ABSTRACT
Big movies need big feelings. So they need a big score. Peter Jackson's King Kong remake (2005) had magnificent production values but this did not help. Everything was bigger, louder, and more expensive than the 1933 original film. There is a number of reasons. Sure, Jackson's Kong had the better technology and budget and a great mocap performance by Andy Serkis, but in other departments it remained uninspired. Besides weak comedy acting by Naomi Watts and Jack Black, the musical score by James Newton Howard except for a brief sequence with Kong on ice where the tunes fit, was nothing short than terrible. The greatest of animation directors knew how to time their exposure sheets to the score. A Taiwanese professor who once met animation director William Hanna who timed the old Tom & Jerry cartoons told us that the man had hands like those of a pianist.
