AVASTAR:
fighting off the inhuman blockbuster beast
to preserve the vital humanity
of film art
in the twilit and allegorical Zonebusters
of James Cameron
by Gary W. Wright
Like many film artists of his era, the embattled allegorical film art of James Francis Cameron sprang out of the shocked and outraged fury ignited by the helicopter crash that killed actor/director/writer Vic Morrow and illegally hired and used child extras Renee Chen and Myca Le around 2:20 am in the early morning hours of July 23, 1982 on the George Folsey jr. produced John Landis set of the twilit and allegorical Landis and Steve Spielberg produced, Kathleen Kennedy associate produced and Frank Marshall executive produced Landis, Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller film TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983). However, like no other film artist of his era, the film art of Cameron was eagerly embraced by audiences outraged by the TZ disaster. This enthusiastic embrace was not altogether surprising. For either sharing the outrage of viewers or simply taking advantage of the shocking tragedy to advance his own career in film art or pragmatically doing both, no film artist was more in tune with the righteous fury of audiences after 1982 than Cameron.
Curiously, audiences-particularly younger audiences most outraged by the TZ disaster-embraced Cameron despite the fact that, unlike most other film artists, the future Avastar did not immediately embrace the enhancement of film by realistic computer generated imagery (CGI) so as to prevent fatal accidents caused by dangerous special effects sequences on film sets. Instead, the film artist who would one day be synonymous with CGI enhanced film art defiantly continued to emphasize real and dangerous on set effects sequences to make his films as real as possible despite the dangers of causing his own TZ disaster, not finally embracing CGI with any real enthusiasm until the first decade of the twenty-first century.
In addition, and also unlike other film artists of the era, Cameron was linked to a Canada that had, since he moved to Brea, California in the greater Los Angeles area (GLAA) with his family when he seventeen years old in 1971, completely remade and liberated itself and its citizens with the new and second Constitution that it signed into law on April 17, 1982 only months before the TZ disaster. As this new Constitutional era required its newly liberated and individual citizens to be as bold, independent and indomitable as Cameron in order to succeed in life, Cameron’s successful approach to life and film art made him the literal embodiment of the new Constitutional era in Canada. Literal, indeed, for despite still living in the GLAA, Cameron had never relinquished his Canadian citizenship or become a dual citizen, remaining a staunch Crazy Canuck to this day.
However, while it was a long time coming, the canny Canuck’s eventual embrace of hi-tech cyberfilm was fittingly foretold when he collaborated with co-writer/co-producer/co-director R.L.A. Frakes on the cliffhanging allegorical short film XENOGENESIS (1978). For XENOGENESIS featured an embattled attempt by Laurie and Raj-played by Margaret Undiel and William Wisher, jr., respectively-to fight off an Evil cleaning robot and pilot their spacecraft to a new planet where they would start anew like Eve and Adam with a machine enhanced human race. An embattled struggle to begin again with a brave new cyborg world that anticipated the equally embattled attempt of film artists to start anew with CGI enhanced film art after the TZ disaster, and also anticipated the man versus cyborg battles in the film art of Cameron to come.
Curiously, and as if presciently anticipating the arrival of Cameron and his determination to save film art and exorcise the Temple Theatre of the TZ disaster, a tramautized and implicitly Scarecrow linked Vietnam vet named Cameron-played by Steve Railsback-on the run from the Law found himself on the embattled film set of an allegorical World War I film and battling its imperious, duplicitous and implicitly Great Oz linked director, Eli Cross-played by Peter O’Toole-in the eerily and presciently twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed Richard Rush film THE STUNTMAN (1980), a film released on March 26, 1980. Thus, it was fitting that Cameron arrived in the Temple Theatre on August 10, 1980 soon after the release of THE STUNTMAN as an art director/miniature design and construction man on the allegorical Jimmy T. Murakami indie film BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980), a low budget quickie cranked out by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures that was inspired by the allegorical Akira Kurosawa artbuster SEVEN SAMURAI (1954).
“Here I come,
Cayman of the Lamda Zone.”
Curiously, the film saw a group of space mercenaries-including George Peppard’s laconic and implicitly Clint Eastwood linked Cowboy, Robert Vaughan’s implicitly Hugh Hefner linked Galt and Sybil Danning’s tall, fearless, commanding and Katheryn Bigelow anticipating Valkyrie warrioress, St. Exmin-help Shad-played by Richard Thomas-and the rest of the peaceful people of the Kurosawa evoking planet Akira defend their planet against the implicitly Lucas linked Evildoer, Sador-pronounced “Sader” as in Vader to affirm his implicit link to George Lucas, and played by John Saxon-and his Death Star evoking and planet destroying death ray, the stellar converter. Indeed, the film’s allusions to the allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Spielberg roasting Lucas film STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE (1977), affirmed the implicit Lucas roasting intent of the film. Curiously, but fittingly given the prescient anticipation of Cameron in THE STUNTMAN, a Cameron resembling android named Saunders-played by Whitney Rydbeck-had a small and harassed role in the film. How even more eerily fitting that a character named Gar-played by Terrence E. McNally-also appeared in the film, all too presciently anticipating the arrival of the gruesome and unfriendly neighbourhood Gardevil.
Significantly, more prescient anticipations of Cameron arrived in 1981. For a Good, powerful, implicitly Ivan Reitman linked and omnisexual telepathic “scanner” leade named Cameron Vale-played by Stephen Lack-who faced down and defeated Evil telepathic “scanners” led by the implicitly Nicholas Meyer linked Darryl Revok-played by Michael Ironside-appeared in the allegorical David Cronenberg indie docufeature film SCANNERS (1981), released on January 14, 1981. In fact, not content to anticipate the name of Cameron, a Good scanner who resembled Cameron-played by Alan Smithee-was also briefly seen in one scene in SCANNERS. Thus, it was fitting that Cameron returned to the Temple Theatre two times that year, first as special visual effects director of photography (DOP) and matte painter on the allegorical and implicitly Lucas addressing John Carpenter indie docufeature film ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981), a film humourously released on April 1, 1981, and then as production designer and second unit director on the allegorical and CGI enhanced B.D. Clark indie film GALAXY OF TERROR (1981), another Corman quickie that was released in October of 1981.
“You are the Master.”
Significantly, the film saw a small group of spacefarers-including the Spielberg resembling and implicitly linked Baelon, played by Zalman King-hunted down and killed by their own fears as they explored the wreck of a crashed starship called the Remus on the dark, creepy and forbidding planet of Morganthus, a planet that evoked the equally dark, creepy and forbidding moon of LV-426 in the eerily and presciently twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Lucas roasting Sir Ridley Scott indie docufeature artbuster ALIEN (1979), thus implying that Clark was replying to that film in GALAXY OF TERROR. Curiously, but fittingly, the film featured a Tom Selleck resembling and implicitly linked hero with the Cameron sounding name of Cabren-played by Edward Albert-who overcame his fears and triumphed over the scheming overseer Kore-played by Ray Walston-to become the new Master of the Game, implying a triumph over Sir Scott and anticipating Cameron’s own triumphant battle to become a Master of allegorical film art with sly fi films also set on deadly and forbidding planets. Thus, it was fitting that GALAXY OF TERROR alluded to and implicitly replied to ALIEN, for Cameron also implicitly roasted Sir Scott and ALIEN when he fittingly appeared in the Temple Theatre on August 14, 1982 shortly after the TZ disaster as a full director in his own right with the eerily and presciently twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWNING (1982), a sequel of sorts to another Corman quickie, the equally presciently twilit and allegorical Dante indie docufeature film PIRANHA (1978).
“You’re my dream come true!”
Indeed, the film began with two good looking young lovers, Lou and Lisa-played by Captain Kidd Brewer jr. and Jan E. Mannon, respectively-scuba diving through the wreck of the U.S. Navy supply ship USS Dwight Fitzgerald in the bay off Club Elysium in Jamaica-actually, the Mallard Beach Hyatt as it was then called in Montego Bay-a wreck that evoked the wrecked alien spacecraft found and explored on LV-426 in ALIEN, immediately affirming the implicit Sir Scott roasting allegorical intent of PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWNING. The mutated flying piranhas that were the film’s dimunitive and voracious blockbuster beasts and that festered in the wreck and soon attacked and killed Lou and Lisa also evoked the chestburster stage of the alien of ALIEN in this bloody prologue and throughout the rest of the film-and literally during the attack on Nurse April [played by Dorothy Cunningham] in the morgue when a voracious piranha burst out of the chewed up chest of the corpse of one of the first victims of the piranhas, Robert Hayward [played by Jim Pair]-reaffirmed the implicit ALIEN and Sir Scott roasting intent of PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWING. The resemblance of the implicitly Christiane Kubrick linked leading lady Anne “Annie” Kimbrough-played by Tricia O’Neil-to Sigourney Weaver’s Science Officer Ellen Ripley and the fact that leading lad and remorseful biochemist Tyler Sherman-played by Steve Marachuk-had a name that created the Ridley evoking anagram “Retley” and liked to smoke cigars like Sir Scott also reaffirmed Cameron’s implicit interest in roasting Sir Scott and ALIEN in his first feature film.
Thus, with the death of Sherman in the underwater explosion that destroyed the USS Dwight Fitzgerald and the beastly blockbuster piranhas at the climatic conclusion of the film-an explosion that evoked the explosion that destroyed the Nostromo at the end of ALIEN-an explosion that did not claim the life of Annie or her husband, the implicitly Stanley Kubrick linked police chief Steven “Steve” Kimbrough-played by Lance Henriksen-Cameron implicitly warned Sir Scott to beware the blockbuster beast lest the beast be his downfall, laid the foundations for his sequel to ALIEN and implicitly hoped that Kubrick would return to the Temple Theatre with another artbuster that would defeat Sir Scott. Which was an ironic implication, indeed, given that Sir Scott implicitly warned Lucas and other film artists to beware of the hi-tech, CGI enhanced and special and visual effects filled biomechanical blockbuster beast in ALIEN. Indeed, the film’s allusions to ALIEN and to the allegorical Sir Scott indie docufeature student short film BOY AND BICYCLE (1961) affirmed the implicit Sir Scott roasting allegorical intent of PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWINING.
Fittingly, this first allegorical Cameron feature film also showcased the assertive, brainy and beautiful women audiences would come to expect in a Cameron Zonebuster, making it fitting that O’Neil had the film’s first acting credit in the opening titles. PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWNING also showcased the Canadian film artist’s love of science, technology and all things aquatic, all of which would also feature prominently in the indomitable Cameron film art to come. Curiously, while it was no doubt forced on the production by its low budget, PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWNING also began Cameron’s career long habit of using little known or completely unknown actors and actresses in his film art, even in leading roles. In addition, like ALIEN and many of the other films released in the final years before the TZ disaster, PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWNING featured all sorts of eerie and prescient memories of the future TZ disaster. Indeed, the first three victims of the mutant flying piranhas were a twilit trio of two men and one woman of Hayward, Lisa and Lou who evoked Chen, Le and Morrow.
Ominously, Annie was also first met in Room 23 of the Hyatt. In addition, a shot of the full moon in a cloud scudding sky that preceded the final attack of the mutated flying piranhas on the unsuspecting vacationers during the annual grunion Fish Fry Beach Festival at the implicitly Universal Studios linked Club Elysium also evoked a similar shot in the eerily twilit, allegorical and implicitly Kubrick roasting Landis film AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981), reaffirming the film’s eerie anticipation of Landis. This eerie anticipation of Landis climaxed shortly before the even more eerie and twilit climax of the film when an olive green police helicopter piloted by Chief Kimbrough that evoked the equally olive green Huey army helicopter in the TZ disaster was destroyed in an explosive crash. This eerie and twilit anticipation of an obsession with Landis and the TZ disaster in the post-1982 film art of Cameron and other film artists was reaffirmed by all of the just as eerie and twilit instances of characters “breaking the fourth wall” by looking into and even addressing the camera in the film, reminding us that breaking the fourth wall was a famous characteristic of the film art of Landis.
When it wasn’t eerily anticipating the righteous and outraged fury implicitly directed at Landis and the TZ disaster in post-1982 film art, PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWNING also implicitly and gently roasted PIRANHA director and fellow Corman alumni Dante in the implicit form of the Dante resembling and implicitly linked Dr. Leo Bell, DDS-played by Albert Sanders-and his tragicomically torrid romance with the Spielberg resembling and implicitly linked Beverly-her name evoking Beverly Hills and other L.A. area haunts of Spielberg, and played by the fittingly named Tracy Berg-at Club Elysium, which was a fittingly torrid romance given that PIRANHA was inspired by the eerily and presciently twilit, allegorical and implicitly Lucas, William Friedkin and Sam Peckinpah roasting Spielberg film JAWS (1975), and given that Dante and Spielberg collaborated that year on the creation of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. The presence of the Tim Burton resembling Chris Kimbrough-played by Ricky G. Paull-also anticipated the arrival of Burton in the dread allegorical Zone Wars.
Luckily for Cameron, PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWNING was a fine first feature film, and one that led Corman to don the producer hat and team up with Amy H. Jones to become the first to implicitly address him in a feature film and to implicitly wonder if the newfound film artist would be as torn between his desire to remain in Los Angeles or to return to Canada to create film art as the blonde, bearded, handsome, successful and implicitly Cameron linked indie photographer Oliver Andrews-played by James Keach-was torn between his desire to remain with his wife Edith-played by Shelby Leverington-and two children Emma and Paul-played by Emma Floria and Scott Henderson, respectively-or his desire to divorce her, to leave them and to marry his beautiful, boyish, sexy, implicitly Ivan Reitman linked and fittingly surnamed illicit radio DJ luver Anna Winter-played by Jamie Lee Curtis as an adult and by Michelle Lundey as a traumatized child in flashbacks, respectively-in the allegorical indie docufeature film LOVE LETTERS (1983), a film released on April 5, 1983 whose implicit interest in Reitman was affirmed by the appearance of the implicitly David Cronenberg linked indie sound artist Ralph Glass-played by Phil Coccioletti-reminding us that Reitman produced the first two allegorical indie docufeature Cronenberg films SHIVERS (1975) and RABID (1977), and a film that was openly linked to TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE by the appearance of Larry Cedar in a small role as Jake, for Cedar played the destructive gremlin on the sinister left wing of the passenger plane in “Terror At 20,000 Feet”, the fourth and final Miller episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.
Alas for Cameron, while a fine first feature film, PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWNING was already overshadowed by the fateful and fatal TZ disaster that shocked audiences a month before the release of the film. A shocking disaster that quickly became an enraging disaster when it was discovered that Kennedy and Marshall had helped Landis and Folsey jr., a longtime and older producer of Landis films and the producer of the Landis episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, track down, secretly hire and illegally use Chen and Le with Morrow after hours near dangerous and explosive special on set effects. The shocked and righteous fury of audiences further increased when Lucas honoured a commitment made previous to the TZ disaster to work with Kennedy and Marshall as producers on the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Friedkin and Landis roasting Spielberg film INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984), a sequel to the eerily twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed, Lucas executive produced, Marshall produced and implicitly Friedkin roasting Spielberg film RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981).
For audience members-particularly younger audience members-were angry and confused that Lucas, who had solemnly preached in the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy that the Force of Good must be with you, always, was now working with two of the producers who had admitted to the illegal wrongdoing that had led to the helicopter crash that killed Chen, Le and Morrow. The fact that Spielberg supported this decision to work with Kennedy and Marshall also enraged viewers, and made them wonder how much Spielberg knew before the TZ disaster about the decision to hire and illegally use Chen and Le. Viewers who were already enraged with Spielberg that year for releasing the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Terry Gilliam roasting film E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL (1982), only months before the TZ disaster, for it came across as a shameless fillmmercial for its avalanche of movie tie-in merchandise and placed products like Reese’s Pieces.
Indeed, young audience members affirmed their righteous fury that Lucas would work with Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg by launching a writing campaign to get Lucas to change the name of the eagerly awaited trimax to the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy, the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed, implicitly Spielberg roasting and Lucas executive produced Richard Marquand film STAR WARS EPISODE VI: REVENGE OF THE JEDI (1983) when the name of the film was revealed in the fall of ’82. While the writing campaign succeeded in convincing Lucas to change the name of the final film in the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy to STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, the dismal and disappointing film and its infamous Ewoks did not succeed in doing anything but enraging young audiences even more and convincing them that Lucas, who had been nicknamed the Stinky Kid by Francis Coppola soon after the two film artists had first met, was indeed Lord Stinkious, the Darkest of the Dark Lords of the Sith, cranking out shameless filmmercials for intergalactic teddy bears and other cutsey movie tie-in dreck as Emperor Palpaberg had done with E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL.
Unfortunately for Lucas, the anti-REVENGE OF THE JEDI writing campaign and the disappointed fury over the poor quality of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI did not convince him not to work as executive producer on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, a “film” that was also hated and furiously dismissed when it was released the following year on May 23, 1984. And with good reason, for this sequel implicitly linked enslaved Indian slave boys and girls being held in a subterranean and cinema linked Temple of Doom to Chen and Le and tried to convince audiences that harmony was brought back to film art land when the twilit but “Good” trio of Doctor Henry “Indiana” Jones jr., orphan boy Short Round and Hollywood blonde showgirl Wilhelmina “Willie” Scott-played by Harrsion Ford, Ke Huy Quan and Kate Capshaw, respectively-rescued and liberated the slave children from the bondage of evil film thugs implicitly linked to the film crew of the Landis episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE by way of their implicitly Landis linked leader, Prince Dalim Zingh-a “Landiz” hidden in his name to affirm his implicit link to Landis, and played by Raj Singh.
An implicitly Landis linked Prince of Chaos who, furthermore, was not responsible for his human sacrifice condoning actions because his mind was being controlled by the nefarious embodiment of the Dark Side, Mola Ram-played by Amrish Puri-at the time of the sacrifices, therefore implicitly making Landis not responsible for the deaths of Chen, Le and Morrow because he was being controlled by his Dark and beastly blockbuster loot lusting Side at the time of their deaths, too. So would audiences please shut up and stop furiously shouting and complaining and buy lots of popcorn and pop and all our movie tie-merchandise and placed products? After all, that’s what we wanted! An infuriatingly bizarre and clueless implication that mocked the intelligence of audiences, dismissed the deaths of Chen, Le and Morrow in the TZ disaster as unimportant, and caused the fury directed at Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis, Lucas, Marshall and Spielberg to reach new and outraged levels.
All of which worked to the benefit of Cameron. Indeed, the stage was set for Cameron to prove that the prescient and twilit anticipations in GALAXY OF TERROR, SCANNERS and THE STUNTMAN of the arrival of a Good cinematic hero named or sounding like Cameron were prescient indeed, and that the time to woo furious audiences-particularly youthful audience members-away from Lucas and to his equally righteously furious and liberating Zonebusting cause had arrived when he returned with Henriksen, Wisher jr.-the star of XENOGENESIS-Earl Boen-who played Nestor 1 in BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS-and Gale A. Hurd and Bill Paxton-an assistant production manager and a set dresser on GALAXY OF TERROR, respectively-to implicitly and furiously roast Lucas in the Temple Theatre with his first twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed indie docufeature Zonebuster THE TERMINATOR (1984), fittingly released a week before Hallowe’en of 1984 and co-written and produced by Hurd.
“I came across time for you, Sarah.
I love you. I always have.”
Significantly, the film began with an opening title that proudly proclaimed the film “…A James Cameron Film”, affirming that Cameron believed that creating the film had made him a master of the art of film. Then twilit allusions began with the title of the film, for THE TERMINATOR evoked the eternally twilit line separating the light from the dark side of the moon-and enlightenment from darkness. Open allusions to the TZ disaster itself also began immediately, for after the opening titles ended, the opening prologue presented a possible memory of a dark, bleak, ruinous and Zone War ravaged world of a future Los Angeles in 2029 that evoked the equally dark and bleak world of Morganthus in GALAXY OF TERROR, a future world where pitiless beastly and digitally enhanced blockbuster machines-including futuristic helicopters-guided by a master computer system called Skynet fiendishly and remorselessly worked hard to finish off the job started by the helicopter of the TZ disaster by hunting down and killing the last remnants of humanity.
Significantly, this relentless battle between a bloody but unbowed humanity and beastly and digitally enhanced blockbuster machines evoked the equally pitiless and relentless Rebel versus Evil Empire battle on Hoth at the beginning of the allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed, implicitly Spielberg roasting and Lucas executive produced Irvin Kershner film STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980). A fitting opening link to Lucas, for when this desolate and nightmarish future battle faded to black and was replaced with digital opening credits that openly linked T1 to the digital world emerging in 1984, a digital world reaffirmed by Brad Fiedel’s electronic soundtrack, the film began in L.A. in the early morning hours of Thursday, May 12th, 1984, only two days before the fortieth birthday of Lucas on May 14th, 1984. Curiously, and despite the film’s twilit memory of the future prologue, the time the film began was 1:52 am, some 28 minutes before the 2:20 am nightmare of the TZ disaster, holding out a new hope for escape from the twilight.
These links to the TZ disaster and to Lucas were reinforced by the storm of blue lightning that accompanied the arrival from the twilit and machine battling future of a huge, hulking and implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked Cyberdyne Systems-101 T-800 cyborg Terminator-played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who openly linked the film to the twilit and disastrous year of 1982 via his role as Conan of Cimmeria in the eerily twilit, allegorical and implicitly Lucas roasting John Milius film CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982). For the blue lightning evoked the blue lightning that blasted from the wicked hands of Ian McDiarmid's insidious and implicitly Spielberg linked Emperor Palpatine aka Lord Sidious and into Mark Hamill's implicitly Lucas linked Luke Skywalker only a year before the release of T1 at the disappointing end of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI.
The huge and muscular bulk of the biomechanical Terminator also recalled the equally huge and muscular bulk of the biomechanical Sith Lord, Darth Vader-played by David Prowse-in the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy, reaffirming the implicit Lucas roasting intent of the film. Indeed, the T1’s implicit link to Lucas and Vader was affirmed when the Terminator approached and killed the Skywalker resembling member-played by Brian Thompson-of a twilit trio of young punks it met soon after arrival from the embattled future by holding him high in the air and ripping out his heart with the same impersonal violence with which the TZ disaster ripped out the heart of audiences, film art, and film artists, both actions fittingly and ironically performed with the same right hand that Darth Vader used to hold aloft and choke a Rebel Officer to death at the beginning of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE. Curiously, the remorseless Terminator then took the clothing of one of the other punks-played by Brad Rearden-which transformed it into a cyberpunk that anticipated a William Gibson inspired and also implicitly Lucas roasting Bigelow and Cameron film to come.
Insidious blue lightning soon also accompanied the arrival from the future of the ragged and implicitly Scarecrow linked and vaguely David Lynch resembling and implicitly linked Kyle Reese-played by Michael Biehn. Significantly, the first name of Reese affirmed his implicit link to Lynch, for it evoked that of Kyle MacLachlan, star of the twilit and allegorical Lynch moving painting DUNE (1984), a film set to be released later that year in mid-December which was inspired by the allegorical and implicitly Robert A. Heinlein roasting Frank Herbert novel Dune (1965). The implicit message being sent by Cameron to Lynch was reaffirmed by the film’s surreal dreams of the machine battling future, for they evoked the surreal dreams, some of which also concerned the future, experienced by lead male characters, including the implicitly Cronenberg linked John “the Elephant Man” Merrick-played by John Hurt-in the allegorical and implicitly Cronenberg and Sir Scott addressing Lynch moving painting THE ELEPHANT MAN and MacLachlan’s implicitly Cronenberg linked Paul “Maud’dib” Atreides in DUNE, in most of the moving paintings of Lynch. The fact that a rat catching boy seen in one of these surreal dreams of the future resembled a boy seen in THE ELEPHANT MAN reaffirmed the implicit Lynch addressing intent of T1.
Curiously, the surname of Reese also openly linked him and T1 to Spielberg and the disastrous year of 1982, recalling the Reese’s Pieces that were used to lure E.T. out of hiding by the implicitly Gilliam linked Elliot Thomas-played by Henry Thomas-in E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL. In fact, the surname of Reese also linked him to a minor
character named Reese played by Mickey Rourke in the frenetically twilit and allegorical Spielberg film 1941 (1979), reaffirming his additional link to Spielberg. The sight and sound of Reese stealthily stealing a shotgun from Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) car 2361 soon after his arrival also linked him to twilit and disastrous events via the fateful and fatal number 237-if you added 6 +1 to get 7.
Significantly, shortly after the arrival of Reese, T1 was openly linked to TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. For Dante regular Dick Miller, who played a roadside diner owner in the Dante directed third episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, returned as an ill fated owner of the Alamo Sport and Gun Shop-its address number 14329 with the fateful number 23 hidden within it also evoking July 23, 1982-terminated by the cyborg Terminator in its quest for weapons. Weapons the cyborg needed to remorselessly fulfill its time travelling mission, which turned out to be to kill a twilit trio of women in L.A. named Sarah Connor-the first in the telephone book listed as living at the twilit address of 1823 Doncaster and the second at the equally twilit number 2816-so as to prevent one of them from giving birth to a mysterious and implicitly Great Oz linked son named John Connor who would grow up to be a J.C. messiah who would lead the human fight against the beastly digitally enhanced blockbuster machines in the future, a terminating mission that Reese was sent back to stop.
Fittingly, the names of John and Sarah Connor reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in the TZ disaster. For Morrow was playing a disgruntled character named Bill Connor when he was killed, while cameraman John Connor was a member of the Landis film crew that fateful night, openly linking John Connor to Landis. The arrival of Sarah also affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch. For Reese’s fondness for a polaroid photograph of Sarah given to him by his son, John Connor, in the beastly blockbuster machine battling future evoked Merrick’s fondness for a photo of his mother-played by Phoebe Nicholls-in THE ELEPHANT MAN.
Intriguingly, the T-800’s inhuman, pitiless and relentless quest to kill three women also evoked the three women killed by John Lithgow's equally inhuman, pitiless and relentless hitman Burke in the eerily twilit, allegorical and implicitly Lucas roasting Brian De Palma film BLOW OUT (1981), reaffirming the implicit interest in Lucas in T1 and preparing us for a Burke to come in a future Cameron film. Another fitting link, evoking both the last good year of film before 1982, and Lithgow's appearance as frenzied airplane passenger John Valentine in Miller’s fourth and final episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, and in the Dante directed epilogue that closed that film.
Soon after tracking down the addresses of the three Sarah Connors in a phone book, the mass manufactured Terminator gleefully and ironically drove over a mass manufactured toy truck cab lying in the street outside the house-numbered slightly different from the gun shop at 14239 and quite a bit different from the 1823 seen in the phone book, but with another ominously twilit 23 openly hidden in its midst-of the first of the twilit trio of women named Sarah Connor-played by Marianne Muellerleile-that it targeted for termination. This ironic destruction of a similarly mass produced toy truck implicitly reaffirmed that Cameron was striking back in T1 not only against the TZ disaster but also against the attempt by Lucas and Spielberg to transform film art into filmmercials for movie tie-in merchandise and other placed products.
Significantly, after killing the first two Sarah Connors, the Terminator tracked down the real, blonde and implicitly Dorothy and film art linked Sarah J. Connor-her wistful and organic piano theme by Fiedel that doubled as the Love Theme of the film linking her to natural Forces in a complete contrast to the otherwise relentless and all electronic score for T1, and played by Linda Hamilton-in an L.A. club called the Tech Noir. However, before it did, the Terminator first beat to death Matt-his name evoking Richard White’s Matt in the allegorical short Lynch indie moving painting THE GRANDMOTHER [1970], and played by Rick Rossovich-and then shot his girlfriend and Sarah’s exuberantly Wicked and brunette friend, Ginger-played by the fittingly surnamed Bess Motta-in the back as she fled the cyborg in the apartment she shared with the blonde Sarah, a blonde and brunette duo that evoked the equally blonde Lady In The Radiator and brunette Beautiful Girl Across The Hall-played by Laurel Near and Judith A. Roberts, respectively-in the allegorical Lynch indie moving painting ERASERHEAD [1977], reaffirming the film’s implicit interest in Lynch.
