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As Kong: Skull Island draws near, my thoughts turn to the posture of the original ape.   Kong’s bipedal stance comes up a lot in fandom discussions: many consider it an important part of his design, distinguishing his design from a generic ape and adding to the mystique of his position as “neither man nor beast”.  Many were critical of his 2005 incarnation’s quadrupedal locomotion, and one of the frequent talking points of the new movie is its return to a bipedal Kong.  Thats why when I rewatched the original film a few months ago, I was surprised by just how often he get around like an ordinary Gorilla.

Sure, he stands upright frequently, and even walked on his hind feet a few times, but the majority of the time he moves on all fours.  Of course this is to be expected from Special Effects Wizard Willis O’ Brian.  Both he and his protege Ray Harryhausen liked to really take advantage of stop motion animation: creating movie monsters that couldn’t be easily replicated by a man in a suit.  What is surprising is how the idea of the bipedal Kong became so prevalent.  My guess its a conflation of his common upright posture with his method of locomotions: many of the most iconic Kong scenes and images show him on two legs, but such moments generally involve a stationary Kong rearing upright rather than walking around like a human.  I also suspect some conflation with the Bipedal suitmation Kong's seen in the Toho and De Laurentiis’ movies.  How do you guy’s think the misconception came about?  If you disagree with this post and still maintain that the original Kong is bipedal, be sure to make a detailed analytical comparison on the number of minutes Kong stays bipedal verses the number of minutes he stays on all fours, because I’m somewhat interested myself in the raw numbers.