Good movie but grossly overrated

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

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.

Xenogenesis is a student film by James Cameron, later in his career known of the Terminator movies and of course Titanic. It's only 12 minutes long and after rather nifty opening narration we get about 10 minutes worth of battling robots.It's rather easy to see, that Cameron is a trained special effects maker as the robots and settings do look rather good despite of the obvious small budget. But as it is special effects don't make up the fact, that there isn't actually much of a plot or purpose in the film other than to test out some film tricks.For James Cameron fans Xenogeniesis is rather interesting treat and a showcase of where he did depart. What is more interesting is the fact, that Cameron hasn't changed much as storyteller: the themes of Xenogenesis are pretty similar to his more bigger budget movies: tough female character, love and machines as in how machines can be either benefit or a threat.Xenogenesis isn't the best, or even a extremely good film as such, debut movie ever, far from it, but it is rather interesting piece of film as a point of origin.

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.