Look at the action sequences in that movie and it’s crazy good. You are nuts. I’m not talking about the movie on a whole, but those sequences are amazing! The first attack alone is art. Watch it again and get back to me.
Avatar Overtakes ‘Avengers: Endgame’ As All-Time Highest-Grossing Film
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He actually really nails the ground side panic better than most "invasion" films.
War of the Worlds 2005 is an example of an actual average/mediocre script. It's still interesting to watch on some level because Spielberg is a master filmmaker, especially the sequence where the aliens attack for the first time and we follow Cruise's character seamlessly through that terror (that is an exceptional, exceptional sequence, probably worth the price of admission right there), but overall I don't think anyone would say "oh yeah War of the Worlds is as good as Terminator 2".
No because Terminator 2 actually has a great script underneath it. So yes, your script matters a lot even in "blockbuster filmmaking".
No because Terminator 2 actually has a great script underneath it. So yes, your script matters a lot even in "blockbuster filmmaking".
I saw it, the action is good, if you want to say grear fine, but certainly not a level that hasn't been surpassed since.
Dude you're the one who just came off saying that QT writing generational level dialogue doesn't even mean much.
Like you're so desperate here that you put down one of the best screenwriters in film history's main skill as not meaning much
No one has even said he's a crap writer lol
You're tilting at windmills
I didn't say that. I said that you don't have to write one specific way to be a good writer or filmmaker.
If writing like Tarantino or Woody Allen is the only way to be a good screenwriter, storyteller, then I guess Alfred Hitchcock is mediocre/average too because his film's were never focused especially on that.
You can be a great screenwriter and storyteller while having strengths or emphasis in other areas, just in the same way Larry Bird is a great basketball player even though he plays nothing like Shaquille O' Neal. One doesn't make the other irrelevant or lesser.
Once again, just because I say he’s an ok/good writer doesn’t mean I said he’s bad. Those scripts aren’t bad, but they are nothing special on their own. Cameron’s strength is not in his writing. I don’t think anyone is gonna say he’s a better writer than he is a director. He knows how to make his characters and plots serve the spectacular action and fantastic worlds he builds.
It's clear you feel a need for everyone here to declare Cameron a great great writer for some reason.
Yeah, Cameron knows how to write what works in his wheelhouse. He has solid scripts that tell the story well, but arent going to be winning any oscars for the writing, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Having said that, I do think his writing isnt as strong as it used to be, while his directing and technical prowess continues to grow.
I would disagree heavily ... none of his films work without a very good (great even) script underneath. And none of his films minus Avatar are really all that concerned with "world building" or lean on that as any kind of crutch.
If anything most of his work is heavily relationship driven, Terminator tells a larger story through the romantic relationship between Reese and Sarah Connor. Aliens puts "bad ass" Ripley into the role of a mother to Newt and even the Android character as kind of a bizarro family triad which is a very human thing.
True Lies is a movie about marriage and secrets, Titanic, well obviously, Terminator 2 revisits the "dysfunctional family" trope again by framing a killing machine as a father figure to John Connor and Sarah Connor as the psychotic mother.
This is more than just "well it's action scenes going boom boom". Anyone can do that, clearly all the stuff I listed above is intentionally set up by Cameron and that is GOOD WRITING. Just like with great video games, good level design is kind of a big deal and not everyone (or even most) game makers can really accomplish that.
People don't understand that things like pacing, building tension, building emotion, strong setups and pay offs are an actual talent, because most scripts don't even have a fucking clue about half of these things.
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you’ve made double the amount of posts as anyone else in this thread. You’re only talking about yourself.
Because maybe he is?
Movies don't work randomly without a great script, people have this idea that popular movies actually don't have great scripts, most of the time actually they fucking do.
E.T., Titanic, Terminator 2, Rocky, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Aliens, are not popular by accident or because of spectacle effects even. The scripts are just fucking good.
There is no genre of filmmaking where you can just coast on special effects and be considered great. You can maybe get by on effects but no one is going to cite Transformers as being great 15 years from now. And there's a reason for that.
I feel like he tried to do too much with Avatar in a single movie.
I kinda feel the opposite, I think he explored that territory fairly throughly in that film, so I'm not really sure why he's doing Avatar 2/3/4 whatever. I'm not sure how much story juice there really is left there, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt because he's earned that.
