Clash of the Titans, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Star Wars, and Conan the Barbarian were all the business to my pre-teen brain. But I want to dedicate this blog post to one man in particular. I just got done watching the 2012 documentary Ray Herryhausen: Special Effects Titan. It was pretty good and worth the 1 hour 37 minute run time. He had a decades long career creating stop motion special effects models.
Three of his movies made a lasting impression on me as a youth. 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)Jason and the Agonauts (1963) and Clash of the Titans (1981).
7 Voyages is ok, basically it’s a build up for what is to come. For Jason and the Agonauts, the fight scenes are bigger and better: the fight with the harpies to free the blind man from their torment begs for a WFB scenario to be built around it.
And battle with the three guys taking on the seven skeletons is legendary!
Lots of good stuff there, I don’t want to spoil the movie if you haven’t seen it. What are you waiting for?
Now Clash of the Titans. This was a movie I grew up on. I was 9 years old when it was made but didn’t see it until it came on to cable. When I did see it, my mind was blown. It is in the group of movies that defined for me what fantasy/sci-fi/adventure was all about.
Gifts from the Gods, taming a Pegasus, fighting a beastman, out smarting three witches, defeating the Gorgon and saving the princess smack of old school rpg to me.
Now Clash of the Titans. This was a movie I grew up on. I was 9 years old when it was made but didn’t see it until it came on to cable. When I did see it, my mind was blown. It is in the group of movies that defined for me what fantasy/sci-fi/adventure was all about.
Gifts from the Gods, taming a Pegasus, fighting a beastman, out smarting three witches, defeating the Gorgon and saving the princess smack of old school rpg to me.
And Ray Harryhausen brought it all to life on the screen. His genius fired my imagination. And it seems to me that I wasn’t the only one. It’s my belief that the models Mr Harryhausen made for these movies had a big influence on the much loved gaming miniatures from the 80’s. Whether the producers of my favorite miniatures sight Ray Harryhausen as an influence or a contemporary doesn’t really matter that much to me. The work that he did is a huge inspiration for me. I also know that I’m not the first Oldhammerer to blog about Ray Harryhausen and I hope that I am not the last. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I stand on the shoulders of giants.
May Ray Harryhausen’s contributions never be forgotten.
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