Xenogenesis

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?

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.

Im not a fan of James Cameron because he seems more like and fx show then an artist. However i kind of liked this short film.

James was inspired to make this short film after watching star wars in theaters. Its pretty clear in this film that he loved star wars so much that he learned how to do the same effects which are pretty good for the time. The acting from the boy (Dont think they have names) was pretty good but the girl was terrible. One thing this short needed really bad was music. I know this was made just to show off what he could do, but come on. There's is NO MUSIC AT ALL! While the fight scenes are good they become boring fast because of the slowness of them and the bad sound fx and they just really needed music to make them more enjoyable. Overall i think it showed that Cameron was very good with modeling which this film got him a job. If your a fan of his you may get more out of it then i did but i feel like it was a little incomplete. Hope one day it becomes a feature...

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.

I watched this James Cameron's short on Youtube (it was a happy surprise somebody had uploaded it!!) and it really wonder me!. I found out Jim had made this short by reading a Wikipedia article, but watching this robots in a struggle, laser beams and all that jazz, was surprising; it prove how much talented this filmmaker is. I agree with those commonplaces in Cameron's films mentioned before, and I'd add that there's a clear Star-Wars-like background; what's more, our hero bears a strong resemblance to Luke Skywalker in my book (No wonder Jim felt swayed to work in the movie industry after watching this George Lucas's film).