Interestingly, the remorseless murder of Ginger evoked a similar scene in the eerily and presciently twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Peter Hyams and Nicholas Meyer addressing Sir Scott indie docufeature artbuster BLADE RUNNER (1982) that had Ford's implicitly Lucas and Scarecrow linked Rick Deckard shooting Joanna Cassidy's fleeing Replicant Zhora in the back, openly linking T1 to the fateful, fatal and disastrous July of 1982. A fitting link to the film art of Sir Scott, as the relentlessly pursuing and pitiless biomechanical Terminator also evoked the relentlessly pursuing and pitiless biomechanical alien of ALIEN, a fitting allusion that reminded us of the implicitly Lucas roasting intent of that film and again anticipating Cameron’s remake of ALIEN.
Just as significantly, when Reese rescued Connor at the Tech Noir and frantically fled with her down the street, the Terminator followed them in the darkness with the help of infrared vision seen in a point of view (POV) shot from the perspective of the relentless cyborg. This infrared POV shot reaffirmed the implicit link of the Terminator to Lucas, for it recalled the similar infrared POV of the Evil and renegade black clad robot gunslinger-played by Yul Brynner-in the allegorical and implicitly Lucas roasting Michael Crichton film WESTWORLD (1973). The sight and sound of Connor and Reese frantically fleeing the sinister cyborg in a stolen car and the Wicked Terminator pursuing them in a stolen LAPD car also affirmed the implicit link of the Terminator to Lucas, for it was a macabre reminder that the Force needed to be with you…always, if you expected to truly succeed as a J.D. Jedi in the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy.
A macabre reminder that the Force needed to be with you in the film art and life of Lucas that continued when the desperate car chase with the Terminator led to Connor and Reese being apprehended by the LAPD and taken to a HQ where they met Henriksen in his role as the implicitly Cowardly Lion linked L.A. police detective Hal Vukovich, openly linking T1 again to the twilit and disastrous year of 1982 via Henriksen’s role as police chief Steve Kimbrough in PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWNING. The sight and sound of Paul Winfield as Vukovich’s implicitly Great Oz linked boss, Lt. Ed Traxler, reaffirmed T1’s open link to 1982, for Winfield played Captain Terrell in the allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Corman addressing Meyer film STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982).
Alas, soon after Connor and Reese arrived at the police HQ, the Terminator attacked the building. This attack on the police headquarters and the failure of the police to stop the cyborg-including a front desk Sergeant admissions cop played by Bruce M. Kerner who resembled and was implicitly linked to Francis Coppola, reaffirming the implicit Lucas addressing intent of T1-was an even more implicitly righteously furious and savagely sarcastic and embittered mockery of the Lucas conviction that the Ozian themed Force had to be with you, always, than the grimly amusing sight and sound of the sinister cyborg masquerading as a police officer in the stolen LAPD car. Thus, it was only too grimly fitting that shortly before the remorseless massacre, Connor was initially interviewed by the police in Fourceful Room 4.
Significantly, not long after fleeing the police HQ shootup by way of the fateful and fatal door 23, Connor and Reese were pursued in a pickup truck by the Terminator on a motorcycle, an action packed sequence that evoked the two robocops on two motorcycles that pursued Robert Duvall’s THX 1138 in his rocketing car at the end of the allegorical Lucas indie docufeature film THX 1138 (1971) in another implicit affirmation that Lucas was being roasted in T1. Then, after crashing the motorcycle and pickup, Connor and the wounded Reese fled on foot from the relentless cyborg as it drove an oil filled tractor trailer at them in a sequence that evoked the sight and sound of the implicitly Clint Eastwood linked “Mad” Max Rockatansky-played by Mel Gibson-driving a sand filled tractor trailer to glory at the end of the eerily twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed and implicitly Lucas and Spielberg roasting Miller film THE ROAD WARRIOR (1982) in the first of many allusions to that hard driving and full throttle film in the film art of Cameron.
Destroying the tanker but unable to stop the tenacious Terminator, Connor and the wounded Reese fled from the sinister cyborg and into a nearby factory. Here Reese died trying to blow up the Terminator with an improvised explosive device (IED), forcing Connor to first flee and then face down the still pursuing head and torso of the cyborg. And so the failure of the implicitly Lynch linked Reese to save Sarah implied that Cameron was warning Lynch that he would also fail to liberate film art from Lucas and the TZ disaster and/or connect with audiences when he returned to the Temple Theatre just before Christmas of that year with DUNE, a warning that turned out to be all too prescient. Indeed, it was very fitting that James Cameron shared the same J.C. initials of future world saviour John Connor, for it turned out that Cameron was the future past saviour of world film art, not Lynch.
And so the relentless head and torso of the Evil and Wicked biomechanical cyborg Terminator were finally, ironically and furiously crushed by a Good machine in a factory in the early morning hours of the 40th birthday of Lucas on May 14, 1984–fittingly, a Saturday in the film, reminding us that the TZ disaster took place early in the morning of Saturday, July 23, 1982-as it reached out its right hand and tried to give Connor one last Vader-like throttle. And so the termination of the Wicked Terminator on the fortieth birthday of Lucas implicitly affirmed that Cameron believed that the Lucas era was over by 1984, and that a whole brave and indomitable new world of digitally enhanced film art that would fight to retain its vital humanity had begun. And so forcing Sarah to save herself was a somehow fitting ending of T1, given that the dread allegorical Zone Wars saw the emergence of assertive female film producers like Hurd and female film artists like Bigelow-a future Cameron wife who began her film art career in 1981 with the release of the presciently twilit and allegorical Lafayette “Monty” Montgomery co-written and co-directed film THE LOVELESS (1981)-Sofia (SCC) Coppola, Angelina Jolie, and Sarah Polley.
Curiously, while Connor and Reese broke the fourth wall by addressing the camera throughout the film, that famous characteristic of the film art of Landis, it was also noticeable that Cameron was not necessarily attempting to terminate Landis with T1. This implied that Cameron sympathized with Landis but hated the TZ disaster, and was trying to win audiences back to the side of Landis. Or was Cameron implying that it was time for Landis to rise up, seize the day and win audiences back with Good film art and behavior? While Cameron’s intent was uncertain, implicit sympathy for Landis soon returned in a Cameron co-written film.
At any rate, T1’s allusions to the film art of Crichton, Dante, De Palma, Landis, Lucas, Lynch, Milius, Miller, Sir Scott, and Spielberg implied that raggedy Reese's determined and desperate battle to save Dorothyish Connor from the relentless and pitiless flaming bullets of the Wicked Terminator symbolized Cameron's own determined and desperate cinematic battle to save the art and soul of film from the beastly, CGI enhanced, hi-tech and special and visual f/x filled blockbuster films and their loot lusting machinations led in the early Eighties by Lucas and Spielberg that were robbing film of any artistry and turning them into witless filmmercials for movie tie-in merchandise and placed products, leading to reckless conditions on film sets that resulted in the TZ disaster. Indeed, nothing summed up Cameron’s implicit determination to save film art from beastly blockbuster lusts that led to the TZ disaster than Reese crying out to Connor “…come with me if you wanna live!” when he saved her from the Terminator at the Tech-Noir nightclub.
Humourously, film distributor Orion Pictures did not agree with Cameron's hopeful and determined Zonebusting aspirations. Indeed, Orion disliked the finished film so much, they only advertised T1 the week before the sly fi/horror film was released in late October of 1984 as they believed that there was no point wasting money promoting a film that was not going to succeed (Keegan, 53). While Cameron was disappointed that Orion Pictures did not share his belief in T1, this lack of faith in the film actually worked to Cameron's advantage. Indeed, with its lack of massive promotion campaign, movie tie-in merchandise and product placement, and its small 6.4 million dollar budget, Cameron fittingly began his Zonebuster campaign with a film that lacked all of the accepted characteristics of a beastly blockbuster (Buckland, 17-9).
However, luckily for Cameron, angry young audiences in general clearly approved of his righteously furious and determined quest to save film art from having its vital humanity extinguished by the CGI enhanced, hi-tech and special and visual f/x filled biomechanical blockbuster beast, as T1 was the surprise smash hit of 1984-85, while young Canadian audiences in particular were no doubt impressed that a Canadian film artist could take the lead in the dread allegorical Zone Wars with a gripping and well made film that inspired their own indie journeys in the liberated new Second Constitutional era of Canada. A success made more surprising and significant by the fact that the real and dangerous on set stunts and special f/x, over the top violence and intensity of the film caused little comment, perhaps due to the fact that the film's Restricted rating made it off limits to children like the poor ol’ underage sadolescent Gardevil.
Another lucky break for Cameron, for audiences were outraged by the milder and TZ disaster evoking violence and intensity of twilit films that children were allowed to experience like INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and the twilit, allegorical and implicitly John and Deborah Landis roasting Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg executive produced Dante disaster GREMLINS (1984). Audience outrage was increased by the fact that the latter dismal film tried to frantically exorcise the TZ disaster by blaming it on dimunitive, malicious and machine tampering monsters called gremlins linked to Landis and his crew members on his episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. In fact, audiences were so outraged by the violence in GREMLINS and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) created the PG-13 film classification to warn theatregoers of violent films aimed at children and teens that were not too disturbing to be rated Restricted, a film classification that existed to this day.
Ironically, a month and a half after the low budget and unsupported T1 arrived with its implicitly Lynch linked Reese to dominate the Temple Theatre, Lynch and his hugely expensive, massively supported and equally twilit and allegorical DUNE was released and, after starting strongly, quickly faded and disappeared. Thus, Lynch failed just as Cameron implicitly predicted in T1. However, despite the failure of DUNE to find an audience, it was fitting that the quirky and memorable film featured a mysterious rebel leader in the form of “Maud’dib” Atreides who was implicitly linked to an indomitable indie Canadian film artist and who led a violent overthrow of a galactic establishment led by figures implicitly linked to Kershner, Landis, Lucas and Spielberg and brought harmony back to the universe and the Temple Theatre. For Cameron soon returned to do the same, proving that he was indeed the film art messiah audiences of the world were hoping for-kull wahad!
First, however, after being killed by an out of control re-animated corpse who resembled Schwarzenegger-played by Peter Ken-the Cameron resembling and possibly linked Miskatonic Medical School Dean Alan Halsey-played by Robert Sampson-was briefly brought back from the dead in turn as a mindlessly drooling corpse by the madcap and implicitly Dante and Spielberg linked Miskatonic Medical School students Herbert West and Daniel “Dan” Cain-played by Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbot, respectively-whose several failed attempts to successfully reanimate corpses implicitly roasted the equally failed attempt of Dante and Spielberg to team up with Kennedy and Marshall to reanimate film with GREMLINS in the gleefully demented twilit and allegorical Stuart Gordon film H.P. LOVECRAFT’S RE-ANIMATOR (1985), released on May 11, 1985, inspired by the allegorical and implicitly Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. (Herbert George) Wells roasting H.P. Lovecraft short story “Herbert West-Reanimator” (1922), and implying that Gordon thought that T1 was as equally mindless and tasteless as GREMLINS. Indeed, T1 was alluded to dismissively in H.P. LOVECRAFT’S RE-ANIMATOR, implicitly affirming that Gordon was not a fan of the film or of Cameron, an implication summed up by the sight of Halsey being decapitated by another re-animated corpse at the end of the film.
Significantly, not long after the release of H.P. LOVECRAFT’S RE-ANIMATOR, Cameron reaffirmed his implicit sympathy for Landis by co-writing with Sylvester Stallone the screenplay for the twilit, allegorical and ridiculously named George P. Cosmatos docufeature film RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART TWO (1985), released on May 22, 1985.
“I’ve always thought
that the most powerful weapon
was the mind.”
Indeed, Stallone’s Vietnam War haunted veteran John J. Rambo was implicitly linked to the TZ disaster haunted Landis throughout the film. As such, it was fitting that Stallone, like Henriksen, Schwarzenegger and Winfield, was linked to the twilit and disastrous year of 1982 by his role as Rocky Balboa in the eerily twilit and allegorical Stallone film ROCKY III (1982). A fitting link to Schwarzenegger, as Stallone’s Rambo cut down his opponents throughout RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART TWO with a remorseless and righteous fury that evoked the Terminator. Indeed, in many ways Rambo was simply a Good and all too human Terminator, preparing audiences for the arrival of an equally Good Terminator in a Cameron film to come.
A Good human Terminator who accepted a covert U.S. mission to return to Vietnam and, once there, ignored his orders and liberated American prisoners from a POW camp with the help of the implicitly Folsey jr. linked Colonel Trautman-played by Richard Crenna-implying the hope of Cameron and Stallone that the film would liberate Folsey jr., Landis, audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre from the TZ disaster. Literally, for the sight of Rambo successfully piloting a Huey helicopter in an airborne attack on a Vietnamese village to liberate the POWs at the end of the film evoked a similar helicopter attack on a Vietnamese village that preceded the TZ disaster on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.
The fact that Rambo’s rescue of the POWs also allowed him to triumph over his Evil superior, the implicitly Morrow linked Marshall Murdock-played by Charles Napier-and his insidious and implicitly Spielberg linked assistant, Ericson-played by Martin Kove-reaffirmed that the film was doing its best to exorcise the TZ disaster and restore the reputation of Landis-although it was hardly fair to link the innocent Morrow to duplicitous Evil. Thus, Cameron implicitly reaffirmed in RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART TWO that he sympathized with the plight of Landis and wanted to exorcise the TZ disaster, and also definitely affirmed that he was not afraid to embrace real dangerous stunts on film sets and was still interested in technology and weapons. For his part, a Cameron resembling character in the film named Banks-played by Andy Wood-also implied that Cosmatos was blasting Cameron for perhaps the second time in a twilit and allegorical film in 1985.
Curiously, the following year newcomer Peter Faiman implicitly toasted Cameron in the form of Mick “Crocodile” Dundee-played by Paul Hogan-and implicitly roasted Dante, Landis and Spielberg in the forms of condescending New Yorker Richard Mason, luckless kangaroo poacher Burt, and an irritating pimp-played by Mark Blum, David Bracks, and John Snyder, respectively-in the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film CROCODILE DUNDEE [1986], released on July 2, 1986. Making it fitting that Cameron teamed up again with his new wife Hurd and Biehn, Henriksen, Paxton and Stan Winston-who oversaw the special Terminator f/x for THE TERMINATOR-and composer James Horner and visual f/x men Robert and Dennis Skotak-all from BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS-to implicitly roast fellow ex-Corman alumni Dante and GREMLINS and Lucas again in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed indie docufeature Zonebuster ALIENS (1986), a film released on July 14, 1986 that alluded to but differed from PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWNING by exchanging alien chestburster evoking mutant piranhas for gremlin evoking alien chestbursters and full grown aliens and a Ripley evoking female lead for the real Ripley.
“How could they cut the power, man?
They’re animals!”
Ironically, the film began with the familiar Twentieth Century Fox logo and musical fanfare, an ironic sight and sound indeed given that Cameron had implicitly terminated and exorcised Lucas and the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy in T1. However, the intro did affirm that the high quality and success of T1 had been noticed by a major Hollywood studio, and that Fox was now giving Cameron a chance to prove himself in the big leagues. Soon a title proudly assured audiences that they were about to experience a James Cameron film, then ALIENS began with a lone escape pod called Narcissus from the space freighter Nostromo drifting through space towards the camera fifty-seven years after the events of ALIEN, evoking the sight of Connor driving an orange Jeep Renegade with the twilit license 2AP J892 away from the camera down a Mexican highway to her embattled Zonebuster destiny at the end of T1.
This link was implicitly affirmed when the camera POV shifted inside the shuttle, for the sight of Weaver's implicitly Glinda and possibly Kubrick or Sir Scott linked Ripley dreaming in Sleeping Beauty cryogenic sleep with Jones the cat beside her reminded us that the Dorothyish Connor drove off to her destiny at the end of T1 with a Terminator sniffing and neo-Toto German shepherd sitting behind her as she sat in the driver’s seat of her Jeep Renegade, a sight that set us up for another desperate battle to save film art from Dante, Kennedy, Marshall, Spielberg, GREMLINS and the Folsey jr. and Landis caused TZ disaster that implicitly inspired GREMLINS, and the malicious machinations of the hi-tech and CGI enhanced biomechanical blockbuster beast right from the start of ALIENS. Indeed, soon after Ripley was awakened from cryogenic sleep, she was persuaded by the implicitly Dante linked and beastly blockbuster loot lusting Weyland-Yutani Corporation Special Director Carter J. Burke-his surname evoking psycho Burke in BLOW OUT, and played by Paul Reiser-to return with a group of implicitly Zone War film artist linked Colonial Marines led by the implicitly Corman and Great Oz linked Lieutenant Gorman-played by William Hope-to investigate trouble at its ironically named human colony Hadley’s Hope on the twilit, forbidding and Morganthus evoking moon LV-246 aka Acheron, a colony that evoked the titanium mine on Io in the eerily and presciently twilit and allegorical Peter Hyams docufeature film OUTLAND (1981). Indeed, the fact that Burke and the Weyland-Yutani Corporation were implicitly linked to Spielberg via Paul Maxwell’s Spielberg resembling and implicitly linked director, Van Leuwen, who was met at an inquest into the Nostromo nightmare that was also attended by a woman who resembled and was implicitly linked to Kennedy-played by Valerie Colgan-and a man who resembled and was implicitly linked to Marshall-played by A.I. Smithee-affirmed the implicit link of Burke to Dante, for the twisted twilit trio reminded us that GREMLINS was produced by Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg.
Of course, this scenario reminded us that Rambo was also persuaded to return to Vietnam in RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART TWO and Roy Scheider’s implicitly Lucas linked Doctor Heywood Floyd-played by Roy Scheider-was also persuaded to return to Jupiter to figure out what happened to the crew and onboard computer of the USSC Discovery I in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Hyams docufeature film 2010 (1984). However, this time there were no prisoners to save. For after surviving a shuttle ride to the creepy surface of LV-426 piloted by Collete Hiller’s Ivan Reitman resembling and implicitly linked Corporal Ferro-an implicit link that evoked the twilit and allegorical Reitman film GHOSTBUSTERS (1984) to implicitly affirm the film’s interest in the film art and film artists of 1984-Ripley and the Colonial Marines soon discovered that most of the colonists had already been killed or had died being used as hosts to create more gremlin evoking beastly black biomechanical aliens. In fact, as Burke and most of the Colonial Marines were also soon killed or taken as chestburster hosts by the pitiless and machine tampering biomechanical gremaliens, this part of the film seemed implicitly crafted by Cameron to symbolically kill off film artists for the sins of creating twilit blockbuster dreck like GREMLINS. This was a significant change from most films, which saw Evildoers like Burke killed for his Evil deeds by the Good Hero at the end of the film.
Then Cameron moved to the implicitly real point of the Ozian themed film, which involved the Great Gorman, Glinda Ripley, the implicitly Bigelow linked Vasquez-played by Jenette Goldstein-the implicitly Cowardly Lion linked Hudson-played by Paxton-the implicitly Cronenberg and Tin Man linked android Bishop-played by Henriksen-the implicitly Lynch and Scarecrow linked Corporal Dwayne Hicks-played by Biehn-and the only survivor of the colony, the implicitly Dorothy linked kid munchkin Rebecca “Newt” Jorden-played by Carrie Henn-whose Kate Capshaw resembling mother-played by Holly De Jong-evoked her role as Willie Scott in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and Jane DeVries in the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Cronenberg addressing Joseph Ruben film DREAMSCAPE (1984) to implicitly reaffirm the film’s interest in the film art and film artists of 1984. For this desperate and determined group spent the rest of the film in a brutal and bloody battle against the implicitly Lucas and Wicked Witch of the West linked Queen Mother of the gremaliens, whose implicit link to Lucas was affirmed by the film’s allusions to the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy and THX 1138, a huge and nasty biomechanical blockbuster beast that evoked a similar alienated beast met at the end of GALAXY OF TERROR.
Luckily, Ripley managed to save the brave new era of digitally enhanced film art in the end when she donned a biodigital power loader exo-skeleton and defeated the Wicked Queen of the biomechanical blockbuster beasts and jealous guardian of pre-digital film art in the boffo biodigital power loader versus biomechanical beast fight at the end of the film. A brave newt era of CGI enhanced film art led by Cameron rather than Lucas that was implicitly symbolized by Newt. For while the name of Rebecca evoked Renee and Myca, the two child extras that Morrow had tried to save on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE on that fateful and deadly night, her nickname “Newt” reminded us that Cameron was the newt kid on the film art block. Indeed, the resemblance of her Skywalker twin evoking twin brother, Timmy-played by Henn’s real life twin brother, Christopher-to Cameron reaffirmed the implicit link of Newt to the new era of Lucas and TZ disaster free and CGI enhanced film art that “Jimmy” Cameron was hoping to lead.
In fact, the July 23, 1982 evoking 2 hour and thirty-seven minute running time of the ALIENS: SPECIAL EDITION (1991) that Cameron eventually released affirmed his implicit interest in kicking off a Zone free newt era of CGI enhanced film art. Cameron’s implicit determination to kick off a newt era of film art was reinforced by the closed circuit helmet video cameras worn by the marines, which turned the marines into mobile cameramen as well as embattled soldiers. Thus, the battle of the camera clad soldiers and their digitally enhanced weapons against the hordes of non-digital but biomechanical gremaliens became a documentary-style film within the film that evoked the fierce battle between pro-digital and anti-digital film artists that began to rage in the Eighties.
Significantly, the helmet cam POVs and automatic rifles of the determined Colonial Marines also linked them to the infrared eye POV and automatic rifles of the T-800 Terminator in T1. This began a positive transformation in the Zonebusters of Cameron that led to the T-800 returning as a hero in a sequel soon to come, a transformation helped along by Bishop, a moral and helpful android who was the antithesis of the pitiless, inhuman and implicitly Tin Man linked android, Ash-played by Ian Holm-in ALIEN. However, while heralding the arrival of a Good future Terminator, the link of the Colonial Marines to the T-800 also implied that Cameron was worried that the Marines, and, by implication, film artists, were in danger of losing their humanity and becoming more machine than man if they relied on digitally enhanced technology too much in their films.
Indeed, at two points in the film the Marines were ambushed and almost wiped out by gremaliens sneaking towards them like alienated Rambos along the ceiling or in ceiling air ducts when they relied on digital trackers to tell them where the gremaliens were instead of using their eyes, ears, noses, hearts, minds and intuition. This point was affirmed by the fact that Connor and Reese and Hicks and Ripley used wiles, determination, courage, creativity, cunning, anger, strength, patience, planning, humour and love to defeat the T-800 in T1 and the gremaliens and Wicked Alien in ALIENS. Clearly, and despite his use of more digital technology in the film, Cameron was as suspicious of that technology as he was in T1 and still worried that people and film artists would lose their precious humanity if they relied too much on computers and digitally enhanced gadgets like the trackers.
And so Bigelow, Dante, Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis, Lucas, Marshall, Reitman, Spielberg, GREMLINS, the TZ disaster and the pitiless and loot lusting blockbuster beast were defeated for the first time or yet again in ALIENS. And so Hicks survived along with Bishop, Newt and Ripley, in the end, implying Cameron’s hope that Lynch would recover from the failure of DUNE and join Cronenberg and either Kubrick or Sir Scott and himself in further battles against the twilit and CGI enhanced blockbuster beast. The arresting visuals, detailed and realistic sets, memorable, relentless pace, exciting action, real and really dangerous on set special f/x, the post-production and CGI enhanced visual f/x, and memorable symphonic score by Horner also allowed the Canadian film artist to develop his anti-blockbuster philosophy and his commitment to higher minded film art for film art’s sake in order to perfect his unique Zonebuster take on the artbuster championed by Kubrick in such allegorical films as 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) and THE SHINING (1980), helped along by the small budget Twentieth Century Fox allocated for the film and the film's lack of movie tie-in merchandise (Keegan, 80).
Unfortunately, the growing size of his films and their spectacular special and visual f/x were bringing Cameron dangerously close to the twilit, CGI enhanced and beastly blockbuster world he despised, a dangerous proximity that he would have to be wary of for fear of being gobbled up by the beast. However, despite this growing resemblance to the CGI enhanced blockbuster beast and the horrific violence of the film-how ironically fitting that Richard Richcreek’s implicitly Cameron linked Kevin would comically rail against violence of any kind with “…self-righteous indignation” that year in the mostly implicitly Lynch roasting, twilit and allegorical Tim Hunter film RIVER’S EDGE (1986), released August 27, 1986-ALIENS was a huge hit, winning two Academy Awards for Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects and a Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation.
This success, at a time when the trial of Landis and his four co-defendants had reignited fury over the TZ disaster, implied that audiences were even more convinced that James Cameron was the Zonebusting J.C. saviour of the art of film than they had been in 1984 when they rallied to T1. And, whether Cameron realized it or cared, his bold, creative, intelligent, indomitable and successful approach to film art made him the living embodiment of the Canadian citizen being all they could be in the liberated and wide open new Second Constitutional era of Canada and an inspiration for all Canadians, particularly younger ones. Indeed, the fact that Cameron had remained a Canadian citizen rather than a dual CanAm citizen or a fully American citizen despite all the years he had lived in the GLAA literally made him the embodiment of the bold and confident new Canadian.
Gary Goddard implicitly agreed and implied his hope that year that the success of ALIENS affirmed that Cameron was the new healing and haromonizing power of the cinematic universe who had ended the Lucas era by having the implicitly Cameron and Tin Man linked He-Man-played by Dolph Lundgren-triumph over the implicitly Lucas linked and Wicked Skeletor-played by Frank Langella-in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and exuberantly awful filmmercial MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (1987), released on August 7, 1987. Indeed, the helpful support He-Man received from the Margaret Atwood resembling and implicitly linked and implicit Glinda the Good figure of the piece, the Sorceress-played by Christina Pickles-affirmed the implicit link of He-Man to an Ontario born and bred film artist. However, not everyone was unreservedly on the side of Cameron, as Bigelow implicitly made clear in the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film NEAR DARK (1987), released on September 12, 1987.
“See ya in Hell!”
For Goldstein, Henriksen and Paxton returned as the implicitly Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg linked vampire gang members Diamondback, Jesse and Severn, respectively. Given this implication, and given that Adrian Pasdar’s implicitly Lucas linked Caleb spent the film desperately trying to free a beautiful fellow gang member, Jenny Wright‘s bewitching and beautiful Mae-her name reminding us that all of the films of the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy were released in late May and that T1 took place in mid-May of 1984-from the vampire gang and cure her of vampirism, the implication was that Bigelow warned Cameron as much as Lucas and all other film artists in NEAR DARK that if they did not stop working with Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg and/or obsessing over the TZ disaster in their film art, they, their film art, audiences and the Temple Theatre would be trapped like the film’s vampires in the Twilight Zone NEAR DARK…forever. Curiously, Cameron did more than heed Bigelow’s implicit warning in NEAR DARK, he also began dating the tall, beautiful, commanding and fearless film artist and soon left Hurd to marry her.
As for Spielberg, he implicitly closed the film year of ’87 by implicitly linking the earnest and technology obsessed Cameron to the equally earnest, technology obsessed, naïve and innocent English schoolboy James “Jim” Graham-played by Christian Bale-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced film EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987), released on December 8, 1987. Then Terry Gilliam also ended the film year by again championing imaginative and irreverent indie film art and implicitly and satirically toasting the triumphant arrival of Cameron in the implicit form of the equally triumphant Baron Munchausen-played by John Neville-and implicitly roasting Landis and Spielberg in the implicit forms of the gleefully decapitating Sultan and the Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson-played by Peter Jeffrey and Jonathan Pryce, respectively-in the twilit, allegorical, fantastic realist, CGI enhanced and madcap animaction film THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1988), which arrived in the Temple Theatre on December 8, 1988. A satirical toast that paved the way for the return of Cameron to the Temple Theatre on August 8, 1989 when he teamed up again with Biehn, Brewer jr., Hurd, Wisher jr. and Joe Farago-who played a tv anchorman in T1-to imply that he had changed his mind about Spielberg and to do his implicit best to return daylight to the Temple Theatre and fulfill the goal implied by the ends of T1 and ALIENS by kicking off the brave newt era of CGI enhanced film art with the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced indie docufeature Zonebuster THE ABYSS (1989).
“Oh Bud,
you're not alone!”
