Pop culture wouldn't have looked the same without Ron Cobb.
The American cartoonist and designer died on September 21 from a neurodegenerative disease, Lewy body dementia, at the age of 83.
He influenced by his work many works of science fiction like
ET, the extraterrestrial, Conan the Barbarian
,
Star Wars
,
Alien
or even
Back to the Future
.
Also: Syd Mead, Visionary Artist of
Blade Runner
,
Tron
and
Aliens
,
Dies
at 86
For Ron Cobb, it all started at Disney at the age of 17.
He works as an intermediate animator on
Sleeping Beauty
(1959).
Licensed by Disney in 1957, he joined the US Army in 1960. From 1965, he became an editorial cartoonist and made a name for himself with his illustrations for underground newspapers such as the
Los Angeles Free Press
.
His drawings are also published in more than 80 newspapers around the world.
In 1972, he told a student newspaper that he was “
fascinated by man in stressful situations, fascinated by man in crisis.
So I like to create artificial crises, because I think that rather than making a shy and harmless remark with a caricature, I would much rather lure someone into a situation where they can say to themselves “This could happen” or “ What would I say in this situation? ”
".
Read also: Andrew Jack, actor and professor of accents on
Star Wars
, died of coronavirus
His works end up interesting the world of cinema.
He joined the production of John Carpenter's first film,
Dark Star
(1974) before bringing several creatures to life in the cantina for
Star Wars
(1977).
A few years later, he designed the weapons and sets for
Conan the Barbarian
(1982) and during production, met for the first time Steven Spielberg, who worked in the corridors of Universal on
Raiders of the Lost Ark
(1981) .
The disappointment of
ET, the alien
“
I was giving Spielberg angles, ideas for directing,
” Ron Cobb told the Los Angeles Times in 1988.
“Let's do this and that, and we could shoot over his shoulder and then a close up of the shadow"".
The filmmaker is in love and lets Ron Cobb direct his future film
Night Skies
, a feature film about the story of a family who claims to have met five aliens on their Kentucky farm in 1955.
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The project encounters many obstacles.
The family threatens to sue to prevent the film from being made, and budget projections for special effects are problematic.
Indeed, the cost of creating effects for the five aliens reaches 3.5 million dollars and definitely buries
Night Skies
.
But Steven Spielberg does not let go and takes up the idea of a boy protecting an abandoned alien.
ET, the alien
was born.
In the 1982 film, Ron Cobb makes an appearance as a doctor.
But the designer hardly appreciates the feature film, which he considers as a "
banal recital of the story of Christ, sentimental and complacent, a pathetic story of the lost puppy genre
".
When asked what he did on the set of ET, he likes to answer: "
I didn't realize it
".
Xenomorph and DeLorean
Ron Cobb is also associated with the mythology of the
Alien
saga
.
By collaborating with the Swiss painter Hans Ruedi Giger, one of the creators of the xenomorph who died in 2014, he created the exterior and interior of the mythical Nostromo vessel in
Alien
(1978) as well as the complex of terrestrial colonies in its suite,
Aliens, the Return
(1986).
In an interview, Ron Cobb recalls the doubts of the production when discovering the painter's illustrations.
To read also: The seventh part of the
Alien
saga
"in preparation" according to Ridley Scott
“
We had seen his drawings and we were all a little worried about what this Swiss-German surrealist was going to do when he appeared on set
,” he said.
But Hans Ruedi Giger had nothing to do with the monsters he had drawn.
He was very theatrical, dressing all in black and gothic, but he was a sweet and funny man
”.
As well as creating one of the most famous ships in cinema, Ron Cobb is said to have inspired the production with one of the creature's most horrifying characters: with its corrosive blood that melts any metal, not if you simply shoot the creature to kill it, the cure would be worse than the evil.
Read also: The DeLorean from
Back to the Future
: the Doc's crazy machine back on sale
A few years later, Ron Cobb crossed paths with Steven Spielberg, then producer, on the film
Back to the Future
(1985).
The latter then asks him how to transform a DeLorean into a time machine.
The designer imagines a "homemade" machine, as if the Doc had assembled parts of RadioShack.
A legend of cinema is born.
Ron Cobb then continued to work on many projects, including
Abyss
(1989) by James Cameron,
Total Recall
(1990) by Paul Verhoeven or the
Firefly
series
(2002) by Joss Whedon.
His latest project,
Southland Tales
(2006) by Richard Kelly, marks the end of a career as an artist that revolutionized cinema.
