King Kong (2005): the 20th Anniversary

The Blind Eternities forum

Posted on April 11, 2025, 8:22 a.m. by DemonDragonJ

This year is the 20th anniversary of the 2005 remake of King Kong, the original of which many film historians regard as a classic of cinematic history.

This film was not the first remake of King Kong, as a remake was released in 1976 (starring a very young Jeff Bridges, long before he became a superstar), which was also set in that same year, but this remake returned to the 1930's setting of the original film, and greatly expanded many aspects of it, most notably the duration of the film, extending it to nearly three hours (as director Peter Jackson had recently finished his epic and lengthy Lord of the Rings trilogy, shortly before beginning production on this film), while also giving the characters far greater depth and development than what they had in the original film (although that is not to say that the characters in the original film lacked such traits; filmmaking was simply very different in the early years of cinema). Naturally, the film used computer-generated imagery (CGI) to portray King Kong himself and the other monsters, but the movie did not rely too heavily on such technology and devoted sufficient focus and screentime to its human characters.

Peter Jackson had recently completed his adaptation of Lord of the Rings, so his remake of King Kong clearly shows influence from his previous project, as the film is an epic adventure that spans numerous physical locations, has a deep and dramatic plot with characters who have great depth and development, and overall has a very intense and heroic theme, not to mention a rather lengthy duration, but audiences and critics definitely regarded the film very highly for its ambitious nature and grand, sweeping scope, and I recall seeing this film in theaters in either my senior year of high school or freshman year of college, and being very impressed with its epic nature, so I do hope that Jackson does something special to commemorate the 20th anniversary of this film, as the film definitely deserves to have such recognition.

What does everyone else say, about this? How do you feel about this year being the 20th anniversary of Peter Jackson's King Kong?