Significantly, the first sight and sound of the film was an ominous black screen accompanied by the ponging sound of sonar, which was quickly followed by the familiar 20th Century Fox logo with its fanfare replaced by the still pinging sonar, an unusual beginning for THE ABYSS that immediately evoked the film art of Spielberg. For an ominous black screen accompanied only by a sound effect before an image slowly emerged, causing viewers to wake up and become a part of a Spielberg film rather than drift down into a cinematic dream when the lights turned down was a famously idiosyncratic way Spielberg began some of his allegorical and sometimes twilit and CGI enhanced films such as JAWS, the student film AMBLIN' (1968), the implicitly Lucas addressing telefilm DUEL (1971), the implicitly Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau roasting film CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) and the implicitly Alex Cox roasting film JURASSIC PARK (1993). A fitting evocation of the third film, for after the black screen disappeared, we found ourselves slightly back into the future in mid-January of ’94 as a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine, the USS Montana, was seen gliding towards the camera through the depths of the Atlantic Ocean not far from the Cayman Trough like the Narcissus drifted towards the camera through the depths of space at the beginning of ALIENS.
Soon the baffled Captain-played by Peter Ratray-and crew of the USS Montana were tracking a mysterious and unusually fast UFO evoking unidentified underwater object (UUO) on sonar in a sequence that recalled the UFO tracked on radar by airport traffic controllers in a control tower as it buzzed two passenger planes at the beginning of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, implicitly linking the UUO to Spielberg. However, unlike the UFO at the beginning of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, which did not harm the airplanes it buzzed, the wake of this CGI enhanced UUO caused the submarine to crash into an underwater cliff and then send the damaged sub into an unstoppable dive, eventually killing the captain and crew on the ocean’s floor near the Cayman Trough in the Caribbean Sea. Not before a homing buoy was released for searchers to find the wrecked submarine, which reached the vast and empty surface of the Atlantic Ocean when the doomed submarine hit rock bottom, evoked the wreck of the USS Dwight Fitzgerald in THE ABYSS. Here on the vast and empty surface of the ocean, the solitary buoy flashed rhythmically, evoking the equally solitary buoy floating in the vast and empty surface of the Atlantic after the opening shark attack on beautiful blonde teen Chrissy Watkins-played by Susan Backlinie-at the beginning of JAWS.
Thus, Cameron implied at the beginning of THE ABYSS that he was turning his righteously furious attention on Spielberg. And was also eager to out Bond Bond, as this opening sequence also recalled the opening submarine sequence of the allegorical Lewis Gilbert film THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977). Curiously, however, Cameron soon implied that he was also replying to Hyams in THE ABYSS. For the deadly crash of the USS Montana led to a U.S. Navy SEAL mission commanded overall by the Hyams resembling and implicitly linked Commodore DeMarco-played by J. Kenneth Campbell-and led by the implicitly Luc Besson linked Lieutenant Hiram Coffey-played by Biehn, who resembled Cameron’s brother, Mike, who provided small remote operating vehicles (ROVs) for the film-to be sent down to find, explore and determine the cause of the destruction of the USS Montana, a mission that again evoked the American/Russian mission to Jupiter to determine what happened to the crew and onboard computer of the USSC Discovery I in 2010 as much as the Colonial Marine mission to shuttle down to LV-426 to find out what happened to Hadley’s Hope in ALIENS. This SEAL team worked with the civilian workers of Benthic Petroleum’s surface ship, Explorer, and its nearby tethered underwater oil drilling platform, Deepcore II-a massive underwater drilling platform that again evoked the equally massive titanium mine and its miners on Io in OUTLAND-to find the wreck of the USS Montana, rescue any survivors and disable its nuclear missiles.
In addition, the military helicopters that brought Com. DeMarco, Lt. Coffey and the rest of the SEALS to the deck of the Explorer also brought with them the engineer who designed Deepcore II, the fearless, brainy and implicitly Amy Irving linked Lindsey Brigman-played by Elizabeth Mastrantonio-a woman as tall, brunette and indomitable as Ripley but far more feminine. Indeed, the sight of her right high heeled foot stepping last off a helicopter and hitting the deck of the Explorer after a series of male SEAL boots immediately made it clear that this female lead would not be sacrificing her femininity for her predominantly male audiences like Ripley, an implication reaffirmed by the dress she was wearing. Significantly, Lindsey soon began quarrelling with the boss of Deepcore II and her estranged and implicitly Spielberg linked husband that she was in the process of divorcing, Virgil “Bud” Brigman-played by Ed Harris, who was the latest actor to link a Cameron film to the twilit and disastrous year of 1982 via his role as Hank Blaine in the implicitly Dorothy linked “Father’s Day” segment of the allegorical, implicitly Ozian themed film thrashing and King scripted George Romero film CREEPSHOW (1982).
Thus, the sight of Bud and Lindsey putting aside their lover’s quarrel and triumphing over the increasingly deranged Lt. Coffey in a beastly blockbuster submersible battle that evoked Ripley's power loader battle with the Wicked Alien Queen at the end of ALIENS and implied the new hope of Cameron that Irving and Spielberg would remain married and unite again to lead the way in defeating Besson and the twilit, soulless, loot lusting and CGI enhanced biomechanical blockbuster beast and in kicking off a brave newt era of higher minded and CGI enhanced artbuster film in the Nineties. Indeed, after defeating Lt. Coffey and reviving Lindsey in a very moving scene, Bud then dived alone to the bottom of the ocean and, with the help of the fluid breathing system, deactivated the primed warhead that had drifted down to the USS Montana so as to blow up the sub and its nuclear missiles in a beastly blockbuster blast so as to prevent the Russians or the mysteriously reappearing UUOs-dubbed nonterrestrial intellingences or NTIs by this time of the film-from acquiring the missiles, affirming the implicit hope of Cameron that Irving and Spielberg would unite to defeat the CGI enhanced blockbuster beast in the Nineties. Literally united, as Bud successfully wooed Lindsey back to his side at the end of the film, allowing the embattled couple to head off in loving new directions.
Last but not least, the sight and sound of Bud being embraced by the peaceful CGI NTIs-ironically peaceful, given how violent their more alienated cousins were in ALIENS-after defusing the blockbuster bomb in an ending that evoked the endings of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Spielberg supporting Howard film SPLASH (1984) and the twilit, allegorical and CGI promoting Dante film EXPLORERS (1985), and then the sight and sound of Bud and the NTIs rising to the surface of the ocean to reveal their presences to humanity and a jubilant Com. DeMarco in the bright light of a beautiful sunny day also implied the hope of Cameron that Hyams would also continue to succeed in the Nineties and work with Irving, Spielberg and himself to free CGI enhanced film art from the twilight and bring daylit health and harmony back to audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre in the Nineties.
Indeed, the aquatic NTIs were not only linked to some of the most advanced and spectacular CGI ever seen in film art throughout THE ABYSS, but the revelation of their existences also ended the tensions between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. that had simmered in the background throughout the film as they did in 2010 and ushered in a new Cold War free era for Earth by revealing themselves to humanity at the end of the film, implicitly affirming that Cameron was eager to leave behind the TZ disaster inspired Zone Wars and warily kick off a new CGI enhanced era of film art in the Nineties. With the emphasis on wary, as an arm of water created with CGI that the NTIs sent in to explore the Deepcore II midway throught the film had started imitating the faces of the crew members it encountered, raising the dire possibility that film art could be created entirely with CGI enhancement with no need of real actors.
However, despite this dire possibility, Cameron implied his hope that CGI would be successfully used to head film art off in a whole new direction in the Nineties. As two of the crew of Deepcore II who rose up from the depths with Bud and Lindsey, Catfish “the Hammer” De Vries and Jammer Willis-played by Leo Burmester and John B. Lloyd, respectively-resembled and were implicitly linked to Cameron and John Sayles, actor, director and screenwriter of BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, Cameron also implicitly hoped that he and Sayles would continue to succeed with their CGI enhanced film art in the Nineties, as well. A good hope, as THE ABYSS, while not quite as successful as ALIENS and T1, was still a great film whose bold and original scenario, difficult and demanding underwater shoot and real, dangerous and uncompromising stunt work was fully deserving of the Academy Award it won for Best Visual Effects and was also another inspiration to Canadians looking for someone to point the way to success in life and their chosen career in the new Second Constitutional era of Canada.
For her part, in one of the more curious allegories of the dread Zone Wars, Euzhan Palcy implicitly linked the lonely and doomed battle of Ben Dutoit-fittingly played by Canadian actor Donald Sutherland-against the apartheid establishment in Johannesburg, South Africa to Cameron’s equally but not so doomed battle against the twilit New Hollywood establishment in her twilit and allegorical film A DRY WHITE SEASON (1989), released on September 10, 1989. As for Montgomery, he defied the implicit hope of Cameron in THE ABYSS by returning to the Temple Theatre the following year as a co-producer and teaming up with Lynch to implicitly roast Bigelow and Hurd in the form of topless attendants-played by Valli Leigh and Mia M. Ruiz, respectively-of W. Morgan Sheppard’s implicitly Cameron linked and gleefully Evil Mr. Reindeer in the twilit, allegorical and openly Ozian themed Lynch moving painting WILD AT HEART (1990), released on May 19, 1990. Tim Burton also implicitly roasted Cameron at the end of that year in the form of Anthony Hall’s boorish teen Jim in the quirky, gothic, creepy, twilit, allegorical and implicitly Lynch roasting animaction artbuster EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990), released on December 6, 1990.
As for Spielberg, he sourly and implicitly tried to foil Cameron’s new direction as his production company Amblin’ produced the twilit and allegorical Martin Scorsese film CAPE FEAR (1991), a film released on October 6, 1991 whose plot surrounded an unstoppable killer who hunted down specific victims in a way that evoked the T-800 Terminator cyborg in T1. Indeed, the killer’s name Max Cady-played by Robert De Niro-could be used as an anagram to spell “Cam”. Certainly, CAPE FEAR was linked to the twilit events of 1982 by way of co-star Nick Nolte, who played hunted and harassed father Sam Bowden, as Nolte was linked forever to 1982 by way of his role as Jack Cates opposite Eddie Murphy’s Reggie Hammond in the allegorical Walter Hill film 48 HOURS (1982).
Clearly, the Zonebusting success of Cameron was inspiring New Hollywood and other film artists to strike back, no doubt arousing the righteous fury of Cameron and inspiring him to return the favour. Particularly Lynch, for Cameron implicitly replied to WILD AT HEART and roasted Lynch when he teamed up again with Biehn, Boen, Fiedel, Goldstein, Hamilton, Hurd, Schwarzenegger, Winston, Wisher jr. and Mario Kassar-co-producer of RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART TWO-on his next righteously furious, twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed indie docufeature Zonebuster TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991), a film fittingly released on Canada Day, July 1, 1991 to affirm that Cameron was indeed an inspirational leader for Canadians at home and abroad in the new Second Constitutional era of Canada, a sequel that Cameron did not just direct but produced as well as co-wrote-with Wisher jr.-making him a true film auteur in the modern sense of the word, as he controlled both the external (production) side of T2, as well as the interior (artistic) side of the film (Buckland, 13-5), which he continued to do with bold, confident, creative and indomitable determination to this day.
“Trust me.”
Significantly, after a few brief scenes of a sunlit and car clogged L.A. in 1990, one of the film’s first opening titles pointed out for the first time that T2 was made “…in association with Lightstorm Entertainment”, the new film production company of Cameron, prior to proudly noting again that T2 was “…A James Cameron Film.” Then T2 returned to the desperate battle against the machines that kicked off T1 in another twilit memory of the future prologue set again in L.A. 2029, a desperate future battle that evoked the battle of House Atreides against House Harkonnen in Arrakeen on Arrakis in DUNE to immediately affirm that Cameron was implicitly roasting Lynch in T2. Significantly, however, Cameron also immediately and implicitly made it clear that he now sympathized with Lucas, for in this prologue nightmare of the machine battling future the older and implicitly Great Oz linked John Connor-played by Michael Edwards-seen leading the human resistance looked like a clean shaven and battle scarred Lucas, an implicit link to Lucas affirmed by the film’s many allusions to THX 1138.
Then the memory of the future disappeared, and the billowing flames that provided the backdrop for the rest of the opening credits of T2 evoked the billowing flames that provided the backdrop for the opening credits of WILD AT HEART, reaffirming the implication that Cameron was roasting Lynch in T2. Indeed, the glowing chronospheres that brought Schwarzenegger’s ironically kind, gentle, Good and implicitly Coppola and Scarecrow linked CSM-101 T-800 Terminator from the future after the opening credits ended evoked the floating bubble that brought Sheryl Lee’s Glinda the Good gently down to inspire Nicolas Cage’s implicitly Sir Scott and Scarecrow linked Sailor Ripley to return to and marry Laura Dern’s luvving, loyal, endearingly goofy and implicitly Daryl Hannah and Dorothy linked Lula Fortune at the healing, harmonizing and openly Ozian end of WILD AT HEART.
Curiously, after arriving from the future, the T-800 beat up a biker at a roadhouse called the Corral and stole his clothes and bike from him. This biker was played by the Richard Matheson resembling Richard Winley, who was last seen as a regular bar patron killed by the vampires of NEAR DARK. Winley’s resemblance to Matheson was important, for Matheson was the second most prolific writer after Rod Serling on the original TWILIGHT ZONE telefilm series and a writer who also worked on TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, implicitly linking the film to the TZ disaster. Indeed, the film’s implicit link to the twilit and disastrous events of 1982 was openly affirmed by the allegorical and George Thorogood written Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers tune “Bad to the Bone” (1982)-or was that “Bad To The Boen” given that Boen was back as the possibly Spielberg and Tin Man linked criminal psychiatrist, Dr. Silberman?-that played as the T-800 roared off from the roadhouse on the stolen hog. Significantly, the hog had the fittingly twilit license of 9A7 218, linking it and the film to the fateful and fatal year of ’82, the year of the release of NEAR DARK, and the year of the release of the allegorical Coppola indie docufeature artbuster THE GODFATHER (1972) to affirm the implicit link of the latest T-800 to Coppola.
Just as significantly, the sight and sound of the clean cut and black leather jacket and sunglass clad cyborg Terminator roaring through the streets on the stolen motorbike not only evoked the outlaw bikers of THE LOVELESS and the black leather jacket clad robocops of THX 1138 but also reaffirmed the interest in Lynch. For the sight and sound evoked James Marshall’s equally clean cut and implicitly Burton linked black leather jacket and sunglass clad teen biker James Hurley in the twilit and allegorical Lynch telemoving painting series TWIN PEAKS (1990-1). Just as significantly, and in marked contrast to T1, the Good new T-800 quickly tracked down and spent the film protecting the also implicitly Lucas and Great Oz linked young John Connor-played by the latest unknown lead in a Cameron film, Edward Furlong-his implicit link to Lucas affirmed by his implicitly Kennedy and Marshall linked foster parents, Janelle and Todd Voight-played by Goldstein and Xander Berkeley, respectively-who reminded us that Kennedy and Marshall had produced the Indy Trilogy for Lucas. Curiously, young Connor also reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch, as Connor resembled a kid named Nicky played by Joshua Harris in TWIN PEAKS.
The arrival from the twilit and embattled future in another Glinda evoking chronosphere of the new, improved, CGI enhanced, shape shifting but insubstantial, Evil and implicitly Lynch and Wicked Witch of the West linked “liquid metal” T-1000 Terminator-its shape shifting ability perhaps a sarcastic nod to Lynch’s tendency to leap from one genre to another with each moving painting, and played by Robert Patrick-also affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch. Indeed, the T-1000 was openly linked to David by the LAPD officer-played by Tom McDonald-codenamed “R-31 David” who was unlucky enough to stumble upon it after its arrival from the future. How fitting that this LAPD officer came across the T-1000 under the 6th Street Bridge in Santa Fe, for its spray paint art covered support columns reminded us of Lynch’s luv of art and painting.
The twilit and CGI enhanced nightmares of the global nuclear apocalypse set off by the Wicked Skynet A.I. on Judgment Day, August 29, 1997, that plagued the implicitly Bigelow and Dorothy linked Sarah Connor-played again by Hamilton-throughout the film reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in roasting Lynch, as these nightmares evoked the dreams and nightmares that plagued the male leads of the moving paintings of Lynch and evoked the nightmares of the beastly blockbuster machine battling future that plagued the implicitly Lynch linked Reese-briefly seen at the beginning of Sarah’s first twilightmare, and played again by Biehn-in T1. Thus, the sight and sound of John and the T-800 springing Sarah from the Pescadero State Hospital and teaming up with the implicitly Dante and Cowardly Lion linked Cyberdyne Systems scientist Doctor Miles B. Dyson-played by Joe Morton-to destroy the remnants of the original T-800 from T1 and all the research that could lead to the creation of Skynet and the Terminators and terminating the T-1000, in the boffo embattled end, implied the hope of Cameron that T2 would defeat Lynch and WILD AT HEART and exorcise both from the Temple Theatre. Indeed, the climatic shooting death of the pursuing T-1000-its fondness for disguising itself as a clean cut LAPD officer again evoking the equally pursuing robocops of THX 1138 to reaffirm that T2 was implicitly addressing Lucas on one level-at the end of T2 also evoked the climatic shooting death of Willem Dafoe’s dastardly and implicitly Oliver Stone linked Vietnam vet Bobby Peru at the end of WILD AT HEART to reaffirm the implicit link of the new Terminator to Lynch.
Significantly, the CGI enhanced ability of the Evil T-1000 to transform itself into any organic lifeform it wanted to also recalled the less powerful CGI enhanced and face forming NTI water arm probe of THE ABYSS. This link implicitly affirmed that Cameron was now worried about the growing CGI enhancement of film art and the possibility that all CGI film art could destroy the vital humanity of film art, a worry implicitly affirmed by the fact that Sarah’s horrific nightmares were created with CGI. Thus, the termination of the fully CGI enhanced T-1000 at the end of the film also implied the hope of Cameron that Bigelow, Dante, Lucas and himself would not only defeat Lynch with their own films but lead the way in the creation of a neo eon of film art that was enhanced but not overwhelmed or replaced by CGI.
Unfortunately for Cameron, despite its innovative CGI, spectacular and dangerous stunts-including two action packed chase scenes that saw the T-1000 pursue the heroes in a big rig that again evoked THE ROAD WARRIOR and a cocky, cunning and real explosive crash in between those two pursuits that saw the T-800 slam on the brakes of the getaway SWAT truck it was driving so as to destroy the LAPD helicopter that the T-1000 was piloting in hot pursuit-T2 did not live up to the implicit hope for a new, higher minded, peaceful and harmonious new era of CGI enhanced film art free from the TZ disaster and the dread allegorical Zone Wars seen at the end of THE ABYSS. Indeed, the brutal, nasty and uncreative film was a step backward for the director that dragged the Canadian auteur back into the dread allegorical Zone Wars. The snituation was not helped by the fact that Lynch was not interested in CGI, making it implausible that he would be implicitly linked to the CGI enhanced T-1000.
In addition, the film's huge budget-the world’s first $100 million dollar and change film!-sprawling production and overly long length also unfortunately and ironically transformed T2 from a gripping and innovative Zonebuster like T1 into just the kind of uncreative, soulless and beastly blockbuster spectacle that Cameron was implicitly committed to terminating with his Zonebusters. Alas, the huge cost of T2 and its equally huge success also brought with them another concern for audiences and film artists. Namely, that the Hollywood studios would stop using that $100 million to pay for ten small $10 million dollar films for ten film artists or four medium size $25 million dollar films for four film artists, particularly if few or any of those films would be hits, and instead start giving all of that $100 million dollars only to film artists like Cameron, Coppola, Lucas or Spielberg given that their films would more likely be hits. A financially pragmatic approach to film art that suddenly made Cameron’s nightmares of a beastly and CGI enhanced blockbuster machine dominated future all too ironically fitting, as if he had been anticipating his own success. A beastly and CGI enhanced blockbuster machine world thankfully and desperately fought off by the popularity of low budget indie film art in the Nineties, just as ironically and fittingly kicked off and led by Lynch with moving paintings like WILD AT HEART and helped along by the arrival of the embodiment of righteously furious Gen X, Quentin Tarantino.
However, despite this new concern and despite being a step back for Cameron, T2 was another huge hit that won a Fourceful four Oscars for Best Makeup, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects and another Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation and no doubt inspired Canadians to approach their lives and vocations in the Second Constitutional era of Canada with the same fearless courage, creativity, patience, perseverance and humour as Cameron. Curiously, however, Cameron quickly affirmed that he had indeed taken a step backward with T2 and affirmed that it had been fitting to implicitly link Sarah Connor to Bigelow when he took a step forward and helped out the low budget indie film cause by donning the executive producer hat for the first time and returning to the Temple Theatre soon after the release of T2 to implicitly toast Lucas and roast Lynch again in the fearless, twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed Bigelow indie docufeature artbuster POINT BREAK (1991), released on July 10, 1991.
“See you in Hell, Johnny!”
For the natural, powerful and healing rhythms of the mighty and daylit Pacific Ocean and its devout and mystic surfers seen and heard from the first frame to the last in the film not only evoked the equally powerful Atlantic Ocean and the transcendent aliens of THE ABYSS, implicitly affirming that Cameron was continuing his own themes in the Bigelow film, but gave the film the more heady and transcendent direction implied by the end of THE ABYSS but missing in T2. Indeed, a monstrous blockbuster wave off the coast of Australia seen at the end of the film that evoked the monstrous blockbuster wave created by the NTIs at the end of THE ABYSS implicitly affirmed that Bigelow rather than Cameron was setting off in that heady and daylit new direction in POINT BREAK.
However, the fact that the final blockbuster beast of a wave killed Patrick Swayze's anti-establishment, free spirited, implicitly Lynch and Great Oz linked and possibly bi-sexual Ex-President bank robber/surfer gang leader, Bodhi, at the end of the film also affirmed the implication that Cameron continued the roastings he gave Lynch in T1 and T2 in POINT BREAK, an implication affirmed by the film’s allusions to DUNE, TWIN PEAKS, WILD AT HEART and the twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed Lynch moving painting BLUE VELVET (1986). Of course, the climatic death of Bodhi also implicitly affirmed that Bigelow continued her anti-Lynch campaign in POINT BREAK, reminding us that the kooky and implicitly Lynch linked Tarver-played by J. Don Ferguson-was killed at the end of THE LOVELESS.
The presence of Keanu Reeves as Bodhi’s implicitly Lucas and Scarecrow linked and also possibly bisexual lawman nemesis FBI Special Agent Johnny Utah affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lucas and reaffirmed the implicit Lynch roasting intent of POINT BREAK, for the eager young FBI agent recalled MacLachlan’s FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper in TWIN PEAKS. Significantly, Utah’s decision to leave the FBI at the end of the film after releasing Bodhi and allowing the freedom luvving gang leader to destroy himself trying to surf that final blockbuster wave like a Fremen riding a blockbuster sandworm of Arrakis, a sight that reminded us that Lynch had tried but failed to succeed with DUNE, also implicitly reaffirmed Bigelow’s equal determination to leave behind the twilit Zone Wars and return to the daylight seen at the end of NEAR DARK as well as implied her hope that Lucas would triumph over Lynch in the Nineties.
Significantly, POINT BREAK was another milestone for Cameron, as it was the first hit film executive produced by him, inspiring his Canadian audiences in particular yet again.
Perhaps making it fitting that Disney, Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise implicitly responded to the possible interest in the fortunes of the Walt Disney Studio seen in THE ABYSS by implicitly linking the increasingly cocky and all conquering Cameron to the bad tempered Prince-voiced by Robby Benson-who was transformed by a knowing Enchantress into a blockbuster Beast in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Cameron and Lucas addressing hand animated film BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991), released on September 29, 1991. An implicit link that Cameron did not miss, for the spellbinding rose that would wither and die, leaving the Prince a Beast forever if he did not fall in love with a woman who fell in love with him in turn by the age of 21, returned as an equally spellbinding Rose in a titanic film of Cameron to come.
How fitting that BEAUTY AND THE BEAST also saw the implicitly Cameron linked Beast triumph over a group of characters linked to New Hollywood film artists like Dante and Spielberg and the arrogant and implicitly Lucas linked blowhard Gaston-voiced by Richard White-given that Lucas would try and fail to topple Cameron in the new millennium with another STAR WARS trilogy. And how appropriate that the love of the implicitly Bigelow linked Belle-voiced by Paige O’Hara-inspired the love inside the Beast that freed him from the spell of the beautiful, blonde and implicitly Hollywood linked Enchantress, given that Bigelow had become the latest wife of Cameron. Curiously, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST also alluded to the eerily and presciently twilit and allegorical Gerald Potterton film HEAVY METAL: THE MOVIE (1981), as if Disney hoped to recapture the Skyrocking spirit of the Last Good Year of film before the TZ disaster in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. If so, it was a good hope, for the CGI enhanced BEAUTY AND THE BEAST revived the animated film fortunes of Disney as Cameron implicitly hoped in THE ABYSS.
For his part, Coppola had the implicitly Bigelow and Dorothy linked Wilhelmina “Mina” Harker aka Elisabeta-both played by Winona Ryder-team up with the implicitly Burton and Tin Man linked Doctor Jack Seward-played by Richard E. Grant-the implicitly Howard and Great Oz linked Lord Arthur Holmwood-played by Cary Elwes-the implicitly Lucas and Scarecrow linked Jonathan Harker-played by Keanu Reeves-and the implicitly Walter Murch and Cowardly Lion linked Quincey P. Morris-played by Bill Campbell-to triumph over the implicitly Cameron linked Count Dracula-played by Gary Oldman-at the end of the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed indie docufeature artbuster BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992) when it was released in the Temple Theatre on November 10, 1992. An artbusting film that Cameron implicitly approved of, for he soon donned the writer/director/co-producer hats and teamed up again with Fiedel, Paxton and Schwarzenegger to fuse the secret agents of POINT BREAK with the swelling romance of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST to implicitly toast Coppola and implicitly roast Spielberg in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced indie docufeature Zonebuster TRUE LIES (1994), released on July 12, 1994.
“I married Rambo.”
Significantly, after kicking off with an all new CGI Twentieth Century Fox logo and fanfare another brave new sight and sound appeared for the first time in the form of the upbeat, multi-coloured and all CGI logo and fanfare for Lightstorm Entertainment, Cameron’s new film production company, an upbeat and all CGI affair that started off like a music enhanced, multi-coloured, firework explosion filled and aurora borealis evoking lightstorm over an iceberg before the lightstorm disappeared, the iceberg turned up and quickly coalesced into the stylized silver form of a strong, sturdy, fearless and indomitable archer notching up a lightning bolt arrow to shoot at twilit enemies on top of a pedestal with the words “Lightstorm Entertainment” below it. Soon after came opening titles proudly describing the Zonebuster as “…A Lightstorm Entertainment Production Of A James Cameron Film”.
Then TRUE LIES started with a James Bond evoking prologue adventure that saw Schwarzenegger, completing his journey from villain in T1 to hero in TRUE LIES by playing the intrepid Agent #10024 Harry Tasker of the ultra secret U.S. spy agency Omega Sector, rising up in a scuba divers suit that evoked THE ABYSS from the depths of a swimming pool linked to Switzerland's Lake Chapeau outside an expensive chateau in the snowswept winter darkness, wearing a video cam equipped scuba diving helmet that evoked the helmet cam clad Colonial Marines of ALIENS. A fitting sight and sound, as it reminded us that Schwarzenegger was last seen in a Cameron Zonebuster terminating itself by remorselessly sinking into the molten and truly liquid metal depths of a steel foundry to prevent its technology from being used to create the nightmarish and beastly CGI enhanced blockbuster machine future in his role as the Good T-800 Terminator at the end of T2.
Significantly, the fenced in chateau evoked the Beast’s equally fenced in castle in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, immediately implying that Cameron was replying to Disney on one level in TRUE LIES and assuring the Mouse House that his success was not turning him into a rude and arrogant beast. Indeed, Tasker defied his Terminator links by being unusually and obsessively polite throughout the film, reaffirming the implication that Cameron was leaving behind T1 as well as replying to Dis on one level in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Stripping off the scuba gear, Tasker strolled suave and handsome in an expensive tuxedo into the opulent chateau and its gathering of wealthy and powerful people implicitly linked to film artists like Coppola and Stallone. Sneaking into an upper floor of the chateau, Tasker helped his assistants, Albert “Gib” Gibson and Faisal-played by Tom Arnold and Grant Heslov, respectively-steal some encrypted files from the computer hard drive of Marshall Manesh’s possibly Besson linked Jamal Khaled, the suspected Moslem terrorist sympathizer who owned the chateau. After stealing the encrypted files of Khaled-literally implying that Cameron was stealing a page from Besson with the LA FEMME NAKITA evoking TRUE LIES-Tasker then returned to the ground level of the chateau via a central staircase that evoked a central staircase of the Beast’s castle in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
Soon Tasker was flirting and dancing with Tia Carrere’s beautiful and curvaceous Juno Skinner-her first name sarcastically and fittingly reminding us that Cameron had never received a Juno, the Canadian film award at the time, for his Zonebusters-in the ballroom of the chateau. Significantly, this tango was performed to the sound of the allegorical and Carlos Gardel composed and Tango Project performed tango “Por Una Cabeza” (1935) heard only the year before on the soundtrack of the twilight, allegorical, unusually CGI free and implicitly Coppola addressing Spielberg docufeature film SCHINDLER’S LIST (1993). This opening tango also evoked a tentatively romantic dance that the Beast had with Belle in the ballroom of his castle midway through BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and another more loving dance the two newlyweds shared in the ballroom at their wedding at the end of that film, reaffirming the implication that Cameron was replying to that film on one level in TRUE LIES.
