Stan Winston, 1946 - 2008.

[Visual effects artist Stan Winston, t]he father of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, of the Terminator, of Pumpkinhead and Predator and the Monsters in Monster Squad and, of course, Aliens, has passed on. The man is a legend and created legends.

Quint, Ain't It Cool News.

See also: the site, the Studio and Stan Winston Productions; and Wikipedia.

Updated through 6/20.

Updates, 6/17: "Although he created some of the most famous special effects in movie history, Mr Winston insisted that he cared less about technical wizardry than he did about storytelling," writes William Grimes in the New York Times. "'It's not about technology,' he once said. 'It's about writers writing wonderful stories with fantastic characters and me being able to create a visual image that's beyond what you would expect.'"

Robert Cashill:

By 1993, I'd seen plenty of fossilized dinosaurs, and just about every dinosaur movie, good, bad, and indifferent. But I hadn't seen a real dinosaur, a fully functioning, living animal, till the great Stan Winston and a team of Hollywood's best special effects experts crafted a menagerie for that summer's blockbuster, Jurassic Park. When the T-rex makes its appearance, in a stunningly crafted sequence that is Steven Spielberg firing on all cylinders, you could have heard a pin drop in the theater. I had tears in my eyes. This went beyond movie magic - it was as if the creature itself, terrifying and magnificent, had been reconstituted whole. I still can't get over it.

"Will makeup effects soon seem as anachronistic as the papier-mache monster suits worn in the grade-Z horror movies off the 50s?" asks Time's Richard Corliss in a piece surveying the state of the art and its most significant creators. "No, as long as directors find symbiotic inspiration in minds as fertile as Winston's."

"There are still a few good men working in the field, but Winston was in a class by himself," blogs Jeremy Knox at Film Threat.

"[H]is death has got me wondering if it's Winston who was the true architect of 80s and 90s horror," writes Arbogast. "While the directors who hired him were often hit and miss throughout their careers, Winston always delivered something memorable. And we do remember."

"My first exposure to Winston, first awareness of his existence, came fairly young, well before even his famous work on Terminator and Aliens: yes, for his fine work (no, seriously!) on the bizarro Star Wars Holiday Special," writes Craig Phillips. "Seek it out on VHS or in bootlegs if you can."

"I feel like a part of my childhood died today," writes Andrew Bemis.

"[H]e had no problem owning up to being a twisted specemin in much the way many of us genre fans are twisted," notes Glenn Kenny.

An annotated list from Eugene Novikov at Cinematical: "Stan Winston's Greatest Achievements."

Update, 6/18: "I had the chance to speak to Winston last year about his legacy in the effects business," writes Calum Waddell in the Guardian. "'It was really King Kong and The Wizard of Oz that got me interested in the career I now have,' he said. 'The animatronics and stop-motion animation on King Kong is amazing, and The Wizard of Oz had some really great make-up effects. However, I actually came out to Hollywood to be an actor and the film that made me think that I would rather get into the special effects business was Planet of the Apes."

Update, 6/20: "Inevitably, Winston's passing puts a new, sharper focus on frequently glossed-over industry debate about the place of practical work in today's digitally dominated effects landscape.... Is there a certain danger of Winston's art being lost along with him?" Tom Russo asks industry folk for the Los Angeles Times.

Posted by dwhudson at June 16, 2008 12:26 PM