(written from a Production point of view)
Wesley "Wes" Ford Takahashi (born 15 September 1956; age 67) is an animator who worked for Industrial Light & Magic as matte animator on the opening sequence of Star Trek: The Next Generation and as animation supervisor on Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
Takahashi worked as storyboard artist for the animated television series Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats (1984) and as assistant animator on American Pop (1981). He joined ILM and worked as animator on The Goonies (1985), Back to the Future (1985), A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985), Top Gun (1986), and Batteries Not Included (1987).
Further credits as animation supervisor for ILM include Willow (1988, with Barbara Affonso, Craig Barron, David Carson, and Jeff Mann), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1988), The Abyss (1989), Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Back to the Future Part III (1990), The Rocketeer (1991, starring William O. Campbell), Hook (1991), Death Becomes Her (1992), and The Frighteners (1996) for which he received a Saturn Award nomination in the category Best Special Effects in 1997.
More recent credits as visual effects producer include Tropic Thunder (2008), Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the Chief (2008) and Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts (2009), S. Darko (2009), the romance I Know a Woman's Heart (2011), and Black November (2012).