Ultra secret Omega Agent Tasker then fled the chateau for the winter darkness, where he soon fought off chateau guards on skis in bullet blasting nighttime fighting that recalled the man versus beastly blockbuster machine battles in the nightmares from the future in the Terminator films. Successfully meeting up with Faisal and Gib in their specially equipped getaway van, the prologue adventure ended, and it was soon back to Washington for Omega Sector Agents Faisal, Gib and Tasker where we met a French fellow Omega Sector agent named Jean-Claude-played by Jean-Claude Parachini-who looked like the twin brother of a middle aged Walt Disney to openly affirm the film’s implicit interest in Disney and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST on one level. Here at Omega Sector HQ we also met Tasker’s intimidating and eye-patch wearing boss, Spencer Trilby-played by Charlton Heston-who reminded us that the equally intimidating and eye-patch wearing film artist John Ford was an inspiration to the film artists of New Hollywood.
Significantly, it was noticeable that the Washington, DC Tasker family home looked like the Washington state Palmer family home in TWIN PEAKS and the twilit and allegorical Lynch moving painting TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992). This link to the Palmers was increased by the two adults and one teenaged girl who composed the Tasker family. For Harry, his wife, Helen, the most stereotypically feminine woman met yet in a Cameron film, and their daughter, Dana-the latter two played by Curtis and Eliza Dushku, respectively-evoked the implicitl Madonna, Irving and Spielberg linked Laura, Sarah and Leland Palmer-played by Lee, Grace Zabriskie [who played Captain Trantor in GALAXY OF TERROR], and Ray Wise, respectively-in TWIN PEAKS and TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. In fact, Harry looked and dressed like Leland throughout TRUE LIES. Dana’s name also evoked Dana Ashbrook’s implicitly Bigelow linked Bobby Briggs in TWIN PEAKS and TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME.
Thus, with all of the links to the moving paintings and telemoving paintings of Lynch, the implication was that Cameron was also responding to Lynch on one level in TRUE LIES-a title which looked and sounded like TWIN PEAKS-perhaps due to the nightmarish and incestuous rape of Laura by Leland in TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Indeed, while there was no incest between Harry and Dana, there was a luv scene between Harry and Helen in a Washington hotel room which Harry used to woo Helen back to him from Paxton’s bogus and possibly Howard linked “secret agent”, Simon, with the help of a romantic tape recording of the sexy French voice of Jean-Claude and an enchanting rose that evoked the spellbinding rose of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST to affirm Cameron’s implicit nod to Disney on another level, a luv scene that evoked the nightmarish incestuous rape scene in Laura’s bedroom in the Palmer home in TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Indeed, this more harmonious and luving scene between the Taskers was shot in the same blue light as the incestuous rape scene of TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, implicitly affirming that Cameron was replying to Lynch in TRUE LIES and using the film to exorcise and cleanse the Temple Theatre Lynch and his film art on one level.
Curiously, however, while the film’s main Evildoer, the insidious Crimson Jihad terrorist gang leader Salim Abu Aziz-played by Art Malik-smoked cigarettes like Lynch, he was actually implicitly linked to Spielberg in the film via allusions to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, SCHINDLER’S LIST, the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed, implicitly Friedkin and David Lean roasting, Lucas executive produced and Kennedy and Marshall produced Spielberg film INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989) and the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced film HOOK (1991), perhaps as a result of the ominous implications of twilit wrongdoing in HOOK. Indeed, Crimson Jihad evoked the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, reaffirming the implicit link of Abu Aziz to Spielberg. The 63S8D license on the motorcycle that Abu Aziz used to flee from the police horse riding Harry in Washington midway through the film in an amusing and action packed sequence that evoked a similar amusing and action packed sequence in the allegorical and implicitly Coppola and Lucas roasting Richard Rush film FREEBIE AND THE BEAN (1974) also implicitly affirmed the link of Abu Aziz to Spielberg, as it reminded us that TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE was released in ’83.
A fitting allusion to the implicitly Coppola roasting FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, as it reminded us that while Helen and Dana Tasker evoked Sarah and Laura Palmer, they also resembled and were implicitly linked to Eleanor and Sofia (SCC) Coppola, implying that Harry, Helen and Dana Tasker were actually implicitly linked to Francis, Eleanor and Sofia Coppola rather than to Leland, Sarah and Laura Palmer in TRUE LIES and that Harry’s two Omega Sector colleagues Faisal and Gib were implicitly linked to longtime Coppola and Lucas bit part extra Al Nalbandian and longtime Coppola producer Fred Fuchs. Indeed, the fact that TRUE LIES was also filled with allusions to the allegorical and implicitly Coppola and Lucas roasting Rush film GETTING STRAIGHT (1970), the allegorical and implicitly Rush roasting Coppola indie docufeature film THE CONVERSATION (1974), and the eerily and presciently twilit and allegorical Coppola indie docufeature artbuster APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) affirmed that Coppola was implicitly being toasted on one level in TRUE LIES.
Thus, the sight and sound of Harry and Helen teaming up to prevent Abu Aziz and Crimson Jihan from successfully detonating their four blockbuster Soviet MIRV-6 nuclear bombs and of Harry liberating Dana from the insidious clutches of Abu Aziz before Harry terminated the Crimson Jihad leader at the end of the film implied the hope of Cameron that Coppola and SCC would successfully use their own film art to triumph over the insidious and beastly blockbuster CGI enhanced bombs of Spielberg in retaliation for the implications of twilit wrongdoing in HOOK. An implication that also explained the film’s allusions to TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, reminding us that Lynch used that moving painting to also furiously roast Spielberg and HOOK. Significantly, however, the rescue of Dana before the termination of Abu Aziz also allowed Cameron to assure audiences that film art had not died with the death of Laura Palmer in the quirky Washington state town of Twin Peaks as in TWIN PEAKS and TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Cameron also implied that he was no longer as worried about CGI as he was in T2, as Abu Aziz, whose madcap fondness for illicit blockbuster nuclear bombs evoked Lt. Coffey’s equally madcap quest to detonate blockbuster nuclear bombs in THE ABYSS, was cheekily shot by a missile from a fittingly Harry and July 23rd linked Harriet VM 223 jet fighter into a TZ disaster evoking helicopter by Tasker in the ridiculously boffo and CGI enhanced climax of the film.
Prior to that, Harry had already successfully wooed Helen away from Simon and back to his happily married life like Bud wooed Lindsey back to his happily married life at the end of THE ABYSS, implying the hope of Cameron that TRUE LIES would also triumph over Disney and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. In addition, the rescue of Helen from Skinner and Skinner’s death in a spectacular chase sequence near the end of the film implied that Cameron was getting back at Canada for not giving him any Junos for his films-fuck you very much! Last but not least, Harry and Helen's closing tango to the sound of “Por Una Cabeza” in tux and revealing black dress in another gathering of wealthy and powerful people implicitly linked to film artists in opulent surroundings at the end of the film that evoked the tango in the Swiss chateau in the prologue adventure that kicked off the film not only brought the film full healing circle but also reaffirmed the implicit hope of Cameron that the film would would triumph over Disney, for this loving final tango in opulent surroundings again evoked the loving dance of Belle and the Prince in the ballroom of the Prince at their wedding at the end of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and set the stage for a more boisterous dance to an Irish fiddle cheered on by a Scottish extra played by Cameron not far from opulent surroundings in an even more memorable and titanic film to come.
And so TRUE LIES was another Zonebusting success for Cameron, yet again inspiring his Canadian audiences to persevere with their own dreams in the Second Constitutional era of Canada. And fittingly, given the implicit interest in Coppola in TRUE LIES, co-producer Coppola and actor/director Kenneth Branagh implied in the tenth anniversary year of the release of T1 that the beast-played by De Niro-that foolish and vainglorious scientist Victor Frankenstein-played by Branagh-unleashed on the world in a storm of eel provided bioelectricity symbolized the Zonebuster beast that Cameron had unleashed on the world of film art with his Lightstorm filled Entertainment in the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Cameron roasting indie docufeature film MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN (1994), released on November 4, 1994 and inspired by the allegorical Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).
“No one need ever die.
I will stop this.”
Indeed, the sight of the beast tearing out the heart of Frankenstein’s beloved, Elizabeth-played by Helena B. Carter-affirmed the film’s implicit intent, evoking the sight of the CSM-101 Terminator ripping out the heart of a Hamill evoking punk at the beginning of T1. Branagh and Coppola also implicitly warned Cameron that the Zonebusting beast that he had created might kill him as remorselessly as the beast killed Frankenstein at the end of the film. All of which was a far cry from the original implicit allegorical intent of Shelley.
For her fear of using parts of old bodies to create a monstrous new one implied her fear of the United States of America, who had not been stopped by the United Kingdom in the then recently completed War of 1812 from turning bodies from the Old World into freedom loving new American citizens determined the wrest the entire world from the rictus and imperialist grip of European, Russian and Turkish aristocrats like her husband and herself. Indeed, the electricity used to create Frankenstein’s monster affirmed the implicit intent of Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. For it evoked the famous electrical current that Ben Franklin was able to crackle down a kite string one fateful dark and stormy day before the Revolution, a current that made him a modern Prometheus bringing literal enlightenment, electricity and electric light and fire to the masses of the Thirteen Colonies. A modern Prometheus who inspired the education and science loving Revolutionaries to launch and win the American Revolution in order to be the victors who created Victor Franklinstein’s monster, the constitutionally protected and freedom and democracy loving American citizen.
Significantly, the following year saw the release of the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and Gibson scripted Robert Longo indie docufeature film JOHNNY MNEMONIC (1995), a film released on May 26, 1995 that was inspired by the allegorical and CGI enhanced Gibson short story “Johnny Mnemonic” (1981). Just as curiously, the implicitly Kubrick and Scarecrow linked Johnny Kalmann aka Johnny Mnemonic aka John Smith-played by Reeves-navigated a CGI enhanced cyberspace with the help of virtual reality helmets and data cybergloves with the cool and practiced ease of a seasoned cybernaut, and scored a victory in the end for CGI enhanced indie film art with his equally CGI enhanced avatar over the Evildoers of Pharmakom and the implicitly Cameron linked and macabrely violent J.C. cyborg messiah, Karl the Street Preacher-played by Lundgren-of the implicitly Temple Theatre linked Church of the Retransfiguration that anticipated the full throttle CGI, THX sound and 3D enhanced cyberpix and their equally triumphant avatars of today.
Curiously, another John Smith was featured prominently in film that same year, when Disney implicitly linked Lucas to another John Smith, in this case Captain John Smith-who resembled Luke Skywalker, and was sung and voiced by Gibson-and implied that Smith’s inability to fully embrace, live in harmony with and save the New World and beautiful Pocahontas-voiced by Irene Bedard and sung by Judy Kuhn, respectively-from the beastly and blockbuster gold lusting likes of the implicitly Burton linked and David O. Stiers voiced Governor Ratcliffe-his suit of armour and cape evoking Michael Keaton’s implicitly Lucas linked Bruce “Batman” Wayne in the twilit and allegorical Burton films BATMAN (1989) and BATMAN RETURNS (1992) to affirm the implicit link of Ratcliffe to Burton-after sailing across the Atlantic on HMS Susan Constant symbolized the inability of Lucas to fully embrace, live in harmony with and save the new world of CGI enhanced film art from beastly blockbuster lusts in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg film POCAHONTAS (1995), released on June 15, 1995. A curious implication, indeed, given that Burton was the one committed to film art for film’s art sake, and Lucas was the one committed to beastly CGI enhanced blockbuster profits, and one that anticipated another Capt. Smith in a titanic Cameron Zonebuster to come.
Significantly, the implicit interest in Lucas in POCAHONTAS also anticipated Cameron exchanging Albert Gibson for William Gibson and implicitly changing his mind about Coppola when he helped out the indie film art cause again and returned to the Temple Theatre on October 13, 1995 as co-producer and co-writer of his own Gibson inspired film made with his now ex-wife, Bigelow-who had been replaced by Hamilton after reconnecting with her on the set of T2-Todd Graff-who had played the possibly Burton linked Deepcore II crew member Alan “Hippy” Carnes in THE ABYSS-Rae Sanchini-co-executive producer of TRUE LIES-Tom Sizemore-who had a small role as an unhappy undercover DEA agent named Dietz in POINT BREAK-and POINT BREAK editor Howard Smith to implicitly roast Spielberg again and also Coppola and to implicitly send another sympathetic allegorical message to Lucas as in POINT BREAK in the fearless, twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed Bigelow indie docufeature artbuster STRANGE DAYS (1995), first screened on Sept 3, 2005.
“It’s real time, you hear me!
Real time!
Time to get real, not playback!”
Significantly, after a fully CGI 20th Century Fox logo and another equally CGI, proud, aurora borealis evoking lightstorm over an iceberg that coalesced into a stylized silver archer notching a lightning bolt logo for Lightstorm Entertainment, the film began with another title identifying it as a Lightstorm Entertainment Production preceding a title proudly proclaiming it “…A Kathryn Bigelow Film”, which implied that it was more of a Cameron film than a Bigelow film. Then a title placing the film in L.A. in the early morning hours of December 30, 1999 appeared, quickly followed by a close-up of an eye of a luvable lunk with the Johnny Utah cadenced name of Lenny Nero-played by Ralph Fiennes. This close-up eye evoked a close-up of an eye seen at the beginning of BLADE RUNNER, a film that also took place in a future L.A., in the first of many allusions to that film in STRANGE DAYS. Then Nero used a wireless Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) headset to playback the recorded experience of one of a twilit trio of young and nylon stocking masked Caucasian male robbers of a Vietnamese restaurant. Significantly, these three robbers were implicitly linked to film artists again as they evoked the bank robbing and equally masked surfers of POINT BREAK and the Fire It Up gang in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Bigelow addressing Alex Proyas film THE CROW (1994).
Not surprisingly, Nero was shocked and outraged that the SQUID playback recording unexpectedly ended with the robber who was being recorded-played by Ron Young-falling to his death off the roof of the apartment complex housing the robbed ground floor restaurant as he evaded police. While this death evoked the death of the Wicked Witch of the East that opened wide the gates of all healing Ozian spiritworld dreams and recalled another rooftop chase that led to a police officer falling to his doom at the beginning of the allegorical and Ozian themed Alfred Hitchcock film VERTIGO (1959), it also reminded us that after being shot by the Fire It Up gang, the implicitly Bigelow linked rocker Eric Draven was tossed out of the main window of a loft to his death before returning to life as the implacable and avenging Crow at the beginning of THE CROW. Tellingly, while supposedly miffed that the SQUID playback led to the death of the robber, Nero was not so miffed that he did not buy this “black jack” snuff SQUID recording from the implicitly Landis and Tin Man linked and gleefully amoral Tick-played by Richard Edson-for a reduced price due to its deadly content.
Leaving behind the ticked Tick, Nero then cruised the streets of L.A. in his silver Benz, his TZ disaster linked license plates of LN 237 throwing more doubt on his dislike of snuff recordings. This restless driving alone in his car evoked Paul Le Mat’s implicitly Great Oz and Walt Disney linked John Milner cruising the equally restless and riotous night streets of Modesto in his ’32 Deuce Coupe Yellow Brick Roadster in AMERICAN GRAFFITI and De Niro’s implicitly Lucas linked Travis Bickle in his Yellow Brick Taxi in the allegorical and implicitly Lucas roasting Scorsese film TAXI DRIVER (1976), implicitly linking Nero to Lucas as well as the Scarecrow. The discovery that Nero was an ex-LAPD officer reaffirmed his implicit link to Lucas, reminding us that the Force was no longer with Lucas in 1995, and that police officers implicitly symbolized successful professional film artists in the fearless, twilit, allegorical and implicitly Landis and Reitman roasting Bigelow indie docufeature film BLUE STEEL (1990).
Curiously, Nero initially fiddled-or was that squiddled?-while the police cordoned the burning downtown core of a twilit Los Angeles that was heading down the dire path leading to the L.A. 2019 of BLADE RUNNER and the even more dire L.A. 2029 of T1 and T2 burned in the last restless and combative nights before New Year’s Eve 1999 ushered in the new millennium. These riotous streets of fire reminded us that the equally dark and violent events of THE CROW took place on the All Devil’s Night on the 30th of October before Hallowe’en. This link to THE CROW was reaffirmed by the non-stop albeit ambient rock and roll of STRANGE DAYS-some of it live-which evoked the non-stop rockin roll not only of THE CROW but also of AMERICAN GRAFFITI-some of it also live in those two films-as well as the non-stop and sometimes live rock n roll of the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Folsey jr. and Landis roasting and Lucas supporting Walter Hill film STREETS OF FIRE (1984), and its dark and despondent tenth anniversary rebuttal, THE CROW. Thus, it was fitting that the allegorical and Eric Mouquet et Michel Sanchez composed Deep Forest tune “Coral Lounge” (1995) clocked in at the all too fittingly twilit time of 3:27 on the disappointingly incomplete soundtrack of STRANGE DAYS.
When he wasn’t driving, Nero frantically peddled SQUID playback recordings, emphasizing as a selling point that playback users could not be hurt in any way as they were experiencing another person’s experiences, not reality, non-real experiences that evoked the memory implants of the renegade Replicants in BLADE RUNNER. Nero also tried to persuade people to wear SQUID headsets and record experiences for him-particularly sexual experiences-that he could sell to addicts known as wireheads. Of course, these SQUID headsets evoked similar experience recording devices encountered in the allegorical literary art of Gibson, including the similarly named superconducting quantum interference detectors (Squids) of “Johnny Mnemonic”, the apparent sensory perception (ASP) decks of the allegorical and CGI enhanced short story “Fragments Of A Hologram Rose” (1977), and the simstim of the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed novel Neuromancer (1984), wistfully linking the film to the Skyrocking year of 1977 and the Last Good Year of film art-as well as one of the first years of the dread Zone Wars. Significantly, Nero’s tragicomic SQUID hustling reminded us that in 1995 Lucas was also doing his best to peddle CGI enhanced film art to the film art community so as to prevent film set fatalities, reaffirming Nero’s implicit link to Lucas. Indeed, the fact that Nero was adamantly opposed to sanctioning or selling SQUID recordings of people’s deaths affirmed that he wanted SQUID recordings to enhance and promote life, like Lucas wanted CGI to enhance film art and save lives on sets.
Significantly, the tragicomic sight and sound of Nero peddling playback was suddenly intercut with the sight and sound of a beautiful, scantily clad and implicitly Toto linked young woman-played by Brigitte Bako-frantically running down the concrete stairs into the Union Station subway station. Hot on her heels were two homicidal LAPD officers, Dwayne Engelman-implicitly linked to Paul Verhoeven, and played by William Fichtner-and Burton Steckler-implicitly linked to Schwarzenegger, and played by Vincent D’Onofrio. These two Evil and psychotic police officers were the exact opposite of the implicitly Spielberg linked Cooley and Price-played by Rossovich and Richard Lawson, respectively-the two bumbling but Good police officers in STREETS OF FIRE. The two LAPD officers also evoked the robot police officers who chased THX 1138 and SEN 5241 and SRT-played by Donald Pleasance and Don Pedro Colley, respectively-in and out of a station in the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in THX 1138 in another affirmation of the Lucas addressing intent of STRANGE DAYS.
Luckily for the young woman, she managed to evade Engelman and Steckler and escape on a departing subway train. Soon after, around 4:05 am, she left Nero a telephone message at his swingin’ and squiddin’ one-bedroom bachelor pad in which she identified herself as Iris. Her name evoked Iris-played by Jody Foster-in TAXI DRIVER, in another affirmation of the implicit Lucas addressing intent of STRANGE DAYS. Significantly, a tv screen played the message as it was spoken by Iris and identified her phone number as 213.555.8947. This phone number linked Iris to the fateful numbers 237, reaffirming the film’s implicit interest in the TZ disaster. Unaware of the danger Iris was in because she hung up before he could pick up his phone, Nero was soon blissfully lost in a SQUID recording that saw him roller skating with his Spielberg resembling and implicitly linked and implicitly Dorothy linked ex-girlfriend, Faith-who evoked the lovestruck and implicitly Spielberg linked Beverly in PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING, and was played by Juliette Lewis-a singer who evoked the singer Ellen Aim-played by Diane Lane-in STREETS OF FIRE.
Significantly, Nero was also unaware that as he blissed out on one of his favourite SQUID recordings, his reflection was silently seen in a mirror in his bedroom. This reflection affirmed Bigelow and Cameron’s interest in Rush in STRANGE DAYS, as a character’s dangerous reflection in a mirror or window was always the subtle sign in the film art of Rush that a pivotal moment was occurring inside a character that was causing that character to leave the right path and head down the wrong path. Luckily for the character, this inner decision was not irreversible, for the common sense of the real world character could still prevail over their reversed mirror image fantasy double to bring harmony back to their life, in the end. Clearly for Nero, that fateful and wrong inner decision was choosing to playback the SQUID recording of Faith, making it already clear before we met her in reality that Faith was bad news, and that Bigelow and Cameron thought that Spielberg was, as well.
In addition, the sight of Nero blissing out on recorded playback rather than enjoying real experiences implied that being a wirehead was a dangerous addiction, for he moaned and writhed in ecstasy like a heroin user high on the latest rush to the main vein-SQUID runner, indeed. Since Nero was implicitly linked to Lucas, Bigelow and Cameron also implied that they were warning him to be just as wary of CGI as of Spielberg, for fear both would cost him his humanity and the humanity of his film art. This latter implication was affirmed by all of the allusions to AMERICAN GRAFFITI and THX 1138 in STRANGE DAYS, as the two finest films Lucas ever created were mostly post-production visual effects free.
Soon Iris was raped and murdered in her hotel room at the Sunset Regent, a brutal death that linked her to the Wicked Witch of the East and reminded us that the TZ disaster and its repercussions had killed Lucas and his film art. Significantly, with her blonde wig off during her rape/murder, Iris resembled the irritating and implicitly Toto linked Carol-played by Mackenzie Phillips-in AMERICAN GRAFFITI and Carrie Fisher’s implicitly Dorothy linked Princess Leia Organna in the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy in more affirmations of the implicit Lucas addressing intent of the film. The rapist/murderer also recorded her rape/murder on SQUID, and sent the black jack SQUID recording to Nero to experience. Significantly, this murderous rape recalled a bondage rape seen in a porn film at the beginning of the allegorical and implicitly Lucas roasting Dante film THE HOWLING (1981). This link reaffirmed that Lucas was being addressed in STRANGE DAYS, and also possibly linked the rapist/murderer of Iris to Dante.
Intriguingly, it would turn out that Iris was murdered because she also inadvertently SQUID recorded Engelman and Stickler killing a twilit trio of two males and one female, the STREETS OF FIRE Diamond club and Diamondback evoking prostitute, Diamanda, the crusading and implicitly Spike Lee and Cowardly Lion linked rap star, Jeriko One, and his bandmate James “Replay” Polton-played by Anais Munoz, Glenn Plummer and Malcolm Norrington, respectively. These two nightmarish black jack SQUID recordings slowly and reluctantly Forced Nero to leave behind his dissolute despair and track down the killer of Iris with the help of his implicitly Glinda the Good linked bodyguard/chauffeur friend Lornette “Mace” Mason-played by Angela Bassett.
Significantly, while sensitive and emotional, Mace was stronger, tougher and more grounded and knowing than Nero, evoking Harry Tasker to Nero’s Helen, as befitting someone with a nickname that evoked mace spray and medieval spiked clubs. In fact, she was the most fearless, formidable and beautiful female character yet in a Bigelow or Cameron film, the embodiment of the unusually masculine but heterosexual Bigelow and Cameron woman. Mace also evoked the equally tough, knowing and indomitable McCoy-played by Amy Madigan-and how she helped another implicitly Lucas linked character, Cody-played by Michael Pare-rescue Aim, the singer evoked by Faith, in STREETS OF FIRE. Mace also reaffirmed Nero’s link to Lucas, for it had been known for years that in the original script for the STAR WARS saga there was a character named Mace Bindu, who would shortly appear as J. D. Jedi Master Mace Windu-played by Samuel L. Jackson-the head of the twelve member Jedi Council in the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy.
Eventually, Nero tracked down the killer in hotel room 2203, a fateful room number that evoked the 2:20 am time of the TZ disaster on the fateful 23rd of July of 1982. And it turned out the killer was his literally backstabbing “best friend”, the implicitly Nikko the Flying Monkey King linked Max Peltier-played by Sizemore-a complex character, as he was linked to Dante by the SQUID recording of his rape of Iris, to Spielberg by his secret relationship with Faith, resembled Besson with his brunette wig on, was as bald as Proyas when his wig came surprisingly off in the struggle that broke out between Nero and Peltier after Peltier was revealed as the murderer of Iris and Tick. However, Peltier was also linked to Coppola via allusions to such films as BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA and the allegorical indie docufeature film YOU’RE A BIG BOY NOW (1968). And since Peltier was Nero’s “best friend”, a revelation that reminded us that Coppola was the best friend of Lucas rather than Besson, Dante, Proyas or Spielberg, the implication was that Peltier was linked to Coppola.
The desperate battle ultimately led to Nero dropping Peltier off room 2203’s balcony to his doom, a fatal fall that evoked that fatal fall of one of the robbers in the black jack SQUID clip Nero experienced at the beginning of the film, bringing STRANGE DAYS full circle. The fatal fall also evoked the fall that killed the implicitly Burton linked Top Dollar-played by Michael Wincott-at the end of THE CROW, a death evoked by the fact that Wincott returned as Faith’s implicitly Lynch and Wicked Witch of the West linked manager, Philo Gant, in STRANGE DAYS. And so Peltier died when his body crashed against the roof of a white tv van, a last flicker of neon purple flickering over his crumpled corpse to affirm his implicit link to that colour in the film. Soon Engelman and Steckler died too, in the end.
Shortly after, Nero also gave up on his ill advised dream to reconnect with his lost and lamented love, the faithless Faith, who had been in Wicked league with Peltier, a dream that had clearly been in the wrong since the dangerous reflection of Nero had silently appeared as he blissed out to that SQUID playback of Faith at the beginning of the film. Instead, Nero finally dropped recorded SQUID runner fantasies and embraced the loving reality of Mace, reminding us that after Cody dropped Aim and walked forlornly out of the Diamond at the end of STREETS OF FIRE, he was soon given a ride by the real McCoy. Thus, Bigelow and Cameron also implied their hope that Lucas would finally leave behind CGI fantasies and Coppola and Spielberg and return to his visual effects free cinematic roots. And so a symbolic Lucas fell down the vertiginous heights of true love with the Afro-Queen of his THX 1138 hologram dreams as the pumped L.A. crowds first rioted and battled the police in an ending that evoked the equally riotous and loving conclusion of GETTING STRAIGHT to implicitly reaffirm that Peltier was only linked to Coppola-the film also alluded to THE STUNTMAN-before everyone cheered on the arrival of the new millennium in the ecstatically eucatastrophic end.
And so Bigelow and Cameron implied their hope that Lucas would return to the true path and knock off Besson, Coppola, Dante, Lynch, Hill, Proyas, Scorsese, Sir Scott, Spielberg and Verhoeven with an allegorical and implicitly CGI free or minimally CGI enhanced film that would break the world of film art free from all or too much CGI enhancement, the TZ disaster and the Zone forever and usher in a daylit, life affirming and Skyrocking new millennium of film art in style. However, his attempt to do just that with his STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy failed just as badly as INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, affirming that for Lucas, it was, indeed, over. For Bigelow and Cameron, however, it was breaking open, allowing them to have a major influence on a new millennium of film art in open defiance of the gloomy ending of THE CROW. Indeed, with its innovative screenplay, inspired performances, striking visuals, crisp and clear cinematography, cool tunes and innovative sets, costumes and makeup, STRANGE DAYS abundantly affirmed that Bigelow and Cameron were poised to make a big impact in the new millennium. A brave new millennium of CGI enhanced film art that would include all CGI films, as later that year Disney and Pixar released the first all CGI and twilit and allegorical John Lasseter film TOY STORY (1995) on November 19, 1995.
