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Christ figures are found in the strangest places[A study of James Cameron's sci-fi movies]
By Steve Lansingh
The incarnation of Christ is a mystery we rarely allow ourselves to fathom. The idea that a person can be both fully human and fully God is impossible for our mortal minds to comprehend, and, as a result, we usually tend to ignore it. We prefer to think that Jesus knew exactly what he was going to say, where he was going to go, and what was going to happen to him, since, as God, he's omniscient. Movies about Jesus have reinforced this concept; he's often depicted as a calm, collected man who lets adverse circumstances roll off him like water off a duck. We rarely recognize that, as human, Jesus was truly tempted in the desert, was truly frightened of his death on the cross, was truly exhausted by the crowds who pursued him. There was something at stake in Jesus' life -- the war between good and evil -- and he might not have always wanted the responsibility he carried. He felt fear, anguish, and pain. Sacrificing himself for us took actual courage.
Christ figures in literature and film help us explore the humanity of a person whose life mirrors Christ's in some way -- revealing the thoughts and emotions that Jesus himself might have experienced. These Christ figures reveal only a single dimension of who Jesus is, but by combining these slivers of truth, we can begin to see biblical reality peek through.
Director James Cameron has spent half of his career dealing with Christ figures, examining different facets of messianic character. Granted, images of Christ aren't the first thing one thinks of when watching Ellen Ripley blast open an alien or John Connor escape the merciless T-1000, but only because moviegoers have not been trained to seek meaning in sci-fi thrillers. In fact, Cameron has created a trilogy of Christ figures in his sci-fi films "The Abyss," "Aliens," and the Terminator series. In "The Abyss," Bud Brigman (Ed Harris) is the sacrificial Christ; in "Aliens," Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the personal savior; in the Terminator series, Connor (Edward Furlong) is the promised redeemer.
This idea might smack of the ridiculous to the uninitiated. Indeed, few action directors warrant critical analyses of their films -- but James Cameron is one of them. While action/sci-fi movies are becoming more dependent on explosions and stunts, Cameron continues to ground his stories with well-developed characters while exploring the depths of the human spirit. Cameron's reputation for emphasizing character over action and storyline over special effects is especially evident from watching the special editions of "The Abyss," "Aliens," and "Terminator 2." Cameron's original cut for each of these films was 155 to 170 minutes, but because a running time of more than 140 minutes restricts the number of times a film can play in a theater in one day, the studios forced him to cut large sections out of his films. In editing, Cameron reveals what he considers to be the more important aspects of his story, often chopping big-budget special effects to save a few extra moments of character development.
Still, the extra footage does slightly alter each film's plot, and with it, the fullness of the characters. It is worth discussing each Christ figure in light of the theatrical release and director's cut of each film. (Warning: The following analyses reveal key plot elements.)
Bud becomes a Christ figure in his final action. A live warhead has fallen thousands of feet deeper into the abyss, and Bud volunteers to submerge and deactivate the bomb in order to save his crew and his wife from death. Because since there's not enough oxygen for him to return, he's sacrificing himself for them -- by his death, others may live. His descent into the darkness could be seen as a mirror of Christ's journey to hell at his death. The parallels continue when the underwater lifeforms (which had been investigating the crew to see what it was doing in their neck of the seaweed) rescue Bud and decide to reveal themselves to the human race. Therefore, because of Bud's sacrifice, superior beings make themselves known to humanity, just as God gave humanity access to himself through the sacrifice of his Son -- we pray to God in his name.
In the special edition of "The Abyss," the parallels become even stronger. Cameron had to cut 28 minutes from the film for Twentieth Century Fox, and in doing so he eliminated an entire subplot of the film: The world above the surface was teetering on the brink of World War III, and the "non-terrestrial intelligence" was about to judge humanity by flooding the earth and eliminating life there. But Bud's sacrifice showed the NTIs that humans were worth saving; they viewed all of humanity through the single person of Bud Brigman.
"The original goal of the film," Cameron said in Laurent Bouzereau's book "The Cutting Room Floor," "was to tell a story of a kind of apocalypse in which we are all judged by a superior race, and found to be worthy of salvation because of a single average man, an Everyman, who somehow represents that which is good in us: the capacity for love measured by the willingness for self-sacrifice."
