For Aintitcool.com

A few weeks ago, I had the rather mindblowing opportunity to tour Stan Winston Studio out in Van Nuys, California. To say that I was “overwhelmed” when I entered the showroom is a gross understatement. As I stood at the entrance, the first creatures that caught my eye were the Commando Elite and the Gorgonites from Joe Dante’s smart, subversive SMALL SOLDIERS. Pretty cool. Then I made my way into the room, and completely lost my ability to process visual information for a few minutes.Schwarzenegger’s Terminator. The T-800 endoskeleton. A velociraptor. Edward Scissorhands. Tom Cruise’s Lestat (photos forbidden). A frozen Kristen Stewart (from ZATHURA). Andy Kaufman’s robotic head from HEARTBEEPS. A trio of rejected designs for HOWARD THE DUCK (which Stan evidently liked enough to keep around). And a forlorn Teddy from A.I. sitting all by his lonesome on Stan’s director’s chair.

That last sight threatened to cast a bittersweet pall over the day, but key artist Christopher Swift and model shop supervisor David Merritt weren’t about to let us dwell on the company’s profound loss of a few months ago. Ever the entertainer, Stan would want the show, and the work, to go on, to continue flaunting the same degree of excellence that made the studio one of the top practical f/x outfits in the industry. For the newly-minted Legacy Studio, the edict is simple: do it better than the last one.

Read the whole interview here