NR, 7 min.
Director/Writer: Bradley
Schaffer
Voice: Evan Hyde
Cinematic legend Ray
Harryhausen passed away at the age of 92 Wednesday. He was known for the stop
motion animation work he did for live action movies. His credits ranged from “Mighty
Joe Young”, to “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers”, to the original “Clash of the
Titans”. Working mostly in B genre pictures, Harryhausen was practically a
household name, a rarity for a filmmaker working his entire career in special
effects. Nevertheless, Harryhausen was thought of as one of the pioneers of
filmmaking and many within and without the filmmaking community admired him.
I suppose the title of “Thumb
Snatchers From the Moon Cocoon” owes a little something to the cannon of
Harryhausen’s work. I doubt it will go down as a classic of the stop-motion
animation genre, however. It isn’t the sharpest tool in the stop-motion shed.
Its plot consists of a race of robotic aliens coming to Earth to take humans’ opposable
thumbs because we’ve done nothing with them but destroy things. They are
stopped by a Texas lawman who pretty much proves their point about the
destructive nature of man.
The narration writing is not
good. This Sheriff Huckiss is filled with unenlightened insights such as “Death…
They say it can kill a man.” I suppose a line like that might seem hilarious to
a mind that thinks robotic aliens would spew green slime out of their heads
when they are shot with a pistol. It isn’t quite as funny in the context of a
movie as it might seem in such a person’s head, however. I don’t really know
whether this film is a fitting tribute to Harryhausen. He wasn’t really a
creator of story and dialogue. He just made the fantasy come alive long before
CGI made it “realistic.” In terms of subject matter, what is to been seen in
this short isn’t a far cry from some of Harryhausen’s creations. You’d probably
be better off search out one of his movies, though.
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