I watched the 1976 version of King Kong. I'd never seen it before. I'm generally very forgiving of special effects of the time a film was made and don't let them detract from the movie. However, there was just something about the special effects that just didn't sit well with me.
The problem is that I don't think there's a way to make a man in a monster suit smashing a model not look silly. No matter how good the model may be, no matter how good the suit may be, it still looks like an actor in a suit breaking bits of plastic and cardboard. It draws attention to itself and breaks the suspension of disbelief, not because it doesn't look realistic but because it looks ridiculous. If Kong destroying a train, with people in it, makes me want to laugh because I can't take the image seriously, what's the point? Not to mention a man in an ape-suit fighting a big, fake snake. It looks cheap and dumb.
I also couldn't help but think about how rather rudimentary the special effects are. I watched the original King Kong a couple of weeks ago. While the stop-motion puppets certainly don't look realistic, I can at least look at them and appreciate that, for the time, how the live-action actors and puppets were mixed and blended together was sophisticated and would have been spectacular. Then you go forward 40 years and the best they can do is put an actor into an ape suit to stamp around and toss models? It was a fine suit, capable of some decent expression (though it mostly seems to pull a creepy, rape-vibe expression) through mechanics – the effects team did a good job on it and the cinematographer did a good job complimenting it. Still, it's a man in a suit and hardly highlights the advances in special-effects filmmaking.
How else could they have done it? That's the question I then have to ask myself. I'm not sure. I'm not sure, exactly, of the limitations of the time. But I'd look at something such as the Rancor scene in Return of the Jedi, released 7 years later. They initially considered using a man in a suit for the Rancor, but decided, instead, to use a stop motion puppet. With the use of blue screen, projection, mechanical arm, and the puppet, they made something that looks good and holds up well. This should have all been available to the filmmakers in 1976. It's the same principles used in the original movie, but with the benefit of improved technology and techniques it looks so much better. If used in the 1976 King Kong, the film would be less silly and it'd better show how effects had improved since 1933. Don't try to make a man in an ape-suit carry a movie – it should be a small part and never made to standalone, so that it wouldn't have to bear the burden of close scrutiny.
