To Everything, Turn Turn Turn

Овцы-лошадки by Ivan Novikov, 1926.

I saw the news of Sam Neill's passing this morning, and this is one of those celebrity deaths that hurt a lot. I came close to tears several times while trying to write the initial version of this post.

I was obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid, and so naturally I loved the Jurassic Park films, and I remember seeing Jurassic Park III when it came out in 2001 (I was about six at the time).

Then about a year or two later, they were showing the 1998 miniseries Merlin on the telly, and I knew Sam Neill from Jurassic Park so I watched it. All I knew about the Arthurian legends at that time was basically Disney's The Sword in the Stone, and even then I barely remembered much beyond Arthur becoming King after drawing a sword from the stone. But I was hooked by the miniseries. I loved dinosaurs, but I also loved fantasy, and here were all these other characters and stories I didn't know about. This was the piece of media that started my hyperfixation with the Arthurian legends.

One hyperfixation creating another. And all because the actor playing Merlin was in another work of media I loved.

I loved his work in Jurassic Park, in Merlin, in Event Horizon, in Possession, in John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness, and I loved the little shorts he made back in 2020 during lockdown, my favourite being the one where he's in a bath with Hugo Weaving. And he just seemed a genuinely lovely person all round.

I'm going to miss him.