RIP. Here in Sweden the headlines mention primarily his role in Ivanhoe, a movie that has aired on Swedish TV almost every New Years for over 40 years.
Jurassic Park was the first movie I saw as a twelve year old boy at the cinema, and it not only made me a huge fan of the series but as a boy I was really into dinosaurs and it was really something to see them being "real" on a big screen for the first time.
"I have a theory that there are two kinds of boys. There are those that want to be astronomers, and those that want to be astronauts[...]That's the difference between imagining and seeing"
Rest in peace. Like many here, his performances were hugely influential on my childhood (and adulthood). One I haven’t seen mentioned here yet is Merlin.
The part I liked in Event Horizon was Laurence Fishburn's character seeing the logs of the crew going crazy and immediately turning it off and saying, "We're leaving."
Probably the smartest decision made in a horror film. Time to get out of Dodge.
Yeah! Its a great movie if you dont try to nitpick stuff, which is hard for me to do on a lot of things too.
Neill: We can't just abandon this ship, we just found her
Fishburn: I have no intentions of abandoning her. We will get far enough away from it and blow it up. Fuck this ship.
Pretty sure it's "But I LOVE what he did for the Australian flag." - he is a kiwi but that's arguably the Aussie flag with the colonial bit replaced with the local one
In W40k the primary form of FTL travel is the Immaterium or Warp, a realm of pure psychic energy inhabited by the Chaos gods and countless demons. Spaceships traveling through the Warp need powerful protective shields lest they be possessed and consumed by said demons... which is exactly what happens in the movie.
I saw him interviewed once and they asked about his cancer and he said that he did not find it very interesting. He said something to the effect of he finds living interesting and there's far more interesting things to talk about than his cancer. Paraphrased I don't recall exactly.
You misunderstand - the message is he was far more interested in living and what he could do with his life and genuinely found the cancer not interesting compared to other things.
He wasn't just being touchy and trying to change the subject.
i saw him around a lot on tv and so on as an australian, just genuinely a pretty good bloke. like i dunno what to say i don't know if i've ever cried about an actor dying before
i'd love to say he was awesome in every role but he always seemed super honest in his performance and i think that hurt him a lot when he had to play bullshit characters lol.
First time I saw him was in Riley Ace of Spies. A great series that was on PBS. Last series I watched was Untamed. He was one of my favorite actors and a credit to his profession. Sad to learn of his passing.
Yup, we can dream bigger and give bigger dreams :)
A silver lining in the tech progress is this : I remember watching movies from the 60s or the 70s, in the 90s, and feeling "damn, that looks old". I could only care about movies made after 1984, or something (and, men, did amblin and the "produced by Steven Spielberg-verse" give us good things to watch.)
I suspect that, now that movies are kinda "converging" in terms of visual, it will be easier to share the movies of our childhoods with the next generation.
Besides, they don't care that much about looks : I litteraly witnessed 10 year old kids getting hooked on my 1991 game boy !!!!
RIP. Recently watched Series 3 of The Twelve, and thought "No way is he in his 70s", and had just finished reading his autobiography "Did I Ever Tell You This?" - delightful read.
I’ve watched “In The Mouth of Madness” so many times. It is in my top 3 most re-watched horror movies list. Perfect Lovecraftian horror, and Sam Neill was perfect in it.
Bicentennial Man is one of my favourite films of his (also Robin Williams). There's an interesting subplot in there on right to repair which is very much relevant today. It also depicts a future 30 years away which might've seemed bleak when it was first conceived, but is in many ways more hopeful than what we actually got.
If someone here likes horror movies I highly recommend watching his work in Possession (1981) and Mouth of Madness (1995).
If you prefer a more family focused comedy, go with Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), from the same director of the excelent What we Do in the Shadows.
RIP. Here in Sweden the headlines mention primarily his role in Ivanhoe, a movie that has aired on Swedish TV almost every New Years for over 40 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanhoe_(1982_film)
He posted this video message to the Swedish people for New Years 2023: https://www.svt.se/kultur/ivanhoe-skadespelarens-nyarshalsni...
Great movie.
I have only ever seen the 1950s Ivanhoe film and part of a... I think it was a 1990s TV miniseries. I'll have to watch this.
