Dan O'Bannon was a great geek creator. He provided the screenplay and served as the Special Effects Supervisor on John Carpenter's first masterpiece, DARK STAR. And it is a science fiction masterpiece.
I love DARK STAR and its sentient bomb and bean bag monster like very few things in this world. Dan worked on the computer animation and displays on a tiny film called STAR WARS after that. Remember that animation blueprint on how to blow up the Death Star... ie, the rebel plans? O'Bannon had a hand in that!
Then... he was the lead screenwriter on Ridley Scott's little film called ALIEN. Before Dan, there was a blank page. Afterwards we had Ellen Ripley, the Nostromo and the entire legend of the ALIEN.
He was responsible for the B-17 sequence of HEAVY METAL, the awesome Helicopter film BLUE THUNDER, the wonderful satire of Romero's Zombie series called THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, my third fave film from Tobe Hooper - LIFE FORCE, the pretty damn fine remake of INVADERS FROM MARS, he got our ass to Mars with TOTAL RECALL. |