Eh. I think Avatar was very smart and efficient in getting you the information you needed.
One thing in the direction of it though that I really liked was at the beginning with Jake waking up and it felt like a sequence designed to get you used to 3D. Having the water droplet float in front of you, change focus, then back. Then next shot is all the pods opening up and going into the distance. Kinda eased you into getting used to the visual of 3D.
Almost like he knew exactly what he was doing.
Titanic is 100% memorable because Cameron is a crazy man who built a Titanic to sink for ultimate realism, among other technical marvels
Take the whole story off the Titanic and no one gives a fuck about Jack and Rose.
The Titanic is the star. It's one of the most incredibly designed films of all time. In fact I think one of the biggest mistakes about Titanic is how small the story is in terms of who we follow and what not.
No I meant writing wise.
He tried to build a well crafted universe, and tell a good story while also getting compelling characters whilst also building lore and they all kinda fall flat because of it.
Oh I know you meant writing. I just brought up the directing thing because it popped into my head.
Fair enough.
The only other rough thing about Avatar besides the writing is the acting from some of the leads. Worthington aside Weaver really kinda gave a half assed performance? At times she seemed to be into it and other times she sounds bored.
Villain was perfect.(and stole the show for me)
Actually I think if they did things the way you wanted (making the story "bigger" by focusing on more characters) it would weaken the narrative. That structure he chose is very purposeful and it works and very powerfully creates a strong focus for the film.
All of Cameron's films are rooted in very human relationships. Yeah no one gives a fuck about John Connor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Linda Hamilton as a dysfunctional family trope without the trappings of the Terminator genre type put over it either. That's not the point.
That stuff is not accidental, it's very much deliberate on Cameron because he understands you need to root big stories into human emotion, and human emotion generally derives from our relationships (family, romantic, etc.). It's actually fairly genius what he does, other storytellers give minimal thought to that stuff.
No teenager circa 1996 gave two shits about the Titanic, it was some disaster thing that happened "forever ago, who cares". Cameron made them care about it though and that is the sign of a brilliant story teller.
This stuff is all good story telling, or maybe on this forum it would be better to say "story design". Just like there is great game design (like EAD/EPD), Cameron creates very, very strong story design. And that is an exceptionally rare talent, not very many people can do that, just like with video games you can have great graphics and music but it becomes fairly evident quite quickly which dev teams actually understand game design and those that don't.
Ok let's put it like this
A broader Titanic movie with the same level of detail makes more money than Jack and Rose on land somewhere
But sure maybe both together makes more than either apart.
Who knows.
But I can definitely tell you the technical marvel is why Titanic is the iconic film it is.
Using the Academy Awards as the ultimate metric of quality is ehhhhhhh.
Really, Taika's writing peaked in the first half of 2010s with Boy and What We Do in the Shadows, and the latter is a collaboration. Jo Jo Rabbit winning is the Academy feeling good about the industry standing up to Trumpism/Nazism (but not really)—the redemption arc of racists certainly appealed to the voters who voted for Green Book and other bullshit in the previous years.
I agree, Avatar’s story wasn’t really that memorable to me. I know that’s the meme thing to say but it’s honestly how I feel about the script.
I don’t know how many times I can say he’s not a bad writer and his scripts are ok to good. Combine that with his excellent eye for directing and creating worlds and there you go. Yes, he can set up a scene to make the action have context and consequence. But a lot of writers in Hollywood can do that. You say most scripts don’t have a fucking clue about half of those things and I just don’t agree. Cameron isn’t the only person in Hollywood to understand that.
At this point it just feels like you want everyone to agree that Cameron is as good as a writer as he is a director. I don’t believe that. He’s ok to good
I mean the other argument being put forward here is box office gross so
Eh? lol I'm having trouble even following what you're saying here, a Titanic with Jack and Rose apart? Like I don't think you understand how screenwriters write anything.
All this is also very fucking easy and convenient to say after the fact. Titanic making even $150 million dollars was a miracle, because that film was supposed to flop. It wasn't heavily commercial or any where near what was popular at the time and miles removed from Terminator or Aliens.
The only reason Cameron got to make that movie is because he had earned the right to do a passion project and studios wanted to keep him in their good graces for his next sci-fi movie. Not because anyone actually thought this was going to be a big money maker.
