I agree. This statement in no way is meant to negate that, but something a lot of people don't realize today, is that before Jurassic Park, all movies used models. Stop-motion was used to move the AT-ATs in the Empire Strikes Back as well. But what really impresses me is the space battle in Return of the Jedi. While not exactly stop motion, the fact that during some scenes literally dozens of ships are flying, and had to be superimposed a frame at a time is amazing
I watched this movie on TV after school a few times during the 1960s. Tremendously well made movie. The images, effects and audio stuck with me. I would sometimes have dreams about those saucers. I'm sure I'm not the only person who did.
This was a great man with such a vision - he populated my youth with such excitement if not "horror" with his stop-motion animation in the days before CGI. Thank you for sharing this video with the community to show the younger generations how it was "in the old days"!, Ciao L
Tremendous difference between stop motion animation and a guy wandering around in a monkey suit. He learned from the best and carried the torch in what is now deemed unnecessary I guess with CGI. But CGI can sometimes look cartoonish in comparison. Yes the fur moves around on King Kong for no reason, but the movies were just awesome and probably scary as hell to the audience in their time. For this movie, when people were flying saucer crazy, this had to be huge. As always, the most difficult part is creating a good space alien without turning the movie into a comedy. The budgets I’m sure we’re limited so they had to go with the space aliens wearing the protective suits. Very cool win the one is unmasked and a shame they couldn’t show more of the space aliens talking with each other
*BLOOPER ALERT!**2:20** Incorrect Dante. They were not jets that were shown crashing in the movie. Even as a kid in the 1950's, I caught that Blooper, **_because they were easily recognized as P-51 Mustangs!_** That I found out later, in 1978, had collided during the filming of a combat training exercise.*
Mr Harryhausen was great in that he also passed on some of his expertise to OTHER SFX artists, like Jim Danforth, whose work can be seen in films like FLESH GORDON(his "great god Porno" is a hoot!)
Rafael, Ray's father, Fred Harryhausen, was a machinist, and he made the saucers for Ray. Fred actually made most of Ray's puppet armatures for Ray's films, up to Jason and the Argonauts.
