Mark Hamill, Ray Harryhausen & Don Rickles

 

 

Here's a little more from that Mark Hamill interview in Starlog #21:

It seems that one of Mark Hamill's childhood heroes was Ray Harryhausen. When Hamill got to talk with the celebrated special effects wizard, he said, "Thank you. For good or for bad, your films really captured my imagination, and just intrigued me so much." Mark Hamill was so blown away by his first viewing of Ray Harryhausen's movie Jason and the Argonauts that he stayed at the cinema and watched it two more times that day. 

"I was eleven when I saw it, which was the perfect age for that kind of picture. In fact, if Harlan Ellison was eleven, he'd probably love Star Wars."

As someone who first saw Star Wars around that age, and returned to the cinema later that week to see it two more times, I couldn't agree more.
 

As for comedian Don Rickles...

 

Bom Vimdin: smuggler & mercenary

 

One of the patrons of the Mos Eisley cantina was later named Bom Vimdin. But during the filming of the cantina scene, the character lacked a name. So, according to online source Wookieepedia, the production crew gave him one.

Yes, you guessed it. They called him: Don Rickles.

Dragon Dave

P.S. Want to read the entire interview? Here's the Link:

Starlog #21 Mark Hamill Interview

Mark Hamill, the Parisian Movie Critic & Harlan Ellison

 

26 year old Mark Hamill

 

In an interview in Starlog #21, published in April 1979, a young Mark Hamill recounts a conversation with a Parisian movie critic.

Reporter: "Not only did I find Star Wars vapid and unimaginative, but I found it downright frightening in its mystical-religious, crypto-fascist, bargain-basement dogma."

Mark Hamill: "I bet you can't say that three times fast."

 

 

The interviewer suggests that the critic who irked Mark Hamill the most was noted science fiction author Harlan Ellison. It seems the famous author argued that Star Wars represented the triumph of technology over content, and of special effects over a "people" story, to the ultimate detriment of both science fiction and literature.

According to Hamill, Ellison also wrote, "Luke Skywalker is a nerd, and Darth Vader sucks runny eggs."

Mark Hamill's response?

"I saw him on a talk show in Canada and I thought he was like a game show host. He's like the Don Rickles of science fiction."

Hey, no knocking the late Don Rickles, Mark! He was cool!

Dragon Dave

P.S. Want to read the entire interview? Here's the Link:

Starlog #21 Mark Hamill Interview

Ray Bradbury on Ray Harryhausen

Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen bonded over their mutual love of dinosaurs, and remained lifelong friends.  When Harryhausen took charge of special effects for “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,” he told the producers about “The Fog Horn,” a Bradbury story that contained similar plot elements to those in their movie.  So the producers paid Bradbury for the rights to film his story, and both men could say that, in a way, they had worked together.  In his Foreward to Dinosaur Tales, Ray Harryhausen writes, “Hopefully the Fates have in store another subject, yet unborn, that will bring us together professionally once again.”

Most of us have an idealized view of Ray Harryhausen.  With our near instant-access to information and movies, we can easily recognize the superiority of Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation, and judge how well it holds up against contemporary techniques.  But before the Internet and the Home Video market, it wasn’t always so easy to learn about those who worked behind the camera.  Harryhausen often locked himself away in his one-man studio for weeks at a time, and still had to oversee scripts and the director’s working methods to ensure that his animated creations would seamlessly intercut with live action.  Despite such high level involvement in the production process, it was still the film’s director who got the name recognition.  Ray Harryhausen was just one of many listed in the credits. 

While some recognized his brilliance, in his era Sci-fi films were usually geared toward children.  Thus, he was rarely assigned to an A-list film.  Instead, he worked on B-movies, with smaller budgets and (usually) a no-name cast.  His films would be paired with the bigger-budget, star-vehicle A-movies for release in first-run cinemas, or distributed directly to second-run theaters.  Several of his movies, such as “The Three Worlds of Gulliver,” “Mysterious Island,” “Jason and the Argonauts,” and “First Men in the Moon” were box office disappointments.  Despite the commercial success of 1981’s “Clash of the Titans,” the studios decided the overwhelming success of newer special effects techniques, such as those used by the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises, represented the future, and refused to back any more of his films.

The artist Moebius brings to life cantankerous
film producer Joe Clarence,
and the dinosaur model he criticizes and covets,
in "Tyrannosaurus Rex."

