which version is best??

' I agree so much with the sentiment you express. I also find it amazing how acting performances which would be completely trashed & laughed at now, are accepted/loved because it's 'from a different era'. Or really every flaw will likely be brushed off with such a reason.
I also it amazing how they can have great suspension of believe when it comes to old movies, but with new(er) movies or remakes it's suddenly "aaaaand it's gone..".
It's beyond annoying once you've noticed how superficial it is, yet how many snobs rely on it to feel better.

1933 King Kong will always be movie history, but it's not somehow above flaw or betterment. There's loads of aspects in which the 2005 remake is better. "Because it's from a different era". '

This is quite possibly the best post I've ever seen regarding the original Kong film.

I'm absolutely stunned every time someone tries to argue with me when I say that the original film had horrid acting. It's so bad it's barely even the least bit subjective, it's just obviously horrible.

If any actor/actress showed up an audition and acted like that today, I guarantee you that you'd never see that performance make it to the screen, unless they were auditioning for a spoof film.

I've talked about this with quite a few cinema buffs I know personally that fully agreed with me that the acting was wretched and said that the reason it is the way it is is because back then you mostly had stage actors that were accustomed to over-exaggerating voices and mannerisms so that they could be seen by audience members in the back of the venue when they were performing in plays.
That type of acting, which Fay Wray displays in just about every scene she's in, is a horrible translation to film acting. There is nothing remotely believable about it and any actor that tried doing that today, as previously mentioned, would most likely never make it to the big screen, or if they did would be laughed off it by every audience in the world.

The original film is awful today for reasons that go well beyond the goofy effects work (although that doesn't help).
People make asinine comparisons to PlayStation graphics when they see CGI that they think is bad today, meanwhile, they give a free pass to obviously phony, absurd looking effects from ages ago because it was "good for its time" or "that's just how it was done," and they give the same type of free pass to acting performances that are clearly horrible from classic cinema.

For me when I'm watching a movie, it's good or it's bad. I don't see good movies "for the era." If it doesn't hold up, then as far as I'm concerned, it's a bad movie.

I may appreciate the overall impact it had on cinema, which I do with the original Kong. It's a far more important movie in cinematic history than Jackson's Kong is, but regardless, I still find it drastically inferior in every conceivable way to Jackson's film.
More influential doesn't mean better to me.

I'm over 30 and I love Ben-Hur, Spartacus, the original Psycho...the original Twilight Zone is one of my favorite television series of all time...so this doesn't simply come down to the old "omg, kids!" argument that nostalgica clingining cinema buffs would like to think it does.
I simply don't think that Kong 33, although an extremely important and influential movie, holds up as anything even resembling a good film by todays standards for a plethora of reasons.

PJ's Kong is one of my favorite film and I think it's the best film made since 2005.


+++by His wounds we are healed. - Isaiah 53:5+++

"Trolling for replies, are ya? You're pathetic!"

Nope, I was stating exactly how I felt. It wasn't deliberately designed to gain any particular reaction.

"You're no Rambo! And First Blood is a better movie than you are! You should be sent to bed with no dessert for the first time EVER, you dickmunch!"

That's one of the most uniquely entertaining insults I've ever had thrown at me, so thanks for that I suppose.
I'm not a movie, so I'd imagine First Blood is a better movie than me, and I never thought that I was Rambo, but thank you for reinforcing that point.


+++by His wounds we are healed. - Isaiah 53:5+++