Death
On August 16, 2005, Ranft was a passenger in his 2004 Honda Element when the driver, named Elegba Earl, lost control and crashed through the guard rail while heading northbound on Highway 1. The car plunged 130 feet into the mouth of the Navarro River in Mendocino County, California. Both Ranft and Earl were killed instantly. Another passenger, Eric Frierson, survived by escaping through the sun roof; he received moderate injuries. Ranft, who was 45, died during the production of Cars, which he co-directed and voice acted in. The film was later dedicated to him. His remains were cremated. The film and tie-in game are dedicated to his memory, as is Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, on which Ranft was executive producer. Henry Selick called him "the story giant of our generation."
In honor of Ranft, in Selick's animated film production, Coraline, the moving SUV that moves Coraline into her new apartment is emblazoned with a "Ranft Moving, Inc." logo. The movers themselves are modeled after Joe and brother Jerome, and Jerome Ranft voices one of the movers.
In the 2010 DVD re-release of Toy Story 2, there is a special feature that talks about Ranft and his life and accomplishments at both Disney and Pixar, and how the Pixar staff greatly enjoyed his sense of humor.
Read more about this topic: Joe Ranft
Famous quotes containing the word death:
““Promise me solemnly,” I said to her as she lay on what I believed to be her death bed, “if you find in the world beyond the grave that you can communicate with me—that there is some way in which you can make me aware of your continued existence—promise me solemnly that you will never, never avail yourself of it.” She recovered and never, never forgave me.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“Nature creates while destroying, and doesn’t care whether it creates or destroys—as long as life isn’t extinguished, as long as death doesn’t lose its rights.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)
“What I call middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified in predetermined forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all progress, all discovery. I call middle-class a closed society in which life has no taste, in which the air is tainted, in which ideas and men are corrupt. And I think that a man who takes a stand against this death is in a sense a revolutionary.”
—Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)