With “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” the final story in Dinosaur Tales, Ray Bradbury introduces us to Terwilliger, a man who animates dinosaurs for feature films.  Terwilliger never gets enough money to pay for his equipment, let alone to enjoy a life anywhere near as glamorous as that of the producers who hire him.  After his latest boss forces him to work at a loss, he nags Terwilliger to let him have his model dinosaur when the production finishes.  He also forces the man to repeatedly change the dinosaur’s features, dragging him further behind schedule each time, and thereby consigning his former work to the trash.  Despite all the abuse, Terwilliger carries on, because he loves his dinosaurs, and he loves his work.  Ray Bradbury claims he wrote the story because of how one producer treated his friend, so perhaps it sheds more light on a man whose fame continues to spread, and whose work we appreciate more and more, because he didn’t care about things like money or fame.  He loved his creatures, and stories they allowed him to tell.  For him, that was enough.

After "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms," Ray Harryhausen animated dinosaurs in two more films: “One Million Years B.C.” and “The Valley of Gwanji.”  Still, I can’t help but wonder what might have been, had "the Fates" smiled on Harryhausen and Bradbury, and allowed them to really make a movie together.

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries
Five Essential Ray Harryhausen Films

Related Internet Links

The artist called Moebius

Ray Bradbury on Art

Kenneth Smith introduces us to
Bradbury's Dinosaur celebration

In his introduction to Dinosaur Tales, Ray Bradbury likens most of 20th century art to a Chinese dinner.  An hour after leaving the museum, he was hungry again.

When Bradbury visited art galleries, he found that he enjoyed Pre-Raphaelite paintings, a 19^th Century movement that celebrated heart-felt affection for subjects, rather than defining art in clinical and mechanistic terms.  “I was satisfied by nothing less than story, symbol, metaphor as found in all [Pre-Raphaelite] works…I raced backward through London and Paris, with Gustave Dore and Grandville, to knock heads with John Martin and try to replan the morals of Gin Lane and Fleet Street with Hogarth, or frolic in Louis’ court with Callot.  Goya drove me to war, sat with me at bullfights, rode me on witch-brooms, and I was never the same.” 

William Stout's Illustration for
"A Sound of Thunder"

Pre-Raphaelite art clearly resonated with Bradbury, which makes his approval of the artists who illustrated Dinosaur Tales all the more significant.  “When this book’s editor showed me illustrated samples of these glorious beasts, I could not resist.  The ghost of Harold Foster, who drew Tarzan for six years back in the early 1930s spoke to me.  It said: Remember my dinosaurs that trudged your midnight bed and flew your ceiling skies!  The ghosts of the creators of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon said just about the same thing.  My comic-collections, still gathered and waiting in my basement, fifty years later, reminded me of my first, art-oriented passions.  [Edmund] Dulac, [Gustaf] Tenggren, and [Arthur] Rackham raised this child from the crib on.”  (The latter three illustrated books children’s books and Fairy Tale collections that Bradbury grew up reading).

Overton Loyd's imagery dances above
"Lo, the Dear, Daft Dinosaurs!"

What Dinosaur Tales lacks in text-length, it makes up for with single- and double-page Black & White illustrations.  In addition to the cover art, William Stout energizes and deepens the mood of the classic Time Travel story “A Sound of Thunder.”  Steranko helps us feel for the sea monster that confuses the lighthouse for another of its kind in “The Fog Horn.”  Moebius illustrates “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” a story in which Bradbury pays homage to his life-long friend Ray Harryhausen.  Overton Loyd and Gahan Wilson add whimsy to two light-hearted poems: “Lo, the Dear, Daft Dinosaurs!” and “What if I Said: The Dinosaur’s Not Dead.”  My favorite story in the book, “Besides a Dinosaur, Whatta Ya Wanna Be When You Grow Up?” also contains my favorite artwork.  It’s hard to not compare David Wiesner’s lavish illustrations to those old Pre-Rafaelite masters.  Lastly, Kenneth Smith enlivens the parts of the book we might otherwise skim through to get to the good stuff: the title page, the table of contents, Ray Harryhausen’s Foreward, and Ray Bradbury’s Introduction.    

Alongside Bradbury, David Wiesner asks
"Besides a Dinosaur, Whatta Ya Wanna Be When You Grow Up?"

Ray Bradbury sounds like a man ever hungry for new learning experiences.  He found those, to a certain extent, in art galleries and museums.  But he also never forgot the illustrators he loved as a child, who breathed life into the stories he read, and inspired him to spend his life telling stories to all of us.  Dinosaur Tales reminds us that we should never feel ashamed, or too grown up, to enjoy the simpler forms of literature, such as children’s stories and comic books.

