James Cameron is, in case it has escaped your attention, the most successful filmmaker in history. The Canadian director hadn’t exactly been starved for box-office smashes early in his career, but his last two films, “Titanic” and “Avatar,” have hauled in nearly $5 billion between them, and are currently the number one and number two hits of all time. He’s also the man behind the “Terminator” franchise, helmed one of the best-liked of the “Alien” series, has become a deep-sea explorer, and, uh, gave the world flying piranhas.
This week sees “Titanic” back on screens in post-converted 3D form, and given that we’re still at least two years away from seeing the filmmaker’s next work (“Avatar 2” and “Avatar 3” are currently targeted for around 2014/2015), it seemed like a good opportunity to look back on his career and see how he went from a visual effects whiz on “Escape From New York” to the titan he is today. And you can catch “Titanic 3D” in theaters from Friday, April 6th.
“Piranha II: The Spawning” (1981)
When “Piranha 3DD” hits theaters later in the summer, it might be worth noting the name of director John Gulager. After all, the last time someone made the sequel to an exploitation movie about the pint-sized fish killers, they grew up to become James Cameron. And the good news for Gulager is, no matter how bad his film turns out, it’s still likely to be better than Cameron’s “Piranha II: The Spawning.” But then again, it’s not fair to blame Cameron for it either. While the film is technically his directorial debut (at the age of only 27), the truth is more complex: Cameron was hired to replace original director Miller Drake on the sequel to Joe Dante‘s 1978 “Jaws” rip-off, but was fired by producer Ovidio Assontis after two-and-a-half weeks, according to the helmer. Only years later was Cameron able to put together his own edit, which emerged on home video release in some territories, and while his version marks an improvement, you can’t polish a turd, and it’s a Z-grade monster movie of the worst order. To his credit, Cameron’s never pretended it’s anything other than the kind, mostly disowning the picture, but it’s at least intriguing to see him work with frequent favorite Lance Henriksen for the first time, and to see the slightest hints of the director he would become. But for the most part, we’d rather go swimming with actual flying piranhas than watch this one again. [F]
I must admit I disagree with the review of The Abyss. I think the movie's strongest part is the end. Once the action aspect goes it becomes an intelligent and emotional fantasy. I would probably go as far as to say it's my favourite movie of his (although The Terminator is not far behind it).
You rank Avatar and Titanic higher than T2 and True Lies? Your street cred is revoaked.
Two points:
1. The Abyss should get an A+
2. Wendo, Xian and Ugh! are talking out of their asses.
i dont get the cameron/tom hooper comparison/joke…
'T2' a B-? hilarious.
True Lies, one of the 10 best action movies ever made, gets a C-? Terminator 2, also one of the 10 best action movies ever made, gets a B-? This is so wildly off base I had to laugh when I saw it. I never comment on threads, but this snobbery is just infuriating.
Alien "wasn't a blockbuster hit"? Where are you doing your research?
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=alien.htm
To make $78 million domestic on an $11 million budget in 1979 sure sounds like the definition of a "blockbuster" to me. Aliens brought in $85 million domestic 7 years later, for comparison.
That is a remarkably bland filmography for someone so strangely well regarded.
Cameron also edited much of STRANGE DAYS. However he was not in the union at the time and so could not receive screen credit. He joined the union before TITANIC, allowing him to be credited there.
Cameron=Egomaniacal douche!
Cameron inspired "by a dream" for the original "Terminator??" Hmmmm, wonder what Harlan Ellison would say about that.
"The script creaks with cliches. The broad-strokes storytelling borrows from any number of sources, and the heroes and villains lack any shades of grey."
Here a thing that puzzles me. Why do people not mind cliches (and for that matter broad-stroke story-telling) in an art movie like There Will Be Blood (Day Lewis and Dano's characters are both broadly-drawn cliches, and Day Lewis winding up alone and insane in his mansion is essentially the cliche of how that character always ends up), and yet criticize a populist entertainment movie like Avatar for being cliched? The point of movie like Avatar is always how sincerely and effectively the cliches are manipulated, not original it is.
You are much much much to mild with THE ABYSS — one of the most ridicolous movies ever.
At the same time I would agree with Ken that TERMINATOR II is quite an acomplishment.
I am not sure if Cameron does indeed deserve the label âmost successful directorâ — Steven Spielberg seems more likely, relative to budget and the number of directing / producing successes
Yeah, I think he peaked with Aliens. Terminator and Aliens are easily two of the greatest action films of all time, relentlessly thrilling and perfectly paced, with strong characters but minimum sentiment. Since then, he's continuously gone down the route of more extensive movies with bigger special effects and more and more silly, sentimental, unconvincing stories. Terminator 2 is still fun, but it's convoluted and doesn't have that same kick.
Kudos to not ripping into Titanic. It seems to be the trend- in anticipation of the re-release- to make digs at a movie that had nearly every critic foaming at the mouth when it originally came out. Titanic was a landmark film for its time and should be treated as such. I get that a re-release tends to prompt new perspectives/criticism but the amount of snark and unnecessary digs I've read in the past few days regarding Titanic is a little baffling. On another note, what's the grade for Avatar? You can't just leave that out!
T2 is at least a B+, nothing less. Terminator is an A and is the better movie but there's not THAT much of a drop off between the first and second film. The action sequences are way more satisfying and even though Arnie is the good guy, he's still pretty badass. Plus, who cannot love Linda Hamilton's ass kicking performance whereas in the first Terminator she's just a scared young woman.
I actually just recently watched both "Alien" and "Aliens" for the first time. It sort of amazes me that not only is "Aliens" well liked, but it is often viewed as superior to "Alien." I didn't really care for it at all. It did nothing to add to the violently sexual imagery established in the first one, and I even found the violence to be more mundane. Not to mention the borderline unbearable two and a half run time. The themes were all very obvious and rote in that special James Cameron sort of way, and I was annoyed at how many scenes were dedicated to trying to get us to understand that these marines were all macho idiots (which, at least for me, is where the run time started to become very noticeable.) Weaver was great, but I wish I had the ability to create a new cut of the film with the little girl muted.