Xenogenesis

James Cameron apparently got 20 thousand dollars from a group of dentists in order to get the funds for his first short film. It doesn't have much of a plot except that a man is being chased by a giant robot that moves a lot like a construction crane - or a creation from some other dimension (it's hard not to see this coming back in the climax of Aliens and to a smaller extent in the futuristic scenes of The Terminator). What the film lacks is proper acting (I think it's William Wisher, who went on to co-write some of Cameron's films, as the main male character) and actual quality dialog it makes up with dynamic action and very impressive production design and special effects. All of this is Cameron, done with a kind of care and precision and detail that makes it look triple, maybe even more, of how much it actually looks; probably why Cameron got to work for Roger Corman right after this. It's so impressive to look at, from the fighting of the robots and the solid edits, that you almost want to try and forgive the more primitive aspects of the production... almost. Overall though, it's a nice little diddy for fans.

This film is a very odd example of a sci-fi short. It's hard to classify it, but best to say it's only experimental; which only means don't try to evaluate this work within cinema concepts. There's a very weak screenplay and a shallow plot. The story takes place in a machine-made starship coming from an uninhabitable planet which is being ruled by machines. In this environment our heroine Laurie, has been raised by one of those machines, which apparently have minds and lives just like human-beings. From my point of view the mood has been created as if it's the last episode of Terminator, where machines are in charge of our galaxy and humankind is stuck to live in spaceships.

Through the opening narration we get to understand that the last hope of humankind is depending on Laurie and her cyborg boyfriend's journey of exploring the Xenogenesis, the galactic adventure of exploring the outer space "Xeno-" thus finding a way to the rebirth of human civilizations "-genesis". The co-writer Randall Frakes's comic book art work brings that galactic adventure to life.

Laurie sends Raj into the starship to explore the nature of it. While he is walking over a bridge, a tank robot detects Raj's motions and attacks him. Raj tumbles down due to the laser fire of the robot, but holds onto the edge of the bridge. The digital celestial sphere of the starship appears to be very deep. Contacting each other via two-way radio signals, Laurie comes to rescue Raj with a giant spider robot. She begins to fight with the tank robot. But the tank defeats her. Starting to come towards Raj, it gives no chance to him to escape.

The modelling of both the robots are utterly fascinating. Action simulations are also very futuristic. With such a low budget, there is nothing seems cheap at all. There are distracting issues on all sounds and especially on all sound effects, but visuals are highly accomplished. Background music is established appropriately and it saves the mood. The talent voice should have been revised; Raj appears very tiny inside the starship but his voice level is being heard same with a wide-angle shot and the close-up shots of him. Probably they didn't have a bigger studio to let the sound waves travel in air longer. If it has been filmed for a silent picture, no-sound, it would have been so much better and effective.

James Cameron's beginner sci-fi work is fairly well in overall. For 12 minutes long, it's tolerable. Considering that all the inspirations of it are depleted in Terminator, Aliens, Abyss and even in Avatar; Xenogenesis doesn't have much to offer interesting. But looking at the year 1978, the beginner era of robotics and space adventures in cinema; Xenogenesis is used to be considered inspirational. If you're interested in the history of Sci-Fi; you should check this out.

This was James Cameron's first entry into the world of directing, it's a short sci-fi film that is set up as if it is part of a long running series, as if you are just watching one episode without having seen any of the others. The story covers a search across the universe to find a place where man can begin the cycle of creation again. The most amazing thing about this short film is how many ideas and images it contains that are present in Cameron's other work, as if he has always had theses images in his head and was determined to use them on a bigger canvas. Starting off with white credits on a black background, the film then has a minute long introduction that fills you in on the back-story via narration, which plays out over a series of paintings depicting the story. It's here that the first reference to his later work appears, one of the paintings depicts a man holding a woman, the flesh on his arm is missing, and showing that the arm is mechanical. Looking exactly like the shot in Terminator 2 when Arnold takes the flesh of his arm to reveal he's a robot. Then the film itself begins with Raj walking in part of a massive abandoned space ship; here he finds a gigantic care-taking robot. Similarity two occurs here, as the robot is an exact match for the gigantic war machines on tracks in the future battle sequences in T2, right down to having the same style of tracks. The robot then proceeds to attack Raj, this is where the most amazing similarity occurs as his fellow explorer, Laurie, comes to his rescue. She breaks down a door in a long legged walking robot, that she controls from inside by using joysticks, looking exactly like Ripley at the finale of Aliens taking on the Queen alien. The actor even looks like Ripley, there are shots of her inside the machine that also look exactly like the shots of Mary Elizabeth Masterantonio in her sub in the ‘The Abyss'. The two machines then have a spectacular battle, which literally ends on a cliffhanger. Cameron manages to get an awful lot into his short 12 minutes and the film is exciting and interesting. His effects work is fantastic for what must have been a limited budget, which brings up another theme that was already emerging in his work, that of always going for the big movie with plenty of effects work, though with strong characters to root the action around. A theme that is also obvious is that of the very strong female role, as it's Laurie who comes to rescue Raj from the robot. This short is a must see for anyone interested in Cameron and will blow you away with how many ideas are in here that would later turn up in his other films, I couldn't believe it when I first saw it.

If you're up for seeing what a former truckdriver can do with a budget of 20 grand provided by a group of Californian dentists looking for a quick tax write-off, cue up James Cameron's first film, Xenogenesis. If you can get through all 12 minutes of it on YouTube, you may be as fascinated as I was to observe how Cameron used much of the same themes from this in his later works; dystopian future, cybernetics, giant weaponized machines and strong female leads. It's the project that ultimately propelled Cameron into his film-making career. And to later to become one of the successful film directors of all time.

The film, while it showed off Cameron's designs, is hard to measure up by any of today's standards (obviously). The sound effects are wacky, acting is weak and you got a lead white male character by the name of "Raj". That said, you're not watching it for any of those things. This was in fact a test movie created by Cameron in hopes of attracting investors turn this into a full length feature film. Well, that didn't happen but instead got him noticed by Roger Corman, who hired him as art director and visual effects (miniature design and construction) for his film Battle Beyond the Stars (1980). What is also cool to note is that the giant robot cleaning machine is very similar to the large tank in the opening scene of The Terminator (1984) - you know, the one that's plowing over all those human skulls? He even adopted the same low angle shot of the tank wheels in both films. Interestingly, those tank wheels as I've just discovered are called "bogies".

If you're a fan of James Cameron, or just want to appreciate how far we've truly come in special effects, I would recommend you spare 12 minutes of your life to give Xenogenesis a watch. Then maybe ask yourself, could I make something better with $20,000?

Xenogenesis (1978)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

I've read reports that this, Cameron's first short, actually cost around $20,000 to produce, which is an extremely large amount for a short film. If it's true then I guess even at an early age the director was willing and able to work with large budgets. The 11-minute film has a pretty simple story as a man and woman are looking for a safe place to continue a new life cycle but soon they find themselves under attack by a robot. It's hard to be too critical of this film and it's certainly important to remember that this was the director's first film. With that in mind it's hard to be anything less than impressed as there's certainly a lot of imagination in this thing and for a short of this nature it looks extremely good. I think the biggest flaw are the performances, which are rather lacking and the dialogue that is really, really bad. With a better screenplay I'm sure this thing could have been even better but at the same time I'm sure people are going to be interested in this thing for the special effects. I found them to be pretty good as the robots look real, which is very important and all of the sets look like something from the future. I think the film also benefits from a curiosity factor by seeing things here that would appear in future Cameron movies. One can't help but not see touches of THE TERMINATOR and ALIENS here.