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links
More Kenneth Smith artwork
William Stout's website
Fan Page for Overton Loyd
David Wiesner's website

Where NASA and Star Wars Collide

At the David L. Mason Children’s Museum, located within the Dunedin Fine Art Center, children can live their dreams.  They can play in mockups of a Gemini Capsule or a Space Shuttle, they can draw and color at an Apollo desk, and they can dance with a stormtrooper.  In the latter, a snippet from “The Return of the Jedi” has been ingeniously altered so that a stormtrooper dances and plays a trombone while Emperor Palpatine sits in his black chair, stares out his large observation window, and ignores you.  (Given the way he treats his apprentices, that’s probably a good thing).  Children can grab an astronaut helmet, a stormtrooper helmet, or other Science and Sci-fi accouterments and dance to the swinging stormtrooper’s tune.  A camera picks up their movements, and places them alongside the stormtrooper on a TV screen.  Such a fusion of real Science and Sci-fi might inspire them to one day work in the space industry.  How cool would that be?

Fun and play also take place at the stop motion area.  Children can choose from the selection of toys, and place them on a miniature film set.  One click forms the beginning of a movie, and a small monitor shows them their previous picture, so they can move the item, or add others, and then click the camera again.  After awhile, kids will want to chart the progress of their movie, so they can hit “Play,” and their little stop motion animated short will play from beginning to end, as many times as they want.  (If memory serves, parents could bring a digital memory card, and return home with their child’s movie).  Your children might grow up to make movies like “Clash of the Titans” or “Wallace and Grommit” someday.  How cool would that be?

The museum offers a Visual Arts Camp during the summer, and at other times of the year, there are special exhibits dedicated to Science, Sci-fi, and Fantasy.  On the day we attended, they hosted “Intergalactic, a Mixed Media Invitational.”  Had we attended earlier in the year, we could have seen “My Favorite Martian—Self Portrait as Alien.”  If your child makes something impressive, the staff might display it in the children’s art room, in which an X-Wing and a Millenium Falcon have been suspended from the ceiling.  Just make sure that you take them to the gift shop, where they can be inspired by a door that could be a spaceship, an inhabited asteroid, or something else really imaginative. 

When is a door not a door?  When it’s an alien’s face, an upside-down hovercraft, or a self-propelled beauty compact that comes to hand immediately when needed, that’s when.  (Only this case, it’s also a door).

Of course, you can always let them take home a memento from their visit.  Just be sure to sign them up for classes.  Lots of classes.  

Dragon Dave

Those Spectacular Movies

In “The Power of Star Wars” Parts 1 and 2, I talked about how watching that particular movie in the cinema changed my life.  An activity that grew out of my love for Star Wars was attending conventions.  There were all kinds of conventions back then, just as there are today.  Some were primarily literary in nature.  Some focused more on Horror.  Some chiefly celebrated Star Trek.  But for me, the primary consideration for attending a convention was the movies they would show.

It’s hard for me to journey back in my mind and remember how I felt whenever I attended one of those media-based conventions.  Today, I’ve got many of my favorite TV shows, and oh-so-many movies, instantly at my fingertips via my DVD collection.  If those don’t suffice, I can turn on my 42” flatscreen TV, and watch any number of movies on more than a hundred channels.  But back in the late 1970s, science fiction and fantasy movies (sci-fi) were a more finite resource.  

My parents had two thirteen-inch Black-and-White TVs (with the old square-shaped screen) in our home.  My father swore that we would never have a color TV.  “They're bad for you,” he told me, whenever I would ask.  After “Star Wars” gave me an insatiable hunger for sci-fi, I talked my parents into letting me have one of the sets in my room.  Perhaps I complained about wanting to watch “Space 1999” when they were enjoying “The Lawrence Welk Show” until they caved in.  Maybe they just took pity on me.  At any rate, I would scan the TV listings for anything vaguely sci-fi on the six or so channels that we received, and hopefully it was scheduled for broadcast during a time period in which I could watch it.  Or, if it was scheduled for past my bedtime, I might have begged my parents to let me stay up.

Today, a filmmaker contracts special effects out to whichever company he believes can do the best job in the least time for the lowest price.  But before Star Wars and ILM, any director who wanted to make a sci-fi movie had to hire people individually, and hope that not only were they as good as they claimed, but that they could work well with him and their future coworkers.  There were special effects “wizards” like Douglas Trumbell and Ray Harryhausen, each of whom had their own unique style and capabilities.  If a moviemaker got one of them, he was fortunate.  But most of the time, producers hired what people they could afford, who would then conduct experiments in their laboratories, to see if they could realize the effects envisioned by the director.

Most of the time, they couldn’t.

