RIP Leonard Nimoy

A couple of days ago, it was reported that Leonard Nimoy had been admitted to hospital. Today he died as a result of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. My condolences, for what they are worth, go out to his family and friends.

For me, as a fan, this is an end of an era moment. Partly it feels like a tipping point for the cast of classic Trek, but also just that Nimoy himself was such a presence. His height, that face, and the voice. He could really sell the technobabble, and that was a big part of what made the whole thing work.

Who else is there like him? I guess Patrick Stewart was the Nimoy of TNG, with Jonathan Frakes as his Shatner. I can't think of anyone with the same kind of oomph below the age of 65, which bodes ill for future Trek. Zachary Quinto does his best in the reboot, but it's not the same.

Live long and prosper.

He was also the link between the various incarnations of Trek, with his appearances in The Next Generation and the reboot movies grounding them to the 'real' Trek. Again, that was all about the presence. The reboot used a time travel gimmick and he sold it to us.

Leonard Nimoy was a true original. He will be missed.

Movie Musings - RIP Ray Harryhausen

Way, way back in the mists of time, even before the virus effect graphics in The Thing were deemed way too advanced to be rendered by any computer, there were two kinds of dinosaur movie. One type took a lizard, stuck some horns on its head, filmed it crawling around and fighting another lizard, and called it a tyrannosaurus Rex fighting a brontosaurus. The other painstakingly built articulated models of dinosaurs to the best available reference and used stop-motion animation to make them seem to move like live things.

The first kind was cheaper, and had the advantage of real-time filming, but the second always felt more real, and much of that was due to the work of one man.

Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013) was a pioneer of stop-motion, a technical wizard and a master terasgenitor; he created movie effects that were unrivaled for decades. Even today, few CGI creations feel as real as his work, and it was only with the advent of large-scale animatronics that effects began to interact with actors as well as they seemed to with Harryhausen's animations. Many modern productions contain CG sequences which are shot and staged as an homage to the master, his influence is that great.

While stop-motion is not used much in feature films these days, Harryhausen remains something almost unique in cinema: A technical visionary whose work has never been surpassed. His influence will long outlive him.