James Cameron blew people’s minds in 2009 when he displayed his technical might with Avatar. There is hardly a visionary like Cameron working in the film industry, Nolan comes very close because of his use of practical effects. Cameron had made no film after Avatar took over the world and became the highest grossing film of all time beating another Cameron film – Titanic. The first Avatar packed in a lot of heart and emotion with its insane, never seen before visuals. The screenplay of the film while bloated was supremely heartfelt. The way Cameron had weaved in an extremely emotional and heartfelt story of Pandora and its people was brilliant. Also, the protagonist of a film like Avatar has a threat of becoming one dimensional or stereotypical but Cameron managed to make him unique and fresh.
Cameron has an annoying habit of reinventing cinema or creating some new technology every time he touches a camera. Avatar was not the first time Cameron did this, he had been doing this for a while with his films like Titanic, and before that with the Terminator franchise. The Terminator and Terminator: Judgement Day were some of the best movies of the 20th Century. However, after the first two movies, Cameron didn’t overlook the franchise which caused the franchise to fall in a pit of mediocrity and since then has lost of its creative voice. It is now just another franchise that no one cares about. However, James Cameron might just be able to change that perception as he might return to save his brainchild.
James Cameron To Relaunch The Terminator Franchise?
James Cameron made a recent appearance on the Smartless Podcast hosted by Will Arnett, where the filmmaker was talking about his recent film – Avatar: The Way of Water. There he talked about AI which led to a conversation of the Terminator franchise where Cameron revealed that he has an idea of what he’ll do to the Terminator franchise if he ever returns to it. He also mentioned that the terms of his return are in discussion as he plans to relaunch the Terminator franchise and pull it out of the creativity rut.
Cameron told Arnett, “Oh, absolutely, well, I’m not afraid, but I’m certainly pretty concerned about the potential for misuse of AI. I think AI can be great. I also think it could, you know, it could literally be the end of the world. I mean, you talk to all of the AI scientists, and I know a bunch of them. Every time I put my hand up at one of their seminars, they just start laughing, ‘Oh, that’s that Skynet guy, yeah, sure, we really wanna hear from you,’ right?”
Cameron further added, “And you know the point is that no technology has ever not been weaponized, and do we really wanna be fighting something smarter than us that isn’t us on our own world? I don’t think so. I mean, look, an AI could have taken over the world and already be manipulating it and we just don’t know because it would have control over all the media and everything, and what better explanation for how absurd everything is right now because nothing makes a damn bit of sense to me I don’t know about you guys.”
To conclude Cameron talked about his way of relaunching the Terminator franchise, “Well, I mean, the Avatar films are about the environment. I’m not dealing with AI, you know. If I were to do another ‘Terminator’ film and maybe try to launch that franchise again, which is in discussion, but nothing has been decided, I would make it much more about the AI side of it than kind of bad robots gone crazy.”
Avatar: The Way of Water is currently playing in theatres near you.