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Species (film)
''Species'' is a 1995 American science fiction horror film directed by Roger Donaldson and written by Dennis Feldman. It stars Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Alfred Molina, Forest Whitaker, Marg Helgenberger, and Natasha Henstridge in her film debut role. The film's plot concerns a motley crew of scientists and government agents who try to track down Sil (Henstridge), a seductive extraterrestrial-human hybrid, before she successfully mates with a human male. The film was conceived by Feldman in 1987, and was originally pitched as a film treatment in the style of a police procedural, entitled ''The Message''. When ''The Message'' failed to attract the studios, Feldman re-wrote it as a spec script, which ultimately led to the making of the film. The extraterrestrial aspect of Sil's character was created by H. R. Giger, who was also responsible for the beings from the ''Alien'' franchise. The effects combined practical models designed by Giger collaborator Steve Johnson and XFX, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Donaldson
Roger Lindsey Donaldson (born 15 November 1945) is an Australian-born List of New Zealand film makers, New Zealand film director, producer and writer whose films include the 1981 relationship drama ''Smash Palace'', and a run of titles shot in the United States, including the Kevin Costner films ''No Way Out (1987 film), No Way Out'' (1987) and ''Thirteen Days (film), Thirteen Days'' (2000), and the 1997 disaster film ''Dante's Peak''. He has worked twice each with actors Kevin Costner, Pierce Brosnan, Anthony Hopkins and Michael Madsen. Also worked with actors Tom Cruise, Liam Neeson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Bruce Greenwood, Dexter Fletcher, Bernard Hill, Laurence Olivier, Edward Fox (actor), Edward Fox, Al Pacino and many more. Life and career Donaldson was born in Ballarat, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia where he attended Ballarat High School. At 20, in 1965 he emigrated to New Zealand, where he established a small photography, still photography business and began maki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extraterrestrial Life
Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might range from simple forms like prokaryotes to intelligent beings, possibly bringing forth civilizations that might be far more advanced than humankind. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of sapient life elsewhere in the universe. The science of extraterrestrial life is known as astrobiology. Speculation about the possibility of inhabited "worlds" outside the planet Earth dates back to antiquity. Multiple early Christian writers discussed the idea of a "plurality of worlds" as proposed by earlier thinkers such as Democritus; Augustine references Epicurus's idea of innumerable worlds "throughout the boundless immensity of space" (originally expressed in his Letter to Herodotus) in ''The City of God''. In his first century p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arecibo Observatory
The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The observatory's main instrument was the Arecibo Telescope, a spherical reflector dish built into a natural sinkhole, with a cable-mount steerable receiver and several radar transmitters for emitting signals mounted above the dish. Completed in 1963, it was the world's largest single-aperture telescope for 53 years, surpassed in July 2016 by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China. Following two breaks in cables supporting the receiver platform in mid-2020, the NSF decommissioned the telescope. A partial collapse of the telescope occurred on December 1, 2020, before controlled demolition could be conducted. In 2022, the NSF announced the telescope will not be rebuilt, with an educational fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its west by Nevada. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin. Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territories of the United States by population, most populous U.S. state and the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated Administrative division, subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous Statistical area (United States), urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7million residents and the latter having over 9.6million. Sacramento, California, Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the List of largest California cities by population, most populous city in the state and the List of United States cities by population, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world's most populous megacities. Los Angeles is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits , Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The city of Los Angeles lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to it's east. It covers about , and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boss Film Studios
Boss Film Studios was a prominent American visual effects company, founded by visual effects veteran Richard Edlund after his departure from Industrial Light and Magic, producing visual effects for over thirty films from 1983 to 1997. Before that period Edlund had worked at ILM on films like '' Raiders of the Lost Ark'' (1981) and the original Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983). History Boss Film Studios (originally Boss Film Corporation) initially undertook two projects, '' Ghostbusters (1984)'' and '' 2010'', simultaneously. In an effort to set up the new venture quickly, Edlund acquired Douglas Trumbull's Entertainment Effects Group, taking over their Marina Del Rey facility. Competition with ILM Boss Film soon established itself as one of ILM's competitors as it contributied to such projects as ''Die Hard'', '' Poltergeist II'', and ''Big Trouble in Little China''. Edlund and his team chose to compete with ILM technically, continuing EEG's preference for using 65mm film for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Edlund