Twentieth Century Fox was stunned to hear that Cameron had eliminated the shots of giant tidal waves suspended in mid-air right before they crashed on coastal cities. After all, he'd spent several million dollars on those shots alone. But Cameron felt that the nuclear disarmament theme was secondary to the rest of the story. He opted to eliminate the subplot rather than cut into the love story between Bud and Lindsay, which he saw as the center of the film.
"I knew that with the scene of Mary [Elizabeth Mastrontonio] drowning and Ed [Harris] bringing her back to life, I had sort of captured lightning in a bottle from a performance standpoint," said Cameron in "Cutting Room." "The most logical thing to take out was the drowning scene because it's the one thing that is really a kind of divergence from the storyline." Instead, Cameron cut the most expensive scene in the entire film, proving to Twentieth Century Fox -- and moviegoers -- that he was a director more interested in relationships than cinematic wizardry.
Fifty-seven years after Ellen Ripley's (Weaver) initial contact with the alien, a salvage crew finds her derelict lifeboat and revives her from hypersleep. The Company, which had been willing to sacrifice Ripley's entire crew to get its hands on an alien for its weapons division, hears Ripley's testimony about the thousands of eggs still on planet LV-426 and instructs some of the planet's settlers to look for the alien spacecraft. Soon (surprise, surprise) there's no more contact from the settlers, and a team of marines heads to the planet, with Ripley in tow, to perform a search-and-rescue operation. The lone human survivor is Newt, a young girl who has been hiding out in air ducts since her family was killed. After the aliens systematically hunt and kill the marines, it is up to Ripley to deliver the child from her planet and destroy the aliens.
Perhaps the most striking Christlikeness of Ripley isn't just the fact that she's a savior, it's that she's a personal savior. She gets to know Newt; she protects her from the horror but doesn't lie to her about the danger; she promises never to leave Newt. Her actions are reminiscent of Christ's when he talks about leaving the herd of sheep to save the one lost lamb. Toward the end of the film, after the aliens capture Newt to use her body as an incubator, it would have been easy for Ripley to sacrifice her own life (as she does in Alien3) by setting off the nukes and destroying the aliens. But she isn't willing to go back on her word and lose Newt; instead, she enters the bowels of the alien lair to pluck Newt from the grasp of the menacing queen alien -- just as Christ entered Satan's lair to lead us away from evil's grasp.
In the special edition, Cameron does more exposition of the characters: We see Newt with her family before the aliens take over the compound, and we see Newt's father lead the exploration for the alien eggs. These scenes were cut because they don't really move the story forward, but it is useful to see Newt as a normal, happy child before tragedy strikes -- she becomes more of a person than a victim. We also learn that Ripley had a young daughter, whom she left behind to go on her initial mission. Ripley had promised she would return in time for her daughter's birthday, but now, 57 years later, her daughter had already lived a full life and died. Obviously, Ripley looks at Newt as her own daughter, and her need to rescue Newt stems from the fact that she couldn't be there for her daughter. This mother/daughter relationship further mirrors God's way of looking at humanity: He considers us worthy of saving because when he looks at Christians, he sees his own Son in our place.
In her book "Alien Zone," Annette Kuhn outlines Cameron's criticism of the irresponsible use of technology: "Machines provide the texture and substance of this film: cars, trucks, motorcycles, radios, TVs, time clocks, phones, answering machines, beepers, hair dryers, Sony Walkmen, automated factory equipment. ... Today's machines are not, however, shown to be agents of destruction because they are themselves evil, but because they can break down or because they can be used (often innocently) in ways they were not intended to be used. ... The film seems to suggest that if technology can go wrong or be abused, it will."
After the nuclear holocaust, the few human survivors, led by John Connor, battle SkyNet and eventually destroy it. Before it blinks out of existence, SkyNet tries to save itself by sending one of its Terminators back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), John's mother. "They battle for the fate of an unborn child who will redeem humanity -- camouflaged religious impulses and patterns," notes Kuhn.
"Terminator 2: Judgment Day," Cameron's 1992 sequel, takes the messianic John Connor connection (notice the initials) further; this time, we witness the coming-of-age of a leader as John learns to invest his heart in another person.