The following year, Disney again implied their support for Cameron, having the implicitly Cameron linked Captain Phoebus-voiced by Kevin Kline-collaborate with the implicitly Landis linked Quasimodo-voiced by Tom Hulce-and, contrarily, the implicitly Burton linked Clopin-voiced by Paul Kundel-to triumph over the implicitly Lynch linked Evildoer, Justice Frollo-voiced by Tony Jay-and win the love of the implicitly Bigelow linked Esmeralda-voiced by Demi Moore and sung by Heidi Mollenhauser, respectively-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Trousdale and Wise hand-animated film THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1996), released on June 19, 1996. For his part, Branagh implicitly allowed the implicitly Lynch linked Prince Hamlet-played by Branagh-to triumph over the implicitly Cameron and Hamiliton linked King Claudius and Queen Gertrude-played by Derek Jacobi and Julie Christie, respectively-in the allegorical and DUNE and THE ELEPHANT MAN evoking film HAMLET (1996), released on December 25, 1996 and based upon the allegorical William Shakespeare play, Hamlet (1600).
As for Besson, he implicitly had the implicitly Lucas and Cowardly Lion linked flying taxi driver Korben Dallas-played by Willis-triumph over the implicitly Cameron and Bigelow linked Wicked Evildoer Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg and Zorg’s secretary-played by Oldman and Sibyl Buck, respectively-in the end of the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed film THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997), released on May 7, 1997. Soon after, Sir Scott also implicitly roasted Cameron in the form of Viggo Mortensen’s tall, intimidating and abusive Navy SEAL Master Chief John James Urgayle-the surname Urgayle recalling ALIENS, T1, T2 and THE ABYSS producer and ex-Cameron wife, Gayle A. Hurd-in the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Lucas supporting film G. I. JANE (1997), released on August 22, 1997.
Significantly, while G.I. JANE, HAMLET and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME had little implicit effect on Cameron, POCAHONTAS and TOY STORY implicitly did, for he implicitly replied to both films in his next two allegorical Zonebusters. In the second Zonebuster, he would remake POCAHONTAS by sailing another Caucasian gentleman to a beautiful but deadly and all CGI enhanced new world. In the first, Cameron donned the writer/director/co-producer hats again and also teamed up again with Goldstein, Horner, Paxton, Sanchini and his brother Mike and used the tragedy that befell another Captain Smith to implicitly dress down Disney, Gabriel and Goldberg for implicitly dismissing Lucas again in POCAHONTAS as in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced indie docufeature Zonebuster TITANIC (1997), first screened on November 1, 1997.
“What are you,
an artist or something?”
Significantly, the film began with no flashy CGI 20th Century Fox and Lightstorm Entertainment logos, just wistful Celtic music accompanying a grainy shot of a fittingly Scottish looking and Cameron evoking newsreel cameraman filming the Titanic dockside in Southampton before the “unsinkable” ship left on its maiden voyage. Then two biomechanical and NTI evoking Mir submersibles from the Russian research vessel Keldysh were seen falling through the enveloping black depths of the Atlantic Ocean like Lenny and Mace fell down the vertiginous heights of luv at the end of STRANGE DAYS accompanied by ponging sonar, evoking the submarine, submersibles, deep sea aliens and Spielberg style of THE ABYSS right from the start of TITANIC, implying that Cameron was finally making good on his promise of a new, more mature and transcendent film age implied by the endings of STRANGE DAYS and THE ABYSS as well as perhaps again addressing Spielberg.
But not a neo film art eon free of Evil and menace, for the huge, brooding and battered mass of the blockbuster transatlantic liner Titanic that the lights of the Mir submersibles conjured out of the darkness at the bottom of the Atlantic evoked the smaller but deadly and alienated mutant piranha filled wreck of the USS Dwight Fitzgerald off Montego Bay in PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWNING, the wreck of the larger submarine USS Montana also in Atlantic Caribbean waters in THE ABYSS and the equally huge, brooding and battered mass of the crashed alien spaceship discovered on the twilit and forbidding moon of LV-426 in ALIEN and ALIENS. Ominous links, as exploration of these earlier wrecks led first to the face biters and face huggers-the latter of which evoked the monsters in the allegorical Arthur Crabtree film FIEND WITHOUT A FACE (1958)-then to the chestbursters, and last but not least to alienated and remorselessly rampaging biomechanical blockbuster beasts.
This implied that there was something sinister in that apparently innocent safe that the perhaps Gabriel linked Brock Lovett-fittingly played by Paxton, who openly linked the beginning of the film to ALIENS via his role as the Colonial Marine Hudson in that film-and his crew of treasure hunters-including the possibly Goldberg linked but admittedly Landis evoking Lewis Bodine, played by Lewis Abernathy-found in the remains of a First Class cabin aboard the Titanic and brought up from the creepy twilit depths to the sunshine on the deck of the Keldysh. This sense that alienated menace lurked inside the safe was increased by the hand held video cam used to record the opening of the safe, for the video POV evoked the helmet cam POV of the Colonial Marines before they were attacked by the alienated biomechanical blockbuster gremalien hordes on LV-426 in ALIENS.
Luckily for Lovett and the viewer, however, a facehugger did not leap out and attach itself to Lovett's face when the safe was opened, leading to another desperate battle against the alienated blockbuster beast through the Nostromo-like maze of hallways and decks of the Keldysh. Instead, the opened safe lead to a wonderfully preserved pencil portrait of a beautiful and nude young woman wearing a large diamond around her neck that was dated April 14, 1912, the day before the sinking of the ill-fated Titanic. Significantly, an artifact technician who resembled a young Cameron was standing near the drawing as it was being cleaned off on the Keldysh. This fittingly linked the drawing to Cameron, given that he drew the picture.
Significantly, allowing television reporters to run a feature on the drawing to clear up its mystery linked the film to T1, reminding us that the L.A. police used television to encourage Hamilton's last remaining Sarah Connor to contact them before she was killed by the Terminator. Thus it was fitting that Lovett mentioned that the drawing was eighty-four years old, given that T1 was released a week before Hallowe’en in October of ’84. Seeing the report on tv led Gloria Stuart's 101 year old Rose Calvert, a woman even more stereotypically and indomitably feminine than Helen Tasker, to contact the gold hoop earring wearing Lovett and his fellow pirates, reminding us that Sarah also contacted the police after seeing that a second Sarah Connor had been murdered. Thus, it was also fitting that the older Rose was 101 years old, given that the relentless and remorseless cyborg that hunted down Sarah was a Cyberdyne Systems 101 T-800 Terminator.
And so Rose was linked to Sarah, implying that she was the latest personification of art in a Cameron film, as implicitly and literally affirmed not only by the pencil drawing, but by the pottery that she was creating in her fittingly art and rose filled apartment in her first appearance in the film. Of course, the arrival of old Rose also evoked the spellbinding rose of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, implicitly affirming that Cameron was replying in part to that film in TITANIC, and setting us up for the arrival of the young, art loving and linked, Mary Pickford resembling and equally spellbinding Rose Dewitt Bukater-played by the mostly unknown Kate Winslet, who had played Ophelia in HAMLET, an Ophelia who evoked Virginia Madsen’s Princess Irulan of DUNE.
Soon Calvert was flown to the Keldysh by twilit helicopter. Significantly, this helicopter trip implicitly reaffirmed her link to the film art of Cameron as it reminded us that Lindsey Brigman arrived by helicopter on the Explorer, a ship above the submarine Deepcore mining platform, at the beginning of THE ABYSS. Once aboard the Keldysh, an all CGI recreation of the sinking of the Titanic openly linked the ship to the brave new world of all CGI enhanced film art like TOY STORY, implying that these all CGI films were as potentially disastrous as the first and only voyage of Titanic. Soon after experiencing this doomed all CGI recreation, Calvert revealed that she was once the beautiful young woman in the pencil portrait. Calvert also revealed that the massive diamond she was drawn wearing around her neck, the one that Lovett and his pirates had hoped to find in the safe, was known as the Heart of the Ocean.
Ominously, Calvert also pointed out that this massive neck hugging diamond was linked to death. In this case, the death of Louis XVI, an august 16th Louis who first owned the diamond when it was called the Blue Diamond before it was recut into the heart shape of the Heart of the Ocean and who reminded us that Cameron was born on August 16th, 1954, ominously linking the Canadian auteur to the vainglorious and deadly pursuit of fortune and glory and confirming that Lovett and his men had indeed almost brought alienated Evil up from Titanic. Indeed, the deadly diamond evoked the equally fatal and hypnotizing Moonstone of the allegorical Wilkie Collins novel The Moonstone (1868), a glittering and hypnotizing symbol of imperialist greed that brought death to all who owned it, anticipating the death that would arrive all too soon to greedily claim the passengers and crew of Titanic.
Calvert also revealed that the baneful bauble had been given to her by her wealthy, snobby, rude, arrogant and fortune and glory obsessed fiancée, the callow and Michael Eisner resembling and implicitly linked Caledon “Cal” Hockley-played by Billy Zane. Indeed, Hockley’s valet, the ironically named Lovejoy-played by David Warner-affirmed the implicit link of Hockley to the then Disney CEO, as Warner played the real world Evil CEO Dillinger, his equally Evil digital doppelganger Sark, and voiced the Master Control Program (MCP) in the presciently twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Lucas and Spielberg supporting Disney and Steven Lisberger film TRON (1982), the world’s first mostly CGI enhanced film. Seeing Hockley and Lovejoy associate in the first class section of Titanic with the Disney resembling and implicitly linked Bruce Ismay-played by Jonathan Hyde-the owner of the White Star Lines that operated the ship and the man who conceived the ship, reaffirmed the implicit link of Hockley to Eisner. The central staircase of the Titanic also evoked the central staircase of the Beastly Prince’s castle in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and of Khaled’s chateau in the Bond evoking prologue of TRUE LIES, reaffirming the implicit Disney addressing intent of TITANIC.
After affirming that callow Cal had given her the deadly Heart of the Ocean, Rose then told an enthralling tale to Lovett, his pirates and the crew of the Keldysh. A tale about a battle that broke out onboard Titanic during its few days afloat between the wealthy and art for money’s sake Establishment scion Hockley and the poor and art for art’s sake indie artist, Jack Dawson-his Dawson City surname implying that he naturally possessed an inner wealth, and played by Leonardo DiCaprio-for the love and hand in marriage of the spellbinding Rose. Given that the poor, charming and artistic country boy Dawson evoked the young Uncle Walt, one was tempted to believe that the battle between Dawson and Hockley over Rose symbolized the battle between the original art for art’s sake philosophy of Uncle Walt and Eisner’s new art for money’s sake philosophy at the Walt Disney Studio.
However, Dawson did not resemble or act like Uncle Walt, implying that another allegorical intent was at work in TITANIC. Given that Cameron in the guise of a Scottish passenger extra was often seen near Dawson in the background of the frame over the course of the film, particularly while stumbling drunk when Dawson and Rose danced to an Irish fiddle in a third class lounge, and that his hands actually drew the pictures we saw Dawson drawing in the film, the implication was that Dawson symbolized Cameron. If so, the battle between Dawson and Hockley over Rose symbolized the battle between the film art for art’s sake Cameron and the film art for money’s sake Eisner over which philosophy would prevail in the new era of CGI enhanced film art.
However, given that Dawson arrived on board the Titanic with his friend Fabrizio-played by Danny Nucci-there was also a possibility that Cameron sympathetically addressed Lucas again in TITANIC as in STRANGE DAYS and TRUE LIES in the symbolic form of Dawson. For the sight of Dawson and Fabrizio storming the Titanic after winning tickets in a card game at the beginning of the film reminded us that after attending film school at the University of Southern California (USC) in the mid-Sixties, Lucas had stormed Hollywood with Coppola and their film production company, American Zoetrope, implying that Dawson and Fabrizio symbolized Lucas and Coppola. The sight of Fabrizio dying before Dawson when the Titanic sank reaffirmed that implication, reminding us that Coppola died at the box office with his allegorical docufeature indie film ONE FROM THE HEART (1982), a death that also killed off his dream of becoming the CEO of the equally indie Coppola film studio, and never really established a rapport with audiences again despite his best efforts, a year before Lucas crashed and burned with STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI. If so, the battle between Dawson and Hockley over Rose symbolized the battle between the indie film art of Lucas and the studio film art of Eisner and Disney for dominance in the new CGI enhanced film art era, implying that Cameron was replying to the implicit roasting Lucas received in POCHAHONTAS as much as the one he received in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in TITANIC.
Curiously, though, and despite the determined attempt both young men made to win the hand of Rose, neither the beastly blockbuster loot obsessed and implicitly Eisner linked Hockley or the indifferent to fortune and glory and implicitly Cameron or Lucas linked Dawson won out, in the end. Indeed, Dawson died in the water after the sinking of the Titanic, and Rose evaded Hockley when he searched for her later amidst the survivors on the Carpathia, and then the callow fellow was discovered to have committed suicide later when he lost his fortune in the Great Crash of 1929. And so neither art for art’s sake film art or beastly blockbuster loot lusting film art succeeded, in the end, implying that Cameron believed that success in the brave new era of CGI enhanced film art lay with the art and blockbuster fused artbuster and its Cameronian Zonebuster equivalent. This implied that Cameron was now either worried that Lucas would not be able to make the transition into the new CGI enhanced film art era if Dawson symbolized Lucas, or that he was worried that TITANIC would not find an audience if Dawson symbolized him. The failure of Hockley also implied that he felt that Eisner would not be able to lead the Walt Disney Studio to success in the CGI enhanced film art era.
However, Cameron also implied his conviction that either Lucas or himself, unlike Eisner, would not be forgotten by film lovers. For in one of the film’s most memorable scenes, we discovered that it was Dawson who literally transformed Rose into a work of art with the pencil sketch that was found by Lovett and his pirates at the beginning of TITANIC, a sketch that allowed Dawson to triumph over Hockley by proving that the art as well as the heart would go on after death, a hand drawn sketch that also implied that Cameron felt that Disney should not abandon their hand drawn animated film art for all CGI films like TOY STORY, a hand drawn sketch actually drawn by Cameron which again raised the possibility that Dawson was linked to Cameron. A possibility implicitly reaffirmed by the fact that the eighty-four year old pencil portrait reminded us that T1 appeared in 1984, implicitly reaffirming the link of Rose to Sarah and the film art of Cameron.
Indeed, the possibility that Dawson was linked to a Canadian film artist like Cameron was increased by the fact that the Titanic sank in Canadian territorial waters at 3821 metres-a twilit 23 hidden in the midst of that distance-below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean around the time of the TZ disaster at 2:20 am in the early morning of April 15, 1912 with approximately 2200 souls on board in another repetition of 220. Facts which also implied the fear of Cameron that beastly CGI enhanced blockbuster lusts would also lead to more horrific film set disasters. The presence of Victor Garber as the possibly Lucas linked Titanic designer Thomas Andrews reaffirmed the implicit twilit intent of the film, for he linked the film openly to the Twilight Zone by way of his role as Kevin in the allegorical Philip DeGuere telefilm “A Day in Beaumont” (April 11, 1986), the first half of Episode 24 of Season One of the new TWILIGHT ZONE television series in the Eighties. Dawson's famous shout "I'm king of the world!" also reaffirmed the film's link to the twilit and disastrous year of 1982, as it was the last comment made by troubled and susceptible teen Todd Bowden before he headed out on a shooting spree at the end of the allegorical novella “Apt Pupil” from the allegorical King novella quartet Different Seasons (1982).
Curiously, several of the final lines of Rose wistfully evoked the Last Good Year of film, as they were taken from THE ROAD WARRIOR. This reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in the TZ disaster, and even implied that the happy and sunlit days before the Titanic disaster equated with the Last Good Year of film before the twilit and disastrous year of 1982. Indeed, the presence of Warner reaffirmed that implication, for he played the literal personification of all Evil in the allegorical, irreverent, Ozian themed and implicitly New Hollywood film artist roasting Gilliam indie animaction film TIME BANDITS (1981), a film that had a brief segment aboard the Titanic before it sank. Curiously, the sound of Celine Dion singing composer Horner’s tune “My Hear Will Go On” (1997) over the closing titles of TITANIC also evoked Rita Coolidge singing composer Lee Holdridge’s tune “Love Came For Me” (1984) over the closing titles of SPLASH in another allusion to that film in the film art of Cameron.
At any rate, audiences loved TITANIC, turning the film into the smash hit of 1997-98. The august Academy agreed with audiences, awarding TITANIC eleven Oscars for Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup, Best Original Musical Score, Best Original Song, Best Picture, Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Supporting Actress and Best Visual Effects, easily topping the four mostly technical Oscars won by E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL and the seven mostly technical Oscars won by STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, a triumph over the latter film made more satisfying given that it was happening in the twentieth anniversary year of the release of the Skyrocking Lucas film. The astounding success transformed Cameron from Zonebusting film artist who was inspiring Canadians to be also all they could be in the Second Constitutional era of Canada into world inspiring superstar, paving the way for the implicitly Cameron linked cinematic superheroes to come.
Alas, however, and as with T2 and to a lesser extent TRUE LIES, the huge $220 million cost and equally huge success of TITANIC returned the concern that studios would stop investing in smaller films and many film artists and instead invest only in film artists like Cameron, Sir Jackson, Lucas and Spielberg, dramatically reducing the number of films and film artists that could be enjoyed by audiences. Not that Cameron rushed to take advantage of his success and make another film, for he faded from view to rest and recharge with his latest wife, Suzy Amis, who played Calvert’s granddaughter, Lizzy, in TITANIC. However, despite this absence, the spirit of Cameron returned to the Temple Theatre in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Spielberg film SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998), released on July 21, 1998.
For Private James Francis Ryan-played by Matt Damon-was implicitly linked to James Francis Cameron in that film. Significantly, given that Pte. Ryan survived the film’s final battle with the Germans while a host of other implicitly film artist linked U.S. soldiers did not, Spielberg implicitly affirmed that Cameron would most likely survive the dread allegorical Zone Wars and be still remembered long after the conflict finally ended. The following year the spirit of Cameron also returned to the Temple Theatre when Lana and Lilly Wachowski implied that they agreed with the implicit message in STRANGE DAYS that Lucas should leave behind CGI fantasy for reality by having the implicitly Bigelow and Dorothy linked Trinity and the implicitly Coppola and Great Oz linked Morpheus-played by Carrie-Anne Moss and Laurence Fishburne, respectively-help the implicitly Lucas and Scarecrow linked and Maud’dib evoking Thomas A. “Neo” Anderson-played by Reeves-break free from and defeat the “…computer generated dream world” by leading the last remnants of humanity in a desperate and full throttle battle against a future beastly CGI enhanced blockbuster machine world that evoked those seen in the nightmares of the future in T1 and T2 in order to kick off a brave neo Cyberrocking eon of CGI enhanced film art “…without rules and controls, without borders and boundaries” in time for the new millennium in the eucatastrophic end of the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed hung fu film THE MATRIX (1999), a film released on March 24, 1999 whose implicit Bigelow, Cameron, Coppola and Lucas addressing intent was affirmed by the film’s allusions to BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, DUNE, JOHNNY MNEMONIC, Neuromancer, POINT BREAK, SCANNERS, the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy, STRANGE DAYS, T1, T2, THE WIZARD OF OZ, THX 1138, TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE and the TZ disaster.
“Here they come.”
Indeed, this desperate and full throttle battle to implicitly break free from the TZ disaster that inspired the development of CGI was implicitly affirmed by the fact that the beastly CGI enhanced blockbuster machine world’s favourite insidious agent of its twilit will was the implicitly Morrow linked Agent Smith-played by Hugo Weaving. Indeed, shortly before the exultant end of the film, the Great Morpheus and Trinity joined Neo in escaping from a falling and Huey resembling B-212 helicopter before it crashed into the side of a skyscraper. That audiences did not rise up in outraged fury and protest the danger of this very realistic helicopter crash, secure in the knowledge that there had been no danger to cast or crew because the crash was pulled off with CGI magic, spoke volumes for how comfortable audiences already were with CGI, and how far they had left the TZ disaster behind, bringing the nasty Nineties full embattled circle from the real helicopter crash at the end of T2 to this simulated CGI helicopter crash at the end of THE MATRIX.
Curiously, two years later Bigelow and Cameron were no doubt pleased to see Lucas reward their implicit sympathy in STRANGE DAYS and TRUE LIES-and perhaps TITANIC-by implicitly linking Cameron to the implicitly Great Oz linked Anakin “Ani” Skywalker-played by Jake Lloyd-the Dark Jedi who grew up to be Darth Vader, the intimidating Sith Lord puppet of the insidious and implicitly Spielberg linked Lord Sidious-played again by McDiarmid-in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Cameron and Spielberg roasting Lucas indie film STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999). Indeed, the cave-like slave quarters in Mon Espa where Skywalker lived in Tatooine evoked similar cave evoking dwellings on Akira in BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, the first feature film that Cameron worked on, implicitly affirming young Skywalker’s link to Cameron. For her part, Mary Harron kicked off the new month, year, decade and millennium of film art by implying that the success of Cameron was destroying film art as surely and relentlessly as the implicitly Cameron linked Patrick Bateman-played by Bale-murdered one person after another in the twilit, allegorical, CGI free and misnamed indie film AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000), released on January 21, 2000.
As for the Canadian auteur, before returning to more titanic Zone War battles on the big screen, Cameron took a surprise detour into the crassly commercial television zone and implicitly responded to the implicit roasting he received from Sir Scott in G.I. JANE when he teamed up again with Rolston, Sanchini and the anachronistically entitled Twentieth Century Fox to fuse BLADE RUNNER and G.I. JANE with JOHNNY MNEMONIC, STRANGE DAYS, T1, T2, THE MATRIX, THX 1138 and TRUE LIES in the Cameron and Charles H. Eglee co-created and produced twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and possibly Ozian themed indie docufeature Zonebuster telefilm series DARK ANGEL (2000-02), whose first Cameron written David Nutter pilot telefilm aired on October 3, 2000.
“life goes on”
Significantly, DARK ANGEL was not only the first telefilm venture of Cameron, it was also the first Cameron production actually set in an apocalyptic 2019 nightmare of the future like that warned of in BLADE RUNNER, T1 and T2, a run down, edgy, corrupt, crime ridden and security obsessed post-electromagnetic pulse (EMP) terrorist attack greater Vancouver area (GVA) filmed future Military Protectorate of Seattle that eerily anticipated the similarly edgy, security conscious and rapidly and shockingly approaching post-9/11 world, an eerily prescient anticipation increased by the fact that the EMP attack at 12:05 pm on June 1, 2009 was initially first furiously blamed on Moslem terrorists. It was also noticeable that the eponymous Dark Angel of the series herself was a dark skinned, slim, sensual, sexy, sassy, steely, cynical, memory haunted, troubled, genetically created and enhanced, Mace, Nikita and Replicant evoking, martial arts savvy, milk and beer quaffin’, art luvvin’, SCC resembling and implicitly linked and possibly Dorothy linked Jam Pony X-Press indie bike messenger, extracurricular and benevolent cat transgenic burglar and female Terminator named “Mad” Max Guevara-played by Brittany Cuevas as a young girl, Geneva Locke as an older girl, and Jessica Alba as a young woman, respectively-a genetically created super soldier designated X5/452 crafted and trained by the sinister and ultra secret Project Manticore with a barcode on the back of her neck also assigning her the twilit number 332960073452, okay?
Indeed, the allusions in the series to the implicitly Coppola family toasting TRUE LIES and the first two twilit, allegorical and mostly implicitly Bigelow roasting indie docufeature SCC films LICK THE STAR (1998) and THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (1999)-complete with opening and closing VOs by Guevara for the pilot telefilm that evoked the VOs that began and ended LICK THE STAR and THE VIRGIN SUICIDES-affirmed the implicit link of the indie and physically indomitable but indomitably feminine Guevara to the equally indie, indomitable and indomitably feminine Coppola. In fact, the sight and sound of Guevara rescuing a girl named Sophy-played by Taylor-Anne Reid-from the insidious grip of the corrupt, drug smuggling and implicitly Moses Znaimer linked business mogul Edgar Sonrisa-played by Stanley Kamel-in the pilot telefilm openly linked Guevara to Sofi. The sight of a young woman who looked like SCC walking behind Guevara as she strode through an open air market about halfway through the pilot telefilm also openly affirmed the implicit link of Guevara to SCC. Two phone numbers and one address in the pilot telefilm that contained the numbers 71 reaffirmed the implicit link of Guevara to SCC, reminding us that SCC was born in ’71.
In addition, the appearance of a surly steelhead punkette named Lux-played by Sonya Salomaa-in the Allan Kroeker Season Two Zonebuster telefilm “Two” (2001) and the Nick Marck Season Two Zonebuster telefilm “Some Assembly Required” (2001) reaffirmed the implicit link of Guevara to SCC in DARK ANGEL, as the name evoked Lux “Luxy” Lisbon-played by Kristen Dunst-in THE VIRGIN SUICIDES. The implicit link of Sublime laundromat owner/private investigator Dan Vogelsang-played by Stephen Lee-to SCC’s father Francis in the first Fourceful four episodes of the series and of Guevara’s friend and apartment mate Kendra Maibaum-played by Jennifer Blanc-Biehn-to SCC’s good friend and fellow film artist Zoe Cassavetes throughout season one also affirmed the implicit link of Guevara to SCC.
In addition, Guevara’s ultra fast, bullet time-style martial arts moves evoked those of Trinity in THE MATRIX, implying that Cameron and Eglee were responding to that film in DARK ANGEL. Indeed, the show’s soundtrack evoked that of THE MATRIX, affirming the implicit interest in that film. In fact, Guevara's motorcycle exploits on her fittingly entitled and black Kawasaki Ninja ZZR 250 motorbike even anticipated Trinity's motorcycle heroics in the next installment of the Matrix Trilogy. Curiously, Guevara's post-apocalyptic world, her two fisted approach to life, and her luv of rescuing people and sending them to safety also evoked Pamela Anderson's Barb Wire, her post-apocalyptic world and her luv of rescuing people and sending them to safety in Canada in the twilit and allegorical David Hogan film BARB WIRE (1996), a film released on May 3, 1996, implying that Cameron and Eglee were replying to that film on one level, too. Indeed, an unhappy and Anderson resembling blonde prostitute-played by Kate Luyben-that Guevara met at a party late in the pilot telefilm affirmed that implicit interest in Anderson and BARB WIRE.
The fact that Guevara spent Season One and a few episodes of Season Two battling the twisted head of Project Manticore, the implicitly Sir Scott linked Donald “Deck” Lydecker-played by John Savage-also implicitly affirmed that Cameron and Eglee were roasting Sir Scott in DARK ANGEL. Indeed, the film’s many allusions to BLADE RUNNER-including the fact that the name of Don “Deck” Lydecker evoked that of Rick “Deck” Deckard-and the echoes of the memorable and haunting synthesizer soundtrack Vangelis composed for that film in the soundtrack composed by Joel McNeely as well as the allusions to G.I. JANE and the fact that Savage played the implicitly and fittingly Sir Scott linked McCrea in the twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed and implicitly Lynch toasting Sir Scott indie docufeature artbuster WHITE SQUALL (1996) affirmed the implicit interest in Sir Scott in the series. In addition, the fact that Guevara’s boss at Jam Pony was the implicitly Lynch and possibly Tin Man linked Reagan “Normal” Ronald-played by J.C. MacKenzie-and that a courier colleague was the implicitly Spielberg linked Calvin “Sketchy” Theodore-played by Richard Gunn-also implicitly affirmed that Cameron was roasting Lynch and Spielberg again on one level in DARK ANGEL throughout the two years of the series.
