5 Photos That Show How King Kong Revolutionized Movie Special Effects

2 minute read
King Kong
Paramount Pictures/Getty Images
By Eliza Berman

Through nearly nine decades and almost as many major studio movies, an enormous, tortured ape has moved the dial on special effects time and again. In the original King Kong, released in 1933, it was special effects pioneer Willis O’Brien’s unprecedented blending of a stop-motion monster with live-action footage of actors. In the 1962 Japanese production King Kong vs. Godzilla, it was special effects director Eiji Tsubaraya’s determination to convince audiences that a man in a rubber suit was, in fact, a gargantuan monster tearing through cities and towns. A steady fixture in a century of movie-making, Kong has benefited from advances in technology as he has helped move them forward.

The latest installment in the franchise, Kong: Skull Island, directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and in theaters March 10, features the largest, most realistic Kong yet. Created by visual effects house Industrial Light & Magic, he stands at a towering 100 feet and wears a coat of 19 million digital hairs. As visual effects supervisor Jeff White tells TIME, this Kong is remarkable not just for his scale but for the way he interacts with his environment: the insects buzzing around his head, the mud caked into his fur, the way his hand splashes through water. And his power is not merely physical: his eyes convey profound emotion. As White explains, “It definitely helps when your character’s face is 12-feet tall. You have a lot of eyes to be looking at.”

But White and his team were not only looking forward when fashioning the new monster. “What was exciting to me about this project is that Jordan’s vision for the character was to make sure that he’s not just a gorilla,” says White. “Jordan’s idea was to take Kong back to the 1933 version and focus on him being this whole new species of movie monster.” The result is a marvel to behold, a monster all his own who owes his existence to the forebears in the images above.

King Kong
King Kong, 1933: The first Kong was a feat of stop-motion animation. Footage of puppets—no bigger than 2 ft. tall and constructed from ball-and-socket joints and rabbit fur—was combined with live-action shots using techniques like double exposure and matte painting, with one minute of film taking as long as 150 hours to produce.RKO Radio Pictures/Getty Images
King Kong vs. Godzilla, 1962: Through a process called suitmation, developed by special-effects innovator Eiji Tsuburaya for the first Godzilla movie, Kong was revived by a man in a rubber gorilla suit moving through small-scale models that made him appear larger. The actors who played both monsters drew inspiration from professional wrestlers.Universal Pictures
King Kong
King Kong, 1976:This ambitious remake went big with a 40-ft. mechanical Kong, covered in horse hair and controlled by hydraulics. But its construction was plagued with cost overruns and on-set mishaps, and the robotic ape was used in less than one minute of the final cut. The rest of the footage relied on an actor in a gorilla suit who used a series of masks to convey different emotions, and mechanical hands big enough to hold actor Jessica Lange.Paramount Pictures/Getty Images
Peter Jackson's 24-ft. ape relied heavily on motion capture with a healthy dose of CG animation. Actor Andy Serkis traveled to Rwanda to study the behavior of gorillas, then performed Kong's scenes in a special suit with dozens of optical markers--132 alone on his face--that recorded his gestures and expressions.
King Kong, 2005: Peter Jackson's 24-ft. ape relied heavily on motion capture with a healthy dose of CG animation. Actor Andy Serkis traveled to Rwanda to study the behavior of gorillas, then performed Kong's scenes in a special suit with dozens of optical markers—132 alone on his face—that recorded his gestures and expressions.Universal Pictures
The new Kong is a throwback to the 1933 version, visually referencing that movie's classic monster look. Though motion-capture sessions contributed to his visage, the 100-ft. monster came to life through computer animation. The biggest challenge: his fur. Animators spent a year designing his 19 million digital hairs.
Kong: Skull Island, 2017: The new Kong is a throwback to the 1933 version, visually referencing that movie's classic monster look. Though motion-capture sessions contributed to his visage, the 100-ft. monster came to life through computer animation. The biggest challenge: his fur. Animators spent a year designing his 19 million digital hairs.Warner Bros. Pictures

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Write to Eliza Berman at eliza.berman@time.com