This is my tribute to Italian special effects legend Carlo Rambaldi, surely one of the greatest artists in Hollywood history.
This is the man who brought Steven Spielberg's E. T. to life.
With a combination of animatronics, puppetry and more, he accomplished what is still one of the greatest achievements ever in special effects.
Bringing to life as a living, breathing, thinking, feeling person Steven Spielberg's alien friend from a far-off planet.
He won three Oscars for special effects, for E. T., Alien, and 1976's King Kong. Yes, he also brought Alien's scary alien to life.
He also worked on Steven Spielberg's other incredible greatest masterpiece, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
He brought the aliens to life; someone else created their spaceships, just like in E.T.; in both cases the spaceships were Industrial Light and Magic and one of the great members of George Lucas's amazing team in those great days, the amazing Dennis Muren, along with, in Close Encounters, the great Douglas Trumbull who went on to work on the first Star Trek movie.
The aliens in Close Encounters are not seen as extensively as E.T. But the scene with the aliens is the climax of the movie, and the living aliens are as important as their amazing spaceship.
His work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind is like as if he had painted the Mona Lisa's eyes.
A small but crucial part, vital to the living emotional core of the movie.
The only places where I have seen this kind of special effects done this well- where we connect emotionally with a being brought to life entirely with special effects- are his work, the special effects of Brian Johnson who brought Falcor the luck dragon from The Neverending Story to life (He's the one that has the face of a lovable dog (Falcor, not Brian)), and the work of Jim Henson's creature shop. Rarely has this been done as well as it was with E.T., Yoda, and Falcor the luck dragon.
I will say that I love James Cameron's Avatar. But that's a bit different. The characters that we interact with emotionally are essentially modified live action, with the special effects on the faces and hands working like makeup, only computer animated. The breakthrough here was in combining the special effects with the live actor, keeping the expression of the live actor's face and everything. Black Panther is the same way.
The special effects in Avatar and Black Panther are masterpieces too of course.
I love the special effects of recent movies like Black Panther. This is an art. Carlo Rambaldi is one of its finest artists.
For that matter, so is Brian Johnson and his team that brought Falcor the luck dragon to life- and others in The Neverending Story (but Falcor is the most amazing because we connect with him emotionally in the same way we do with E.T.)-as well as Aliens, working with Carlo Rambaldi on Alien, and some work in The Empire Strikes Back.
Jim Henson's creature shop is amazing, of course, but I have already paid tribute to him elsewhere, such as on my Deviantart bio, for he is one of those who shaped me most as an artist. But this page is mainly for paying tribute to those I have not mentioned elsewhere.
And I would like to pay tribute to Douglas Trumbull, John Dykstra, Dennis Muren, and Industrial Light and Magic who brought Steven Spielberg's amazing alien spaceships to life, as well as the spaceships and other vehicles in the original Star Wars trilogy, and the original Star Trek television series which pioneered the techniques later developed further by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to bring their spaceships to life.
Like Carlo Rambaldi, but in a different special effects field, they created special effects that were not only amazing to see but that affect us emotionally in a very powerful and uplifting way.
The special effects in the original Star Wars trilogy, the first three Star Trek movies, Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal, Close Encounters and E.T. will always be the benchmark that shows what a great master can do in this field, not only as visuals but as storytelling. Falcor the luck dragon stands alongside them all. That was a legendary era.
Some of the greatest artists in the history of special effects, helping to bring to life crucial parts of movies like E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind that will one day be ranked alongside the work of Michelangelo and Tolkien.
God loves you! Dare to believe!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson