# RIP Ray Harryhausen **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 7, 2013, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719 "2013-05-07T17:17:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/1 "2013-05-07T17:17:02Z")
[http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=103886](http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=103886) Absolutely loved his work – he was the standard against which all lesser cheesy sci-fi special effects were measured. Jason and the Argonauts, Beast from 20,000 Fathoms…so cool. (I indoctrinated my children and raised them on Jason, so I’ve seen it probably 20 times.) ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/2 "2013-05-07T17:20:54Z")
And so passes another of the giants. The world is poorer for his passing. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/3 "2013-05-07T17:39:06Z")
I just heard about this somewhere else. Given his age, I knew that it had to happen sometime fairly soon, but still… sad. I will watch the Ymir fighting an elephant in downtown Rome tonight in his memory. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/4 "2013-05-07T17:39:11Z")
Oh man. I just watched Special Effects Titan a couple of weeks ago. He was the best. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/5 "2013-05-07T17:45:20Z")
☹ He created wondrous worlds and amazing creatures for kids of all ages. RIP Harry. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/6 "2013-05-07T17:46:42Z")
He had a huge influence on my youth. I consumed all the sci-fi & horror I could, regardless of quality, so I saw lots of bad special effects: models on strings, guys in rubber suits…much of it MST3K fodder. But a Harryhausen movie was a special treat. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/7 "2013-05-07T17:47:36Z")
His coffin will be carried by six sword-wielding skeletons! RIP, Ray! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/8 "2013-05-07T17:55:52Z")
A towering talent. He could make even the dumbest movie watchable and his influence is in every special effects film made after his. ---
**Author:** ![Sr\_Siete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/9 "2013-05-07T17:58:40Z")
Thank you for everything, Ray, [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/pF_Fi7x93PY/hqdefault.jpg "Jason and the Argonauts skeleton fight") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF_Fi7x93PY) ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/10 "2013-05-07T19:01:09Z")
:(:(☹ Guess my viewing plans have changed for this evening. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/11 "2013-05-07T19:12:26Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > And so passes another of the giants. The world is poorer for his passing. Absolutely. I saw The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad during a theater revival when I was a kid in the 1970’s and it permanently seared an impression into my brain. Just about everything he touched was gold, even if the film around it was tin. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/12 "2013-05-07T19:27:57Z")
CGI is all well and good, but stop-motion is the Real Thing (as it were)! ---
**Author:** ![randwill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@randwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randwill)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/13 "2013-05-07T19:38:41Z")
A lovely tribute here. It’s 10 minutes long. Might seem like a long time in this short attention span age, but it’s worth it. Especially considering Ray Harryhausen spent days creating a few seconds of footage. Ray Harryhausen Tribute by Dave Conover [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/UyCRvFPZqc8/hqdefault.jpg "Ray Harryhausen Tribute by Dave Conover") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyCRvFPZqc8) ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/14 "2013-05-07T19:55:12Z")
I saw a comment at another website that really puts Harryhausen’s death in perspective. _If a movie had Harryhausen effects, it was a Ray Harryhausen movie, no matter who else was in it or worked on it. How many other people have made that much of an impression on the art of special effects?_ And you know, I don’t think I can name a single other special effects individual that I can pick out of the crowd. Saturday evening I attended the last film in a Jules Verne film festival. It was _Mysterious Island_. I saw it on TV when I was a little kid and was blown away. A lot of that had to do with the giant crab, the giant bird, the giant bees, the giant…everything else, all done by Harryhausen. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/15 "2013-05-07T20:07:58Z")
I watched the tribute. I have some dust in my eyes or something. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/16 "2013-05-07T20:25:39Z")
Damn! I’m sorry to hear that. I saw _Seventh Vyage of Sinbad_ in the theater at a matinee when it was still relatively new, and hadn’t been shown on TV. My sister, only slightly older, yold me to look away at the Snake Dancer sequence, but, of course, that was ridiculous. I was hooked. It was later that I learned he’d co-animated _Mighty Joe Young_, which I’d seen on TV innumerable times. I knew of the older films through Forrest Ackerman’s _Famous Monsters of Filmland_, but it was years before I saw all of his 1950s films. _Earth vs. the Flying Saucers_ had a dumb title, but the scenes of the saucers actually crashing into the buildings in Washington DC (with bits of falling debris painstakingly animated) was a joy. Even as a kid, you know that the movies usually cut away from some bit of mayhem that would be too much trouble to render convincingly on screen, but Harryhausen actually depicted it. I saw Gulliver, First Men in the Moon, One Million Years BC in the theaters. Gwangi had rotten distribution, and I had to catch up later, but I saw the later Sinbads (_Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger_ was the big fantasy film in London in summer 1977 when visited. _Star Wars_ hadn’t made it there yet.)And, of course, _Clash of the Titans_, his last (aside from odd bits like _Tortoise and the Hare_. I would’ve loved to have seen his unrealized projects – _War of the Worlds_, reviving O’Brien’s _War Eagles_, his extraterrestrial ideas and other mythological films, but they were not to be. I’ve recently caught the colorized classics he worked on, like **She**. I twice sent him copies of my book, since I spent several pages on Clash of the Titans, and I’m certain that he got it the second time. I also wrote, through his connection, to see about getting a statement a couple of years ago for an Arisia panel on his films, but never heard from him in either case. He was said to be pretty friendly with fans, and was reported as spending a lot of time discussing his films with them. He’ll be missed. ---
**Author:** ![Yodalicious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yodalicious/32/8195_2.png) [@Yodalicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yodalicious)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/17 "2013-05-07T20:28:59Z")
Clash of the Titans was the first movie where the special effects absolutely floored me. I bugged my parents for weeks, “How did they do that”?! ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/18 "2013-05-07T20:31:04Z")
RIP Thanks for the Dreams. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/19 "2013-05-07T22:16:37Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > And so passes another of the giants. The world is poorer for his passing. This. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719/20 "2013-05-07T22:21:47Z")
Ray! Come to Mt. Olympus at last. ☹ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-ray-harryhausen/657719.md?page=2)