Without ongoing effects houses, sci-fi movies were made less often.  Perhaps one or two might be released each year.  Certainly this would have been true of major studio productions.  Thus, there was a feeling that the catalogue of existing science fiction movies was limited.  If a person had the resources, and were sufficiently dedicated, he or she could see every sci-fi movie that had ever been made.  I don’t remember if I ever had such lofty ambitions, but I know that I wanted to see any sci-fi movie I could.  Thus, I looked forward to the major media conventions each year.  As soon as I arrived, I’d scan the programs and mark off all the movies that I had never seen.  Back then, all of them seemed unique in some way.  They might not have compared to “Star Wars,” but that didn’t matter.  Each presented a distinct vision of the writer and director.  Each displayed effects that people had worked hard to produce, many times using highly innovative techniques.  

Sometimes, I wonder what happened to that boy.  The one who hungered to see every sci-fi movie he could possibly see, instead of researching particular movies to determine which ones were truly worth his time.  The one who saw each one as special, instead of labeling it as derivative if the previews reminded him too much of another movie he’d seen.  

I seem to remember that he judged none of them too harshly. And that he loved them all.

When was the last time you really hungered to see a movie, not because it received great reviews or because your friends saw it as important, but merely because it represented a filmmaker's attempt to realize his unique vision?

Related Dragon Cache entries

Three Shining Moments

Sherlock Holmes: The New Bond

The Second Coming of John Carter

Five Essential Ray Harryhausen Films

In the beginning, there was “Clash of the Titans.”  Or perhaps I should say, at the end, there was “Clash of the Titans.”  The movie seems destined to go down in history as Ray Harryhausen’s most remembered film, and arguably represents his best, and therefore “the best” example of classic stop-motion animation.  Given the success of the 2010 remake, and the recent release of “Wrath of the Titans,” its popularity seems assured.  But what of all the other great movies he made?  

“Clash of the Titans” was the only Ray Harryhausen movie I saw in the cinema.  Although I might have subsequently seen it once or twice on TV, I never bought a VHS recording.  But one day, as I perused the DVD store, I happened upon it, remembered how much I had enjoyed it, and brought it home to enjoy.  Even well into the era of modern special effects extravaganzas such as the Star Wars prequels and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Ray Harryhausen’s artistry served as a refreshing reminder that one doesn’t need teams of digital artists, warehouses of computers processing millions of lines of code, and unimaginable amounts of money to make a decent Sci-fi movie.  (Nor does one need a team of animators or other special effects people, at least not if you've got someone with Harryhausen's creativity and focus working for you).  The extras on "Clash" also served an important purpose: they highlighted other great movies that Ray Harryhausen had made.  Suddenly, I had the catalogue of another great artist to explore!

In the intervening years, I’ve seen lots of this pioneering master’s work, and am always looking for more.  Yet, with all the new movies that get released each year, and all the movies that are reissued on DVD every week, it would be easy for the next generation of Sci-fi fans to ignore his earlier work.  This seems a shame, as his work made such a huge impact on the film industry.  Therefore, I’ve assembled a list of the essential non-“Clash” movies that any lover of stop-motion animation should see.  I call it:

Five Ray Harryhausen Films That Must Not Be Missed!

1. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

2. It Came from Beneath the Sea

3. Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers

4. Mysterious Island

5. The Golden Voyage of Sinbad

The first two movies play on the 1950s concern regarding the unintended effects of nuclear radiation due to atomic bomb tests and explosions.  Today’s filmmakers remember the third as one of the best Flying Saucer movies ever made.  Each of the three, in a metaphorical way, plays to mankind’s eternal fears of what dangers might suddenly overtake us, without warning, whether we are on land, at sea, or from the skies.  All of them also address Cold War era fears through metaphor.  

The latter two, while more Fantasy than Science Fiction, play to the child in all of us.  “Mysterious Island” was based on a Jules Verne novel involving an island where gigantic creatures exist, and included his character Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.  “The Golden Age of Sinbad,” the second of three Sinbad movies, brings gigantic creatures from myths and classic fantasy stories to life.  Both make us ask what wonders might still await us, as we continue to explore our world.

Well, there you have it: five classic Ray Harryhausen movies that I feel must be seen.  That is, in addition to his triumphant swan song, “Clash of the Titans.”  The latter, as I said in the beginning (and I’m sure that Tina Turner would agree), is simply the best.  But then again, when it comes to stop-motion animation, so is he.

What are your favorite Ray Harryhausen films?  What movies of his do you feel should have shouldered their way past the others on my list?  While I always welcome readers’ comments, I’m particularly interested in hearing from any passionate Ray Harryhausen fans out there.