I watched it every Jan 1 with some pizza
Ivanhoe is a story about a Russian farmer and his tool.
Jurassic Park was the first movie I saw as a twelve year old boy at the cinema, and it not only made me a huge fan of the series but as a boy I was really into dinosaurs and it was really something to see them being "real" on a big screen for the first time.
"I have a theory that there are two kinds of boys. There are those that want to be astronomers, and those that want to be astronauts[...]That's the difference between imagining and seeing"
Thank you for everything, doctor Grant.
"I would have liked to have seen Montana..."
You are forever in our hearts, Vasili.
I’m in Montana now, and I spent the weekend with a very energetic palaeontologist who has unearthed many dinosaurs.
Rest in peace. Like many here, his performances were hugely influential on my childhood (and adulthood). One I haven’t seen mentioned here yet is Merlin.
His Merlin was always my favorite, though I've never heard anyone else mention it out in the wild.
So sad. Jurassic Park had a tremendous impact on me as a dino obsessed teenager ( was 13 when it came out). RIP.
It’s a unix system, I know this!
The file navigator she used was running on a silicon graphics machine, called fsn
https://preterhuman.net/software/file-system-navigator-fsn-s...
One of my favorite actors of all time. If you haven’t seen it, watch The Dish.
also the Event Horizon, his change of character is something you don't forget..
Something that is burnt into me is saying "DO YOU SEE?", invoking the final lines of Neill in Event Horizon
"Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see."
Not my favourite movie though. The horror in space trope is a very tired one.
Alongside the poorly lit spaceship. Spaceships are workplaces and workplaces should provide adequate illumination so you can see what you are doing.
But I LOVE what he did for the New Zealand flag.
> Spaceships are workplaces and workplaces
...with very constrained sources of power. Lighting places where humans are not is wasting that power.
The part I liked in Event Horizon was Laurence Fishburn's character seeing the logs of the crew going crazy and immediately turning it off and saying, "We're leaving."
Probably the smartest decision made in a horror film. Time to get out of Dodge.
Yeah! Its a great movie if you dont try to nitpick stuff, which is hard for me to do on a lot of things too.
Neill: We can't just abandon this ship, we just found her Fishburn: I have no intentions of abandoning her. We will get far enough away from it and blow it up. Fuck this ship.
Pretty sure it's "But I LOVE what he did for the Australian flag." - he is a kiwi but that's arguably the Aussie flag with the colonial bit replaced with the local one
Not arguably, definitely.
Australian flag. The black, red and yellow flag he replaced the Union Jack with is the Australian first nations flag
My bad. I need to retake my geography classes from high school
Pandorum was pretty crazy (he wasn’t in it, but it was an odd space horror movie, and I feel that Event Horizon kind of paved the way).
Even Horizon is a Warhammer 40k film that has nothing to do with Warhammer 40k.
Can you elaborate for those of us who don't know Warhammer?
In W40k the primary form of FTL travel is the Immaterium or Warp, a realm of pure psychic energy inhabited by the Chaos gods and countless demons. Spaceships traveling through the Warp need powerful protective shields lest they be possessed and consumed by said demons... which is exactly what happens in the movie.
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Immaterium
That's always the role I remember first when I hear his name, because it seems so unusual for him and because he was so great in it.
It’s a wonderful little movie. Absolutely adorable.
I saw him interviewed once and they asked about his cancer and he said that he did not find it very interesting. He said something to the effect of he finds living interesting and there's far more interesting things to talk about than his cancer. Paraphrased I don't recall exactly.
It is a touchy subject. When you have it, you don't want to think about it all the time.
You misunderstand - the message is he was far more interested in living and what he could do with his life and genuinely found the cancer not interesting compared to other things.
He wasn't just being touchy and trying to change the subject.
I watched Possession (1981) a few weeks back. One of the weirdest films I’ve ever seen. His acting was so different from his later stuff.
Possession is such a fantastically special movie, heavily due to Neill and Adjani’s performances.
RIP to a real one.
