Ray Harryhausens stop motion creatures, dated yes, still amazing

Paul_Crosby

I know it's obvious (especially in newer HD versions ironically, it worked better with older original Dynamation ones) that they are made of clay, and movements are jittery, the backscreening doesn't look the best these days (it looked almost flawlessly compositioned on VHS for the most part, older effects are far more obvious on DVDs and Bluray but there is something about the way these creatures moved that drew me in,

There is the infamous Talos fight, and Skeleton encounter from Argonauts, but one I find very underrated is the 7th Voyage of Sinbad, the movements of the Cyclops, the choreography if you will in the fight between the Cyclops and the Dragon, I think that one beats the original King Kong fight for classic stop motion

Look at how much emotion and realistic movements this man could put into clay creatures (way , way, before nature documentaries were unavoidable of course) and he had to resculpture every single frame of movement from scratch , a half second of the creatures movement could take days to complete correctly

It definitely had its limits as a medium for special effect creatures, but I'm a 90s boy and some of these creations from decades before became a piece of my heart

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dD9qc44oMqU

Favourite little note, Talos seems to fall back into a daydream at 2.13 And doesn't appreciate being woken back up again

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dqRjDGAJ5dc&t=1&pp=ygUZQXJnb25hdXJzIHNrZWxldG9uIGZpZ2h0Pw%3D%3D

Those Skeletons are dirty fighters

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zkGfhrBgLd8&t=6s&pp=ygURQ3ljbG9wcyB2cyBkcmFnb24%3D

Most underrated one of all, I know it's a homage to King Kong vs T Rex way back in the B&W originals and they had similar fights in Harryhausen epics, but this fight stuck with me for life, and even more so when I later got into MMA😂

I think tooth and claw won in the end here , but ground and pound wasn't a bad idea

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jhJud3H8nic&pp=ygUOU2luYmFkIGN5Y2xvcHM%3D

This scene is just hilarious, Osama Bin Laden cameo, escalates very quickly

El Gato De Negocios

Loved those movies as a kid, love them as an adult and now my 2 kids love them aswell. Give me Harryhausen stop motion any day of the week over a modern CGI 'splosion fest.

silliussoddius

Clash of the Titans every Christmas was always great.

tomhammer..

Ya the skeletons were amazing as a kid

I can still picture them rising up out of the ground

Them and the old daleks and the original apes were all iconic

BolloxChop

There's something about stop motion and animatronics in movies that always makes it better.

I remember the Cyclops in Sinbad scaring the absolute shite out of me as a kid.

And the animatronics in The Thing still look absolutely incredible.

I read somewhere that when the made the prequel to The Thing they actually filmed it all with proper animatronics but the studio execs decided to replace it all with CGI which looked terrible..

Paul_Crosby

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121850009#Comment_121850009

James Cameron and Spielberg did a fantastic mix of both in Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park respectively, it's not just about the method used, it's how good is it used, and like you'd be told in a sport, don't rely on one thing, one gimmick, you have to find out what works, work to understand and appreciate it and then put it all together, the Bruce Lee approach to film making (ironically using his martial arts philosophy and not showbiz)

Paul_Crosby

Liked the animations in Thing (bearing in mind time period and animations have an uncanny jitteriness to them as well sometimes) but don't know what in the name of God happened in the prequel, one of those retconning pieces of garbage (thing can't wear/mimic metal so fillings and wrongly placed jewelry are givaways)

Hangdogroad

ED-209 in Robocop, classic late period stop motion.

I cant bring myself to watch the recent remake.

https://youtu.be/TYsulVXpgYg?si=BfGY7CXJB3D_4C04

gym_imposter

I love all those old movies, such childhood nostalgia

HalloweenJack

Jan Svankmajer's work is also worth looking up if you're a fan of the above.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121859608#Comment_121859608

Don't mean to give you an existential crisis, but that 'recent' RoboCop remake came out ten years ago in 2014. :eek:

pixelburp

You'll see a few AI "smoothed" versions of various famous stop motion animations; can't decide if they work or not, some are just a shade too smooth, bordering on Live Sports ...

https://youtu.be/8ln11zEWW4U?si=T00nTn2RPjlml_Xc

Paul_Crosby

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121889893#Comment_121889893

Agree, they did it with some Harryhausen scenes as well with the Cyclops and... Eh I could see what they were going for, make it less jittery and smooth but I dunno, I already know they are stop motion creatures so I don't mind the uncanny movements, makes them creepier

Paul_Crosby

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121877200#Comment_121877200

Have to check it out thanks, never heard of the name but probably seen some of his work