Apogee Productions was established in 1977 by ILM employee John Dykstra. The company is best known for its contributions to the original Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It also helped to create the CGI Paramount logo used from 1986-2002, being responsible for the physical models of the mountain and landscape around it.
The studio disbanded in the 1990s. Dykstra has since moved on to Sony Pictures Imageworks as an effects supervisor.
Note: This organization has nothing to do with the company formerly known as Apogee Software Productions that released classic PC games like Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3-D or Duke Nukem 3D; for them, see 3D Realms.
Aside from the above, Apogee has also done effects for:
- An American Tail (titles)
- Back to the Future: The Ride (with Dream Quest Images and Imagica)
- Big
- Caddyshack
- The first three entries of the Child's Play franchise (first film with Ruby-Spears).
- Die Hard 2
- Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (movie)
- Ghost Dad
- Ghostbusters II
- Highway to Heaven (one episode)
- The Last Starfighter
- Lifeforce
- Mac and Me
- My Stepmother Is an Alien
- Never Say Never Again
- Rock-A-Doodle
- Spaceballs
- Sewer Shark
- The Thing (Motion Control services for Visual Concept Engineering; uncredited)
Associated Tropes:
- Canon Foreigner: The Epsilon IX design as seen in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The original concept had it as simply a radar station on the surface of a planet.
- Stock Footage: Battlestar Galactica; which was further recycled wholesale into Space Mutiny.
- Troubled Production: The studio is no stranger to this happening to them; even getting kicked off of both Altered States and Dune (1984) because of those films' general production issues.
