Xenogenesis (short film)

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Movie
Original title Xenogenesis
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1978
length 12 minutes
Rod
Director James Cameron ,
RLA Frakes
script James Cameron,
RLA Frakes
production James Cameron,
RLA Frakes
music Bernard Herrmann
(Stock Music)
camera James Cameron
cut James Cameron
occupation

Xenogenesis is an American 35mm short film directed by James Cameron and RLA Frakes from 1978. The film is Cameron's directorial debut.

Due to the tight budget, the filmmakers were only able to produce part of the much more extensive script . Many ideas from it later flowed into Cameron's most successful work Avatar - Aufbruch nach Pandora (2009).

action

The human-like machine Raj was developed to prevent the final " cataclysm " of humanity. With the human woman Laurie, who was raised by machines but knows the "power of love", he travels through space in a spaceship that has its own consciousness . Both are looking for a place where the “cycle of creation ” can begin again.

On a planet, Raj explores a large building whose builders have been dead for 50,000 years. A door opens, out of which an oversized robot with a chain drive drives. He begins to pick up pieces of trash lying around and burn them. The robot discovers Raj and irradiates him, which throws him to the ground. However, he can straighten up again and flees, whereupon he is shot at by the robot with laser weapons . Raj fires back, but is hit by the robot shortly afterwards and falls towards an abyss. He can hold on to the edge with the last of his strength. When the robot notices this, it wants to attack again.

At this moment, Laurie comes to the rescue in a four-legged walking robot and attacks the enemy, using the robot's legs and a welding torch as weapons. However, the welding torch has to be reloaded over and over again, which means that the attacker has the upper hand. When he tries to attack Laurie with the beam weapon, Laurie can destroy it with one of the robot's legs. The attacking robot then knocks off one of Laurie's legs and tries to push him into the abyss. Laurie holds against it with all her strength and is able to push back the attacker. He drives towards the ledge on which Raj is still hanging and threatens to drag him down into the abyss.

production

Xenogenesis is James Cameron's first film, which he made with friends Randall Frakes and William Wisher . Cameron has acted as director, producer, writer, cameraman, editor, model maker and special effects manager. Cameron animated the robot fight using stop motion . Frakes acted as director and producer. Wisher took on the leading role. David J. Hudson was responsible for the sound .

Cameron and Frakes had already developed their first short stories and scripts together in the early 1970s. One of these scripts with the title Chrysalis from 1974 dealt with the topic of "cosmic journeys". Both of them pursued these ideas from 1977 in their treatment on Xenogenesis . The first concept drawings were also created from 1978 .

Since they did not have the necessary financial means, the team first shot a short scene on 16 mm film . With this demo film, they wanted to convince producers to turn the material into a complete feature film. Ultimately, through a friend's father, they came into contact with a consortium of dentists from Orange County . These had to have $ 17,000 written off by the end of the fiscal year . Cameron and Frakes were able to convince them to use this amount to finance their short film. Due to a lack of industry contacts, no investor could be found for the implementation of a feature film with the finished film. The film never hit theaters, nor was it officially released on video.

Cameron and Frakes joined Roger Corman's New World Pictures after the project ended , paving their way into the professional film industry.

Significance in the Avatar litigation

After Cameron's great success with Avatar - The Journey to Pandora , which grossed over US $ 2.78 billion worldwide, making it the world's most successful films by grossing , various people sued Cameron for theft of intellectual property . In the legal dispute with Gerald Morawski in 2012, Cameron signed a 45-page affidavit in which he went into detail on the development of the story for Avatar and quoted extensively from the screenplay for Xenogenesis . There are already elements such as planets with wild flora and fauna, bioluminescent trees connected to one another via a network or small flying beings. Not least because of this evidence, Morawski's lawsuit was finally dismissed in 2013.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Eriq Gardner: Read James Cameron's Sworn Declaration on How He Created 'Avatar' . In: The Hollywood Reporter, December 10, 2012
  2. ↑ a b c Blake Harris: HDTGM: A Conversation with Randall Frakes, Writer / Producer of 'Hell Comes to Frogtown' . In: slashfilm.com from May 13, 2016
  3. ↑ Eriq Gardner: James Cameron Wins 'Avatar' Theft Lawsuit . In: The Hollywood Reporter, February 5, 2013