Yes, I am aware that I've been neglecting this site.
This past week I've been on a bit of a mythology kick. I've
been thinking a lot about stories like Thesis and the Minotaur, Jason finding
Golden Fleece, Perseus slaying the Gorgon Medusa...
And all this led me to one conclusion. There is just
something special about classic stop-motion animation.
Take the giant octopus in the 1955 It Came From Beneath The
Sea as an example. It's real. Not in the sense that there really is a colossal
octopus attacking an ocean front city, but in the sense that somebody MADE this
with their own two hands. The Kraken from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies
may LOOK real, but it's not. It is just a computer generated image displayed on
a screen.
This may sound like a backwards mentality from a student of
computer graphics, but it's true. Classic stop-motion has more personality than
digital special effects.
I've yet to see Clash of the Titans. Either of them. That's
right, I haven't seen the original classic, and I haven't seen the modern
re-make. I would like to someday. But I am sure that the 1981 movie has more
character than the more recent Clash.
Somehow, my older brother convinced me that I needed to
watch the 1996 television show "The Adventures of Sinbad". I must say
it is FAR far cheesier than anything that came out of the '50s. This is mostly
due to hammy acting, but also in part to the early attempts at computer
generated special effects. If stop-motion has more personality than modern
special effects, you can bet that I like it better than this cheesy animation.
(Don’t get me wrong, I was enjoying the show. If you haven’t figured it out
yet, I happen to LIKE cheesy things.)
If any of this makes sense to you, I recommend you seek out
the classic movies “Jason and the Argonauts” (1963) and “The Seventh voyage of
Sinbad” (1958). They may both be dated and maybe a little cheesy by today’s
ever-rising standards…but they are a whole lot of fun.
