The legend is passes away at 92
Way before movies like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings inspired the imagination of film lovers everywhere, audiences were enraptured by the sword-wielding skeletons of Jason and the Argonauts, the great ape of Mighty Joe Young and the dinosaurs opposite Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C.
The man responsible for all those and much more, Hollywood special-effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen, died Tuesday in London at the age of 92. His family announced his death via The Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation Facebook page.
Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Great entertainment.
Ernst
I remember seeing Jason and the Argonauts at the drive-in with my parents in their big blue ’54 Pontiac. My sister & I in the backseat, in our pj’s with pillows & blankets. My mom packed snacks and a couple of thermos – one coffee, one hot chocolate. Sis fell asleep but I was hanging over the back of the front seat riveted by the battle with the skeletons.
Good times.
speaking of special effects here is a sentence I saw in a news story today
Good memories from when I was a kid. How do you do massive effects on a budget? Improvise.
And the dinosaurs were better than the ones on Dr. Who, too. :)
How’d he make skulls scowl like that? They don’t have any facial features to move.
Truly a great. I saw one of his movies on TV when I was about 4. I think it was The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. It is one of my earliest memories, and my first memory of TV or movies.
I also saw Disney’s The Black Hole not long after, and it made a big impression, too. While it has a terrible plot (particularly the last 1/4 of the movie) the traditional special effects are probably the best I’ve ever seen. If they had managed to come up with at least a mediocre plot that didn’t detract too much from the amazing special effects and setting (the Star Wars formula), the movie might have been a big success.
I believe that traditional special effects are just more memorable, and can be much more beautiful than CGI. Technically, you should be able to do anything (and more) with CGI that you could ever do with a matte painting or stop motion or process shots. That leads me to believe that there are very few Ray Harryhousens and Peter Ellenshaws in special effects today.
Ray Harryhausen’s films generally benefitted from very good casts (with the exception of Harry Hamlin in Titans who I thought was a complete pussy and wouldn’t stand a chance with Judi Bowker), so that the animations weren’t necessarily the centre of attention. I loved all of his films, but my kids think stop motion sucks. Nothing but CGI for this generation.
I also saw Disney’s The Black Hole not long after, and it made a big impression, too.
That movie scared the crap out of me. I thought it was upsetting when Bambi’s mother got shot, but that’s just peanuts compared to Maximilian.
I thought it was upsetting when Bambi’s mother got shot
Spoiler Alert!!!!
Quick show of hands from the boys: when did you go from not noticing Raquel Welch because of all the cool dinosaurs, to not noticing the cool dinosaurs because of Raquel Welch?
Can’t show you my hands. Trick question?
By the time (at the age) I saw that movie, Raquel Welch was the special effect.
A “special” Special Effect.
Silver Whistle says May 8, 2013 at 7:59 am
my kids think stop motion sucks
Somewhat understandable, but I’ve never seen anything CGI that will touch a good matte painting.
Anyway I seem to remember as just a little kid that I wondered how those things moved, even if it wasn’t smooth. It seemed like magic to me. I guess Arthur C Clarke’s first law has come full circle, thanks to technology. Now no one will even consider “magic”(or even “rare occurrence”) because we all have an understanding of what technology is capable of.