What O'Brien, Tsuburaya and Harryhausen did was an art. What these new boys do is a science, often of the coldest, least interesting variety.

Rocco, you said: "What O'Brien, Tsuburaya and Harryhausen did was an art. What these new boys do is a science, often of the coldest, least interesting variety."

That's mostly, but not entirely true. Just needs a little honing:

All of these effects techniques are a combination of art & science. I believe that stop-motion accentuates the ART, while CGI places the emphasis on SCIENCE.
It's like the difference between a Van Gogh painting, and an intricate CGI version of the same image. Which one possesses more character? The one that arose from a single mind & paintbrush, or the one that came from a team of 100 artists punching keyboards?
Harryhausen's work will NEVER be equalled! He elevated an art-form infinitely, and then it died-out.
It is a very sad funeral that we have witnessed.
The Criterion LaserDisc of Jason And The Argonauts displays many still photos of the staging for the skeleton fight sequence. When I studied it, I realized that TODAY there would be an entire team of artists assigned to EACH skeleton! That's where the life-blood vanishes...too many chefs in the kitchen ruin the stew.

My grieving may never end.

However, I find it difficult to get into a bunch of people sitting around computer terminals. It's just like any other job.

When I read a "making of," call it the romantic in me, but ">PFT!< The shark is not working. >PFT!< The shark is not working!" is more interesting than "We had trouble with the algorithm we were using to texture the outer skin, it was folding in on itself in an unnatural way, so a bunch of us sat down with our laptops..."

There's no magic in it anymore.

Computers should embellish, not replace. They permit marvelous time-and-cost-saving shortcuts -- but when they start taking over the whole of the effects budget, costs balloon just as much. Of recent pictures, I think I'd point to TITANIC (a movie I didn't love, by the way) as sporting perhaps the most across-the-board perfect use of CGI. Perhaps I prefer seeing computers applied to realistic tasks than fantastic ones; there is never going to be that much fantastic about the computer, not in the age now aborning.

Also, re: DRAGONSLAYER: I believe the evil baby dragons were designed and built by Chris Walas. Just for the record. What ever happened to Walas, anyway?

We don't seem to hear much from another great artisan in the field, Richard Edlund, any more ... (sigh)

Did those who built the live dinosaurs for JURASSIC PARK know how soon they were about to become dinosaurs themselves, in the industry they helped create?