Aside from Jurassic Park and the other roles mentioned, I also liked his role in the Merlin TV two part movies. Now I need to rewatch both…
i saw him around a lot on tv and so on as an australian, just genuinely a pretty good bloke. like i dunno what to say i don't know if i've ever cried about an actor dying before
i'd love to say he was awesome in every role but he always seemed super honest in his performance and i think that hurt him a lot when he had to play bullshit characters lol.
i dunno i'm just some guy
An absolute legend. I thought he'd be around for longer. Thanks for making Jurassic Park what it is, Sam.
First time I saw him was in Riley Ace of Spies. A great series that was on PBS. Last series I watched was Untamed. He was one of my favorite actors and a credit to his profession. Sad to learn of his passing.
Today New Zealand has lost a national treasure.
Haere atu rā ki te okiokinga.
And Northern Ireland.
And Australia. He lived in Sydney and the Aussie PM just posted a tribute.
He's as Australian as Russell Crowe and Lamingtons!
Or Ryan Gosling.
https://youtu.be/TeONP37qsSo?si=cPLF_UpcuW7dfruT
I'm getting old, all my childhood heroes die.
Here's to "trying to be someone's childhood heroes"
Without dancing on TikTok or pulling stupid faces for YouTube thumbnails
Yup, we can dream bigger and give bigger dreams :)
A silver lining in the tech progress is this : I remember watching movies from the 60s or the 70s, in the 90s, and feeling "damn, that looks old". I could only care about movies made after 1984, or something (and, men, did amblin and the "produced by Steven Spielberg-verse" give us good things to watch.)
I suspect that, now that movies are kinda "converging" in terms of visual, it will be easier to share the movies of our childhoods with the next generation.
Besides, they don't care that much about looks : I litteraly witnessed 10 year old kids getting hooked on my 1991 game boy !!!!
It gets worse. You start realising that the new heroes you're discovering are all younger than you.
... and they are not that interesting / relatable
You’ll fit right in on this site then. It’s mostly elderly Americans sundowning and posting about their youth.
I'm not american, but ok, why not :)
His debut in the 1001 Movies to See Before You Die is in the 1979 film, My Brilliant Career [1].
("Hey, that's a young Sam Neill!")
[1] https://youtu.be/aU3kXBb6Yc4
If you have not seen Hunt for the Wilderpeople (staring Sam Neil) find it and watch it today!
Ah, that sucks. I’ve always enjoyed him.
One of the inevitable features of getting older. All my cultural icons keep checking out.
Sam Neill had a great & prolific career; particularly appreciated his role as Cardinal Thomas Wolsey on The Tudors
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000554/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Neill
RIP. Recently watched Series 3 of The Twelve, and thought "No way is he in his 70s", and had just finished reading his autobiography "Did I Ever Tell You This?" - delightful read.
Event horizon.
"Where we're going, we don't need eyes to see".
Remind me to never go to orbit around Neptune.
"What makes you think I'll miss?"
So sad to hear this. Hard to imagine anyone else playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park.
I’ve watched “In The Mouth of Madness” so many times. It is in my top 3 most re-watched horror movies list. Perfect Lovecraftian horror, and Sam Neill was perfect in it.
Do you read Sutter Cane?
I'll never forget Neill as Damien in Omen III.
I'd very much like to forget Neill as Damien in Omen III. Chilling.
Godspeed. ;~;7
As a kiwi he was the best of us. Creative, talented, willing to roll up his sleeves, maker of exceptional wine. Haere ra
He had a lovely gentle demeanor about him. He was good recently in the Untamed series.
Hunt for the Wilder People was fun, as was Reilly, Ace of Spies.
Loved Hunt for the Wilder People.
I honestly didn't know he was a Kiwi until I saw Hunt for the Wilder People. Absolutely fantastic movie.
Bicentennial Man is one of my favourite films of his (also Robin Williams). There's an interesting subplot in there on right to repair which is very much relevant today. It also depicts a future 30 years away which might've seemed bleak when it was first conceived, but is in many ways more hopeful than what we actually got.
If someone here likes horror movies I highly recommend watching his work in Possession (1981) and Mouth of Madness (1995).
If you prefer a more family focused comedy, go with Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), from the same director of the excelent What we Do in the Shadows.
RIP. Where he's going, he won't need eyes. Wait, perhaps that was an inappropriate quote to use.
Give me a ping Vasily. One ping only please.
Sad.
A minute of silence for him. No echoes.