Ron Thornton – who worked on Bablyon 5, Star Trek, Spaceballs and more – has sadly passed away.
We have some sad news to pass: visual effects pioneer Ron Thornton has passed away after a lengthy battle with illness.
Thornton began his career working in special effects for Doctor Who and Blake’s 7, and went on to forge an impressive path through the world of visual effects. He worked on sixty-five episodes of Babylon 5 (through his company, Foundation Imaging), seven of Star Trek: Enterprise, and seventeen of Star Trek: Voyager (on which he co-created Species 8472 and worked on the famous crash landing scene from Timeless, which earned an Emmy nomination).
His visual effects prowess was also implemented on Star Trek: Nemesis, Starship Troopers: The Series, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the 2005 version of CaptainScarlet, and the 2001 directors edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. He worked in models and miniatures, too, bringing tiny details to life in Captain Power And The Soldiers Of The Future and Spaceballs. Thornton also created the 1996 series Hypernauts.
What an amazing body of work.
Daren Dochterman – who worked with Thornton on the aforementioned director’s edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture– made this statement (shared by StarTrek.com):
"He was a pioneer of Film Quality Television visual effects. He was an artist and designer. He was instrumental in helping us when we did the Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's Edition. When we were tasked with finding a way to complete over 90 new visual effects for the project, I immediately called him up and asked if he could help us. He jumped at it, and put at our disposal the best artists in the business. When we would have new shots that needed to be included, he said 'No problem... we can do it.'... he was a cheerleader for us and a rock that we could rely on. He was one of the first people to encourage me to continue learning CG back in the 90s... and always had positive and helpful critique for my work. He welcomed me, an outsider, into his little family of crazies for a time... and it was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. To hell with 2016. You've taken the best we had. Warp Speed, Ron."
Our thoughts are with Ron’s family and his wife, Lada.
Rest in peace, Ron.