Xenogenesis (1978)

In 1978, James Cameron collaborated with Randall Frakes on Xenogenesis, a sci-fi film designed as the chapter to a non-existent movie serial that picks up as Raj (played by future Terminator co-writer William Wisher) has just entered the grand colonnade of a massive, 30,000 year old alien complex. He's suddenly confronted by a giant robotic Molly Maid that's been keeping away all dust and grime, and now sees poor Raj as a piece of unwanted fuzz.

The giant machine, with tank-like conveyors, chases him to the edge of a precipice (with a long, clean drop similar to the Death Star sets in Star Wars ), and while Raj hangs for his life, the machine is distracted by Laurie, Raj's colleague, who breaks through the metal door and battles the machine in her own hand-controlled robot, exchanging laser shots, and finally pushing the machine closer to the precipice, where poor Raj is a few feet away from being crushed.

The short makes use of stock music (credited to Bernard Herrmann, from Jason & the Argonauts and Mysterious Island, though Jerry Goldsmith's title music from Logan's Run is also used in the beginning) and some pretty nifty stop-motion animation, set against a clean black & white decor.

What's unique about the short are a few ideas that later popped up in Cameron's feature films. The use of sound effects is very precise, and mechanical tones and vibrations dominate the machine battle much in the way Sigourney Weaver fights the alien bitch in Aliens. Even the Laurie's spider-like vehicle has her move forward using arm controls from inside the cockpit like Weaver's industrial rig in Aliens.

It's a humble student film with impressive effects, and certainly functioned as an attractive calling card so Cameron could find work in special effects and art direction in later productions like Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and Escape from New York (1981).

To see the short as a QuickTime file from FilmThreat, click HERE.

Mark R. Hasan (2006)