‘Would you like to know more?’
TriStar Pictures
Even as the T-Rex roared triumphantly in the wake of the dinosaur picture’s success, the animator would carry his maxim with him to future projects. On Rob Cohen’s 1996 fantasy epic “Dragonheart,” Phil Tippett would meet VFX maestro Craig Hayes, who later designed the deadly warrior bugs in Verhoeven’s cult hit.
For the infested landscapes of “Starship Troopers,” Tippett was unsure that he would be able to carry the technical feats of “Jurassic Park” over to a story crawling with hundreds of bugs. He adds to Cinema Blend that despite being “terrified” and unconfident going in, his anxieties were quelled in a dream:
It really wasn’t until I had a dream that pointed me in the right direction. And it was something that I already knew, but my fear kind of obliterated what I knew. And that was one foot in front of the other. Don’t think about anything. Don’t think about the step you took before, the step you’re gonna take, only be like right there in that moment, dealing with those. Not thousands of problems, but pick the big six problems and focus on those."
Tippett’s contributions included building a fully articulated maquette for the warrior bug which, he demonstrates in a show-and-tell with Adam Savage’s Tested channel, serves the dual purpose of guiding the computer graphic modelers in the digital animation process and serving as a ready-to-photograph lighting reference. It would come in handy for jaw-dropping battle scenes like this one: While “Starship Troopers” continues to ride the wave of re-evaluation with the benefit of hindsight, Phil Tippett has plenty to be proud of.
Starship Troopers Is Still A Point Of Pride For ILM Effects Legend Phil Tippett
TriStar Pictures
By Anya Stanley/Dec. 3, 2022 10:00 am EST
In “Starship Troopers,” Paul Verhoeven (no stranger to unflinching provocation) hands over an ironic portrait of a fascist fantasy society at war with giant man-eating arachnid bugs, and Tippett supplies the creepy-crawlies, a point he remains proud of over two decades beyond its release. Looking back on the cult hit, Tippett tells Cinema Blend:
“For me, it was ‘Starship Troopers,’ because we had just done ‘Jurassic Park’ before, and ILM and Dennis [Muren] did all the really heavy lifting on that. We did the animation for two scenes, and then Paul [Verhoeven] insisted that I be the visual effects supervisor on ‘Troopers.’ And I was terrified.”
A prior prehistoric project
Universal Pictures
It was his maxim emerging from “Jurassic Park,” but the valuable knowledge brought into it was the animator’s nightmarish 1985 film “Prehistoric Beast.” The grim-toned dinosaur short would arm him with intimate knowledge of bringing animalistic movements to life; as it turns out, Steven Spielberg would go into “Jurassic Park” aiming for a hyper-realistic beast-dinosaur rather than a guy-in-a-suit monster. Tippett was the right one for the job.
Side note: fans of Tippett’s stop-motion feature “Mad God” can see its bleak seedlings in “Prehistoric Beast,” available on Tippett’s YouTube channel:
Engineering a Dinosaur Input Device built on the same tech that allowed the AT-ATs to storm Hoth, the team at Tippett studios and ILM fused together stop-motion animation and computer-based modeling, then constructed a launchpad for digitally rendered central characters. For his troubles and triumphs on “Jurassic Park,” Tippet took home the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, along with Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, and Michael Lantieri.
‘Would you like to know more?’
Even as the T-Rex roared triumphantly in the wake of the dinosaur picture’s success, the animator would carry his maxim with him to future projects. On Rob Cohen’s 1996 fantasy epic “Dragonheart,” Phil Tippett would meet VFX maestro Craig Hayes, who later designed the deadly warrior bugs in Verhoeven’s cult hit.
For the infested landscapes of “Starship Troopers,” Tippett was unsure that he would be able to carry the technical feats of “Jurassic Park” over to a story crawling with hundreds of bugs. He adds to Cinema Blend that despite being “terrified” and unconfident going in, his anxieties were quelled in a dream:
It really wasn’t until I had a dream that pointed me in the right direction. And it was something that I already knew, but my fear kind of obliterated what I knew. And that was one foot in front of the other. Don’t think about anything. Don’t think about the step you took before, the step you’re gonna take, only be like right there in that moment, dealing with those. Not thousands of problems, but pick the big six problems and focus on those."
Tippett’s contributions included building a fully articulated maquette for the warrior bug which, he demonstrates in a show-and-tell with Adam Savage’s Tested channel, serves the dual purpose of guiding the computer graphic modelers in the digital animation process and serving as a ready-to-photograph lighting reference. It would come in handy for jaw-dropping battle scenes like this one: While “Starship Troopers” continues to ride the wave of re-evaluation with the benefit of hindsight, Phil Tippett has plenty to be proud of.
For the infested landscapes of “Starship Troopers,” Tippett was unsure that he would be able to carry the technical feats of “Jurassic Park” over to a story crawling with hundreds of bugs. He adds to Cinema Blend that despite being “terrified” and unconfident going in, his anxieties were quelled in a dream:
Tippett’s contributions included building a fully articulated maquette for the warrior bug which, he demonstrates in a show-and-tell with Adam Savage’s Tested channel, serves the dual purpose of guiding the computer graphic modelers in the digital animation process and serving as a ready-to-photograph lighting reference. It would come in handy for jaw-dropping battle scenes like this one:
It really wasn’t until I had a dream that pointed me in the right direction. And it was something that I already knew, but my fear kind of obliterated what I knew. And that was one foot in front of the other. Don’t think about anything. Don’t think about the step you took before, the step you’re gonna take, only be like right there in that moment, dealing with those. Not thousands of problems, but pick the big six problems and focus on those."
While “Starship Troopers” continues to ride the wave of re-evaluation with the benefit of hindsight, Phil Tippett has plenty to be proud of.