Internet Links for Harryhausen fans

The Official Ray Harryhausen Website

Movie Trailers That Turn Us Off

I used to look forward to watching movie trailers in the cinema.  On TV, trailers for an upcoming movie generally last only twenty or thirty seconds, whereas cinema trailers can extend up to two-and-a-half minutes.  Like miniature movies, movie trailers employ a three-act structure, and are crafted to tell a story that entrances the audience while leaving them hungering for more.  But nowadays, when cinemas screen TV-style ads, promote special one-night-only shows, then follow these up with eight or ten trailers, I’m sometimes exhausted, or at least annoyed, by the time the feature starts.  

Nevertheless, I still love trailers, whether I watch them online, in the theater, or on DVD.  Their creators must work to overcome certain limitations, such as making the trailer before the movie crew has wrapped up production.  In addition to piecing together video from rushes (scenes which may or may not make their way into the final movie), they must also serve as their own composers, and create their own sound effects, as the finished sound and score are often not finalized until shortly before the film is released.  The efforts of such unsung heroes are celebrated each year with The Golden Trailer Awards and the Key Art Awards.  Occasionally, such people even find their way onto the big screen: in “The Holiday,” Cameron Diaz plays Amanda Woods, a movie-trailer creator, who find love when she decides to spend Christmas in England.  

Like all art, trailers have gone through notable periods of mutation.  Sci-Fi movie trailers from the fifties, for example, often feature large text punctuated with exclamation marks.  “The flying squid monsters from Venus!  Watch your head!  They’ll eat your brains!”  Movies from the sixties and seventies, and perhaps even the eighties, show scenes from the movie, overladen with a presenter’s rich, deep tones saying things like “See the fantastic world of tomorrow,” “Watch [the hero’s] amazing journey,” “Thrill to his death-defying struggle,” or “Marvel at the spectacular special effects.”  While looking back on the trends of an earlier era can be fun, I wonder how today’s trailers affect us, given the current decline in cinema attendance.

Two years ago, my wife and I saw the movie trailers for the upcoming remake of Ray Harryhausen’s final film: “Clash of the Titans.”  Despite her love for the original story, the tremendously upgraded special effects, and exciting imagery, she refused to go see the 2010 film in the cinema.  This year, I finally convinced her to watch the movie on DVD, and she proved not only an ardent fan of the remake, but the motive force behind getting us out to see the sequel.  Yet, while she enjoyed last weekend’s “Wrath of the Titans,” she found herself losing interest in the upcoming Ridley Scott film “Prometheus.”  While earlier trailers had prompted her interest, she literally could not watch the latest one; she had to close her eyes to keep from growing ill. 

Current big-budget action movies, and particularly ones geared toward the Science Fiction and Fantasy crowd, seem to utilize several common elements.  Some of these techniques involve: interspersing brightly lit scenes with intensely dark scenes; using a moment of black or white to divide two intense scenes; or using black to break up a fast moving scene to produce a stutter-like effect.  Married with such violent exchanges of lighting are sound effects such as deep booms, clanging symbols, electronic wailing, or clashing notes or chords.  Alternatively, the moment of black separating two scenes may momentarily break up loud sound with silence.  The latest trailer for “Prometheus” maximizes the usage of such techniques: while the trailer begins with more sedate imagery, toward the end scenes are interrupted with repeated wailing and strobe-like flashes of white.

While I’m not an expert in any field of medicine, it seems likely that prolonged exposure to such interchanges of light and sound can stress the eyes and ears, tighten ones muscles, and induce headaches.  I’m not arguing that watching a succession of such trailers can provoke an epileptic seizure, or lead to other significant medical conditions.  But there have been a number of times in the past few years that my wife would turn to me after watching a movie trailer and say, “That one looks too intense for me.”  And that's it.  We may watch the movie later on DVD.  Then again, given all the demands of life, we may never see a movie that we might otherwise have fallen in love with.  

As for the 2010 version of “Clash of the Titans,” it may not have been the best movie ever made, but I nonetheless wish we could have watched it on the big screen together.  To a certain extent, I feel like we’ve been cheated.  For we’ve missed out on a unique experience that can never be repeated: experiencing a great film for the first time on the big screen (with or without soda, popcorn, and a box of Whoppers).  I wonder how many other people have been turned off by a trailer's over-hyped intensity, and thus contributed to the decline in overall theater attendance.  

We all yearn for a little intensity to spice up our lives, but as with the level of complexity in the dual-realities of the TV show “Awake,” sometimes too much of a good thing actually turns us off.  

Related Internet Links

A Movie Trailer primer from Wikipedia

An Article on Light Stimulation from the Canadian Epilepsy Alliance

Effects on everyone from Light Sensitivity from the Epilepsy Foundation