“I don’t know if I would want to make that film now”: The movie James Cameron wouldn’t direct again
It’s been a long time since James Cameron was even a semi-prolific filmmaker, but given the success he’s enjoyed since slowing his process down to a crawl, it can’t be said that it hasn’t worked wonders for his legacy.
Between his feature-length debut on horror sequel Piranha II: The Spawning and action-packed blockbuster True Lies, Cameron helmed six movies in 12 years. Since then, he’s only stepped behind the camera three times in the following 30, but the results can’t be argued with.
He’s responsible for three of the four highest-grossing releases in cinema history, Titanic won 11 Academy Awards and became a cultural sensation, and it remained the top-earning movie ever made for a dozen years until he dislodged it with his own sci-fi epic Avatar.
Each new Cameron production has now become an event unto itself, with the Avatar franchise pushing the limits of technology to new heights twice over, and there could be as many as five more sequels to follow. However, despite being famed for carrying himself with a confidence that he’s always been able to back up, his filmography hasn’t been without its regrets.
Between 1984 and 1994, Cameron directed The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and True Lies, four of which are heavily indebted to shootouts and gunplay. However, he won’t be pushing firearms to the forefront of his work again, nor does he remain particularly enthusiastic about them after the fact.
“I look back on some films that I’ve made, and I don’t know if I would want to make that film now,” he said to Esquire of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic introduction as the T-800. “I don’t know if I would want to fetishize the gun, like I did on a couple of Terminator movies 30-plus years ago, in our current world. What’s happening with guns in our society turns my stomach.”
Cameron even admitted that he cut a gun-heavy scene from Avatar: The Way of Water for those exact reasons, explaining that he “wanted to get rid of some of the ugliness” that comes with characters carrying – and using – guns on-screen for the sake of spectacle.
The Terminator and its sequel are among the greatest and most influential sci-fi actioners ever made, but the guy who created them doesn’t look back fondly on how guns were fetishised. Of course, it would hardly be the same if John Connor was being pelted with water balloons and dodging arrows when trying to survive long enough to become the saviour of humanity, but it’s entirely by design that Cameron has scaled back the use of firearms in his films.
Even in the Avatar flicks, it’s always the technology of the Na’vi that triumphs in the face of an overwhelming military presence.
