The best movies of Douglas Trumbull, Hollywood’s VFX master

A few years after working on 2001, Trumbull was hired to provide the special effects for the adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel The Andromeda Strain. Trumbull and his associate, James Shourt, once again used conventional animation to create the onscreen computer displays, as well as the images of the Andromeda organism itself.

Trumbull’s visual mastery did not go unnoticed. That’s what led to his directorial debut on the sci-fi film, Silent Running. Bruce Dern stars as Freeman Lowell, a botanist living in space who is assigned to look over and protect one of the last forests in creation. When Freeman is ordered to destroy the forest, he rebels against his employers and lives alongside his drones while trying to protect the green.

Trumbull’s next major project was one of the earliest films of director Steven Spielberg, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Most of the movie is about the ordinary people who are drawn to the landing site of visitors from another world. Trumbull’s contribution includes the visually arresting depiction of the alien ship that seems to fill up the screen. Trumbull innovated the Showscan process that allowed the ship to appear with such impressive clarity.

Because of conflicts with Paramount, Trumbull wasn’t involved with the production of Star Trek: The Motion Picture from the beginning. But when the previous special effects lead failed to deliver, Trumbull and his team were emergency hires who only had six months to deliver every VFX shot in the entire film. TMP is known as one of the most ponderous (and occasionally boring) films in the Star Trek canon. But no one can disparage the job done by Trumbull and his associates. The effects are beautiful, and Spock’s spacewalk late in the film has some of that 2001 visual flare. Unfortunately, the price of getting the film finished on time meant that everyone had to work seven days a week until it was done.

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner redefined the way we envision the future. Part of that aesthetic was due to Trumbull’s creation of a futuristic version of Los Angeles, complete with omnipresent advertising, high-tech buildings, and a lived-in atmosphere that made it seem all too real. If anything, Blade Runner was a little too successful with its vision, and its look has been copied numerous times in the 40 years since its release.

Trumbull had to fight to complete the second film he directed, Brainstorm, following the untimely death of its leading actress, Natalie Wood. Fortunately, Wood had already filmed her entire performance as Karen Brace, the estranged wife of Dr. Michael Brace (Christopher Walken). Together with their team, Michael and Karen worked on a device that could record human memories, experiences, and emotions. It’s a powerful tool, and one that they struggled to keep out of the wrong hands.

After decades away from the industry, Trumbull returned to Hollywood to work on director Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. This film was shot without the conventional CGI of the time. Instead, Trumbull returned to the same techniques he had used on his earlier films, including 2001. The result was a modern movie with its own visual language and appearance. There’s nothing quite like it. And it’s a fitting end to Trumbull’s extraordinary contributions to the art of cinema.

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