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nice as I can.<br />
“My house is designed by Buff and Hensman, which made their houses like a<br />
future version of Craftsman homes, as post-and-beam structures with more modern<br />
touches,” adds Mead. “Pasadena is a big little city. It has its own symphony,<br />
theaters, it’s laid out well. We live close to the Arroyo so we’re in a non-grid area<br />
of the city, which is very charming, almost like living in the country. Also, the<br />
medical facilities at Huntington Hospital are outstanding, and I’m very proud to<br />
be a contributor to it.”<br />
Mead’s work on that first Star Trek film proved to be a professional gamechanger<br />
for him, as he quickly envisioned what the Los Angeles cityscape would<br />
look like in the then-distant future of <strong>2019</strong> for Blade Runner. At the same time,<br />
he was conceiving an entire alternate electronic universe for the movie Tron<br />
(1982), complete with various vehicles: lightcycles, tanks, solar sailers and carriers.<br />
Both were Oscar-nominated hits. Mead served up more designs for the 2017<br />
sequel Blade Runner: 2049, imagining L.A. life more than 30 years down the<br />
line.<br />
Alas, society is nowhere close to having the flying cars that Mead had soaring<br />
through Blade Runner skies. But he points out that if all his futuristic designs had<br />
actually come to fruition, it would have created major havoc for the world.<br />
“First of all, it is a problem of logistics, because human beings have never created<br />
anything that is 100 percent perfect,” explains Mead, with a laugh. “Imagine<br />
thousands and thousands of flying cars in a metropolitan area; you would have to<br />
have ideal three-dimensional control over each one, because otherwise you’re going<br />
to have a disaster. And so, I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.”<br />
Mead elaborated on the technical challenges of constructing his flying<br />
Tron Light Cycle Design 02<br />
–continued on page 44<br />
Blade Runner Character Design<br />
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