SFX

There is increasing debate in the use of special effects. Some of the first SFX were things like stop motion in the original King Kong. This film was quite dependant on the actors. Now with the advance in technologies and huge SFX giants like ILM (Lucas' Industrial Light And Magic). The debate is that with the technology we have these days you can quite literally edit an actors facial expression, and even generate a different character and the actor does the movements and voice for it (Gollum by Andy Serkis in LOTR trilogy). Are people like Andy Serkis actors in these films, do they have as much right as any other actor to win awards? As films become increasingly less dependant on acting are we losing a certain quality to the movies and is their really such thing as an actor anymore???
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6571491.stm