Viewing King Kong (1933) today still impresses me. The special effects that that classic film has is fascinating. O.K. you may not think so compared to today’s special effects. But hang on a minute, did you ever wonder how they did these special effects without the tools we have today? It took a patient genius to do special effects back in the 30’s.
Special effects legend Ray Harryhausen can certainly concur with me. According to the interview in ign.com , Harryhausen remembers how fascinated he was when he first saw the King Kong’s animated gorilla terrorize a city. He thought that the gorilla in the film was “just another man in a suit,” but it wasn’t. He said it “infected” him and the idea of stop-motion photography was just “original & distinguished.” It never left his mind.
And thank goodness for that. It was Mr. Harryhausen that brought that creature from “20 Millions Miles to Earth,” (1957) to life. The colorized version (50th Anniversary) of the movie is scheduled to be released July 31st!
And how does Mr. Harryhausen feel about modern day epic films? “They’ve gone overboard, I think – like they usually do – and they forget that there’s a story to be told, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Today, it’s forgotten. It’s simply a series of specially effects. Every five minutes, you have to have an explosion and some kind of violence. I fear that young people, growing up, won’t be inspired the same as I was inspired.” He goes on to say that he doesn’t completely write off ‘modern day epic that use special effects, “it’s a tool and has its advantages.” “ You just have to use correctly.” But he will always be a passionate fan of stop motion.
About the “20 Millions Miles To Earth” colorized version to be released…he said, he would’ve done it color, but lack of funds did not allow it. He goes on to say, “It was such a spectacle that it should have been filmed in color. And I’m so grateful that we’re now able to revise them and that people have been able to see them again in their best form, because at the time of their release, these were considered b-pictures, but they’ve lasted longer than the others of the time.”
Will today’s grand epics stand the test of time? Few and far between…
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