Hey guys. As some of you know I'm an absurd movie fan, particularly horror and science fiction. A good movie has always been able to lift me out of whatever doldrum I may be in. A good movie can take me out of my own life and problems, even if it is for two hours. My father and I have never been very good at communicating on an emotional level... a definite, strong underlying mutual love, but we're guys, we don't talk about our feelings. But my father and I could always bond over movies, even to this day. That's why some news I received today deeply saddens me.
Yesterday a practical special effects artist named Stan Winston died. Now unless you're a film geek like myself, you probably don't know his name. And this statement I'm about to make is why I am so saddened: If you name a single fantastical, iconic creature from any movie in the last 30 years, there's about a 95% chance he created it. The Thing, The Terminator, The Alien Queen, The Predator, Pumpkinhead, The Burton Batman movies, Men in Black, Jurassic Park, The Iron Man suits, these were all brought to life by Stan Winston. In a time when movie effects are sadly dominated by CGI that doesn't quite pass muster as reality, Stan Winston was one of the last great hold outs of practical effects, the art of bringing imagination into three dimensional life. No actor will ever react quite the same way to a ping pong ball on a green screen as they will an 8 foot monstrosity baring it's teeth, drooling at the prospect of eating them. I'm looking at his IMDB entry right now... This guy's work is so vast he's even credited for the makeup effects on the Roots miniseries back in '77. I'll bet Levar Burton is a Stan Winston creation.
My great fear is that, with Winston gone, all movies will now turn into some George Lucas ILM CGI nightmare that looks like it was scribbled on the screen with neon crayola. As far as great practical FX studios we have only KNB (Dusk till Dawn, and every zombie movie you ever heard of), whoever the hell is doing Guillermo Del Toro's stuff, and parts of WETA.... but we're never going to have another Stan Winston.