THE 7TH VYAGE OF SINBAD is Ray Harryhausen's greatest achievement. His later films were more technically polished, but they also had tighter, more constrictive narratives. Here, he lets his imagination run wild. Harryhausen is at least comparable to Disney or Miyazaki. He is among the greatest animators of all time.
Harryhausen mastered stop-motion animation, a painstaking technique in which an articulated puppet is photographed one frame at a time and moved a fraction of an inch between shots. When the frames are projected in sequence, the illusion of motion is created. Harryhausen refined stop-motion to an art form and integrated his creatures seamlessly with the live action. His revolutionary work ushered in the age of special effects extravaganzas like the STAR WARS films.
Sure, the acting is terrible, but who cares? We don't go to fantasy movies for award-winning performances. If I want great acting, I'll watch a Bogart movie. The bizarre creatures and the fairy tale plot are the stars of this show.
Harryhausen mastered stop-motion animation, a painstaking technique in which an articulated puppet is photographed one frame at a time and moved a fraction of an inch between shots. When the frames are projected in sequence, the illusion of motion is created. Harryhausen refined stop-motion to an art form and integrated his creatures seamlessly with the live action. His revolutionary work ushered in the age of special effects extravaganzas like the STAR WARS films.
Sure, the acting is terrible, but who cares? We don't go to fantasy movies for award-winning performances. If I want great acting, I'll watch a Bogart movie. The bizarre creatures and the fairy tale plot are the stars of this show.