Medusa in Clash of the Titans

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(posted 8/7/07)
One of San Diego Convention Center's main halls is packed with thousands of costumed fanboys (and girls) screaming over the likes of Jessica Alba and Shia LaBeouf and that guy on Heroes who looks like Spock. Yet here we are in a small conference room one floor above the Comic-Con 2007 din, talking with a quiet, unassuming man in his late 80s who has done more for science-fiction and fantasy film than just about anyone: Ray Harryhausen, the stop-motion animation pioneer behind such undisputed classics as The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, One Million Years B.C., and 20 Million Miles to Earth (which has just been released in a special edition, colorized DVD).

Normally, if someone had the audacity to interrupt such a rare chance to talk to a filmmaking icon, we'd unleash a fury like that of the effects legend's famed Medusa from Clash of the Titans. But when that someone turns out to be equally legendary science fiction and fantasy author Ray Bradbury, we just sit back and listen as two old friends catch up.

Premiere: Were you involved in the colorization process on this new version of 20 Million Miles to Earth?
RAY HARRYHAUSEN: Yes, very much so. I was tickled pink because we would have shot [the movies] in color originally, but we didn't have the budget. Because subjects like science fiction were not popular in the early days…we had to do all these pictures on the cheap, but not have them look cheap. I'm so grateful that they've lasted over the years, and the so-called A-pictures that cost 10 times what we spent have fallen by the wayside.

Do you think some of the artistry of special effects is gone? You used to have to be a sculptor, now you have to know computers.
HARRYHAUSEN: That's correct, yes. I get a lot of fan mail saying that very thing. I think it's all fine, but when you try to make fantasy too realistic, you defeat the whole point of fantasy. Fantasy is a dream world — "what if" this could happen — and if you make it too real, you lose that. I learned that from watching King Kong when I was 15.

Do you think DVDs and their exhaustive behind-the-scenes features are diminishing the magic?
HARRYHAUSEN: I think it's a shame. One of the values I found in seeing King Kong when I was 15 was I didn't know how it was done. But I made it my duty to find out — and it still took me months before I discovered the glories of stop-motion.