War of the Worlds is a technical marvel. For that record so is Jupiter Ascending (crap movie though). So are Bay's Transformers movies. There's a lot more going on for Titanic than just dated 1997 level CGI.
Yes, hate to break it to you, but there's a good script there. If there isn't none of that other shit matters. War of the Worlds which has been brought up in this thread is actually a great example of this ... there are some absolutely thrilling sequences in that film, but the overall script is not great and doesn't have much to say about anything so it's not remembered all that much at all.
Your trolling game is on a level I didn’t appreciate before. Fucking Jojo Rabbit! My sides!
As a fan of Taika, Jojo Rabbit is toothless, embarrassing shit.
Using Jojo Rabbit as your example of better screenwriting than either The Terminator or Aliens is goddamn hilarious.
Both The Terminator and Aliens are masterclasses in screenwriting. From a pacing, character development, structure point of view, let alone world construction or how to demonstrate the pinnacle of how one weaves set-ups and pay-offs into a story. That they’re genre work doesn’t undo the quality of the writing on display.
Your argument for Taika hinges on the Academy’s long-standing aversion to awarding genre work in prestige categories like writing and instead pandering to mawkish drama shit like Jojo Rabbit.
Fucking Jojo Rabbit! It makes The Book Thief look daring.
I'm saying Titanic's technical marvels and historical setting is what allowed its solid but hardly groundbreaking romantic script to be elevated to being part of one of the most successful movies of all time.
Avatar is underrated as hell in general, but particularly from a writing perspective. Once you scrape away all the low effort "its Ferngully lulz" / "its Dance with Wolves in space lulz" superficial empty internet criticism, its an incredible well structured movie. The spectacle doesn't work if the (exo) skeleton under it doesn't provide a solid foundation.
LOL What?
Women carried this movie's ticket sales exactly for the romantic story (and DiCaprio).
It was crazy how much women rewatched this movie multiple times back then. That shit was totally their jam.
I found Avatar terribly boring in terms of story and characters. Cameron’s the only one who could make that much money with that very average script
And if it wasn't on the Titanic or the Titanic was shot like your average romance movie it's a middle of the road romance film.
But yes the casting and acting also were top of the line
Reasons for Titanic's success
1. It's a technical and filmmaking masterpiece
2. Leo+Kate
3. The screenplay is good
The historical setting was a challenge to the film, not really an asset. No one was going "you know what I want to see? A fucking 3 hour romantic drama set in 1912 starring the skinny kid from Growing Pains". Like hate to break it to you, that wasn't some slam dunk proposition in a world where Independence Day was the defacto hit. No one in the film was anywhere near an A-list star at the time of release either.
Everyone thought Titanic was going to flop and flop badly, this narrative now that it was some much hyped film that got by on big effects is just wrong.
The *only* reason that film started to make money too was because of audience word of mouth was through the roof. Everyone was recommending the film to friends and eventually you would have full groups of entire families (grandparents and all) coming into theaters to watch the movie over and over again.
If you could replicate this formula with just spectacle and a "OK script" you are being massively naive in thinking Hollywood wouldn't do that all the time.
And when people say "well using box office as a indicator of quality doesn't work" I would say in Titanic's case it is very relevant, because that film didn't have a big marketing campaign at all. Paramount/Fox were just hoping to maybe recoup like half the budget and let the movie die. They were happy that it was finished so they could release it and get the whole ordeal over with. It was supposed to surpass Waterworld as the biggest Hollywood flop. it only took off because people responded massively to it and word of mouth spread like wild fire.
Ugh, don’t remind me. Only Michael Bay movie I can watch is Bad Boys
This is playing into why Cameron is a genius though. Avatar was titled Project 880 for a while, as in ages 8 to 80 - Cameron is the master of 4 quadrant filmmaking. No one else has figured it out like he has. Male, female, young, old, his movies appeal to all. Like, it's not some happy accident that it's set on the Titanic, or that he shot the hell out of it. Every choice he makes is calculated and intentional. Which is why he is a great writer.
I'll give you that James Cameron hasn't written a great script since 1986.
Sorry 1991. I keep forgetting T2 because I just am that weird one that thinks T1 is by far superior
Obviously James Cameron is a genius
I've literally called him a generational filmmaker lol
The Rock is good too. I just really like the chemistry between Will and Martin in Bad Boys. It’s an easy rewatch