One of the first movies I ever saw that pushed me down the road to geekdom was the original Clash of the Titans movie. I was pretty young when the movie first came out, but it was played so often on the TV that I must’ve watched it 100 times before I turned 10. The at-the-time amazing special effects and Greek hero storyline sucked me in and made me a believer.
The movie featured a lot of big names for the time, including Laurence Olivier. This is the movie that made Harry Hamlin a household name, and through the 80s, he was a pretty big star. Now, not so much. But hey, give the guy a break, there have been bigger Hollywood losers than him.
The big deal with this story though was the special effects. Ray Harryhausen was the stop-motion expert who turned the film into reality, and made those fight scenes with the giant monsters look so realistic. Sure, they were no Star Wars, but they were no Star Trek, either. Put this movie in my top 5 Sci-Fi with old-school FX, along with Flash Gordon.
Well come Tuesday, it’s available on Blu-Ray for the first time. I’m not quite sure how well stop-motion will translate in pixel-perfect clarity, but I, for one, will be adding it to my collection for sure.