In "T2," we learn that SkyNet had sent an advanced-model Terminator to kill John as a teenager (Edward Furlong), in case its first Terminator failed, and the resistance had sent a reprogrammed T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back to protect him. Meanwhile, Sarah has been imprisoned in a maximum-security psychiatric ward because her doomsday prophecies are considered paranoid delusions. With the help of John and the Terminator, Sarah escapes, and together they attempt to stop the man who invents SkyNet, Miles Dyson (Joe Morton) -- while being trailed by the merciless T-1000 (Robert Patrick).
Very little of the movie has to do with John's leadership of the resistance after the nuclear war; instead, "T2" focuses on the seeds of leadership that are being planted in him. The Terminator gives John the perfect opportunity to start training someone from scratch -- the cyborg is impassionate and trained to kill. John is forced to come up with answers to the Terminator's questions: Why shouldn't he kill? Why do humans cry? Why is death feared? John must answer questions essential to human life, and in doing so, he resolves them in his own mind. Slowly, he teaches the Terminator to become more human (bringing to mind the androids of Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner," who are "more human than human"), to appreciate and value life. Sarah, in juxtaposition, becomes less and less human throughout the movie. Her years of being disbelieved, then imprisoned, have made her become single-minded in her purpose: to destroy SkyNet at any cost. It is only when she realizes she has become as deadly and emotionally numb as a Terminator does she begin to question her tactics, and her son, whom she spent years training, must now reel her back in and remind her of what it means to be loved and human.
Even though Jesus' early life didn't include blowing up large buildings and befriending cyborgs, "T2" still contains parallels to Jesus' early emotional life. Although the Bible is silent on much of Jesus' upbringing, there was probably a point where Mary told him what his destiny was and he wasn't sure that he wanted it. Maybe, sometimes, he wished that the future of humanity wasn't resting on his shoulders. Yet somehow, he was able to overcome that fear and began to teach his friends what it means to be human. There was probably also a point where Jesus stopped being taught by Mary and began teaching her -- maybe the time he stayed in the temple after the Feast of Passover and Mary and Joseph couldn't find him.
The Terminator movies contain other allusions to biblical texts: First, the idea of warriors coming to kill a prophesied savior mirrors Herod's sending soldiers to kill the children of Bethlehem. Second, just as Jesus broke social rules and conventions but held to the higher law of loving others, Sarah and John learn a balance between lawlessness and morality. This isn't to say that Christians can detroy personal property or break and enter, but that the laws of America are not necessarily the laws of God -- we must remember to whose kingdom we belong.
The special edition of "Terminator 2" contains two key scenes that shed more light on these themes. The first is known as the "dream sequence:" Sarah, still in her cell, dreams of Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), John's father, visiting her, urging her to protect their son. She cries and protests that there's not enough energy left in her, but Reese insists that she must. In the theatrical version, Sarah is introduced as a muscular, brave, angry, wisened woman -- without reference to the weak, naive woman she was in the first film. The scene shows that she is given her strength by the father of her child; if we follow this parallel to Mary, it is God who gives her the strength to press on. The scene also re-emphasizes Sarah's feeling in the first film that she did not want this honor of being the mother of the redeemer -- a fear that Mary must have felt from time to time as well.
The second key scene is known as the "chip removal scene." John asks the Terminator if he can learn human traits through observation, and in the theatrical release the Terminator says that he is a learning computer that allows him to become more human through human contact. In the special edition, the Terminator explains that SkyNet send out Terminators pre-set to read-only, which means the computer is not allowed to learn. Sarah and John decide to reset the switch so the Terminator can become more human.
After the chip is out of the cyborg's head, Sarah wants to smash the chip and destroy the Terminator, while John defends the Terminator, who has become a friend to him. This scene is a pivotal point in several relationships: First, it reveals Sarah's prejudice against cyborgs, which she must overcome (as Ripley has to do in "Aliens"). Second, it shows John's attachment to the cyborg -- it is the first thing he has shown loyalty to since his mother was taken away from him. Most significantly, it depicts the transfer of power in the mother/son relationship: John's coming of age. Before this scene, Sarah is still lecturing and protecting her son, and afterward, she is listening to his ideas and giving him responsibility. Sarah realizes that she must learn to let him grow up and respect his decisions if he is ever to gain the confidence and judgment he will need.
