Douglas Trumbull: the TrumPOLL

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I've been thinking about Douglas Trumbull a lot lately (reminded of his work by the effects in the Twin Peaks revival, just rewatched Tree of Life, new 4K Close Encounters Blu-ray on the way as well as a Trumbull-less Blade Runner sequel). I don't love all of his films, but I absolutely love the look of every film where Trumbull had a hand in the visuals. An under-recognized genius whose existence I wasn't even aware of for way too long.

Side note: iPod's on shuffle and the Meco version of the Close Encounters theme just popped up as I'm typing. This is important. This means something.

Poll Results

Option	Votes
2001: A Space Odyssey (visual effects, 1968)	5
Blade Runner (visual effects, 1982)	5
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (visual effects, 1977)	4
The Andromeda Strain (visual effects, 1971)	1
Brainstorm (director, 1983)	1
The Tree of Life (visual effects, 2011)	1
Silent Running (director, 1972)	0
The Starlost (TV, executive producer, 1973)	0
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (visual effects, 1979)	0
Candy (opening and closing sequences, 1968)	0

― Always Be Cropdusting (Old Lunch), Thursday, 24 August 2017 13:18 (six years ago) link

Even though it's ultimately not a great movie (and is marred by the tragedy of Natalie Wood's death), I have fond memories of seeing "Brainstorm" with my dad in 1983 when I spent spring break with him where he was stationed at Ft. Belvoir. The ideas in it (for a 13 year old who hadn't yet read Dick or Bradbury) were pretty mind-blowing!

"Starlost" is only good for Harlan Ellison's petulant essays about the network screwing up his idea. The notable SFX are your standard spacecraft glamour shots that Trumbull had already long mastered.

For me, this is CE3K, with 2001 a thousandth of a point behind.

― Old Lynch's Sex Paragraph (Phil D.), Thursday, 24 August 2017 13:54 (six years ago) link

I think Blade Runner is more a triumph of production design than visual effects, so I'll vote 2001.

― May contain peanuts, tree nuts, soy, wheat, pits or pit fragments. (WilliamC), Thursday, 24 August 2017 13:57 (six years ago) link

The first view of the UFOs in Close Encounters = I will love this movie until the day I die. It still amazes me that Spielberg shot this on a soundstage, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MW3KJUa8FQ

― Old Lynch's Sex Paragraph (Phil D.), Thursday, 24 August 2017 13:58 (six years ago) link

trumbull's contributions to these are all extraordinary in their own right but it's gotta be 2001 in terms of scope of achievement, influence, and enduring impressiveness despite being nearly 50 years old (fuck!)

― frankfurters take on new glamour in this gleaming aspic (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 24 August 2017 14:00 (six years ago) link

I don't want to give him all the credit for 2001--he was one of 4 or 5 genius effects supervisors. He ran the show on Close Encounters and created a one-of-a-kind look for the UFOs.

― Hideous Lump, Friday, 25 August 2017 02:13 (six years ago) link

one month passes...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

― System, Saturday, 30 September 2017 00:01 (six years ago) link

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

― System, Sunday, 1 October 2017 00:01 (six years ago) link

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