When I was a kid, all I had to hear was "Ray Harryhausen" and I would move mountains to watch whatever movie it was. Edit: It's "Stop-Motion Animation" not "Stop Animation"...the latter is essentially a photo album.
I "get it". Nothing like sharing the wonder and joy of escapist adventure with family during childhood. 👊🏾 (For me it was seeing "Jason And The Argonauts" in the theater, back in 1963, then going again with my big brother and his teen friends a week later 😁👍🏾)
@@GordonBeckles I was 6 when my sister took me to see "One Million Years, B.C." at a theater in Seoul, Korea. It wasn't until 1970 that I first heard of 2 things: Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and, within its pages, the name of Ray Harryhausen associated with a B&W pic of the Cyclops from 7th Voyage. For years, I lusted to see that movie, 20 Million Miles to Earth and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (no VCRs back then) and, after a while, I started to realize that the same man was responsible for them all. One night, when I was around 14, I caught a movie on TV I had never heard of: Jason and the Argonauts. As soon as I saw his name in the credits, I was immediately hooked. What ensued totally blew me away.
@@varanid9 It's sooooo invigorating to share these experiences with the generations that come after "us". I've made sure to gift VHSs, then DVDs, then digital downloads/streaming with my children, nieces/nephews, friends and associates children, just because these films are sooooo awesome. I have no grandchildren yet... 😉 ...but you KNOW I look forward to reliving this particular sense of wonder with them. It's magical... 😁👍🏾🙏🏾👊🏾
Sad fact I'm afraid. But the Trog stop motion puppet, ended up being cannibalised by Ray to create Calibos for Clash of the Titans. And before any body replies. the word 'cannibalised' can be applied for the act of stripping necessary parts from any machine or man made object. And not just devouring the flesh of ones own species. Yeah, somebody actually made that response to me when I posted this fact on another Ray Harryhausen vid.
I know it's not him but the monsters in Jack the Giant Killer are done in his style it's one of my favorite films that was heavily influenced by Harryhausen.
When I was a kid, my parents took me and my younger brother to see The Golden Voyage of Sinbad in the theater and we were hooked. We would eagerly comb through the TV Guide each week for the Saturday Afternoon movies which would feature Sci-Fi movies, hoping that one of Ray Harryhausen films was airing. My favorite films were Jason and the Argonauts, Mysterious Island, The Valley of Gwangi, Golden Voyage of Sinbad. When I grew older, I appreciated the films scores as much as the visual effects. Of course you could never forget about Caroline Munroe's contributions. I also saw in the theater - Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger and then Clash of the Titans.
I think the dragon from Seventh Voyage of Sinbad is severely underrated. Ray Harryhausen got a ton of character into the dragon in a very small amount of screen time
Not even joking, the Cyclops, Ymir and Rhedosaurus are some of my favorite monsters from ANY Movie, of ALL TIME. *ESPECIALLY* the Cyclops. i cannot even go into words how much i love him. Granted, i love pretty much everything he worked on, "The Skeletons especially, though i left them off the list cause they're just Skeletons... nothing super special, compared to the others, though i do adore their animation and sculpting" but Medusa, the Kraken, and many others i also love. Mighty Joe Young, i could go on for hours. he was one of my personal heroes.. i wish i had gotten to meet him..
Yeah, but that cyclops is iconic. And there have been other cyclops and monsters based on that one, even in video games. It may be my top Harryhausen monster of all time, and in my top 3 of ANY monster.
At 65 years of age, looking back, I can comfortably (and confidently) say that Ray Harryhausen's films defined Sci-fi, Fantasy, and Mythology for me. His work shaped my taste. The experience of watching of rewatching "Jason And The Argonauts" in the theater with my family in 1963 (😁 and a week later with big brother and his teen friends) activated my inner nerd lonnnnng before Sci-fi/fantasy became mainstream. (As a matter of fact, the main dislike fueling my disappointment with "Conan The Barbarian" decades later, was DeLaurentis not hiring Ray Harryhausen to do the effects.) Say "Super Dynamation" to 70, 60, 50 year olds (who are "in the know")... 😉 ...and you'll see our eyes sparkle. The big dumb smile on my face as I write this... ☺ ...is same as the big dumb smile on the faces of those who "get it" while reading this. Ray Harryhausen. R.I.P. Maestro 👍🏾❤👏🏾🔥👊🏾
Absolutely. I think, however, Ray might have been a bad fit for a Conan movie as, though monsters are important to Conan stories, their involvement is minimal and I don't think Ray liked to do R-rated films. Also, though I like that first Conan film, it's not a truly accurate take on Howard's stories.