Most of the chip removal is filmed in an unbroken shot, where it looks as if the pliers are entering Arnold Schwarzenegger's head. It was a complicated shot that involved a duplicate set, a fake mirror, and Linda Hamilton's twin sister to get the effect right. But, as we have already established, Cameron is more than willing to delete an amazing effect if he can maintain the film's vision without it.
Cameron cut one more scene from "Terminator 2" that he didn't include in the special edition, but it is shown supplementally on the tape. Known as the "Future Coda" scene, it was meant to end the film. It takes place in 2029, the year John was supposed to defeat SkyNet, but since the future had been altered, judgment day never happened. Sarah is a grandmother now, John a senator, and her granddaughter is playing with him on the same playground that was obliterated in her apocalyptic visions. She is speaking into a tape recorder (which justifies the voiceover at the beginning of the film). She says that on August 29, 1997, "people went to work as they always do, laughed, complained, watched TV, made love. I wanted to run through the street yelling, to grab them all and say, 'Every day from this day on is a gift. Use it well.'"
While this coda is intruiging (and her desire to run through the streets and proclaim good news is reminiscent of the shepherds at Jesus' birth), Cameron decided it didn't align itself with the rest of the film in tone or style. "There was a sense that 'Why tie it up with a bow?'" said Cameron in a behind-the-scenes documentary. "If the future is changeable then the battle is something that has to be fought continuously and you can't do it in a single stroke."
Indeed, the new ending that Cameron wrote reminds us that the battle for righteousness is one that has to be fought day in and day out in all of our lives. Too often, humans wait for that one defining moment, never noticing that their morality is eroded by time and inattention. Sarah's monologue at the end of the film urges us to pay attention: "The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope. Because if a machine -- a Terminator -- can learn the value of human life, maybe we can, too." The proclamation reveals Cameron's belief in the strength of the human spirit to overcome darkness -- when aided by a leader, a savior, a sacrificial being that shows it the way.
(Hungry for more? Check out another Christian's interpretation of "Terminator 2" as a spiritual allegory by visiting http://www.unc.edu/~goodness/t2.html)
The Abyss
What kind of love does it take to sacrifice your life for another person? That's the question at stake in "The Abyss," Cameron's haunting underwater epic. After an American nuclear sub mysteriously drops to the ocean floor, Navy SEALs commandeer a deep-sea oil rig to recover the warheads -- bringing the rig's operator, Bud Brigman, back together with his estranged wife, Lindsay (Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio), the rig's designer. They start bickering immediately, drawn back into the same issues of jealousy and inequality that tore their marriage apart. But when their lives are put in danger, the petty differences fade into the background and they remember again how to love and trust each other. That strength is most evident in what Cameron calls "the drowning scene," when Lindsay has to allow the freezing water to shock her into a comatose state so that Bud can swim her back to the rig in his deep-sea suit. When Bud is trying, in futility, to revive her once they're back in the rig, he goes through torturous agony at the thought he has failed to justify her trust.
Aliens
"Aliens" remains one of the few sequels that matches its original in artistry and success but wasn't created by the same team. James Cameron took over scripting and directing duties from "Alien" scribe Dan O'Bannon and auteur Ridley Scott for the sequel, which he infused with his own vision rather than just aping the mechanisms of the original. Cameron shifted the tone from a horror film to an action film and put his trademarks on display -- his knack for writing realistic dialogue and tense action sequences, his use of Christ figures in examining various forms of love, and his ability to bring respectability to "popcorn" entertainment. (Sigourney Weaver was nominated for an Oscar for "Aliens.")
Terminator 2
Cameron first made a name for himself in 1984 with "The Terminator," a low-budget, high-minded sci-fi thriller that explores the same territory as "Frankenstein" and "Jurassic Park:" a world in which the drive for scientific achievement is so powerful that the creation eventually destroys its creator. In the film, Americans create an automated defense network called SkyNet, which becomes sentient on August 29, 1997, and -- in a microsecond -- decides that all humans are a threat, not just the Soviets, and lauches our nuclear weapons.