Richard Edlund, (born December 6, 1940) is an American visual effects artist and inventor. He was a founding member of Industrial Light & Magic, having already founded Pignose amplifiers, and later co-founded Boss Film Studios and DuMonde VFX. He has won four Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects (1978, ''Star Wars''; 1982, ''Raiders of the Lost Ark''), as well as two Special Achievement Awards, two Scientific and Technical Awards, and the Medal of Commendation. He is also a BAFTA and Emmy Award recipient. Life and career Edlund was born in Fargo, North Dakota and raised in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. After first joining the United States Navy, he developed an interest in experimental film and attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts in the late 1960s. On the strength of a couple of short films, he was picked by John Dykstra to work as first cameraman at the embryonic Industrial Light & Magic on the production on ''Star Wars'' for which he shared an Academy Award. Edlund ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer-generated Imagery
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The images may be static (still images) or dynamic (moving images), in which case CGI is also called ''computer animation''. CGI may be two-dimensional (2D), although the term "CGI" is most commonly used to refer to the 3-D computer graphics used for creating characters, scenes and special effects in films and television, which is described as "CGI animation". The first feature film to make use of CGI was the 1973 film ''Westworld''. Other early films that incorporated CGI include ''Star Wars'' (1977), ''Tron'' (1982), '' Golgo 13: The Professional'' (1983), ''The Last Starfighter'' (1984), ''Young Sherlock Holmes'' (1985) and ''Flight of the Navigator'' (1986). The first music video to use CGI was Dire Straits' award-winning " Money for Nothing" (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Johnson (special Effects Artist)
Steve Johnson (born Steven Marcus Jacobs; February 7, 1960) is an American special effects artist whose career has spanned more than thirty years. His work has appeared in over 200 films, countless television shows, theme parks, commercials, and music videos. Some of his best-known creations include Slimer for ''Ghostbusters'' (1984), the alien seductress Sil for ''Species'' (1995), Robin Williams's robotics for ''Bicentennial Man'' (1999), and Doctor Octopus's arms for ''Spider-Man 2'' (2004). Early life Johnson was born in Houston, Texas. As a child, Johnson watched Universal monster films and the Hammer films. These productions inspired him to become a special effects artist. Johnson's biggest influences are Jack Pierce, Dick Smith and Rick Baker. While he was still attending high school, Johnson met one of his idols, Rick Baker, and showed him his portfolio. Baker acknowledged Johnson's problem-solving talent and later helped him get a job working with effects creator Rob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alien Franchise
''Alien'' is a science-fiction horror and action media franchise centered on the film series which depicts warrant officer Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and her battles with an extraterrestrial lifeform, commonly referred to as "the Alien" or Xenomorph. Produced and distributed by 20th Century Studios, the series began with ''Alien'' (1979), directed by Ridley Scott, and was followed by three sequels: ''Aliens'' (1986), directed by James Cameron; ''Alien 3'' (1992), directed by David Fincher, and ''Alien Resurrection'' (1997), directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Scott also directed a prequel series, composed of ''Prometheus'' (2012) and '' Alien: Covenant'' (2017), which follows the exploits of the David 8 android and the creators of the eponymous creatures referred to as the "Engineers". The series has led to numerous novels, comics, video games and an upcoming television series developed by Scott for FX on Hulu, with Noah Hawley. It has inspired a number of spin-offs – most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xenomorph (Alien)
The Alien (also known as a ''Xenomorph XX121'' or ''Internecivus raptus'', or simply a xenomorph)Alien: The Weyland-Yutani Report is a fictional parasitoid, endoparasitoid Extraterrestrials in fiction, extraterrestrial species that serves as the title antagonist of the Alien (franchise), ''Alien'' film series. The species made its debut in the film ''Alien (film), Alien'' (1979) and reappeared in the sequels ''Aliens (film), Aliens'' (1986), ''Alien 3'' (1992), and ''Alien Resurrection'' (1997). The species returns in the prequel series, first with a predecessor in ''Prometheus (2012 film), Prometheus'' (2012) and a further evolved form in ''Alien: Covenant'' (2017). It also featured in the Alien vs. Predator (franchise), crossover films ''Alien vs. Predator (film), Alien vs. Predator'' (2004) and ''Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem'' (2007), with the skull and tail of one of the creatures respectively appearing briefly in ''Predator 2'' (1990) and ''The Predator (film), The Predator'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
