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.
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