Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1978
Xenogenesis (film)
Buy Xenogenesis (film) now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Xenogenesis' is a 1978 Canadian-American science fiction short film directed by James Cameron. It stars William Wisher Jr. and Margaret Umbel.
Plot
Raj (an engineered man, trained to deliver humanity from the final cataclysm) and Laurie (a woman raised by a machine, but she alone knew the power of love) are sent in a gigantic sentient starship to search space for a place to start a new life cycle. Having come across a derelict starship, belonging to an unknown people said to have been dead for fifty thousand years, Raj decides to take a look around. He comes across a gigantic robotic cleaner, which attacks Raj and he ends up hanging from an edge. Laurie arrives to help, driving a vehicle with four legs. Raj instructs her to get back to their ship, but she refuses and engages the robot in combat. Laurie pushes the robot towards the edge, with the robot fighting to not go over it.
Cast
* William Wisher Jr. as Raj
* Margaret Umbel as Laurie
Production
Cameron raised $20,000 from a local dentist to fund the movie. Most of the film was shot in his living room and the methods he used were self taught. Learning as they went, Cameron said he felt like a doctor doing his first surgical procedure.
It was noted in 'A Critical Companion to James Cameron' that the scene from 'Aliens' where Ripley yells at the Queen Alien was similar to a scene in this movie. It was also noted that many of the themes that would appear in later Cameron movies, included a strong female character, can be first found here.Barkman, A. (2018) 'Critical Companion to James Cameron'. Lexington Books
The dentist pulled out of the project based on the screened demo, but Roger Corman was sufficiently impressed to hire Cameron to work on 'Battle Beyond the Stars' and 'Piranha II'.
Home media
The film is available on YouTube.Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211205/8KpZRJ4HE4Q Ghostarchive] and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20131022142151/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KpZRJ4HE4Q Wayback Machine]:
References
Buy Xenogenesis (film) now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1978