The news broke on Friday that Dan O’Bannon, screenwriter of “Dark Star”, “Alien” and “Total Recall” and director of “The Return of the Living Dead”, had died at the age of 63.

Almost immediately afterward came word that Robin Wood, the writer and critic, was gone as well. He was 78.

I don’t really have anything to say about either of them that others haven’t said already. O’Bannon was an MVP of sci-fi and horror filmmaking — hell, even “Lifeforce” is worth watching once — and Wood was a seminal critic and vivid writer whom I was honoured to meet when the TFCA gave him the Clyde Gilmour Award in 2006.

And even though he kinda told us we could all go fuck ourselves during his acceptance speech, he said it with such panache that half the room didn’t even realize it until later in the evening.

That, my friends, is style.