Preston Packard

"Remember the tale of Icarus, whose father gave him wax wings to fly. But he flew too close to the sun, and his wings melted, and he fell into the sea. But our wings are not made of wax, but Pennsylvania steel, guaranteed not to melt."

- Preston Packard

"What you're lookin' at is a Monster from some by-gone era. It's time to show Kong that Man is King!"

- Preston Packard's goal to kill Kong.

Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard is a supporting character turned anti-hero and later the secondary antagonist in the 2017 action adventure film Kong: Skull Island, the second installment in Legendary's MonsterVerse franchise. He is a veteran soldier and leads the military group - the Sky Devils Helicopter Squadron - to explore Skull Island, an uncharted island in the Pacific Ocean.

After a majority of the expedition is killed suffering the wrath of Kong, a behemoth ape and the guardian of Skull Island, as well as rival apex predators known as Skullcrawlers, Packard slowly goes insane and begins a hunger to avenge his fallen comrades. Packard devises a mission to intercept seismic explosives from one of the crashed helicopters to kill Kong. When the plan backfires as the explosives don't detonate, and when rest of Packard's military personnel flee from the emergence of the biggest Skullcrawler, Ramarak, after they scorch Kong in a lake full of gasoline, Kong kills Packard, ending his wrath against Skull Island.

He is portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson, who also portrays Jules Winnfield, Elijah Price in Unbreakable, Abel Turner in Lakeview Terrace, Stephen in Django Unchained, Frank Tenpenny in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Richmond Valentine in Kingsman: The Secret Service and Mr. Barron in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

Call to Mission
Packard was in Vietnam when contacted by William "Bill" Randa, a Monarch representative to be the military escort to an unexplored island in the South Pacific, this when seeing the opportunity accepts the mission and prepares with his team.

Exploring the Skull Island
After crossing the storm to Skull Island, Randa gives them the green light to use the seismic bombs and map the island, this angers Kong and begins to attack the helicopters. He becomes filled with anger as he watched Kong kill his comrades. After he regroups with the remaining soldiers, he confronts Randa at gunpoint to tell him everything he doesn't know, he then swears to not leave the island before killing Kong and avenge his men.

The Search for Bombs
Packard heads towards the helicopter crash site that had the seismic bombs and where Chapman found himself, after a long walk for the search of Chapman are attacked by a giant spider, which kills one of the members, and later they manage to reunite with James Conrad and the remaining survivors. Valley of the Dead, where they were attacked by one of the Skullcrawlers, after the confrontation, during a heated discussion, and confirm Chapman had been devoured by the same Skullcrawler from earlier, Packard decides to go for those bombs with his team regardless and hunt down Kong.

Hunting Kong and Final Showdown
"Die, you motherfu--"

- Preston Packard's last words.

After having the seismic bombs, he ambushes Kong, who was reunited with James Conrad, later this activates the bombs attracting his attention, Conrad to seeing this decides to go towards Packard to stop it, Kong goes towards the place of the ambush had Packard who had previously thrown oil in the lake, after a face-to-face confrontation, Packard sets fire to the lake, thus burning and injuring Kong, who falls unconscious on the ground. Putting explosive charges and about to detonate them, Conrad appears and confronts Packard telling him that there were more things to worry about and Kong was not the threat, but after a brief discussion, the largest Skullcrawler, Ramarak, appears. Conrad with the other soldiers and the survivors run from the creature, while Packard stays behind, remaining determined to finish Kong, who has just awakened, off in a suicide bombing. Before he can detonate the explosives to kill off Kong, the ape crushes Packard to death with his fist.

Trivia

 * J.K. Simmons originally attached to the film as Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard, but he had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Samuel L. Jackson replaced Simmons' role as Packard.
 * A similar villain was Archie Nevitt in King Kong Lives.
 * Though the Skullcrawlers are the main antagonists, Packard's quest to kill Kong drove the plot forward.
 * This is similar to Jurassic World, where the Indominus rex was the main antagonist, but Commander Vic Hoskins's plot to kill the I. rex (and later sell her to the military) drove the plot of the film forward.
 * Packard is similar to the following villains:
 * Commander Rourke from Atlantis: The Lost Empire; They are military villains who travel to foreign lands and seek to kill the inhabitants there. He shares this similarity with Miles Quaritch from Avatar.
 * William Boone from The Jungle Book (1994): They are soldiers who seek to kill the top creature in the jungle (Packard: Kong, Boone: Shere Khan), and even wind up losing comrades along the way. They are also insane.
 * Ahab from Moby Dick: They are both respected individuals of higher authority, who desire to hunt a mysterious creature (Packard: Kong, Ahab: Moby Dick) after they have suffered personal losses (Packard: The loss of his military comrades, Ahab: His leg).
 * General Shepherd from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2; They are villainous military commanders who seek to kill their arch-foes (Packard: Kong, Shepherd: Makarov), but they themselves get killed by the end.
 * Billy Yoder from Jurassic Park: The Game; Both are soldiers who started out as heroes, but gradually become villains due to the death of their comrades, both want to drop explosives on an island (skull island at Packard's case and Isla Nublar in Yoder's case) and they both get killed by a giant prehistoric creature (Packard: Kong, Yoder: Rexy).
 * Preston Packard is the first human villain in the MonsterVerse franchise.