Early in his career James Cameron was sued by science fiction writer Harlan Ellison . What happened you see Ellison wrote couple of episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS and twenty years later when THE TERMINATOR was released Ellison jumped to the conclusion that Cameron and the studio had stolen wholesale everything from these episodes and ran to his lawyers . Cameron and the production company Hemdale settled out of court and later prints of THE TERMINATOR have an acknowledgment to the works of Ellison at the start of the end credits . Truth be told there's very little evidence Ellison had been ripped off and that anything Cameron has used in the movie is purely coincidental . In fact if somebody should have sued Cameron it should have been Louis Marks whose 1972 DOCTOR WHO story Day Of The Daleks features a premise of freedom fighters from the future travelling back to the 2oth Century and inadvertently causing World War Three which leads to the Daleks ruling over a subjugated Mankind . It should be pointed out that this isn't legally plagiarism and the fact Cameron and Hemdale were so quick to settle was probably to stop a long running legal battles where future productions are held up over copyright wrangles
I mention this because THE AWARENESS by Henry Dunham does use an important plot point from THE TERMINATOR - one of a computer becoming self aware and seeing the human race as a rival that must be eliminated . You're instantly struck as to how identical this is to the Skynet program from THE TERMINATOR movies . Mr Dunham can probably rest easy because while Skynet is copyrighted the concept of self aware computers are not even if you're called Harlan Ellison
Mr Dunham has made his own movie and has managed to do something memorable with the simple and basic idea of two men sitting in a room talking . Thankfully the director has resisted the temptation to do a lot with the camera and it's noticeable how many short film makers fall in to the self inflicted trap of flashy visuals when they're not needed . Instead the audience are easily left to assimilate the information and exposition given out by the dialogue . There are a couple of bits where startle moments happen and this is done via sound mix . It's a cheap trick but a well done one in a highly satisfying science fiction story
I mention this because THE AWARENESS by Henry Dunham does use an important plot point from THE TERMINATOR - one of a computer becoming self aware and seeing the human race as a rival that must be eliminated . You're instantly struck as to how identical this is to the Skynet program from THE TERMINATOR movies . Mr Dunham can probably rest easy because while Skynet is copyrighted the concept of self aware computers are not even if you're called Harlan Ellison
Mr Dunham has made his own movie and has managed to do something memorable with the simple and basic idea of two men sitting in a room talking . Thankfully the director has resisted the temptation to do a lot with the camera and it's noticeable how many short film makers fall in to the self inflicted trap of flashy visuals when they're not needed . Instead the audience are easily left to assimilate the information and exposition given out by the dialogue . There are a couple of bits where startle moments happen and this is done via sound mix . It's a cheap trick but a well done one in a highly satisfying science fiction story
