quote:The legendary filmmaker was best known for using stop-motion model animation in movies such as 'Jason and the Argonauts' and 'Clash of the Titans.'
Forget Godzilla. Harryhausen was the REAL king of the monsters. This dude pretty much was the first to create the kinds of crazy things that were in every boy's imagination and put them on screen for us all to enjoy with giddy joy. His skeleton warriors are still eerie and created its own sub-genre in fantasy gaming. Mighty Joe Young expanded on the many possibilities only touched on by King Kong. Clash of the Titans, Jason, Sinbad... there are more memorable monsters on those films than you will find in almost a decade's-worth of all other fantasy films.
The man almost single-handedly created the special effects movie as we know it. Can't get more awesome than that. God speed, oh mighty king.
Granted some of his effects didn't age that well, but still. The hours it takes just to do a few minutes of stop motion. I love the skeleton fight scene. I can't imagine how hard that was to match an actor up with something unseen, then to match the effect up to the actor.