Home Cinema Choice – September 2019

HOME CINEMA CHOICE SEPTEMBER 2019

26 JAMES CAMERON

he made a deal that allowed him to create his own

cut for release on home video in some territories.

Yet in either form, Piranha II remains a total stinker

• although as Cameron joked later on his Terminator
  2: Judgment Day chat-track, it’s still ‘the fi nest fl ying
  killer fi sh horror/comedy ever made.’

He’ll be back

Dissatisfi ed with this fi rst experience as a director

for hire, the fi lmmaker then developed his own

project – The Terminator. Based, he claims, on

a feverish dream he'd had about a killer robot

from the future (noted sci-fi author Harlan Ellison

disagreed, suggesting it riff ed on his short story

Soldier From Tomorrow), Cameron shopped it

around studios, but found they were receptive to

the script but had no interest in letting him direct it.

Step forward former Corman associate Gale Anne

Hurd and her newly established Pacifi c Western

Productions, which purchased the script for $1

on the agreement that she would produce and

Cameron could direct.

Delivering a knockout sci-fi twist on the traditional

slasher template, and utilising Cameron's practical

FX background, The Terminator was an unexpected

hit. It made hot properties out of both the writer/

director and leading man Arnold Schwarzenegger

• although, proving that he wasn’t infallible,
  Cameron's initial preference had been to cast
  Lance Henriksen as the killer from the future, as
  somebody who could play coldly robotic while
  also passing as an ‘ordinary’ human being.
  Meanwhile, in the character of Sarah Connor (played
  by Linda Hamilton), Cameron hit on something that
  would continue to play a major part in his future
  fi lms: strong, independent female characters.

While working on The Terminator, Cameron was

hired to write treatments for a pair of Hollywood

sequels. One of these, Rambo: First Blood Part II,

would come to nothing, but the other was a

diff erent story.

Alien producers David Giler, Walter Hill and

Gordon Carroll had spent the years since that fi lm's

1979 debut trying to get a sequel off the ground,

but had yet to fi nd an enticing story. That changed

when Giler read The Terminator script and suggested

Cameron have a stab at penning a follow-up to

Ridley Scott's original.

The treatment he delivered would become 1986's

Aliens. Pitting heavily armed space marines against

a nest of acid-bleeding xenomorphs, and reinventing

Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley as a hard-as-nails

mother fi gure, Cameron’s sequel both expanded

the scope and scale of the story, while also shifting

the emphasis from horror to action. This time it’s

war, indeed.

Aliens shifted the franchise emphasis

from horror to action

In an alternate

world, the T-800

could have been

played by Lance

Henriksen

Piranha II:

The

Spawning

Released by

Shout Factory

in the US, this

Region A-locked

disc only includes the original cut

of the fi lm and not Cameron’s

subsequent re-edit. Unsurprisingly,

Cameron doesn’t participate

in any of the disc’s extras.

The

Terminator

While the current

remastered

Blu-ray (the

2012 MGM

release) looks

sensational, it could be

superseded as Cameron has

teased he is fi nally up for recording

a commentary track for the fi lm.

But is it for a 4K outing?

Aliens

Fox’s Blu-ray includes beautifully

restored 1080p presentations of

both the theatrical cut and

Cameron’s preferred extended

version. You’ll

want to pick up

the Alien

Anthology

Blu-ray boxset

for the full suite

of bonus bits.

Cameron

on Blu-ray

Killer fi sh, killer robots,

killer aliens