Largely responsible for some of the greatest special effects movies we've seen, including 2001, Close Encounters, Star Trek TMP, and Blade Runner. The legacy this guy left behind on special effects in filmmaking is simply astonishing. He didn't invent slit-screen photography, but he figured out how to use it for large scale visual effects. Moreover, the effect used for the stargate sequence in 2001 was his answer to a question nobody understood; what exactly is a stargate and what would it look like?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY-ajPNQMh0As I've surely mentioned many times before, Close Encounters is one of my very favorite movies. It's everything a movie should be. Trumbull didn't invent motion control photography, either, but he pretty much perfected it. The scene of the mothership coming in from behind Devil's Tower is as good as it gets. His use of color in these sequences is simply gorgeous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e62D-4I5NXIThe same can be said of ST:TMP. The five minute fly-around of the Enterprise was too long, but it certainly looked fantastic. Lucasfilms was using the same technique in Star Wars, but the space ship sequences always seemed so drab and lifeless. All the colors were the same. There was a vibrancy in what DT was doing, with lots color and life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMQTzYp756oI didn't much care for Blade Runner, so I'm not sure what video I should link to, but I saw it in theaters, and was blown away by how impressive it was visually. His rendition of Los Angeles was nothing short of incredible. It was both beautiful and terrifying. It always seemed to me that the gist of being a special effects guy is to figure out how to make a building explode, or to find a way to show something that doesn't exist. Trumbull took it a step further. He did those things, but he was a true artist in how he did it. There was a beauty to what he did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnyNW8fvRrw