Trumbull, who brought otherworldly landscapes to life pioneered physical, not digital, effects that catapulted audiences into hyperspace and became Hollywood's go-to guy for sci-fi imagery.

Transcript

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Douglas Trumbull has died. He's the pioneering special effects wizard who brought to life the impossible landscapes in "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Blade Runner." He was 79. NPR's Bob Mondello offers this remembrance.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Those roiling clouds before the spaceship's arrival in "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" - they were white paint shot into a mixture of fresh- and saltwater. The light show that catapulted audiences into hyperspace in "2001" - illuminated art shot through a slit in a rotating piece of sheet metal. In the days before digital effects, those scenes had to be created physically, and Doug Trumbull was the kid who figured out how.

First hired in his 20s to fill "Space Odyssey's" computer screens with images back before most people had ever seen a computer screen, his inventive slit scan shots in the finale made him Hollywood's go-to guy for sci-fi imagery. George Lucas came calling, but Trumbull had to turn down the original "Star Wars" because he was too busy with "Close Encounters" and with directing "Silent Running," in which Bruce Dern and robots Huey, Dewey and Louie tend what's left of Earth's vegetation in geodesic space domes.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SILENT RUNNING")

BRUCE DERN: (As Freeman Lowell) Dewey, I've taught you everything that I know about taking care of the forest here. That's all that you have to do from now on.

MONDELLO: Trumbull later saved "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" when the film's supposedly state-of-the-art graphics imaging system couldn't produce even a few seconds of usable footage.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE")

WILLIAM SHATNER: (As James Kirk) Engineering, status report.

JAMES DOOHAN: (As Montgomery Scott) Our shields cannot handle another attack.

SHATNER: (As James Kirk) Mr. Spock.

MONDELLO: And then, tiring of spacecraft and starry backgrounds, he took on "Blade Runner's" polluted, dystopian city of Los Angeles and made it look a lot like an oil refinery.

He also spent years trying to convince Hollywood to embrace a hyperreal 70mm process that he invented that would run at about three times the speed of normal film. His 1992 virtual reality movie "Brainstorm" was supposed to be a showcase for it. But theater owners balked at paying for the equipment, and, tired of fighting, Trumbull mostly retired from Hollywood, emerging occasionally to work on an immersive theme park ride or do effects for a Big Bang segment in Terrence Malick's "The Tree Of Life," always happy to astonish audiences used to digital effects with practical magic.

I'm Bob Mondello.

[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In this story, as well as in a previous web version, we incorrectly call Brainstorm a 1992 movie. It came out in 1983.]

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "REJOICE IN THE SUN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Correction

In this story, as well as in a previous web version, we incorrectly call Brainstorm a 1992 movie. It came out in 1983.