Giant Freakin Robot

Between his voyages to the bottom of the sea and dominating the highest-grossing films of all time, it’s easy to forget that self-proclaimed King of the World James Cameron used to be a struggling filmmaker trying to find that special project that would break him through to Hollywood success. Just run down the resume. The Terminator movies. Aliens. The Abyss. Hell, I didn’t like Avatar but there’s no question it was an important and influential movie, for good or ill. But a few short decades ago, a young James Cameron was so determined to direct the first Terminator film, he sold his original screenplay to producer Gale Anne Hurd for one single dollar.

I ran across this little bit of science fiction history in a years-old IGN piece about the history of the Terminator franchise, and I’m kind of astonished that I’d never run across the story before now. When Cameron wrote the Terminator screenplay, things were rough. He was living out of his car and struggling to get by. Needless to say, he could have used the cash a screenplay sale would bring in. But Cameron apparently wasn’t going to be satisfied just with selling the script. He wanted to direct The Terminator as well. Giving the reins to an unproven director would have been a tough sale in the best of circumstances, but Cameron was willing to put his money where his mouth was. In exchange for the directing gig, he sold the script to Gale Anne Hurd for one lousy dollar. Four quarters, for a movie that went on to bring in around $80 million worldwide, and which launched Cameron’s career into the stratosphere.

James Cameron’s The Terminator has inspired an endless parade of parodies, references, and rip-offs over the years. But of all its creative offspring I’ve encountered over the years, this fan-made poster may be my very favorite.

John Crichton & Aeryn Sun, Farscape
If you asked me to narrow this list down to just one entry, to the single relationship that stands above all the others, I would jettison everything but John and Aeryn without a second’s hesitation. Much of that is down to the white-hot onscreen chemistry between actors Ben Browder and Claudia Black. But the two unlikely lovers also go through more in four seasons than most couples do in 60 years together, and they still come out of it together.

The real test of love is not hanging together in the good times. It’s in clinging to each other when things go as bad as you could possibly imagine, and then somehow find a way to get worse. John and Aeryn go through all manner of horrors together, but the true genius of the show’s writers comes when Crichton is split into two identical versions of himself, and the show’s core group is then split as well. One Crichton stays with Aeryn, and their romance continues to blossom…until that Crichton – her Crichton — dies. When the surviving Crichton reunites with Aeryn’s group, she’s suddenly faced with a man wearing her lover’s face, but who is — as far as she’s concerned — just an empty echo, one that only makes her grief worse. It’s a brilliant, uniquely sci-fi way of solving that old Moonlighting problem of what happens when the will-they-won’t-they couple finally gets together. And in spite of that terrible, seemingly insurmountable obstacle, Crichton and Aeryn eventually find a way back into each other’s arms. Let the universe throw whatever it wants at them, they’re in it for the long haul.

In the wake of the Newtown school shooting, it’s understandable that educators and parents alike might be a little sensitive when it comes to anything that involves even tangential connections between schools and violence. Still, sometimes even the best intentions can overreach, as in the case of a high school principal whose job was on the line because he made a goofy Terminator spoof video that was shown during announcements.

Erick Naumann recently took over as principal of Everett High School in Everett, Massachusetts. As a way to introduce himself to the students, he made a short video of him as “the Naumannator,” mixing footage of himself with footage from James Cameron’s Terminator films. Had it happened a few months ago, it would most likely have been a one-time goof and nobody would have given it a second thought. In the aftermath of the horrible tragedy of Newtown, however, the superintendent and some parents were troubled by the footage. Probably the most contentious issue: when a teacher in the video points out the empty classrooms and asks where the students are, and Naumann’s cyborg self says they’ve been “Naumannated.” You can see one of the original news reports below.