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[[File:ray_harryhausen_8968ray harryhausen 8968.jpg|frame]]
 
Ray Harryhausen is a visual effects pioneer and a genius in his field. Inspired by ''[[King Kong]]'', he became a [[Stop Motion]] animator and worked on such classics as ''[[Jason and The Argonauts (Film)|Jason and Thethe Argonauts]]'', ''[[Clash of the Titans]]'' and the ''Sinbad'' films.
 
These movies would often be more showcases for Harryhausen's talent than anything else, but they had several similarities:
 
* Fantastic plots: ''Jason'' and ''Clash'' were both loosely adapted from Greek myths, the ''Sinbad'' movies came from Arabian myths and ''One Million Years BC'' was set in...well, [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|it's fairly obvious]].
* Hammy acting.
* Famous actors playing small roles: Sir [[Laurence Olivier]] and Maggie Smith were both in ''Clash of the Titans''. Why? [[Money, Dear Boy|Money, dear boy]].
 
Films that Harryhausen made in this trope:
 
{{examples}}
 
== Comic Books ==
* Several of his classic films have been given Comic Book sequels, or adaptations, which retain this trope by including his original sketches as an extra.
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== Film ==
* ''[[The Lost World (Literaturenovel)|The Lost World]]'' (1925) - By Willis O'Brian, not Harryhausen, the [[Trope Maker]].
* ''[[King Kong]]'' - The Film that inspired Harryhausen, and the first [[Trope Codifier]].
* ''[[Mighty Joe Young]]'' - Harryhausen's first Hollywood gig, spiritual sequel to ''[[King Kong]]''. The effects were a collaboration between O'Brian and Harryhausen.
* ''[[The Beast Fromfrom Twenty Thousand20,000 Fathoms]]'' - While not the first [[Attack of the Fifty 50-Foot Whatever|monster to attack a city]], it was the first monster to be [[I Love Nuclear Power|created by The Bomb]]. [[In Name Only|Very losely based]] on the short story of the same name by Harryhausen's friend and fellow guy-named-Ray, [[Ray Bradbury]]. Because of the movie's success and only vague connection to the story, Bradbury renamed his work "The Fog Horn" to differentiate the two.
* ''[[It Came From Beneath The Sea]]'' - [[Everything's Squishier Withwith Cephalopods|Giant Octopus attacks San Francisco]]. Notably, the City Fathers didn't want to have their newly built [[Monumental Damage|Golden Gate Bridge]] destroyed in the film for fear it would show the bridge being a weak structure. The producers filmed guerrilla-style and put it in anyway. The octopus only has six tentacles, to save on animation time.
* ''[[The Animal World]]'' - Started as a Documentary about life, but the [[Stop Motion]] [[Everything's Better Withwith Dinosaurs|Dinosaurs]] stole the show. It also reuinited Harryhausen with his idol Willis O'Brian.
* ''[[Earth vs. the Flying Saucers]]'' - [[Alien Invasion]] done with little subtlety. Some of the most iconic [[Monumental Damage]] occurs in this movie when Washington is attacked, including a saucer crashing into the Washington monument and knocking it onto people as well as a Saucer destroying the dome of the Capital Building.
** Footage from this movie later showed up in several [[B-Movie|rather less well done SF films]] like ''[[The Giant Claw]]'' and ''[[The Three Stooges|The Three Stooges in Orbit]]''. It also showed up in ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' classic story "To Serve Man".
* ''[[Twenty Million Miles To Earth]]'' - Please stop harassing the Ymir.
* ''[[The 7th Voyage of Sinbad]]'' - His first full-length color film, and [[Trope Codifier]] for Harryhausen, introducing his iconic creature--thecreature—the Living Skeleton.
* ''[[The Three Worlds Of Gulliver]]'' - An adaptation of ''[[GulliversGulliver's Travels]]''.
* ''[[Mysterious Island]]'' - Sequel to ''20,000 Leagues Under the Sea''. [[Executive Meddling|Charles Shneer]] threw in [[Attack of the 50 -Foot Whatever|various giant animals]] to give Harryhausen something more to do. [[Tropes Are Not Bad]] strikes again!
* ''[[Jason and The Argonauts (Film)|Jason and Thethe Argonauts]]'' - Harryhausen's first world-recognized [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] occurs with a battle with 7 skeletons. It took him several days to film one second of film--andfilm—and he got the scene done in a single take! Also one of the [[Trope Codifier|Trope Codifiers]]s and most iconic of Harryhausen's films.
* ''[[The First Men in Thethe Moon]]'' - Victorians [[In Space]] meet [[Bee People|Ant People]] on the moon.
* ''[[The Valley of Gwangi]]'' - [[The Western|Cowboys]] [[Cool vs. Awesome|versus]] [[Everything's Better Withwith Dinosaurs|Dinosaurs]], noted for the epic scene where the cowboys [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|rope the eponymous Allosaurs]].
* ''[[One Million Years BC]]'' - Often noted more for Raquel Welch in a [[Fur Bikini]] than for Ray's Special Effects. But they're very good effects. Supposedly, the archelon model had a lot of critics complaining that Harryhausen used [[Slurpasaur|a real turtle]].
* ''[[The Golden Voyage of Sinbad]]'' - Epic scenes include a statue of Kali swordfighting Sinbad with all ''six arms''. Also notable for being the film that brought [[Tom Baker]] (who played the evil magician Koura ''magnificently'') to the attention of the producers of ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]''.
* ''[[Sinbad and Thethe Eye of Thethe Tiger]]'' - Sinbad goes to A [[Lost World]] and battles a giant Saber Toothed Cat.
* ''[[Clash of the Titans]]'' - Ray's final feature, featuring his last [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] in the [[Nightmare Fuel|Medusa]] battle done by flickering firelight. The complexity of that scene wows FX artists to this day.
* Though it wasn't done by Harryhausen, [[The Evil Dead|Army of Darkness]] features a very Harryhausen inspired battle sequence.
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== Live Action TV ==
* Many of his effects were reused in famous television series--mostseries—most notably ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' reusing his Flying Saucers in ''To Serve Man.''
 