Cameron and Eglee also implicitly roasted Bigelow in the form of the doomed Doctor Adriana Vertes-played by Brenda Bakke-in the John T. Kretchmer Season One Zonebuster telefilm “Female Trouble” (2001), Burton in the form of wacky C.J. Sandeman-played by Henri Lubatti-in the James Whitmore jr. Season Two Zonebuster telefilm “Love Among The Runes” (2002), and Hurd in the implicit form of Dr. Elizabeth Renfro-played by Nana Visitor-in a number of episodes. Curiously, Cameron and Eglee also implicitly roasted Damon and Sarah Polley in the implicit forms of fellow Manticore X5s Zack and Syl-played by William G. Lee and Nicki Aycox, respectively-and Cameron Diaz in the form of indie rebel Asha Barlow-played by Ashley Scott.
In another first for Cameron, DARK ANGEL featured a male lead in the form of Michael Weatherly’s anonymous, underground, crime battling, crusading and implicitly Besson and possibly Great Oz linked Streaming Freedom cyberjournalist and hacker Logan Cale aka Eyes Only-his implicit link to Besson affirmed by the pilot telefilm’s allusions to LA FEMME NIKITA, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Lynch and Spielberg roasting Besson indie docufeature film LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL (1994) and the soundtracks composed for those films by Eric Serra-who evoked Ice-T’s equally crusading, fearless, tv message broadcasting and implicitly Cowardly Lion linked Lo-Tek leader J-Bone in the Free City of Newark in JOHNNY MNEMONIC and who was mostly confined to a wheelchair and unable to run or walk after being shot in the spine in the pilot telefilm, evoking Graff’s wheelchair bound double amputee Tex Arcana in STRANGE DAYS.
Curiously, this mostly wheelchair bound existence usually confined him to his eagle eyrie, forcing this idealistic and independently wealthy Bruce Wayne meets Professor X-like character to rely on the full throttle Guevara to be his Batgirl alter ego and crusade against and defeat the criminals and corruption that plagued post-apocalyptic Seattle. This also made Guevara seem like a wistful and super heroic crime fighting figment of the frustrated and indignant law upholding imagination of the crippled Cale rather than a real person, an unreality enhanced by the fact that Cale and Guevara were the first two male and female leads in a Cameron production to not fully become lovers, and prepared the way for the implicitly Cameron and SCC linked DC and Marvel superheroes and superheroines in the beastly blockbuster CGI enhanced super satirical films to come. An imaginary superhero whose presence was remarked on by Cale when he lost five chess games to Guevara at the beginning of the Paul Shapiro Season One telefilm “Blah Blah Woof Woof” (2000) and asked her, slightly peevishly, “…isn’t it against the superhero code to use your powers to take advantage of we mere mortals?”
Overall, the implication was that the potent success of the indie Guevara symbolized the delight of Cameron and Eglee in the successful debut of SCC as a potent and noticeably non-CGI enhanced indie film artist. Indeed, the sight and sound of Guevara triumphing over the Hollywood evoking buxom blonde Lydia Meyerson-played by Kristin Bauer van Straten-with the “L.A” hidden in her first name and her last name evoking the “Mayer” in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer aka MGM affirmed the implicit hope of Cameron, Eglee and Nutter in the pilot telefilm that SCC had triumphed over Hollywood with THE VIRGIN SUICIDES. However, given the periodic tendency in season one of Guevara to collapse in shaking seizures that needed a legal food supplement called tryptophan to resolve, Cameron and Eglee implicitly worried that SCC still needed to shake off some opening film jitters-jitters that they implicitly felt she would shake off, given that Guevara did not suffer from them in season two.
The sight and sound of Guevara successfully evading Lydecker and avoiding any serious romantic entanglements with Cale and Ronald also implied the hope of Cameron and Eglee that SCC would avoid evade the lure of creating huge artbusters like Besson and Sir Scott and art for art’s sake moving paintings like Lynch in favour of a distinct style of film art midway between the two all her own. Curiously, there was also an implication throughout the series, particularly late in Season Two, that transgenic people like Guevara symbolized transgender people, implying that Guevara had been born a man and then had been transitioned into a woman by the sinister geneticists at Manticore, explaining her macho approach to life. Perhaps as a way to strike back at SCC for implicitly linking Bigelow to Trip Fontaine-played by Josh Hartnett-in THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, an hypocritical implication given that Bigelow was fond of linking male film artists to female characters in her films, perhaps most memorably in the implicit link of faithless Faith to Spielberg in STRANGE DAYS.
At any rate, it was fitting that Cale first met Guevara when he caught her stealing a small sculpture of the Egyptian goddess Bast from his condo in the pilot telefilm, immediately linking both characters to art. Cale and Guevara also combined to save an original Norman Rockwell painting-linked to twilit events as they were liked and collected by Lucas and Spielberg-from insidious criminals in the James A. Contner Season One Zonebuster telefilm “Art Attack” (2001), openly reaffirming the link of the two characters to art and openly linking Ronald to paintings and moving paintings to affirm his implicit link to Lynch, an implicit link reaffirmed by the allusions to THE ELEPHANT MAN, TWIN PEAKS, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME and the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Lucas roasting Lynch moving painting LOST HIGHWAY (1997) in DARK ANGEL.
In addition, the Season Two sight and sound of Guevara conning the implicitly Spike Jonze and possibly Scarecrow linked fellow Manticore creation Alec aka X5/494-played by Jensen Ackles, who also played Alec’s Evil twin Ben in season one-to accompany her out on a job to supposedly liberate a reel of STAR WARS EPISODE VII “…from the Fox building” also openly linked Guevara and friends to twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed film art in the David Straiton Season Two Zonebuster telefilm “Borrowed Time” (2002). The Stephen Williams Season Two Zonebuster telefilm “Exposure” (2002) also led to a creepy and snake luvving breeding cult called the Conclave in the basement of the Brookridge Academy private school that evoked the equally creepy Kali worshipping film Thugee cult in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, making it fitting that “…Kan’dara mo’ss re’kali” chanted by the priestess-played by Dominika Juillet-was answered with a reply of “…Mo’ss re’kali, ken’da niif” by robed and hooded acolytes. How also fitting that the Brookridge Academy was hidden away in the town of Willoughby, given that the town of Willoughby, Ohio featured prominently in the allegorical Robert Parrish telefilm “A Stop At Willoughby” (1960), a Season One episode of the original TWILIGHT ZONE telefilm series. Last but not least, Guevara openly linked herself and DARK ANGEL to Cameron’s Zonebusting film art when she said “I’ll be back” to Doctor Beverly Shankar-played by Rekha Sharma-at the beginning of the Jeff Woolnough Season Two Zonebuster telefilm “Hello, Goodbye” (2002).
At any rate, DARK ANGEL was another fine and innovative success for Cameron that proved that he could rock the small screen like he rocked the big and that also again inspired his admirers in general and Canadians in the new Constitutional era in particular to live the dream, as well. The arrival of Kevin Durand as the more openly hybrid dogman and perhaps Cowardly Lion linked painter Joshua in the Woolnough Season Two Zonebuster telefilm “Designate This”, the opening episode of season two that aired on September 28, 2001, and the appearance of Durand as the more openly hybrid catman Issac in the Kroeker Zonebuster Season Two Zonebuster telefilm “Two” (2001) not only gave the series even more of an X-Men feel but also prepared audiences for more openly hybrid and fully CGI cat people in the next Cameron feature film Zonebuster. A cinematic Zonebuster that the triumphant Canadian auteur prepared for by directing the last and final DARK ANGEL Season Two Zonebuster telefilm “Freak Nation” (2002), released on the small screen on May 3, 2002 and which had the most serious injury ever on a Cameron set when WWE wrestler Amy Dumas aka the possibly Kennedy linked Lita TM in her role as the Wicked Thula suffered a serious neck injury rehearsing for a scene with a stunt double.
Hidden away in his Fortress of Canuckitude deep in the heart of L.A., the Canadian auteur was perhaps irritated to see and hear the new film year kick off on January 19, 2001 with himself implicitly linked to pedophilic motivational speaker James “Jim” Cunningham-played by Swayze-in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Cameron and Terry Gilliam roasting Richard Kelly indie film DONNIE DARKO (2001). However, Cameron was no doubt pleased that year to see Paxton create and release his own twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film FRAILITY (2001), a film released on November 17, 2001 that implied that Paxton was joining Bigelow and Cameron’s anti-Lynch crusade, given that the final victim of the film’s God’s Hands killers was FBI Agent Wesley Doyle-played by Powers Boothe-who evoked the FBI agents of POINT BREAK, TWIN PEAKS and TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Then Cameron may also have been irked to have the film year end with himself also implicitly linked to the Evil Saruman-played by Christopher Lee-in the epic, twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Sir Peter Jackson indie artbuster THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001)-but maybe not, given that the first film in THE LORD OF THE RINGS Trilogy was the awesome and awe inspiring film event of the year when it was released on December 10, 2001!
For his part, Lucas implicitly linked Cameron to the angry and older Dark Jedi Knight, Anakin Skywalker-fittingly played by Canadian actor Hayden Christensen-in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Cameron and Spielberg roasting Lucas indie film STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES (2002), the second installment in the new STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy which was released on May 12, 2002. As for Cameron, he soon teamed up again with Sanchini, the still anachronistically entitled Twentieth Century Fox and TITANIC co-producer Jon Landau to produce the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and ALIENS and 2010 evoking Steven Soderbergh film SOLARIS (2002), a film released on November 19, 2002 that was inspired by the allegorical and implicitly PKD addressing Stanislaw Lem novel Solaris (1961).
“Let’s pick this up
on Wednesday.”
Curiously, the film kicked off with the return of the Lightstorm Entertainment logo missing at the beginning of each episode of DARK ANGEL, a logo now noticeably static and lacking the exuberant and musically accompanied aurora effect. Then SOLARIS began in a BLADE RUNNER evoking future Earth with the lonely and implicitly Landis linked psychiatrist bachelor, Doctor Chris Kelvin-played by George Clooney. Significantly, Dr. Kelvin soon accepted a mission from the mysterious DBA corporation to find out what happened to their Terran personnel on a space station orbiting a world called Solaris, evoking the sight and sound of Dr. Floyd being persuaded to journey to Jupiter to find out what happened to the Discovery I mission in 2010, Rambo being persuaded to return to Vietnam by the U.S. military in RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART TWO, and Ripley being persuaded by Burke of the callous and duplicitous Weyland-Yutani Corporation to explore alienated happenings in a company colony on LV-426 in ALIENS.
Then the film shifted to the Solaris station, where Dr. Kelvin found a bewitchingly beautiful but spooky and literally CGI enhanced new world so alive and aware and powerful it could read the minds of the Terran astronauts-like the implicitly Burton linked Snow, played by Jeremy Davies-studying it from their orbiting space station and haunt them with loved ones created from their memories. Loved ones like the implicitly Deborah Landis linked Rheya-played by Natascha McElhone-who committed suicide before the mission but soon arrived to haunt Dr. Kelvin. This realistic but not human copy of Rheya reminded us that CGI was in its infancy at the time of the TZ disaster in 1982, and was frantically developed in part so as to prevent more TZ disasters. However, CGI had become so advanced by 2002 that it was also able, like Solaris, to create realistic but not human copies of people like Rheya. Thus, there was now a worry that all CGI film art like TOY STORY would replace human film art like the Solaris copy of Rheya replaced the real Rheya, thus robbing film of its vital humanity. This uncertainty about whether CGI enhanced film art would retain its vital humanity no doubt explained why it was also uncertain whether Dr. Kelvin and Rheya-and, by implication, John and Deborah Landis-were released from their twilit nightmare by the advancement of CGI or trapped forever in a new nightmare by that same advancement of CGI, in the end.
Significantly, the many scenes in which the Kelvins stared into the camera and out at the audience affirmed the implicit Landis addressing intent of the film, reminding us that the only New Hollywood era film artist famous for having characters break the fourth wall on a regular basis was Landis. The film’s allusions to BLADE RUNNER reaffirmed the implicit Landis addressing intent, fittingly linking the film to the twilit and disastrous July of 1982. And how apropos that the remake of SOLARIS was an implicit meditation on a troubled film artist. For with the original cinematic Kris Kelvin-played by Donatas Banionis-resembling film artist Roman Polanski, and his dead wife, Hari-played by Natalya Bondarchuk-resembling Sharon Tate in the allegorical Andrei Tarkovsky film SOLARIS (1972), the implication was that Tarkovsky was sympathetically musing on Polanski’s attempt to come to grips with his young American wife’s recent murder by the Manson family in the first film version of SOLARIS.
At any rate, despite the ambiguity of SOLARIS, the brave new world of CGI enhanced film art was implicitly being addressed in the film, symbolized by the sentient and mischievous new CGI world of Solaris, floating in cyberspace like a massive digital brain or a CGI planet Arous. Which was fitting, for on top of being the twentieth anniversary year of BLADE RUNNER and the TZ disaster, 2002 was also the twentieth anniversary of the arrival of the brave new world of CGI enhanced film art in the form of the moon transformed into Genesis planet in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN. Significantly, SOLARIS also anticipated company officials persuading an embittered ex-Marine to explore strange other-body happenings launched from a company settlement on an all CGI forest moon of the equally brave all CGI world of Pandora in a Cameron film to come.
An epic film ably anticipated by the equally epic, twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Sir Jackson film THE TWO TOWERS (2002), a film released on December 5, 2002 that again implicitly linked Cameron to Lee’s Evil Saruman. However, despite being implicitly roasted by Sir Jackson in THE LORD OF THE RINGS Trilogy, Cameron implied that year that the implicit roasting he was receiving in the symbolic form of Anakin Skywalker in the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy bothered him more and had changed his mind about Lucas. Indeed, he now implied that he had Lucas in his sights when he teamed up again with Abernathy, Henriksen and his brother, Mike, and returned to the Temple Theatre with the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Cameron co-produced and co-directed-with Gary Johnstone-indie documentary Zonebuster JAMES CAMERON’S EXPEDITION: BISMARCK (2002), released on the Discovery Channel December 8, 2002.
“It was the ultimate killing machine,
the Death Star of its time.
At 830 feet,
it was almost as long as the Titanic.
But it was thirty feet wider,
and so heavily armoured,
it weighed almost twice as much.”
For after the film opened with no fanfare accompanied CGI logo for a major studio or for Lightstorm Entertainment, the sight and sound of British Admiral John Tovey resolutely leading the grim and relentless Royal Navy pursuit and bombardment of the massive and Death Star linked-but Star Destroyer evoking-German uber battleship, the Bismarck, with its Foursfull four huge gun turrets that led to the death of its Lucas resembling commanding officer, Captain Ernst Lindemann, and a twilit 2300 crew members and the scuttling of the blockbuster beast of a ship by its crew before they went down on May 27, 1941 during the Second World War implicitly affirmed that Lucas and his new and implicitly Cameron roasting STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy were being roasted in this documentary Zonebuster. Indeed, the fact that the Bismarck went down on May 27, 1941 affirmed the implicit Lucas addressing intent of JAMES CAMERON’S EXPEDITION: BISMARCK. For the date was very close to the famous May 25, 1977 release date of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, a release date so special for Lucas that he released all of the rest of his STAR WARS and Indiana Jones films on or near that date, as well.
Cameron also implied that he was resigned to creating rather than eager to create a Zonebusting reply to the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy, for the film long lament for the necessity for “…the madness of war” implied that the satisfying success of TITANIC after its difficult creation had not just turned his blonde hair grey but mellowed the Canadian auteur. Indeed, the fact that he chose the tragedy of the Bismarck-which also sank in the Atlantic, like Titanic, on its own short maiden voyage-as the subject of his first film since TITANIC implicitly affirmed that Cameron also lamented the madness of the dread allegorical Zone Wars. The resemblance of one of the surviving crewmembers of the Bismarck, Karl Kuhn, to Zone War film artist Werner Herzog reaffirmed that implicit lamentation. Curiously, another surviving German crew member, Heinz Steeg, also resembled Alfred Hitchcock.
Cameron also used the film to implicitly reaffirm his fear that the arrival of all CGI film art would kill the vital humanity of film art. For after recreating the first and last voyage of the Bismarck and the naval battle with the British fleet that led to its scuttling with a combination of CGI and live action, Cameron used all CGI to recreate the sinking of the German ubership, an all CGI recreation of the sinking of the Bismarck that evoked the all CGI recreation of the sinking of the Titanic in TITANIC. However, despite this mellowed lament, Cameron was implicitly confident that his next Zonebuster would also sink the second STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy, for he chanted the magic words “…see you in the sunshine!” before he climbed into one of the Kelydysh’s ironically peaceful Mir submersibles for another long ride down to the bottom of the North Atlantic to see the wreck of the Bismarck, a huge and ominous wreck that evoked the equally huge and ominous crashed biomechanical spaceship of ALIEN and ALIENS as much as it did Titanic.
Curiously, the appearance of the new mini and mobile ROVs, Jake and Elwood, built by Mike Cameron also confirmed the twilit theme of the film and that Cameron was rooting for Landis even in his documentary films. For Jake and Elwood not only evoked the ROVs Big Geek and Little Geek-played by Super Sea Rover and Mini Rover Mk II, respectively-in THE ABYSS, but linked JAMES CAMERON’S EXPEDITION: BISMARCK to Landis and his allegorical film THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980). Henriksen’s narration also implicitly reaffirmed the twilit ambience of the film, linking the documentary openly to 1982 via his role in PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWNING, and evoking Deckard’s film long VO in the original release of BLADE RUNNER.
A fitting reminder of the latter film, given that Jonathan Mostow followed in the footsteps of Cameron by teaming up with Boen, Cassar, Hurd, Schwarzenegger, Winston, RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART TWO co-producer Andrew G. Vajna, but, curiously, not Twentieth Century Fox, to implicitly toast SCC again in the form of the implicitly Dorothy linked Katherine “Kate” Brewster-played by Claire Danes-to implicitly roast Alex Cox in the form of the implicitly Scarecrow linked John Connor-played by Nick Stahl-and to implicitly roast Lynch again in the form of a new, CGI enhanced, Naomi Watts resembling and implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked female Terminator, the TX-played by Kristanna Loken-in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed indie docufeature Zonebuster TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES (2003), a film released on June 30, 2003 that implicitly replied to the then latest twilit and allegorical Lynch moving painting MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001), which was alluded to in T3 as well as TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME and which saw Watts play Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn to affirm the implicit Lynch roasting intent of the film.
“I should have realized
our destiny was never to stop
Judgment Day.
It was merely to survive it…
together”.
Unfortunately, implicitly linking Lynch to the CGI enhanced TX made as little sense as implicitly linking Lynch to the equally CGI enhanced T-1000 in T2, as Lynch still showed no interest in CGI. However, the sight and sound of John, Kate and the new and implicitly Coppola linked T-800-played again by Schwarzenegger-stopping the TX but not preventing the sinister Skynet A.I. from setting off the nuclear apocalypse that killed most of the people of planet Earth, in the end, a nuclear apocalypse realized with CGI as in T2, implied that Mostow believed that, whether audiences or film artists liked it or not, the CGI enhanced film art era was now here to stay. In fact, with Kate surviving the desperate battle with the TX, Mostow implied that he believed that SCC should also embrace CGI enhanced film art, which she kind of did that year by showcasing the videogames played by some exuberant cyberpunks in an arcade in Tokyo in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Lucas, John Fawcett and Terry Zwigoff roasting indie docufeature film LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003), released soon after T3 on August 29, 2003. A resigned implicit acceptance of CGI enhanced film art that prepared audiences for the equally resigned embrace of CGI in the next Cameron Zonebuster.
As for the Canadian auteur, Henriksen’s narration and twilit links also set us up for Paxton’s narration and supporting role with Abernathy, Mike Cameron and microbiologist Doctor Lori Johnston from JAMES CAMERON’S EXPEDITION: BISMARCK in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Cameron directed and co-produced indie documentary Zonebuster GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS (2003), released on March 13, 2003 and curiously made with Disney.
“I knew we were gonna get close to Titanic,
but not this close.”
Curiously, the film opened again with no fanfare accompanied CGI logo for Lightstorm Entertainment. And then, unlike Henriksen in JAMES CAMERON’S EXPEDITION: BISMARCK, who narrated that film but did not go down in a Mir submersible to the Bismarck, Paxton narrated the film and went down in a Mir submersible to the silent and rusting wreck of the Titanic on the lonely bottom of the Atlantic. These were actually his first trips down to Titanic, as the opening scenes that saw Lovett and Bodine exploring the famous wreck in search of the safe believed to hold the Heart of the Ocean had been created on set for TITANIC. It was nice to see that the “astral projection” like experience of gliding over the huge and awesome reality of Titanic in a Mir swept away the crass and cynical Lovett and replaced it with the awed and humbled Paxton, as awed and humbled as the audience. Indeed, Paxton was the audience and the audience was Paxton, and we were all overawed by Titanic and the digitally enhanced technology-including the return of Jake and Elwood-that allowed the expedition to occur and be captured on film.
Of course, the sight of Jake and Elwood really drifting through the wreck in a real life case of life imitating art openly linked Landis and the TZ disaster to the Titanic disaster for the first time, confirming the twilit spirit of TITANIC and making it fitting that the Landis evoking Abernathy returned for this expedition. Curiously, Landis was not the only Zone War film artist implicitly present in the film, for the presence of historians Don Lynch and Ken Marschall-who also gamely played Andrews and Ismay, respectively, in the film’s scenes of historical reenactment-linked Lynch and Marshall to the expedition. Luckily for the intrepid Cameron brothers, the ROVs and their custom designed and built cameras worked perfectly, allowing the two to explore the wreck in more detail and in a way that had been faked at the beginning of TITANIC.
Indeed, the exploration of Titanic with Jake and Elwood was such a success-a success helped along by the Medusa lighting system that was cabled down to the wreck to provide film set-style light for the roving cameras-that the Titanic and TZ disasters were both replaced with another Zonebusting triumph for Cameron. A triumph that a hopeful Cameron had done his best to help create by chanting his new magic phrase “…see you in the sunshine!” before each descent in a Mir to the Titanic, as it again summed up his sunny new mood since the triumph of TITANIC-this despite the fact that the return of the all CGI recreation of the sinking of Titanic first seen in TITANIC reaffirmed Cameron’s own fears about all CGI film art killing the vital humanity of CGI enhanced film art and the fact that the 911 attacks occurred during this expedition, which actually occurred before the Bismarck. An optimism also implied that year when Fishburne, Moss, Reeves and Weaving returned to bring the Matrix Trilogy to a trimax in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and DARK ANGEL evoking Wachowski Siblings indie films THE MATRIX RELOADED (2003) and THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS (2003), released on May 7, 2003 and October 27, 2003, respectively.
For after defeating the implicit threat of creating endless lookalike, CGI enhanced and TZ disaster themed beastly blockbuster sequels implicitly symbolized by the endless CGI enhanced clones of the implicitly Morrow linked Agent Smith-played again by Weaving-the Matrix Trilogy ended with Maud’Neo-played again by Reeves-achieving a détente between the beastly CGI enhanced blockbuster machines and humanity, suggesting the new hope of the Wachowski Siblings that a balance between CGI enhancement and a vital humanity could be achieved in the new era of CGI enhanced film art, implying that they were just as resigned now to CGI as Mostow implied in T3.
As for Wes Anderson, he implicitly blasted Cameron’s newfound oceanographic adventures in the form of the reckless and gun toting oceanographer/adventurer/film artist Steve Zissou-played by Bill Murray-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced indie docufeature film THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (2004), a film released on November 20, 2004 whose implicit allegorical intent was affirmed by the film’s allusions to JAMES CAMERON’S EXPEDITION: BISMARCK, PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING and TITANIC. An implicit interest in roasting Cameron that continued soon after the release of THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU when Scorsese returned with Cate Blanchett and Willem Dafoe-who played the resignedly determined journalist, Jane Winslett-Richardson, and the loyal and indefatigable Klaus Daimler, respectively, in THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU-and MacKenzie-who played Ronald in DARK ANGEL-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced docufeature film THE AVIATOR (2004), released on December 14, 2004.
“The way of the future.”
Indeed, with an extremely independent, wealthy, secretive, full throttle, uncompromising, film and milk luvving, technology obsessed and outsider protagonist in the form of Di Caprio’s Howard Hughes, it was clear that Scorsese had picked the right historical figure to implicitly symbolize Cameron and the right actor to play that historical figure. Indeed, the film’s allusions to DARK ANGEL, STRANGE DAYS, TITANIC and TRUE LIES, the fact that Hughes was briefly linked to the most expensive Hollywood film ever made up to that time in the form of the allegorical Hughes and Edmund Goulding indie docufeature film HELL’S ANGELS (1930), was also not a college graduate and shared Cameron’s love of women-including the implicitly Bigelow linked Ava Gardner [played by Kate Beckinsale], reaffirmed the implicit Cameron addressing intent of THE AVIATOR.
Thus, the implication was that Scorsese was blasting Cameron as being as reckless and uncaring as to his personal safety and the safety of his casts and crews on his famously real and dangerous stunt filled sets and as obsessive-compulsive as Hughes. A message that was clearly lost on Cameron as sunny optimism and exploratory delight continued when he teamed up again with composer Jeehung Hwang, director of photography Vincent Pace, producer Andrew Wight and co-editor Fiona Wight-all from JAMES CAMERON’S EXPEDITION: BISMARCK-and GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS co-editor and creative producer Ed W. Marsh and kicked off the new film year with the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Cameron produced and co-directed-with Steven Quale-indie documentary Zonebuster ALIENS OF THE DEEP (2005), released on January 28, 2005, co-directed by Steven Quale and, like GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS, surprisingly made with Disney.
“That’s incredible!
That’s like another planet!”
Significantly, the film also opened with no fanfare accompanied CGI logo for Lightstorm Entertainment. Then the film showcased two historic underwater expeditions, one in the Atlantic and one in the Pacific, using four submersibles-the two familiar Mir submersibles of the Keldysh joining two new Cameron designed Rovers of the EDT Ares. The two successful expeditions explored extraterrestrial environments and real life bioluminescent NTIs beneath the waves, evoking the NTIs of THE ABYSS and pointing the way to the explosion of CGI enhanced bioluminescent fauna and flora soon to be encountered in the next Cameron feature film Zonebuster. Indeed, the CGI exploration of the moons that Jupiter that evoked 2010, the CGI exploration of Mars and the CGI bioluminescent aliens and their underwater city encountered by two of the documentary’s scientists in a fictional CGI imagining of a possible future close encounter with extraterrestrial life forms at the end of ALIENS OF THE DEEP-and the 3D camera work-openly gave viewers a taste of that 3D and CGI enhanced Zonebuster to come.
Not that all were eager to experience that Zonebuster, as Lucas wrapped up his STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy that year with the implicitly Cameron linked Anakin Skywalker-played again by Christensen-so weak and vainglorious he succumbed to his Dark Side and became Darth Vader, the Sith puppet controlled by the insidious and implicitly Spielberg linked Lord Sidious-played again by McDiarmid-implying that Lucas thought that Cameron simply followed in the sinister beastly blockbuster loot lusting footsteps of Spielberg at the end of the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Cameron and Spielberg roasting indie film STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH (2005), released on May 12, 2005. Ironically and luckily for Cameron, Christopher Nolan and company came to the Canadian auteur’s defense soon after the release of the gloomy trimax of the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy, implicitly affirming that the astounding success of Cameron had affirmed that he was superhuman and implying their confidence that Super Cam was just recharging his batteries and would soon return to ignite the Temple Theatre with another memorable and inspiring Zonebuster when they implicitly linked him to another odd, technology obsessed and reclusive tycoon in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Cameron addressing Nolan super satirical docufeature film BATMAN BEGINS (2005), released on May 31, 2005 and based on the character created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in 1939 for DC Comics that was implicitly partly inspired by the lone, mysterious, spooky and crime battling character Kent Allard aka "the Shadow" created and chronicled by Walter B. Gibson under the pen name Maxwell Grant starting in 1931 and perhaps initially linked to H.P. Lovecraft given that Lovecraft died in 1937, and that two grave robbing characters who lived in a bat infested manor with a secret staircase leading down to a cavernous chamber filled with a ghoulish museum of horrors that anticipated Wayne Mansion and the eclectic collection displayed in the equally subterranean and cavernous Bat Cave underneath first appeared in the allegorical Lovecraft weird tale “The Hound” (1924).
“But if you make yourself more than just a man,
if you devote yourself to an ideal,
and if they can’t stop you,
then you become something else entirely…
Legend, Mr. Wayne.”
