The trailer for effects legend Phil Tippett’s stop-motion epic Mad God is in a class all its own

After 30 years, the effects wizard behind Jurassic Park and Star Wars has finished his masterpiece

By Matt Schimkowitz  |  July 29, 2021 | 7:24pm
Film News Phil Tippett
The trailer for effects legend Phil Tippett’s stop-motion epic Mad God is in a class all its own
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Mad God Screenshot: PhilsAttic

Throughout his career, Phil Tippett, the Oscar-winning stop-motion animation maestro behind Return Of The Jedi and Jurassic Park, has created some of the most memorable and influential effects in movie history. He designed sequences for Paul Verhoeven on Starship Troopers and RoboCop, Industrial Light and Magic on the original Star Wars trilogy, Howard The Duck, and Willow, and even The Twilight Saga. During that time, though, he’s been laboring away on his stop-motion masterwork: Mad God.

30 years in the making, Mad God is finally coming out, and it looks like it was worth the wait. The movie premieres at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland next month, but the trailer for Mad God gives a taste of what’s in store. While we know very little about the plot—the trailer is a montage of nightmarish images occasionally reminiscent of the Quay brothers—the festival website dishes a little more information.

‌Mad God is an experimental animated film set in a world of monsters, mad scientists and war pigs. A corroded diving bell descends amidst a ruined city and the Assassin emerges from it to explore a labyrinth of bizarre landscapes inhabited by freakish denizens. This unique labour of love combines many innovative animation techniques and has taken Phil Tippett 30 years to complete.

Mad God looks like a labor of love that makes other labors of love look pathetic, a stop-motion nightmare unlike anything else in theaters today. And he’s got some major champions in his corner, too, including Kathleen Kennedy and Guillermo del Toro. So if you’re the type of person that’s tired of the big interlocking franchises that go down smooth but leave you feeling hungry, this is for you. With visuals unlike anything else on screens and a legendary craftsman at the helm, you owe it to yourself to seek out Mad God.

[via Little White Lies]

 
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