Jackson even had the chance to design his own dinosaur, dubbed the Wetasaur.

As for the other CG creatures that inhabit Skull Island (which number more than a dozen out of a total of 50 made for the movie), think Ray Harryhausen and you have an idea of the look they were after. The dinosaurs, in particular, are a reptilian Harryhausen throwback: big scales on their backs and spiky bits, and the crocodile kind of skin texture that’s cool looking but not scientifically accurate. Taylor says there was no reason to try and replicate the smooth looking creatures from the Jurassic Park movies.

The dinosaurs range from the gruesome t-rex family trio that combats Kong in the major set piece, to the stampeding brontosaurus to the ceratops (which were cut from the movie but — who knows? — may emerge on the DVD). Plus, there’s a whole new species called the wetasaur that’s a cross between a carnosaur and pit bull terrier. In addition, the hothouse of Skull Island has evolved a diverse assortment of raptors, flying lizards, rat monkeys, flesh eating bugs and giant spiders, many of which converge on the Venture crew during Jackson’s suspenseful version of the infamous “Spider Pit” sequence.

“The dinosaurs and other CG characters were more straightforward than Kong,” Letteri admits. “We used skin, muscles and skeletal systems, as we did on Rings. We added sub-surface scattering to the skin, another carry over from Rings [because of the environments], which you didn’t need on Jurassic Park. We also did some high dynamic range imaging for some of the creatures like the raptors and brontos.”

This is in direct contrast, of course, to the special attention paid to Kong. “We had to grow Kong to make him work,” Letteri confides. “We built him almost as an adolescent and disabused him of a lot of bad notions. We stripped him down from being buffed up… aged him and put in all the characteristics on his face.”

Bill Desowitz is editor of VFXWorld.