Indeed, how fitting that the film began with the Cameron resembling and implicitly linked Bruce Wayne-played by Gus Lewis as a boy, and Bale as a young man, respectively-returning to Gotham City from seven years of international travel, immersion in criminal activity, deep thought, transformation and rejuvenation that fittingly included a spell in an icy, snowswept and Canada evoking mountainous region in central Asia to take over as head of Wayne Enterprises, for Wayne’s absence evoked the equally thoughtful and rejuvenating sabbatical from feature film creation that Cameron was still taking in 2005. How also fitting that after returning from his long absence, Wayne soon began moonlighting as the mysterious, frightening, uncompromising and technology loving Batman to rid the implicitly Hollywood linked Gotham City of all of its implicitly comic and film artist linked criminals and super villains, such as the implicitly Isaac Perlmutter linked crime boss, Carmine Falcone-played by Tom Wilkinson-his hired thug, the implicitly Carpenter linked Joe Chill-played by Richard Brake-the implicitly Besson linked crooked cop, Flass-played by Mark B. Junior-the implicitly Verhoeven linked Doctor Jonathan “Scarecrow” Crane-played by Cillian Murphy-and the less Evil and more bumbling CEO of Wayne Enterprises, Mr. Earle-played by Hauer-who was implicitly linked to Brian Mulroney, Prime Minister of Canada when Cameron emerged in the Eighties.
For Wayne’s superheroic activities affirmed the implicit conviction of Nolan that it was only a matter of time before Cameron returned to exorcise from the Temple Theatre all of the false film artist pretenders who had emerged in his absence and enfire all of the Good film artists with another classic Zonebuster, as well. A classic Zonebuster that would particularly exorcise Lucas and his Cameron and Spielberg roasting STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy, as implied by Batman’s triumph over the implicitly Lucas linked Ra’s al Ghul aka Ducard-played by Liam Neeson-and his Jedi evoking League of Shadows which prevented them from carrying out their insidious plan to use an aerosol spray spiked with Scarecrow fear toxins to get Gothamites tearing themselves and the city apart at the end of BATMAN BEGINS, an implicit allegorical intent affirmed by the film's allusions to the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy, the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy, THX 1138, by the fact that Neeson played indie Jedi Knight Qui Gonn Jinn in STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, and by allusions to the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Cronenbert toasting and Verhoeven roasting Burton animaction artbuster SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999). The emphasis on hi-tech and on real and dangerous on set stunts and special effects-including an armoured and rocketing tumbler turned Batmobile that evoked the APC in ALIENS-and the sparing use of CGI enhancement also affirmed the implicit Cameron toasting intent of the film, as the approach evoked the preferred approach to film art of Cameron at that time. Thus, it was fitting that early on in the film, Wayne met a street bum-played by Rade Serbedzija-who resembled and was implicitly linked to Kubrick, for it reminded us that the equally hi-tech 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was a major influence on Cameron.
The wry and knowing support given Wayne by the loyal and implicitly Corman linked and resembling butler, Alfred Pennyworth-whose named evoked that of Alfred Delapore in the allegorical Lovecraft weird tale “The Rats In The Walls” (1924), and was played by Michael Caine-Wayne Enterprises tech wizard Lucius Fox-played by Morgan Freeman-and the dedicated and implicitly Hurd linked deputy district attorney Rachel Dawe-played by Katie Holmes as a young adult and by Emma Lockhart as a girl-also affirmed the implicit Cameron supporting intent of BATMAN BEGINS, reminding us that Corman was a staunch and wry supporter of Cameron in his early years and that Cameron made TITANIC with Twentieth Century Fox. Curiously, Wayne was also helped by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) CEO Piers Handling resembling and implicitly linked Captain and then Lieutenant James “Jim” Gordon-played by Gary Oldman. The sight of Wayne, Pennyworth, Fox and Gordon working together to defeat ordinary and super villianry also evoked the sight and sound of Tasker collaborating with Gibson to save the U.S. with similar hi-tech wizardry in TRUE LIES, albeit without the unconcernedly deadly violence of that film, and the real life sight of Mike Cameron, the captain and crew of the Keldysh helping Cameron succeed with his underwater explorations in ALIENS OF THE DEEP, GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS, and JAMES CAMERON’S EXPEDITION: BISMARCK.
The fact that Wayne’s parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne-played by Linus Roache and Sara Stewart, respectively-resembled and were implicitly linked to Phil and Brynn Hartman reaffirmed the implicit link of Wayne to a Canadian film artist. The resemblance to then Canadian astronaut and later Canadian Governor General Julie Payette of a female patron-played by Lucy Russell-in a restaurant patronized by Wayne at one point in the film reaffirmed the billionaire playboy’s implicit link to a Canadian film artist, while the resemblance to Curtis one of the two babes-played by either Flavia Massetto or Emily Steven-Daly-that he relaxed with at the restaurant reaffirmed the implicit link of Wayne to Cameron, reminding us that Curtis played Helen Tasker in TRUE LIES. Last but not least, Burton was also implicitly linked to well meant but doomed District Attorney Carl Finch-played by Larry Holden.
However, while well meant, Nolan chose the wrong hero to implicitly support Cameron. For as the proud Canadian had never exchanged his Canadian citizenship for dual or full American citizenship, clearly the real superhero needed to symbolize the real life superheroics of Cameron was the Richard Comely created all Canadian superhero, Captain Canuck. At any rate, it all worked out well for Cameron, as Nolan kept the Cameron brand and spirit alive in the Temple Theatre like Anderson, Scorsese and the Wachowski Sisters did in 2003-04. As for Captain Canuck himself, Cameron implicitly affirmed that he was returning to CGI enhanced feature film art so as to definitely lead viewers out of twilit subjection and back to the cinematic promised land by acting as executive producer and co-narrator of the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Simcha Jacobovici written and co-narrated History Channel indie documentary Zonebuster THE EXODUS DECODED (2006), released on April 16, 2006.
“And Israel saw that great work
which the Lord did upon the Egyptians:
and the people feared the Lord,
and believed the Lord,
and his servant Moses.”
- Exodus 14:31
Indeed, with the documentary immediately recapping the end of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and the packing of the Ark of the Covenant in a crate that was hid in a vast warehouse of similar crates, THE EXODUS DECODED immediately evoked Lucas, Spielberg and the last good year of film before the TZ disaster in 1982. Thus, the ten plagues and disasters that struck Pharoah Ahmose and his fellow Egyptians symbolized the plague of the TZ disaster and its effects on Lucas, Spielberg and their followers, while the successful leading of the Jews out of Egypt to the promised land by Moses after the deaths of the Egyptian first borns symbolized the successful leading of audiences out of the TZ disaster haunted Twilight Zone by Cameron after the deaths of Chen, Le and Morrow. Of course, this reminded us of the “J.C.” initials of James Cameron and John Connor.
For his part, Zack Snyder closed the film year by implying that he thought that Lucas had destroyed himself implicitly trying to take on and take out the towering Cameron in the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy by having the implicitly Lucas linked King Leonidas-played by Gerard Butler-destroy himself and his loyal Spartans trying to take on and take out the tall and implicitly Cameron linked Persian God King Xerxes-played by Rodrigo Santoro-and his vast army in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced film 300 (2006), released on December 9, 2006 and inspired by the twilit and allegorical Frank Miller narrative artwork 300 (1999). As for Jacobovici, an implicit link of Cameron to Jesus Christ continued in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Cameron executive produced Jacobovici History Channel indie documentary Zonebuster THE LOST TOMB OF JESUS (2007), released on March 2007. Then implicitly supporting Captain Camuck with mistaken super identities implicitly continued that year when co-producer Hurd teamed up with Louis Leterrier on the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced super satirical animaction film THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008), released on June 6, 2008 and based on the character created by Lee and Jolly Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics who was implicitly linked to Pablo Picasso, given that most of the Avengers that the Hulk fought alongside with were implicitly linked to popular and successful artists at that time, given that Picasso was the most popular and successful of them all and perhaps most famous for his banner sized allegorical painting "Guernica" (1937) and that the Hulk was billed as the most “powerful” Avenger, and that the tall, grey haired and intimidating ex-General Charles De Gaulle towered over Picasso at that time like the equally tall, grey haired and intimidating General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross towered over Banner.
“Don’t make me…hungry.
You wouldn’t like me
when I’m…hungry.”
Indeed, the Cameron resembling, righteously furious and rampaging scientist Doctor Bruce “Hulk” Banner-played by Ed Norton and voiced by Lou Ferrigno, who played the implicitly Lucas linked Hulk in THE INCREDIBLE HULK [1977-82] television series and returned as a security guard in the film-was implicitly linked to the righteously furious and Zonebusting Cameron throughout the film, an implication reaffirmed by the film’s allusions to STRANGE DAYS, TITANIC, T1, and T2. The implicitly Bigelow linked paramour of Banner, Elizabeth “Betty” Ross-played by Liv Tyler-and the many scenes filmed in Hamilton and Toronto, Ontario reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in Cameron in particular and in Ontario born and raised film artists in general in THE INCREDIBLE HULK. Intriguingly, Betty’s father and Banner’s arch nemesis was the implicitly Stan the Man linked General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross-played by William Hurt, while British soldier Emil “Abomination” Blonsky-played by Tim Roth-was implicitly linked to Roman Polanski.
However, while the implicit link between the rampaging Banner and Cameron was understandable given that Cameron was soon to rampage through the Temple Theatre again, it was an awkward fit. Marvel clearly realized that, for they soon switched the implicit link of the Lightstorm Entertainment commanding Cameron from the Hulk to a more fittingly mismatched, immortal and lightning storm commanding superhero in a series of super satirical films to come. Then implicitly supporting Captain Canuck with mistaken super identities implicitly continued when the implicitly Cameron linked Bruce “Batman” Wayne-played again by Bale-returned in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Cameron addressing Nolan super satirical docufeature film THE DARK KNIGHT (2008), released on July 14, 2008.
“I believe
whatever doesn’t kill you
simply makes you stranger.”
Significantly, the film began with a group of men in clown masks robbing a mob protected bank in Gotham City, evoking the masked ex-President's bank robber gang in POINT BREAK to immediately link the film to the film art of Bigelow and Cameron. In fact, the sight and sound of Fichtner playing the beleagured bank manager openly linked THE DARK KNIGHT to the film art of Bigelow and Cameron via his role as the psychotic LAPD Officer Engelman in STRANGE DAYS. Thus, it was no surprise that the film saw Batman principally battle the implicitly Bigelow linked Joker-played by Heath Ledger-for control of Gotham City like Bigelow and Cameron fought in their film art for control of the Temple Theatre, an implication affirmed by the film’s allusions to DARK ANGEL, LA FEMME NIKITA, POINT BREAK, STRANGE DAYS, T3, THE CROW, THE ROAD WARRIOR and TITANIC. Batman also again took on and took out the implicitly Verhoeven linked Dr. Jonathan “Scarecrow” Crane-played again by Murphy-as well as the implicitly Anderson linked Harvey “Two-Face” Dent-an implication affirmed by the film's allusions to THE LIFE AQUATIC BY STEVE ZISSOU, and played by Aaron Eckhart-in the end. In addition, Batman also fought the ironically Joker supporting and implicitly Lynch linked disorganized crime boss Salvatore Maroni-played by Eric Roberts-and the Joker supporting and implicitly Scorsese linked disorganized crime boss Chechen-an implication affirmed by the film's allusions to THE AVIATOR, and played by Richie Coster-and the Joker despising and implicitly John Woo linked disorganized crime boss Lau-played by Chin Han.
Not surprisingly, Wayne was again helped to defeat all of these Evildoers by the wry and trusty Alfred-played again by Caine-the resigned and knowing Fox-played again by Freeman-the undaunted and courageous Lieutenant then Commissioner Gordon-played again by Oldman-and the still dedicated assistant district attorney Dawe-now played by Maggie Gyllenhaal-who alas, was killed in an explosion by the Joker. A murder that transformed the Good Dent into the Evil Two-Face, leading to Batman hunting him down and killing him. A second murder that, ironically, led to Bats being reviled and declared an Evildoer by society and fleeing hunted and alone into the dark on his bat bike to preserve the Good name of Dent, in the end. An ironic ending, indeed, given that THE DARK KNIGHT primed audiences for the full throttle and heroic return of Cameron to the Temple Theatre the following year.
At any rate, a passenger on the Titanic evoking ferry boat at the end of the film who resembled then Toronto Mayor David Miller implicitly affirmed that a film artist linked to Ontario was being addressed in the film. A Zonebusting film artist who was also implicitly addressed when McG teamed up with Bale, Kassar, Vajna, Warners and Winston for another desperate and determined battle against the beastly and CGI enhanced blockbuster machine in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed indie animaction docufeature Zonebuster TERMINATOR: SALVATION (2009), fittingly released on May 14th, 2009, the sixty-fifth birthday of Lucas, given that the Terminator series began with an implicit and righteously furious roast of Lord Stinkious back in T1.
“I’ll be back.”
Significantly, T4 was noticeable for being the first Terminator film lacking Schwarzenegger, being implicitly uninterested in Lynch, implicitly linking Cameron to John Connor-played by Bale-and differing from T3 in that it featured Connor refusing to accept the arrival of the beastly CGI enhanced blockbuster machine world and battling it relentlessly with every fibre of his being. Thus, McG implied his hope that Cameron would continue to refuse to accept the arrival of CGI enhanced film art in his feature film Zonebusters, an implication demolished by Cameron when he soon returned with Horner, Landau, Weaver and Sam Worthington-who played the implicitly Miller linked and presciently surnamed Marcus Wright in T4-to reply to POCAHONTAS and implicitly thrash Lucas and Scorsese with his biggest, most embattled, and, at some four hundred million dollars, most expensive film yet and the most expensive film ever, the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced indie animaction docufeature Zonebuster AVATAR (2009), released on December 10, 2009.
“The Nav’i say that every person is born twice.”
Significantly, the film revolved around a Cale evoking young ex-Marine Corporal paralyzed from the waist down named Jake Sully-played by Worthington-who accepted a dangerous interplanetary mission like Floyd, Kelvin and Ripley on the leonopteryx anticipating and Discovery I evoking spaceship, Venture Star, to the fecund, all CGI and Genesis evoking forested moon Pandora of the brave new CGI world of Polyphemus. Once on Pandora and mastering his powerful and CGI enhanced blue alien Nav’i cat person avatar-an avatar that linked the film to 1982 via the allegorical Paul Schrader film CAT PEOPLE (1982)-Sully abandoned the Marines for the local Nav’i after meeting and falling in love with a beautiful, powerful, Guevara and Pocahontas evoking and implicitly SCC linked young Nav’i spirit warrior woman named Neytiri te Ckaha Mo’at’ite-played by Zoe Saldana.
Over time and after enduring all sorts of trials and tribulations, Sully mastered his huge and powerful CGI enhanced blue Nav’i avatar and was accepted by the implicitly Coppola clan linked Omaticaya tribe. Significantly, this acceptance allowed Sully to top Smith in POCAHONTAS by uniting and leading all of the Nav’i tribes like a CGI enhanced Maud’dib in a righteously furious uprising that triumphed over the personnel of the Terran mining colony of Resources Development Corporation (RDA) on Pandora headed by the dimunitive, unobtanium lusting and implicitly Scorsese linked Parker Selfridge-played by Giovanni Ribisi, who performed the film long VO in THE VIRGIN SUICIDES and played John in LOST IN TRANSLATION to implicitly affirm the interest in SCC on one level in AVATAR. As this final battle also evoked the sight and sound of Maud’dib leading the equally united Fremen tribes in a triumphant victory over the soldiers of the implicitly Kershner linked Emperor Shaddam IV and the possibly Bob Clark or Vladimir Nabokov linked Baron Vladimir Harkonnen-played by Jose Ferrer and Kenneth McMillan, respectively-at the end of DUNE, Cameron also implicitly thrashed Lynch with the triumphant conclusion of AVATAR. The Nav’I triumph also defeated Selfridge’s implicitly Lucas linked and equally callous head of security, Colonel Miles Quarritch-played by Stephen Lang-and his mercenaries to implicitly affirm the additional Lucas thrashing intent of AVATAR, as this final battle evoked the sight and sound of the all CGI Gungans and their human allies battling the all CGI machines at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE.
Significantly, Cameron also implicitly hoped that AVATAR would make 2009 the First Good Year of a new era of Zone free and CGI enhanced film art, for the flying banshee mounts of the Nav’i recalled the flying mount of the legendary warrioress, Taarna, in the final and climatic “Taarna” episode of HEAVY METAL: THE MOVIE, released in the Last Good Year of film. Indeed, Neytiri on her banshee openly evoked Taarna on her flying mount in an enthusiastic nod to HEAVY METAL: THE MOVIE. The flying banshee horses also confirmed the twilit ambience of AVATAR, for Sully's enthusiastic cry of “Let's dance!” at the beginning of the scene where his banshee chose him as his life mount reminded us that David Bowie's allegorical comeback album LET'S DANCE (1983) was the big hit of 1983, the year of the release of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. This link to LET'S DANCE also implicitly affirmed the film’s interest in Bigelow, for Severen had paraphrased a line from the allegorical Bowie and Iggy Pop tune “China Girl” (1983) while killing a biker in a bar in NEAR DARK, confirming that film's links to the twilit and disastrous events of 1982-83.
Thus, Sully's film long VO accompanied transformation from wheelchair bound human to inspirational blue Nav’i cat person warrior messiah-the Maud’dib evoking Toruk Macto!-who confidently rode the wind on banshee and dread leonopteryx mounts-the name of the latter flying mount evoking both Leo Di Caprio and Leon, a Replicant played by Brion James in BLADE RUNNER-in the end, implicitly affirmed that Cameron had not only been converted to the CGI cause and had found his digital legs, but was confidently Skyrocking in the CGI digifilm age. Indeed, Sully abandoned his frail human body for his Nav’i avatar in the last scene of the film, the most shocking sight ever seen in a Cameron Zonebuster. For the ending was the complete repudiation of the desperate battle for the continued survival of an imperfect but vital humanity fought against the CGI enhancement of film art since THE TERMINATOR, implicitly affirming that Cameron had changed completely since the success of TITANIC and was now indeed one with the brave new world of CGI enhanced film art.
Or did it? For from PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING to TITANIC, the male lead in a Cameron film had always been linked to another film artist, implying that Sully symbolized another film artist, as well. This implication was reaffirmed by the fact that the character that most evoked Cameron in AVATAR was Sully’s friend, Norm Spelman-played by Joel D. Moore-the tall, smart and supportive young RDA scientist who joined Sully, Neytiri and the rest of the Nav’i in the uprising at the end of the film. Given that a wounded and implicitly Tarantino linked ex-Marine named Pilot Abilene-played by Justin Timberlake-also narrated the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed Kelly film SOUTHLAND TALES (2006), the implication was that Cameron was addressing Richard “Rick” Kelly in the form of Jacob “Jake” Sully in AVATAR.
Indeed, the film’s allusions to DONNIE DARKO and the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Mark S. Johnson super satirical film DAREDEVIL (2003), which also implicitly roasted Kelly in the form of Matt “Daredevil” Murdock-played by Ben Affleck-reaffirmed the implicit Kelly roasting intent of AVATAR. In addition, long before it became a brave new CGI moon of Polyphemus, Pandora was one of the production companies that produced DONNIE DARKO and SOUTHLAND TALES, openly linking Kelly to Pandora. Thus, as Sully had to go through many trials and tribulations before he finally became a Nav’i and also the only one on Pandora to ever ride a CGI enhanced and blockbuster leonopteryx, Cameron implicitly warned Kelly that while he was talented and smart he still had a way to go to truly master CGI enhanced film art and become a top film artist.
Significantly, AVATAR was a huge success with audiences, particularly Canadian audiences, who awarded the film another Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. However, the huge size and cost of the film was very disturbing, as both raised the dire possibility of the Hollywood studios giving all their support to two or three big films a year like AVATAR and nothing else, thus wiping out all other film art and film artists. A dire possibility that perhaps explained why the august Academy was not impressed with AVATAR, awarding the film three Oscars-for Best Cinematography, Best Production Design and Best Visual Effects-while awarding six Oscars-for Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Original Screenplay, Best Picture, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing-to Bigelow and the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Lynch addressing indie docufeature artbuster THE HURT LOCKER (2008) at the 2009 Academy Awards ceremony.
A snub implicitly rejected by Louis Leterrier and company, who implicitly declared Cameron a demi-god among men who had saved film art from twilit film artists and equally twilit and CGI enhanced blockbuster beasts by having the implicitly Cameron linked Perseus-played by Worthington-save beautiful and implicitly Amis linked Andromeda-played by Alexa Davalos-by triumphing over the implicitly Bigelow linked Medusa-played by Natalia Vodianova-and the implicitly Spielberg linked Hades-played by Fiennes-and his huge and CGI enhanced blockbuster beast, the Kraken, with the help of the implicitly Lucas linked Zeus-played by Neeson-the implicitly Hurd linked Io-played by Gemma Arterton-and the implicitly Sir Jackson linked Kucuk-played by Mouloud Achour-at the end of the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced film CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010), released on March 26, 2010. Curiously, not long after the release of CLASH OF THE TITANS, Hope Larson implied that Cameron’s success would destroy him as surely as a lust for gold killed the Cameron resembling and implicitly linked and Dawson evoking American gold miner Asa Curry in Nova Scotia in 1859 in the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Cameron roasting narrative artwork MERCURY (April 6, 2010), an implication affirmed by the fact that Curry was shot dead by Sheriff Drake, whose surname evoked the Colonial Marine Drake in ALIENS, in the end.
As for Ben Affleck, he implicitly roasted Cameron in the form of Boston bank robber James “Gem” Coughlin-played by Jeremy Renner-in the twilit and allegorical docufeature film THE TOWN (2010), released on September 8, 2010. Not surprisingly, given that AVATAR challenged their status as the leading creator of animated and animaction film art, Disney and Joseph Kosinski then closed the film art year by having the implicitly Lucas linked Kevin Flynn-played by Jeff Bridges-triumph over his Evil and implicitly Cameron linked digital doppelganger, Codified Likeness Utility aka CLU-also played by Bridges-allowing the implicitly Kelly linked Sam Flynn-played by Garrett Hedlund-to live to see, live and luv another day at the end of the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced animaction film TRON LEGACY (2010), released on November 30, 2010 and an implicit allegorical intent affirmed by the film’s allusions to the Batman Trilogy, DARK ANGEL, DONNIE DARKO, the Matrix Trilogy, the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy, the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy and TRON. An expected implicit roast that that did not stop the Canadian auteur from returning to the Temple Theatre as co-executive producer on the twilit, allegorical and THE ABYSS evoking Alister Grierson indie docufeature film SANCTUM (2011), released on February 3, 2011.
“Trust me.”
Curiously, the arduous but ultimately successful escape of Rhys Wakefield’s implicitly Nolan linked Josh from a deadly and twilit underground and underwater labyrinth of caves in Papua New Guinea that claimed the lives of six other spelunkers implied that Cameron and Grierson approved of the film art and success of Nolan. Significantly, the last spelunker to die before Josh swam to freedom was his own implicitly Sir Scott linked father, Frank-played by Richard Roxburgh-who was drowned by Josh as he did not want to leave the mortally injured Frank to die a slow and agonizing death in the cave system at the end of the film. This drowning scene affirmed the link of Frank to Sir Scott as it evoked the murder of Tyrell Corporation head Eldon Tyrell-played by Joe Turkel-by renegade replicant leader, Roy Batty-played by Hauer-in BLADE RUNNER.
Later that year, Disney, Branagh and Marvel topped Leterrier and his implicitly Cameron linked demi-god by implicitly linking Cameron to a full god in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Cameron roasting super satirical animaction film THOR (2011), released on April 17, 2011 and based on the character perhaps originally implicitly linked to J.R.R. Tolkien created by Lee and Kirby for Marvel Comics given that Thor luved Midgard as much as Tolkien luved Middle-Earth and Norse mythology.
“But you’re not King!”
For the tall, confident, bearded and once blonde Captain Canuck commander of Lightstorm Entertainment was implicitly linked to the equally tall, blonde, bearded, cocky, confident, proud, disdainful, lightning commanding and He-Man evoking Norse god of thunder, Thor-played by Dakota Goyo as a boy, and by Chris Hemsworth as a young man, respectively-throughout the film. Indeed, the sight and sound of a sneaky ice giant attack preventing Thor from being crowned King of implicitly Hollywood and Emerald City linked Asgard by his father, the implicitly Kubrick linked Odin-played by Sir Anthony Hopkins-at the beginning of the film affirmed the implicit link of Thor to Cameron, reminding us that Cameron was not crowned King of Hollywood the year before at the 2009 Academy Awards ceremony. However, despite losing out to Bigelow at that ceremony, Branagh was still so implicitly worried that the popular success of AVATAR had gone to the head of Cameron that he had Odin strip Thor of his mighty and phallic hammer, Mjolnir, and banish him from Asgard, eternal home of the Norse gods, to Earth to live the humbling life of a mere mortal in order to prove that he indeed had the true moral power to heft mighty Mjolnir and rule Asgard.
As Thor appeared to learn his contrite lesson while on Earth with the help of the lovely and implicitly Sanchini linked Doctor Jane Foster-fittingly played by Natalie Portman, given that Portman’s Padme Amidala was the sweetheart of the implicitly Cameron linked Skywalker in the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy-and became a more thoughtful god of thunder, Branagh implicitly and wryly hoped that Captain Camuck would become more humble, as well. Of course, allusions to AVATAR, the sight of Thor falling through time and space from Asgard to Earth in a light storm that evoked the light storming and time travelling escapades of T1 and T2 and the additionally T1 evoking 1984 year of birth on the NY driver’s license of Doctor Donald J. Blake, the stolen identity that Dr. Foster found for Thor while on Midgard, affirmed the implicit Cameron satirizing intent of THOR, while allusions to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and the allegorical and implicitly David Lean roasting film SPARTACUS (1960) plus the Napoleonic imagery that reminded us that Kubrick almost made a film about “Nappy” affirmed the film’s additional implicit interest in Kubrick.
Thor’s battle with and eventual triumph over the implicitly Spielberg linked Loki-implicitly linked by Kirby and Lee to the equally mischievous MAD man Harvey Kurtzman when he first appeared in Marvel Comics, and played by Ted Allpress as a boy, and by Tom Hiddleston as a young adult, respectively-and his frost giant allies-led by the perhaps Cronenberg or McG linked King Laufey, played by Colm Feore-reaffirmed the implicit Cameron satirizing intent of the film, reminding us that Cameron beat Spielberg and E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL when he took over as King of Hollywood in 1997 with TITANIC. Last but not least, the appearances of the implicitly Bigelow linked warrioress Sif-played by Jaimie Alexander-the implicitly Corman linked physicist Doctor Erik Selvig-played by Stellan Skarsgard-the implicitly Landau linked Volstagg-played by Ray Stevenson-and the implicitly Nolan linked Fandral-played by Josh Dallas-reaffirmed the implicit Cameron addressing intent of THOR, even if it did link the Canadian auteur to the god of thunder rather than to Captain Canuck.
For his part, Michael Dowse had the implicitly Spielberg linked Hamilton Highlanders enforcer, Doug Glatt-played by Sean W. Scott-try to inspire his New Hollywood linked team to a victory over the implicitly Cameron linked St. John’s Shamrocks enforcer, Ross Rhea-played by Live Schrieber-and his team so as to win the last playoff spot at the end of their minor league season in the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Cameron roasting film, GOON (2011), released on September 10, 2011. That the Hamilton Highlanders succeeded in their quest, in the end, implicitly affirmed the hope of Dowse that Spielberg would also one day succeed in his quest to topple Cameron as box office King and reclaim the crown Cameron took from him and E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL with the triumph of TITANIC. The implicit link of Gord Ogilvey, the captain of the Hamilton Highlanders-played by Richard Clarkin-to Lucas, a longtime supporter of Spielberg, also affirmed the implicit intent of the film and the implicit link of the Hamilton Highlanders to New Hollywood.
Significantly, Disney, Marvel and Joss Whedon soon allowed the mighty and implicitly Captain Camuck linked Thor-played again by Hemsworth-to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and to team up with the implicitly Sir Scott linked Clinton “Clint” Barton aka "Hawkeye"-originally implicitly linked in Marvel Comics to Roy Liechtenstein by Lee and Don Heck in Marvel Comics, and played by Renner-the implicitly SCC linked Natasha “Black Widow” Romanoff-played by Scarlett Johansson-the implicitly Eastwood linked Steve “Captain America” Rogers-played by Chris Evans-the mayhem loving and implicitly Lucas linked Doctor Bruce “Hulk” Banner-played by Mark Ruffalo-the implicitly Spike Lee linked SHIELD Director Nicholas “Nick” Fury-played by Samuel L. Jackson-and the implicitly Jason Reitman linked Tony “Iron Man” Stark-played by Robert Downey jr.-as the steadfast assemblin’ Avengers in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Spielberg roasting super satirical animaction film MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS (2012), released on April 11, 2012.
