Maria and I went to see the animatronics at the academy.
They had everything from the Gostbusters "terror dogs"...
...To the trash compactor alien from "Star Wars."
The giant gorilla head from "Mighty Joe Young"...
Alien puppets from "Men in Black"...
...And a stoned-looking deer from "The Santa Clause."
They ran from the popular, like Aslan the Lion from "Narnia"...
...To the obscure, like the two-headed dragon from "Willow."
Geez, remember "Willow?"
Maria made friends with the locals.
...But I just picked fights.
"The Dark Crystal" was well represented, with a Skekses...
...One of the Mystics...
...And Aughra, Keeper of Secrets.
A tanker bug from "Starship Troopers!"
These were the guys that fired electrified explosive plasma out of their butts up into space.
Man, that movie rules...
At the opposite end of the spectrum were creatures from "Aliens Vs. Predator. That movie suuuuuucked.
But no matter who wins, we lose.
Here's a few relics from the end of an era.
Most people don't know it, but the dinosaurs of "Jurassic Park" were originally going to be done with stop-motion puppets. Then computer animation stepped in and changed everything.
Overnight, hundreds of highly skilled stop-motion animators were suddenly out of a job. Faced with a changing of the guard, Industrial Light and Magic tried to find a way to keep their stop motion animators' skills relevant.
They created the DID, "Dinosaur Input Device." It was a puppet that animators could plug into the computer. They would do their small animation moves and the computer would translate them onto the computer model.
The experiment was not a success.
Here was a big treat - the original "Number Five" aka "Johnny Five" from "Short Circuit!"
Now, I know there are probably obsessive "Johnny Five" fans out there that are as excited to see close-up detail of this guy as I am, so I'm just going to lay out all the photos here.
But the rest of you should keep scrolling, because the REAL holy grail of the exhibit is coming up...
Still with me? Good. Because here is the awesomest thing in the history of awesome...
The original puppet tentacles from DOCTOR OCTOPUS in "Spider-Man 2!"
Yeah, I know. Be still your beating heart.
The tentacles looked like beat-up metal, but were actually very light plastic.
Puppeteers in blue jumpsuits moved them all around, then were erased from the final frames.
That way the tentacles appeared to move under their own power. An incredible illusion.
Now, I'm an obsessive fan of Doctor Octopus. I built tentacles of my own for Halloween a couple years ago.
(You can see those on another part of the site.)
And I know there are more crazy nutjobs like me out there, obsessed with the tiny details of this guy's costume.
So to them I give the rest of these photos.
To the rest of you... Enjoy the rest of JasonJasonJason.com!