 
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* Harryhausen's first gig was making shorts for the Army. Infamously, the short ''How To Build a Bridge'' had no visuals of soldiers putting the bridge together, and the superiors worried that the soldiers would think the bridges ''[[Viewers are Morons|would build themselves!]]''
* Harryhausen also did several fairy tale adaptations, but few are of note, as they were fully animated Gumby-style shorts.
* He had an upscale restaurant named after him in [[Pixar]]'s [[Monsters, Inc.]]. A very fitting [[Shout -Out]].
** Speaking of Shout Outs, two stop-motion films that came out in the same year had the exact same nod to the man: both ''[[Wallace and Gromit|Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-rabbit]]'' and ''[[Corpse Bride (Animation)|Corpse Bride]]'' had a "Harryhausen" piano in there.
* One episode of ''[[Swat Kats (Animation)|Swat Kats]]'', ''Bride of the Pastmaster'', had two of its three [[Cyclopean Creature|Cyclops]] adorned with horns on their foreheads like the ones in ''[[The 7th Voyage of Sinbad]]''.
 
 
== Video Games ==
* The ''[[God of War (Video Gameseries)|God of War]]'' series deserves a mention, as the series draws a lot of inspiration from Harryhausen's movies, namelt the [[Greek Mythology]] inspired ones. In particular, the second game includes several shout outs, including fighting skeletons while following [[Jason and Thethe Argonauts]].
* The [[Cyclopean Creature|Cyclops]] in the [[Play StationPlayStation]] game for ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'' was quite obviously modeled on the ones from ''[[The 7th Voyage of Sinbad]]'' complete with a horn on its forehead and (if you use the camera to see its lower body) satyr-like legs.
* Several [[Killer Instinct 2]] characters pay homage to Harryhausen's movies, notably Spinal and Eyedoll.
 
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