King Kong Comparison

The original 1933 King Kong was created as a movie: to convey a story and entertain and audience. Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake took the foundation for King Kong and expanded upon it in almost every way in order to “make again” the amazement of the original for a modern audience. Audiences received the original King Kong very well. The stop motion sequences of Kong were amazing for their time and the movie grossed $90,000 in its opening weekend. In order to bank upon its success again sequels were made and then in 1976 a remake was made to improve upon the original. Paramount updated the movie to color, changed the story, and cast Jeff Bridges, a well-known actor of the time, as the lead. Although the movie received mixed reviews, it did very well in the box office and tripled Paramount’s initial budget for the film. Even though the movie wasn’t “as good” as the original, audiences still went and paid money to see it because of that hope that they would feel like they did when they saw the first King Kong. The remake also brought the movie to the new generation that had missed the original.

In 2005 the second remake of King Kong was released and it too received mixed reviews. Peter Jackson wanted to create the feeling he had while watching the original for a modern audience. In order to do this he stuck to the original story as closely as he could and instead of updating the story, he expanded it. The original ran 100 minutes but the 2005 remake with all its expanded content ran 188 minutes. By giving more background story to the characters and adding more drama, Jackson hoped to remain true to the original but also create an epic movie for a modern audience. Both the 1933 and 2005 movies were praised for their astonishing special effects. Whereas the original used stop-motion animation, the 2005 remake used cutting-edge CGI. To use stop-motion like the original would not make sense because that technology became obsolete with the invention of computer animation. The story from the original King Kong still holds up today but the special effects and actors needed to be updated in order to make a movie that was marketable.

While Jackson’s remake is true to the original for the most part, there are some small changes made in order to make the movie more appealing. In the original King Kong it is the lead actor in the movie that saves the damsel in