The VSF films of Ray Harryhausen

[kidterminal]

Ray Harryhausen the wizard of cinema is dead. The ground breaking animator and special-effects wizard who inspired a generation of famous filmmakers such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Peter Jackson as well as others died at the age of 92 on Tuesday in London.

All though he is most famous for his fantasy films, he made two VSF films, Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island (1961) and H.G. Wells’ First Men In The Moon (1964).

Mysterious Island with giant animals!

Captain Nemo in a shell diving suit!


H.G. Wells' First Men In The Moon. Victorian space travel!


I have more pictures and full tribute on my blog http://fiendsinwaistcoats.blogspot.com/

[Fuzzywuzzieswiflasers]

Yes truly a cinematic legend!

I am also a stopmotion animator and Ray's films are such an inspiration. The skeleton fight in The Argonauts is forever etched in my mind. Knowing a fair bit about the process and having made films myself, those 4 minutes are a tour de force that will never be equalled.

Quick factoid: Did you know Ray Harryhausen wanted to make War of the Worlds and even made a short test animation sequence of the Martian coming out of the cylinder ( you can find it on YouTube)

As much as I love George Pal's version I would have loved to have seen Ray do it.

I will also treasure the fact I got to meet him briefly 10 years ago when he came to Melbourne and signed my copy of Jason & The Argonauts.

Cheers
Fuzzy.

[kidterminal]

That"s great Fuzzy. I knew I would meet him but I felt it was too fannish to ask for an autograph. I was also a stop motion animator and model maker for commercials here in the US until CGI took over. I met him as a volunteer at the Lake Placid Film Festival I had to entertain him while he was waiting to do his talk. So we had a long conversation. By the way he didn't have an email account, he didn't like computers you had to contact him through snail mail.

No I haven't seen that.

Rob

[The_Beast]

Yet another personality I'd thought I already heard had passed. This is getting darn monotonous; especially the when I thought I dealt with the loss before.

Thanks for pointing out same; my dabbling with Major Matt Mason figs so many years ago taught me to admire from a young age, and trying my hand with actual armatures never diminished same.  Even the least throwaway enthralled me.

Is this the bit you mean? Google-fu had me off on several wrong turns.

Doug

[kidterminal]

Yes that's the one Fuzzy mentioned. He'd been living happily in a London suburb with his wife Diana a descendant of Dr. Livingston all this time.

[Fuzzywuzzieswiflasers]

Yep that's the clip. Not his best work IMHO, but if you saw some of the artwork he did in development it would have been great! Actual Tripods instead of flying swans!


One day someone will do a true version of War of the worlds set in Victorian times with actual tripods. I'm still waiting .....

Cheers
Fuzzy.