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Stan Winston
Jul. 4th, 2008 12:33 pmI feel so very, very guilty in not knowing this sooner. Honestly. With how constantly I check in on imdb.com, I'm feeling quite down with finding this news out nearly a month after its happening.
Stan Winston passed away on June 16, 2008, after a long battle with cancer, at the age of 62.
This has been a bad year for the entertainment field. Performers that I may have not idolized, but at least been rather fond and appreciative of... from Heath Ledger to George Carlin to Don Davis... but this is Stan Winston. This man's work has been responsible for shaping my imagination since I was three years old.
For those of you that aren't recognizing the name, I'm pretty sure that you will recognize some of his work.
This man won four Oscars for making the fantastic real and three-dimensional and terrifying and gorgeous. I started watching Aliens at age three, and twenty years later, I still stand by it as my favorite movie of all time, with better animatronics than many, many movies being released today. I wanted to be a special effects artist or technician just to see something on paper come to life. Predator, too, the first and the best, has yet to be repeated in quality. The sheer recognizability of everything this man has worked on, everything that he has had his hand in designing and executing, should be a testament to how important this man was to moviemaking in his lifetime.
I... I had a full-size Aliens poster on the back of my bedroom door for nearly a decade. I can quote behind-the-scenes info for all of the above movies, because I wanted to know, because I wanted to know how these things were made, and it doesn't at all dim the glory and the mystery of the creatures that he made.
Farewell, Stan. Your work has left a bright beacon, and a tall one, that will not go out.
Stan Winston passed away on June 16, 2008, after a long battle with cancer, at the age of 62.
This has been a bad year for the entertainment field. Performers that I may have not idolized, but at least been rather fond and appreciative of... from Heath Ledger to George Carlin to Don Davis... but this is Stan Winston. This man's work has been responsible for shaping my imagination since I was three years old.
For those of you that aren't recognizing the name, I'm pretty sure that you will recognize some of his work.
This man won four Oscars for making the fantastic real and three-dimensional and terrifying and gorgeous. I started watching Aliens at age three, and twenty years later, I still stand by it as my favorite movie of all time, with better animatronics than many, many movies being released today. I wanted to be a special effects artist or technician just to see something on paper come to life. Predator, too, the first and the best, has yet to be repeated in quality. The sheer recognizability of everything this man has worked on, everything that he has had his hand in designing and executing, should be a testament to how important this man was to moviemaking in his lifetime.
I... I had a full-size Aliens poster on the back of my bedroom door for nearly a decade. I can quote behind-the-scenes info for all of the above movies, because I wanted to know, because I wanted to know how these things were made, and it doesn't at all dim the glory and the mystery of the creatures that he made.
Farewell, Stan. Your work has left a bright beacon, and a tall one, that will not go out.