The great King Kong has been an inspiration to many film makers since its release in 1933. In addition to the films that can be classified as official sequels (Son of Kong, 1933) or “cash-in” re-interpretations (The Mighty Peking Man, 1976; A*P*E, 1976), there have been two official remakes. The first, produced by Dino De Laurentiis in 1976, and the most recent one, directed by Peter Jackson in 2005. Not only does the technology used to create the special effects in each film differ greatly, these films approach the story content in two fundamentally different ways. Generally, the result depends on the viewers’ preferences.
The 1976 remake of King Kong sets the story in what was then the modern-day (the mid-1970s). A prospective oil strike on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean prompts a sea expedition. A stowaway (Jack Prescott, played by Jeff Bridges) joins the expedition as official photographer of the voyage. The reason for his interest in the expedition is anthropological; he believes that a legendary beast resides on the island. On the way to the island, they rescue an actor/model (Dwan, portrayed by Jessica Lange) adrift in a lifeboat.
When they reach the island, they are met with hostility by the natives. The natives want Dwan to use in their ceremony as a sacrifice to “Kong.” They kidnap Dwan and offer her to the open forest. A giant gorilla, Kong, comes from out of the forest and takes Dwan. Jack and a group of naval officers set out after the beast; many of them are killed when Kong shakes them off of a bridge (made of nothing more than a tree across a deep ravine), falling to their deaths. Jack survives and rescues Dwan while Kong battles a giant snake. Kong kills the serpent and takes off after them. They make it back to the native village, and Kong is captured.
Kong is displayed in a stadium setting for promotion of the oil company that captured him. Enraged, the giant gorilla escapes, and goes on a path of destruction across New York City. He finds Dwan and climbs one of the towers of the World Trade Center. Kong puts Dwan down to battle helicopters that are firing at him. Kong, beaten down and bleeding, falls off the edge of the rooftop and crashes to the streets; he dies as hordes of news photographers and onlookers surround him.
Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake remains more faithful to the original story, beginning in Manhattan, 1933. Renegade film maker Carl Denham, despised by most studio executives in the city, decides to take matters into his own hands when an ambitious production of his is shut down by his financiers. He charters a sea vessel for a voyage to Skull Island, an exotic location that he feels should be filmed and shown to the world. He casts a struggling actor, Anne Darrow, as his female lead. After conning a renowned playwright, Jack Driscoll, into joining the expedition, they land on Skull Island. Natives of the island attack the passengers and crew, killing several of them. The captain of the ship and some of his crew arrive with machine guns to rescue the survivors.
One of the natives secretly board the ship at nightfall, kidnapping Anne. She is put on display to be sacrificed to a mysterious god. Kong arrives, and takes off with Anne. Denham, Driscoll and several crew members follow after Kong and Darrow. Some of the crew members are killed by dinosaurs along the way; others are shaken off of a log crossing a ravine by Kong. Once Kong dispenses with the crew, he rescues Anne from three V-Rexes; the crew, now at the bottom of the damp and dreary ravine, do battle with giant insects and man-eating plants. More crew members die, but Denham, Driscoll, and a few others are, again, rescued by the captain of the ship.
Driscoll rescues Anne (only after Anne forms a personal bond with the creature) while Kong battles a swarm of giant bats at the edge of a cliff. Driscoll and Darrow make it back to the native village, now turned into home base for Denham and company. They capture Kong and bring him back to New York.
Kong is put on display at a high-profile theater. He is chained onstage as a visual aid to the live re-telling of Denham’s fantastic adventure. Kong breaks free of the reinforced chains, and tears apart Manhattan looking for his long-lost Anne. Anne finds Kong, and goes to him in an effort to calm him down. He brings her to the top of the Empire State Building for a delicate moment set against the colorful sunrise. The moment is interrupted by a series of biplanes. The mighty Kong swats at the planes trying to pick him off of the building, but cannot overcome the onslaught of machine gun attacks at the hands of what was modern technology.
Kong falls to his death. When approached by police, Denham sums up the entire story by explaining that Kong, the beast, was really killed by Anne, the beauty (rather than the airplanes). This one line transforms the entire adventure into what amounts to a classic tragedy.
The changes made to the story, setting, and characters in the 1976 King Kong took the story out of the 1930s and updated it to suit the expectations of audiences who were on the verge of being enchanted by the likes of Star Wars (1977). This was potentially detrimental to the longevity of the film; it is not generally considered a classic. The special effects technology (which was an enhanced version of “suitamation,” utilized in the Asian kaiju films such as the Godzilla series of films) was not enough to make the film timeless. Instead, it is essentially another film with a giant gorilla climbing a tall building.
The lack of dinosaurs and man-eating creatures on Skull Island subtracted from a crucial story element, the sense of danger of Kong’s home island; there was no indication that Kong had any trouble surviving the raw conditions of a land where time stood still. On the other hand, Kong was easily defeated by the arsenal of weapons used by the helicopters; vehicles that could hover in one spot, far away enough from danger while spraying deadly ammunition into the body of a giant gorilla made for a boring and uneven battle.
Jackson’s remake was a highly-detailed re-telling of the Kong story. Certain aspects of the story were changed in order to make the story more realistic (doing away with Denham’s “gas bombs” used to render Kong unconscious during his capture; Driscoll was a playwright, not the first mate on the ship as in the 1933 Kong). Certain special effects sequences were added to attract audiences accustomed to the caliber of special effects and grand spectacle found in films like Stephen Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993). Others were added to pay homage to Merian C. Cooper’s original film; the entire “spider pit” sequence following Driscoll, Denham, and the crew falling to the bottom of the ravine is a re-interpretation of a scene cut from the original King Kong for pacing.
However, grand presentation and digitally animated dinosaurs do not take the place of, nor do they represent, the aspirations of the people who brought King Kong to the screen in 1933. A movie in excess of three hours, containing subplots and unnecessary details could not possibly keep with the same spirit of a movie so simple in its storytelling (which has a running time of only an hour and forty minutes). However, it is an honorable effort that tried to re-tell the story without changing too much; it merely added to the original story.
The fact that these two remakes that were approached so differently can only prove that there are choices out there for anyone interested in a colorful rehash of a classic story. Because the stories and overall use of effects are handled so differently, any viewer watching the original Kong, the 1976 remake, and Peter Jackson’s film back-to-back will feel like they are watching three entirely different movies, yet not too dissimilar as to make the viewer feel like they have the DVD on repeat.
