Thank you, Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen with one of his sword-fighting skeletons from JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS

Ray Harryhausen, who died today at age 92, was a unique genius of movie special effects.  His stop-motion animation created the vivid creatures that made possible movies about ancient mythology (from the 1958 The 7th Voyage of Sinbad through the 1981 Clash of the Titans) and fantasy literature (The Three Worlds of Gulliver).  His pioneering work in stop-motion animation has influenced the field since, all the way to today’s Aardman Animation and Wallace and Gromit.

Harryhausen’s masterpiece was the 1963 Jason and the Argonauts, for which he created the Harpies, Talos, the Clashing Rocks Triton, the Hydra and the sword-fighting skeletons that emerge from the Hydra’s teeth.  I still watch Jason and the Argonauts whenever it’s on TV, and I often give the DVD to kids.   Thank you, Harry.

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