James Cameron's Films

First off, Avatar 2: The Way of Water has reached over $2 billion. It's still doing well in theaters. Last Saturday I took my date to see it because she'd never watched it, and the Imax theater was filled to the brim. I bring this up because during the trailers, for the second or third time in recent memory, they're re-releasing Titanic again in 3D. What a cash cow that movie seemingly is. It's for the "Anniversary" of Titanic. It seems to me we remember the film more than the actual event. Thoughts if any?

I can't stand James Cameron and what he brings to cinema. He is a complete hack.

Could you elaborate? I'm genuinely curious why you think that. I have no negative or positive opinion on the man. I've enjoyed a couple of his movies, most notably T-2 and Aliens. :)

@mycatismilk: I don't like what he represents: he's the pioneer of the billion dollar movie game that's destroying cinema as we know it.

He makes movies not for the love of the craft but for the love of staying on top of the money making game. He's turned movies into a money sport to your average filmgoer that pay to see his movies multiple times to inflate his box office numbers. Companies like Disney have capitalized on his style of factory movies and is stealing the theatrical real estate of smaller to mid-budget films, diminishing their chances of participating in a healthy theatrical ecosystem.

Audiences now weigh the quality of films based on revenue instead of the quality of the film itself, and James Cameron has largely set the stage for this destruction. People actually pay to see his garbage in theaters four or five times for the sake of boosting his box office numbers. Jimmy got moviegoers under a spell and by the balls, and Disney has learned well and taken note and they all exploit the movie experience.

He's not a great writer, at all. He writes like a 5th-grader learning creative writing for the first time. He makes painfully simple yet effective stories that are about as derivative to other works and as shallow as a puddle as they get, but at least audiences look past his flaws because everyone eats up spectacle.

He hasn't made a good film since the 80's or the early 90's and in real life he's a grumpy asshat.

I dislike him on many levels. I don't know a single person that likes Titanic in its entirety. Virtually everyone I ever hear talk about it say "the movie sucks, just fast forward to the part where the boat sinks." That's pretty much symbolic of his style in general: a half-assed twit. But at least he makes money doing it.

@jaydan: Yeah the first thing I heard about Avatar 2 was that "it needs to make X billion dollars in order to be worth it". This was like a year or two ago when they started ramping up the hype; obviously we knew a sequel was coming, but this is like one of the more official statements I recall about it.

That's a terrible thing to sort of set as a goal for a film.

Now, I'm not so ignorant as to think that people make movies for art and not for money, but I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive. You can be a good artist and make money; the issue arises if you become greedy or mercenary about it. Michael Bay is a good example of this; he makes these films that look sexy and have a lot of action, but he is notoriously cheap and studios like him because he is such a revenue earner.

And they should definitely be art first. Art, educational...then profit.

9/10 times when you ask yourself "Why do people keep letting this person make movies?" it's because they can make a high-grossing film for cheap. Avatar was made inside of a warehouse on equipment that will be used over and over again with fairly cheap-for-hire actors. Yeah the CGI is an investment but it's also one that will pay dividends for years.

There's only one Avatar to me, and it's The Last Airbender. Well, two...I liked Legend of Korra, too.

I think Cameron is extremely talented though, and very smart. I just think he is misguided. I'd like to see what he could do with a couple cheap cameras and and budget of $200k.

Like all his movies. The piranha one doesn't count.

I would add AI (perhaps the best Schwarzenegger film ever) and the Abyss to that list of really enjoyable Cameron movies.

schwarzenegger in AI??

True Lies was kind of funny but I really don't get into his movies. Haven't seen either Avatar and didn't like Titanic.

Cameron is an expert in writing and directing blockbusters. Not the kind of films I'm interested in though. Aliens is pretty good, the rest were alright I suppose.

I kinda don't give a shit about his new movies, but you'd be insane to deny Terminator 2 isn't one of the sci-fi greatest action movies ever made.

I enjoy his work and think he is a great filmmaker. Haters gonna hate though....

He's done a few good movies. I enjoyed Terminator 1&2 like everyone else who isn't wrong. Aliens was good. Quite enjoyed The Abyss as well. The rest of his stuff is pretty crappy..

Would probably have loved Avatar if I was 5-10 years old. But with an adult brain, it's hard to get past how dumb and cliché it is. Got no interest in the sequel.

@comp_atkins: Sorry, I meant True Lies....I don't.... I can't....I have no idea why I said AI lol

@uninspiredcup: Yup

I grew up on Aliens and Titanic. He's fantastic at what he does. I also think Avatar is a beautiful film.

Apparently he was self taught. Majored in philosophy & he was a nerd so lacking any social life researched film related topics in his spare time. Later got hired to do special effects in movies which lead to him gaining his first director job on piranha 2.

Regarding production and set design if you watch Galaxy of Terror which James Cameron was the production designer you’ll find the set is probably the exact same one used in Aliens.

Yes, I like Cameron's works, but more so his older films. I can understand the criticism he receives towards the commercialization of filmmaking and his appeal to spectacle over substance, but I find this is a criticism applicable more to his modern movies. I don't care at all for Avatar, it's derivative, souless, spectacle-infused garbage, and I have no idea how he needs four films to tell that story. Titanic was entertaining, but yeah....slipping.

I do think he is a skilled filmmaker though, and a competent writer. Sure, he's no Shakespeare, but he gets the job done. He was writing strong female leads decades before everyone started to get their panties in a twist because females weren't written as a man with a vagina, thinking that that makes them "strong" and "equal". He instead wrote them as strong FEMALES, that being, centered around a powerful maternal instinct (Terminator, Aliens) that you cannot accomplish with a man. His films, at least older, do have a core element that grounded them around human themes, relationships, and emotional underpinnings that granted the action in them an element of gravitas that elevated them above the real hacks of the industry re: spectacle over substance......such as Bay and Abrams.

But yeah, I do think he's past his prime. He's crafted some of my favorite movies of all-time, and for that, I'm grateful to him. And yeah he appears to be a dick in public, but I would be too to entitled children who incessantly pester him for autographs only so they can hawk them off of eBay, cashing in on his time, only to pout like babies and sling shit his way when he sees right through their intentions and doesn't give it to them. He doesn't owe anyone anything, and good for him for flipping those people the bird.

I've found everything after T2 tedious to watch. His movies now are more like homework than entertainment.

Terminator (the original) is a masterpiece.

But all directors have a shelf life, even greats like Ridley Scott and Francis Ford Coppola lost their touch eventually.

I didn’t know Cameron did the screenplay for one of the Rambo movies

Answering OP's original question -- yeah, I would say most people these days associate Titanic w/ the film compared to the actual event.

On James Cameron: The guy is a visionary. He made Titanic happen, studios where risk adverse. He fronted some of his own money. Dude had a vision and a will. He helped pioneer techniques, hardware, and other non-existent stuff making Titanic happen and did something similar w/ Avatar. He's a Steve Jobs-type.

But, just like Jobs, the guy is a complete jerk and meglomaniac. But he gets stuff done.

I’ve only watched a few of his films, I personally am not a fan of his work, and most of his movies do not appeal to me. I still haven’t even seen the first Avatar.

Avatar is basically Pocahontas with Aliens.