“What’s the matter?
Are you scared of a little lightning?”
Indeed, the Avengers continued the desperate battle begun in THOR with the pouty, petulant and implicitly Spielberg linked Loki-played again by Hiddleston-and fought him and his sinister and beastly new CGI enhanced blockbuster extraterrestrial Chitauri allies for control of the McGufferact Cube, an implicit interest in Cameron and Spielberg affirmed by film’s allusions to ALIENS and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Along the way, Thor got caught up in super brawls with Iron Man and Hulk, which made for enjoyable CGI enhanced mayhem, and erupted in a few lightning storms that evoked the lightstorms of T1 and T2 and Lightstorm Entertainment to reaffirm the implicit link of Thor to Cameron. Significantly, the film ended with the Avengers defeating Loki and the beastly CGI enhanced blockbuster Chitauri and Thor returning a humbled Loki and the McGufferact Cube to Asgard just in time for the next Thor film, implying the ironic hope of Dis, Marv and Whedon that indie film artists like Cameron, SCC, Eastwood, Lee, Lucas, Reitman and Sir Scott would defeat beastly CGI enhanced blockbuster loot lusting film artists like Spielberg with their film art.
Curiously, the same year Captain Camuck was implicitly switched from being linked to a Marvel superhero to a DC superhero when he was implicitly linked again to Bruce “Batman” Wayne-played again by Bale-when Nolan finished off his Dark Knight Trilogy in style with the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced super satirical docufeature film THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012), a film released on July 16, 2012.
“So that’s what that feels like.”
Not surprisingly, Bats teamed up again with Alfred, Fox and Commissioner Gordon-played again by Caine, Freeman and Oldman, respectively-to work with the implicitly Kelly linked Officer/Detective Robin John Blake-played by Joseph Gordon Levitt-and the Guevara evoking and implicitly SCC linked Selina “Catwoman” Kyle-her implicit link to SCC affirmed by the film’s allusions to DARK ANGEL, TRUE LIES and the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Lucas roasting SCC indie docufeature artbuster MARIE ANTOINETTE (2006), and played by Anne Hathaway-to save Gotham City from the pernicious peril of the implicitly Lana and Andy Wachowski linked Talia al Ghul and Bane-their implicit link to the Wachowski Siblings affirmed by the film’s allusions to the Matrix Trilogy [1999-2003], and played by Marion Cotillard and Tom Hardy, respectively-the ghost of the implicitly Lucas linked Ra’s al Ghul-played again by Neeson-and to a lesser extent of the implicitly Verhoeven linked Dr. Jonathan “Scarecrow” Crane-played again by Murphy-and of the bunglings of the implicitly Landis linked deputy GPD Commisioner Foley-played by Matthew Modine-and the implicitly Reitman linked John Daggett-played by Ben Mendelsohn-in order to save Hollywood from CGI enhanced blockbuster bombs symbolized by a blockbuster nuclear bomb that al Ghul and Bane almost succeeded in setting off in Gotham. Fittingly, after safely blowing up the blockbuster bomb away from the coastal city out over the ocean, Batman/Wayne disappeared in the end again like Cameron disappeared again after the release of AVATAR, reaffirming the implicit link of Cameron and Wayne.
For his part, Alan Taylor also implied his misplaced super support for Captain Camuck in the implicit form of Thor-played again by Hemsworth-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced super satirical animaction film THOR: THE DARK WORLD (2013), released on October 22, 2013.
“He will be king.”
Curiously, the film saw Thor release the implicitly Spielberg linked Loki-played again by Hiddleston-from prison in Asgard and unite with him to avenge the death of the implicitly Christiane Kubrick linked Frigga, Queen of Asgard and mother of Thor-played by Rene Russo-at the hands of the nefarious and implicitly Gilliam linked Dark Elf leader Malekith-played by Christopher Eccleston-with a little help from the implicitly Hurd linked Dr. Jane Foster and the implicitly Corman linked Dr. Erik Selvig-played again by Portman and Skarsgard, respectively-and Dr. Foster's irrepressible personal assistant Darcy Lewis-played by Kat Dennings. Along the way, Dr. Foster was freed from her Evil Aether infection, and Loki was killed by a massive ogre of a Dark Elf-played by I. A. Smithee-or, at least he initially appeared to be, but showed up in the end mischievously disguised as the implicitly Kubrick linked Odin-played again by Hopkins-on his throne at Asgard, so clearly rumours of the death of Loki were exaggerated. Just as curiously, the teaser cut scene in the closing titles saw the implicitly Bigelow and Landau linked Sif and Volstagg-played again by Alexander and Stevenson, respectively-consign the pesky McGufferact Cube to Knowhere with the implicitly Jim Jarmusch linked Collector-played by Benicio Del Toro-paving the way for the next film in the MCU.
Allegorical superheroic exploits that no doubt inspired Cameron’s own real life superheroic exploit, diving 35,787 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean in the Challenger Deep in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Cameron narrated Wight, John Bruno and Ray Quint indie docufeature Zonebuster JAMES CAMERON’S DEEPSEA CHALLENGE (2014), released on August 8, 2014.
“If you live in fear
and you never follow your dreams,
you’ve compromised in a much greater way.”
Indeed, the awe inspiring film saw Cameron become the first person in history to dive seven miles down to the bottom of the Challenger Deep pit in the Mariana Trench-a distance twice the depth of the final resting place of the Titanic on the Atlantic Ocean floor-all by himself in his own upright, banana yellow, hi-tech and digitally enhanced twelve ton submarine, Deepsea Challenger, a one-man vehicle that fused sub with AMP suit. Curiously, the solo descent recalled that of Brigman at the end of THE ABYSS, as the film art and life of Cameron fused to become the filmed art of the life of Captain Camuck. Significantly, this record making descent was ominously preceded by another tragic helicopter crash south of Sydney that killed co-director Wight and film artist friend Mike De Gruy shortly before the dive, a fatal crash that overshadowed and haunted the record solo dive like the TZ disaster haunted film art. Leaving Cameron as twilit and all alone in the dark depths at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean as he was alone in the twilit cinematic firmament. Alone, but at one with the true heart of the ocean at a pressure of sixteen thousand pounds per square inch in his one man Nautilus like a real life Captain Nemo, proving for all to see that he was literally a biodigital Avastar.
And so Cameron successfully pulled off his greatest triumph yet, and one that would inspire his fellow Canadians and the rest of the people of the United Nations to strive to accomplish their goals. Making it fitting that later that year Sir Scott implicitly had the God aided and implicitly Cameron linked Moses-played by Bale-lead his fellow Jews into the sunshine of freedom in an epic CGI enhanced triumph over the human army aided and implicitly Lucas linked Pharaoh Ramses the Great-played by Joel Edgerton-and his implicitly Bigelow linked ally, the Viceroy of Python-played by Ben Mendelsohn-at the end of the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and THE EXODUS DECODED evoking indie docufeature artbuster EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS (2014), released on December 3, 2014. As for Taylor, he reaffirmed his implicit Cameron supporting intent by teaming up with Schwarzenegger and returning to the Temple Theatre with more space/time travelling adventures the following year to implicitly affirm that Cameron was the victorious progenitor of a brave neo eon of fully cyber cinema in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and hyper cyber indie docufeature Zonebuster TERMINATOR GENISYS (2015), released on June 21, 2015.
“Reese, right?”
Indeed, the latest Terminator film was the biggest, most boffo, full throttle, time trippin’ and CGI enhanced yet, setting the bar for Terminator films to come. And one that saw the new and possibly Gardevil linked future time traveler, Kyle Reese-played by Jai Courtney-travel back in time to May 1984 and then forward in time to October 2017 to destroy the pitiless and beastly CGI enhanced biomechanical blockbuster machine and save the art of film, symbolized by the Elliot Page resembling and possibly linked Sarah Connor-played by Emilia Clarke-with the help of the possibly Cronenberg linked T-800 now called Pops-played by Schwarzenegger. Not that Taylor and company felt that the art of CGI enhanced film needed saving by 2015. For this time it was Sarah who shouted the fateful words “…come with me if you want to live!...Now, soldier!” to a startled Reese soon after he arrived from the future to save her. Implying that Taylor and company believed that with the steadfast and determined support of Cameron, the art of CGI enhanced film had also become an indomitable Avastar.
At any rate, Whedon had the implicitly Captain Camuck linked Thor-played again by Hemsworth-team up again for more humbling adventures with the rest of the marvelous and dissemblin’ Avengers and join them in battling and defeating the implicitly Lynch linked Ultron-voiced by James Spader-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced super satirical animaction film AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (2015), released on April 13, 2015. Significantly, along the Ultron terminating way, Thor summoned a storm of lightning to finish the creation of the implicitly Cronenberg linked Vision-played by Paul Bettany.
For their part, Disney and Bill Condon implicitly linked Cameron again to the Beastly Prince-played by Dan Stevens-in the live action version of the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced animaction film BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (2017), released on February 23, 2017. Soon after, Rupert Sanders implicitly addressed Cameron and SCC in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced animaction docufeature film GHOST IN THE SHELL (2017), a film released on March 16, 2017 that was inspired by the twilit and allegorical Masamune Shirow manga series Ghost In The Shell whose implicit allegorical intent was affirmed by allusions to BLADE RUNNER, DARK ANGEL, LOST IN TRANSLATION, the MCU, the MATRIX TRILOGY and STRANGE DAYS.
“I had you down
as more of a cat person.”
Indeed, in the death of the mysterious, cybernetically enhanced and implicitly Cameron linked Kuze aka Hideo-played by Michael Pitt-and the triumph of the equally cyber and CGI enhanced, Guevara and Romanoff evoking, memory haunted, troubled and implicitly SCC linked cyborg super soldier Major Mila Killian aka Motoko Kusanagi-played by Johansson, who also played Charlotte in LOST IN TRANSLATION, openly linking her to SCC-over the insidious and possibly Spielberg linked head of Hanka Robotics, Cutter-played by Peter Ferdinado-in the end, Sanders implied that SCC and her indie and mostly CGI free film art would triumph in the long run over Cameron and Spielberg and their CGI enhanced film art. This implicit interest in Canadian film art and film artists like Cameron was affirmed by the implicit link to Cronenberg of Mjr. Killian’s partner, Batou-played by Pilou Asbaek.
In fact, the presence of “Beat” Takeshi Kitano as Mjr. Killian’s boss, Department of Defense Section 9 Chief Daisuke Aramaki openly affirmed the film’s interest in Canadian film art and film artists, particularly Toronto film art and film artists, as Kitano played the implicitly Wicked Warlock of the West linked Takahashi in JOHNNY MNEMONIC, created in the greater Toronto area (GTA) like most of the film art of Cronenberg and THE VIRGIN SUICIDES and alluded to throughout GHOST IN THE SHELL. The sight and sound of Mjr. Killian also taking on and taking out the salacious and implicitly Lee linked baddie Tony-played by Pete Teo-at the Sound Business club also implied the hope of Sanders that SCC would take on and take out the MCU with her indie film art. Implications that were all ironic, given that SCC had never shown any interest in beastly and unusually CGI enhanced blockbuster film art.
And then Disney and Marvel teamed up again to have the implicitly Cameron linked Thor-played again by Hemsworth-part ways with the Avengers to search for the Infinity Stones, a search that led to more humbling adventures in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Taika Waititi super satirical animaction film THOR: RAGNORAK (2017), released on October 10, 2017.
“That hammer was
to have you to
control your power,
to focus it.
It was never your strength.”
Curiously, the film began with a triple prologue. First, the mighty Thor battled the diabolic and CGI enhanced Surtur-who looked and acted like a huge and cranky Gardevil, but was perhaps linked to Landis as he was voiced by a John Vernon sounding Clancy Brown-his equally CGI watchdragon and his hordes of demonic minions in his hellish subterranean lair. Returning to implicitly Hollywood linked Asgard with the crowned head of Surtur, Thor verbally jousted with and then outpranked Loki-played again by Hiddleston-back from the dead and passing himself off as the missing Odin. Then the two quarrelling “brothers” returned to Earth in search of their father, and tracked him down to a location on the Norwegian coast with the help of the magical transportation of the New York based and implicitly Screamin’ Stephen King linked Master of the Mystic Arts, Doctor Stephen Strange-played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Here Loki and Thor spoke one last time with the implicitly Kubrick linked Odin-played again by Sir Hopkins-before the sad eyed and weary Allfather faded away into the Great Mystery like Kubrick in 1999.
Significantly, the death of Odin released Thor’s forgotten and implicitly Bigelow linked sister, Hela, goddess of Death-played by Blanchett-from imprisonment. Surprisingly, soon after she casually crushed Mjolnir, leading to a desperate and film long battle with her that evoked Cameron’s cinematic struggle with Bigelow for box office supremacy. Indeed, an allusion Thor made to POINT BREAK at one point openly affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Bigelow, Cameron and their film art competition. A symbolic struggle made more difficult for Thor by being captured at one point and imprisoned by the tall and wryly eccentric Grandmaster-curiously linked to Cronenberg despite the fact that Vision had supposedly already been implicitly link to Cronenberg in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, and played by Jeff Goldblum.
Indeed, the presence of the tall, quirky and fast vehicle and bloodsport loving Grandmaster reaffirmed his implicit link to Cronenberg, making it fitting that he was played by Goldblum, as Goldblum was forever linked to Film Master Cronenberg by his role as the implicitly Spielberg linked and doomed mad scientist Seth Brundle in the twilit and allegorical Cronenberg indie docufeature film THE FLY (1986). The Grandmaster’s omnipresent and indefatigable major domo, Savoy-played by Rachel House-reaffirmed his implicit link to Cronenberg, as she evoked Cronenberg’s equally omnipresent and indefatigable major domo, Carol Spier, production designer extraordinaire on most of his films.
The Grandmaster’s homecity of Sakaar reaffirmed the implicit interest of the film in Canada and the Toronto based Cronenberg, for the lakeside city with its tall and commanding central tower, nearby roofless stadium and construction seen everywhere evoked the perennially under construction lakeside Toronto with its tall and commanding CN Tower and nearby Rogers Centre/Skydome retractable roof stadium. In fact, long before Thor and Loki arrived in Sakaar, their stop on Earth had implicitly linked them to Toronto. For after Thor’s James Bond evoking prologue adventure in Surtur’s subterranean lair, the two perennially quarrelling brothers had briefly wound up in New York standing kitty corner across the street from a building that resembled the permanent headquarters of TIFF at King and John Streets in Toronto, as if they were standing on the corner of King and John across from the Tim Horton’s coffee outlet.
At any rate, it was fitting that Thor expressed amused disdain for the red and white Canucklehead colours of the room in the commanding tower that the Grandmaster imprisoned him in with “Hulk” Banner-played again by Ruffalo-who Thor was forced to fight gladiator-style in a big arena for the pleasure of the Grandmaster and the citizens of Sakaar, the big green guy looking more real than ever courtesy of new and improved Super CGI-why be merely heroic when you can be SUPERHEROIC with SUPER CGI, the FIRST CHOICE of all implicitly film artist linked cinematic superheroes! For his “fellow” Canucks in “…the land of ice and snow” had never given him an award for his Zonebusting film art or put any of his indomitable films in TIFF’s infamous One Hundred Essential Films list.
Curiously, this lack of awards from Canada was addressed over the course of the embattled film. For after battling Hela to a bloody draw that took his eye of right with the help of the implicitly Angelina Jolie linked Valkyrie aka Scrapper 142-played by Tessa Thompson-and after the goddess of Death was apparently killed by the CGI Surtur, and after Asgard was definitely wiped out by the big red guy, in the end, Thor was still crowned ruler of the displaced Asgardians instead of Loki. And so the film ended with Thor as resigned to leading his fellow homeless Asgardians into the multiverse in their refugee spaceship as Cameron was resigned to leading audiences and film artists further into the brave neo eon of CGI enhanced film art.
For his part, Aku Louhimies continued Cameron’s implicit link to Nordic heroes by implicitly linking the indomitable Zone Warrior to the equally indomitable Finnish Second World Warrior, Corporal Antti Rokka-played by Eero Aho-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced film TUNTEMATON SOTILAS aka UNKNOWN SOLDIER (2017), released on October 27, 2017. The following year, Dis and Marvel returned with the Russo Brothers to implicitly link Cameron again to the mighty Thor-played again by Hemsworth-and have him join the titanic superhero struggle against the implicitly Eisner linked Thanos-played by Josh Brolin-to implicitly end the Eisner era at Disney and begin the era of new CEO Bob Iger in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced super satirical animaction film AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018), released on April 23, 2018.
“You should have gone
for the head.”
Significantly, the battle scarred, eye patched, Mjolnir-less and shorn locked new Thor was the first of the dissembling Avengers to take on the cosmic balance mad Thanos in the attack on the Asgardian refugee spaceship at the beginning of the film. After getting badly mauled and watching Thanos apparently kill both the implicitly Spielberg linked Loki-played again by Hiddleston-and the farsighted, steadfast and elusively linked Bifrost bridge guardian, Heimdall-played by Idris Alba-Thor was also the last to take on and almost take out Thanos in the final battle on Earth at the end of the film. A final battle aided by a cyborg eye supplied by the elusively linked and all CGI Galactic Guardian, Rocket Raccoon-played by Matthew Cooper-and a battle axe-!Chopjnir!-crafted by the implicitly Sir Jackson linked master weapon maker, Eitri-played by Peter Dinklage-with a little help from Thor, Rocket Racoon and the equally elusively linked and all CGI Guardian, Groot-played by Vin Diesel.
Curiously, however, the mighty Thor was not able to kill Thanos and implicitly end the Eisner era (EE), in the curiously mass disappearing end, implying that that feat and the beginning of the Iger Era (IE) would have to wait for the next dissemblin’ Avengers film. Indeed, with the implicitly King linked Dr. Strange-played again by Cumberbatch-cryptically noting in the end that the disappearance of many heroes and people from the galaxy was due to the fact that “…there was no other way” to defeat Thanos, clearly all was going according to the Strange Master Plan (SMP) and audiences were being set up for a resounding victory over Thanos in the next Avengers film. As for Cameron, he implicitly addressed Lucas and SCC again, responded to GHOST IN THE SHELL and reaffirmed that he was at one with CGI enhanced film art by teaming up again with Landau and acting as the co-writer and co-producer of the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Robert Rodriguez indie animaction docufeature Zonebuster ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (2019), a film released on January 31, 2019 that was inspired by the Alita: Battle Angel series by Yukito Kishiro and affirmed its implicit allegorical intent by alluding to DARK ANGEL, GHOST IN THE SHELL, the MCU and STAR WARS: EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE.
“Who am I?”
Indeed, after the bright, shiny, CGI enhanced and fanfare accompanied 20th Century Fox logo transformed via CGI into a beat up 26th Century Fox logo, the sight and sound of the kindly and implicitly Lucas linked Iron City cybersurgeon Doctor Dyson Ido-played by Christoph Waltz-finding a discarded teenage female cyborg head and armless upper torso with a living human brain in the skull in a garbage pile underneath the floating city of Zalem, “…the last of the great sky cities”, and reviving that teenage female cyborg head and upper torso in his cybersurgeon shop and placing them in a teenage female cyborg body with the help of Nurse Gerhad-implicitly linked to Mellody Hobson, the new wife of Lucas, and played by Idara Victor-immediately affirmed the implicit interest of Cameron, Landau and Rodriguez in Lucas in the film. And also immediately affirmed the implicit interest in replying to Sanders, for the live human brain in the body of the cyber teen reminded us that the living human brain of Kusanagi Motoko-played by Yamamoto Kaori-oversaw the cyberbody of Mjr. Killian in GHOST IN THE SHELL.
Significantly, this allusion to GHOST IN THE SHELL also prepared audiences for the sight and sound of the revived cyber teen and implicit embodiment of CGI enhanced film art, the memory haunted, troubled, Guevara, Killian and Romanoff evoking and implicitly SCC and Dorothy linked all CGI cyborg super soldier Alita-her voice evoking that of Johansson, and played by Rosa Salazar-slowly remembering her true identity like Mjr. Killian in GHOST IN THE SHELL and taking on and taking out all comers throughout the film with Panzer Kunst abandon and the equally trusty Sword of Damascus in her cybernetic hand of right in this tale set in 2563 “…three hundred years after the Fall” in both Iron City and high up in Zalem, a sight and sound that implicitly affirmed the interest in SCC in the film and that Rodriguez was now joining Cameron and Landau were asserting their oneness with CGI enhanced film art in ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL. In fact, the sight of James and Suzy strolling in the background of the scene where Alita first met the implicitly Marcia Lucas linked Doctor Chiren-played by Jennifer Connelly-reaffirmed Cameron’s interest in the implicit CGI enhanced film art mastering theme of the film.
The sight of Alita joining Dr. Ido in the solitary Hunter-Warrior bounty hunter ranks also affirmed the implicit link of Alita to Sofia, reminding us that SCC was implicitly linked to bounty hunter Domino Harvey-played by Keira Knightley-in the twilit and allegorical Tony Scott indie docufeature film DOMINO (2005). The revelation in a memory flashback that in her earlier cyborg existence three hundred years before Alita had been designated United Republic of Mars (URM) Beserker number 99 reaffirmed her implicit link to Sofia, reminding us that SCC first appeared in the Temple Theatre in 1999 with THE VIRGIN SUICIDES. Thus, Alita’s triumph over the Evil, huge, possibly Gardevil linked and beastly CGI enhanced blockbuster Grewishka-played by Jackie E. Haley-and the equally beastly CGI enhanced blockbuster murder ballers of Iron City in a CGI enhanced blockbuster beast of a film implied the ironic hope of Cameron and Rodriguez that Sofia would refuse to make CGI enhanced blockbuster beasts like ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL and stick to her indie film path.
An indie film path that would see SCC beat other indie film artists, given that Alita also triumphed over the implicitly Reitman and Scarecrow linked Hugo and the implicitly Sanders and Tin Man linked Zapan-played by Keean Johnson and Ed Skrein, respectively-in the end. Last but not least, while left alive, the resemblance and implicit link to Anderson of the mysterious and Great Nova-played by Edward Norton-the overseer of Alita and Iron City also implied the hope of Cameron and Rodriguez that SCC would triumph over Anderson in the future. Implications that were as ironic as they had been in GHOST IN THE SHELL, given that SCC still showed no interest in beastly and unusually CGI enhanced blockbuster film art. Then Cameron implicitly returned to the Temple Theatre in the implicit form of the CGI enhanced blighty boor and the mighty Thor-both played by Hemsworth-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Russo Brothers super satirical animaction film AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019), released on April 22, 2019.
“I went for the head.”
Indeed, Thor made up for not defeating the implicitly Eisner linked Thanos-played again by Brolin-at the end of AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR by helping to defeat the mad Titan for good with the help of Chopjnir and the restored Mjolnir, recovered in a time travellin’ trip back to Asgard which saw Thor briefly meet up again with the implicitly Christiane Kubrick linked Frigga-played again by Russo. Curiously, the equally mighty hammer was unusually wielded for a bit and a byte by the worthy and implicitly Eastwood linked Steve “Captain America” Rogers-played again by Evans-so as to implicitly help end the EE and kick off the IE of Disney-literally, now that Dis had bought 21st Century Fox on March 20, 2019, given it control of the AVATAR series and, possibly, any ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL sequels-at the end of AVENGERS: ENDGAME.
All of which worked out to the advantage again of the Canadian auteur, as AVENGERS: ENDGAME implicitly kept the indomitable Zonebustin' spirit of Cameron alive in the bodies, hearts, minds and souls of audiences, stoking them for the arrival of another righteously furious, memorable and innovative CGI enhanced Zonebuster. An allegorical Zonebuster that did arrive in the Temple Theatre on October 23, 2019 when Cameron donned the co-producer hat and teamed up again with Eglee, Hamilton, Schwarzenegger and Twentieth Century Fox-and this time also with Paramount-on the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed Tim Miller indie docufeature Zonebuster TERMINATOR: DARK FATE (2019).
“She’s right.”
Curiously, the film began with a video clip from T2 showing Sarah Connor-played again by Hamilton-being interviewed by Dr. Silberman-played again by Boen-in the Pescadero State criminal asylum that Sarah had initially been consigned to in that film, immediately linking the film to the last Cameron Terminator film rather than the other sequels. Then T6 saw the implicitly Gardevil linked and cyber enhanced human time traveller, Grace-played by Mackenzie Davis-travel back in time to 1998 from an alternate future 2020 where an A.I. called Legion rather than Skynet had taken over to team up with a dedicated family man T-800 Terminator called Carl-played again by Schwarzenegger-to save the implicitly Jolie linked Daniella “Dani” Ramos-played by Natalia Reyes-from the new and implicitly Lynch linked super CGI enhanced black liquid metal REV-9 Terminator-played by Gabriel Luna. Curiously, Grace died, in the end, before she could terminate the REV-9 like Reese died before he could terminate the T-800 at the end of T1, forcing Dani to save herself like Sarah was forced to save herself at the end of T1. However, as Cameron’s exuberant embrace of CGI in ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL and AVATAR made clear that he no longer feared or needed to desperately battle, defeat and exorcise CGI with a triumphant Zonebuster film, why he felt it necessary to co-produce T6 was unclear. Perhaps the next film in the AVATAR series would clear up the mystery, a film already making records as during its filming co-star Winslet had held her breath underwater for seven minutes and 14 seconds whilst on a free dive, breaking a record held by Tom Cruise.
Significantly, three years later Dis, Marv and Waititi decided that Cameron was the first film artist worthy of a quartet of marvelous super satirical animaction films implicitly addressing him when they teamed up with Dennings, Hemsworth, Portman, Skarsgard and Thompson to create the daylit, allegorical and CGI enhanced super satirical animaction film THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER [2022], a film released on June 23, 2022.
“Let me tell you the legend
of Thor and Jane.”
Curiously, after adventuring with and then parting ways with the Asguardians of the Galaxy-played by the usual gang-the film saw the tall, blonde, bearded, mighty, Stormbreaker wielding and implicitly Cameron linked Thor, Norse God of Thunder-played again by Hemsworth-the feisty, fearless and implicitly Jolie linked Valkyrie, “King” of New Asgard-played again by Thompson-and the ambiguously linked Korg the all CGI Kronan-played by Waititi-take on and take out the implicitly Miller linked Gorr the God Butcher and his all god slaying Necrosword-the film’s implicit interest in Miller on one level affirmed by allusions to the daylit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Miller indie docufeature film MAD MAX FURY ROAD [2015], and ironically played by Bale-with the help of the cancer suffering and implicitly Hurd linked Dr. Jane Foster aka the mighty and restored Mjolnir wielding Thorina-her cancer arrested and goddess status bequeathed to her by the powerful pieces of Mjolnir preserved in New Asgard, and played by Portman-and the thunderbolt of the exuberantly vainglorious Zeus-played by Russell Crowe. Just as curiously, the end saw the rescue of the Asgardian children kidnapped by Gorr, the passing of Dr. Foster which led to the resurrection of Gorr’s beloved daughter Jen X aka “Eternity Girl”-played by India R. Hemsworth-by silent and mystic Eternity, the healing and death of Gorr, the survival of Zeus and the arrival of his demigod son Hercules-played by Brett Goldstein-setting us up for more merry marchin’ Marvel mischief. And setting audiences up for the return of Cameron later that year when he donned the writer/director/co-executive producer hats and teamed up again with on the daylit, allegorical and CGI enhanced indie animaction Zonebuster AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER [2022], released on December 6, 2022.
All of which made clear that Captain Camuck remained a courageous and plucky film artist who continued to embrace his Canadian citizenship and fly the red and white true Maple Leaf flag at his Fortress of Canuckletude deep in the heart of Los Angeles. An indomitable Canadian auteur dedicated to preserving the humanity of film art, terminating the inhuman CGI enhanced blockbuster beast, breaking film art free from the Zone, bringing harmony back to audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre and ending the dread allegorical Zone Wars forever. A legendary and truly Lightstorm commanding and Zonebusting film artist best known as…the Avastar.
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