"With A Heavy Heart I Regret To Inform You" Dept.:
Mechanical Special Effects grandmaster Stan Winston passed away last night after fighting multiple myeloma for the past 7 years.
I think most of us know him first from his work in the early 1980s such as goofy but realistic looking Andy-Kaufman-as-a-robot in HEARTBLEEPS and John Carpenter's remake of THE THING, but it was in his breakthrough mechanical effects work and design on movies like PREDATOR and the TERMINATOR movies that Stan's material was really something spectacular to behold. This came to a beautiful head for old school dinosaur junkies like myself in the T-Rex enclosure scene in Steven Spielberg's JURRASIC PARK. That completely believable leg that sells the beastie's weight, the blast of air as the 'Rex exhales that blows Sam Elliott's hat off, and that earlier gag with the eye and the flashlight - all of them there to make the whole thing feel REAL - that was Stan's work.
Whether it was the pants-wettingly convincing redesign for the monsters in ALIENS, to the fat suit for Mike Myers in AUSTIN POWERS - THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME, he oversaw his studio in a hands on manner and they produced top top work. His most recent work was the practical suit design, based on Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko's original comic book designs, for the IRON MAN movie.
Guy was the best at what he did, and now he's not around anymore - hard to feel anything but sad about that.
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