off the explosives, Kong regained consciousness and slammed his fist down on him, killing the Lieutenant Colonel.
Books
- Kong: Skull Island - The Official Movie Novelization (2017)
- Godzilla vs. Kong: The Official Movie Novelization (2021) [mentioned]
Gallery
Packard's medals
Lanard figure
Trivia
- Preston Packard's name is a reference to the defunct Packard Motor Car Company, a carryover from a version of the Kong: Skull Island script that began in Detroit.[2]
- J.K. Simmons was originally cast as Packard, but dropped out of the movie due to a scheduling conflict.[3] Samuel L. Jackson accepted the part as soon as he heard it was for a King Kong movie without even reading the script.
- Packard's line "Hold on to your butts!" is a reference to Samuel L. Jackson's role as Ray Arnold in Jurassic Park, in which his character used this line as well.
References
This is a list of references for Preston Packard. 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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