@@varanid9 You're absolutely right about the DeLaurentis take on Conan. Taking Thulsa Doom from "King Kull" (probably 'cause they like the sound of the name) and placing him in the Conan saga is typical Hollywood muckabout. 😏 I hear you about fantastical creatures not being the central point of Conan films, as this isn't the point of these stories... however, imagine how much better the impact, if Harryhausen had done the reawakened corpse/mummy scene when Conan claimed his sword (like in the book) instead of a playing it out "spooky house" style. Or having the temple serpent scene brought to life with a dragonesque serpent (😆 ME taking liberties now)... instead of the weak practical effects giant snake DeLaurentis' production gave us. I honestly don't know if Maestro Harryhausen would have had difficulty with the relatively graphic violence or sexual innuendos in the production, but somehow, I'd bet we'd have gotten a far superior product than what we ended up getting. To me Harryhausen's effects would have made Conan The Barbarian a much more complete package, for while horror, the fantastical, and/or Lovecraftian is not what drives Robert E. Howard's work, his use of these elements in hero tales is (for me) a crucial element that should never have been downplayed. Maybe they were afraid of appearing too "Sinbad" or "Jason" in a time when swords, sandals, dragons, and wizards were not necessarily in fashion???
To this day, i prefer his artistic fx to CGI. You can see the attention to detail and love he put into each piece. Amazing video and it made me break out.my dvd copies of some of his.movies! Loved the Roc, and had the COTT Kraken toy as a kid!
Jason and the argonauts was one of my all time favourite films to watch as a youngster, the time machine was another. Clash of the Titans was cool,along with Warlords of Atlantis.
Man, I loved Ray and I felt so bad for him during the last few years of his life as technology had rendered him, the 'Greatest Special Effects Man in History' obsolete. His ground breaking stop motion techniques replaced by computers and green screen. I think we all lost something. The sheer wonder of his Genuis. 😢
The creatures in "First Men in the Moon" were all done by Harryhausen, too, and were, in their own way, much harder to animate than the skeletons in the Sinbad movie because there were many more than just 7 of them.
Harryhausen did so much for movies. Before this we just had characters describing what monsters were doing or unimpressive giant models that didn't really move. Ray wanted to show what a fantasy adventure could be. The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad showed just how amazing a fantasy adventure could be. Between both the Cyclopes, the Roc, and the Dragon this movie was amazing. Though I also really loved Clash of the Titans since the hero got specially made magic items from the gods to help him. I looked up the original myth of Perceus and the movie is much better.
'Clash of the Titans' is my all-time favorite Ray Harryhausen monster film. I was 3 years old when the movie came out, the perfect age to me sufficiently scared by the many terrifying creatures that were featured in the film. None terrified me as much as Medusa. I swear to God that entire sequence of Perceus and his men entering her dark domain while she lurks in the shadows stalking them is one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen on screen. One by one the hideous Medusa picks off Perseus' men leaving him no choice but to face her alone. You can literally feel Perseus' fear in the dreadful moment his back is against a pillar and Medusa is only inches away from him as she approaches from the rear not realizing that the hunter has become the hunted. It is only when her head is cut off and rolls across the floor you sigh in relief with Perseus. The Medusa segment gave childhood me nightmares for weeks. It still holds up 43 years later. Watching it as an adult I get as scared as I did when I was a kid. Ray Harryhausen put a lot of quality into his work, and it shows. The films featuring his magnificent and horrifying creatures are timeless classics that will give generations of people thrills and chills for many years to come.
I always thought it was a great pity that none of the studios would back him when he wanted to make an adaptation of War of the Worlds, going in the end with the famous 1953 version. Rays ideas followed the HG Wells novel far more closely with Tripods and octopus like martians etc. I'm sure if he had made it, it would have been a masterpiece. I have always loved his work from the first time I saw one of his movies as a kid in the sixties until now.
Has anyone else ever thought that the stone sight of the Medusa was not a curse but the only form of protection that could keep horny god away from his victim
7th Voyage: Cyclops: Goat legs and is NOT a cannibal. He never tried to eat another cyclops, just a human. You could call him a man-eater but not a cannibal.
There seem to be many of Harryhausens creations that were missed/ignored, the dragon, the harpies (Jason and the Argonauts), the Selenites (First Men in the Moon), Prince Kassim (as the baboon), the sabertooth tiger, the metal giant (Jason and...), a pentapus that attaxcked the Golden Gate Bridge (I forget the title. [Pentapus because the studio wouldn't pay him to make a full octopus, but only enough for five tentacles]), and all the other dinosaurs seen in "Valley of Gwanji". There were probably others I've missed.
@@44excalibur Maybe for you, but others can and do have different opinions of what's most memorable, but that's all they are, personal opinions and preferences. While many of the creatures he designed stick in our memories, the experience can be somewhat ruined when the creature he modeled (especially if it's a well-known creature from legend, folklore or mythology) has some feature that was not in the legend, folklore or mythology, such as the roc having two heads, Medusa having the lower body (or being an expert archer), of a snake, or the horns in the middle of the foreheads of Trog and the Cyclops. While, to me, the skeletons were impressive, the Hydra looked more like what was described in mythology, as an example. Even the elephants attacked by both Gwanji and Ymir looked more like what was known than some of those from folklore/legends that had strange additions to them, and Talos, the bronze giant from "Jason and the Argonauts" was more as it was described in mythology.
Le grand Ray harryausen n aimait pas qu' ont appellent monstres ces créatures. Ray a été un émule total et absolut le meilleur qui soit du maître willis o brien.
