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by **Elliotanimated** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 3:16 am

Moonman wrote: Are people here dismissing Jame's Cameron?

I'm very prepared to dismiss James Cameron.
Or at least I'm very prepared to dismiss any James Cameron film that he's written himself.

by **AgentHelix** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 3:58 am

I'm not really a big James Cameron fan, no. I only really like the first Terminator and The Abyss.

by **Elliotanimated** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 4:06 am

I used to LOVE the Abyss.
I caught it for the first time in years just the other day and thought what a good film it would be were it not for almost every single line of awful dialogue.
James Cameron writes like a 14 year old boy.

My favorite bit of Cameron dialogue of all time is from Terminator 2.
EF - "You can't go around killing people!"
T - "Why not?"
EF - "You just can't".

Brilliant.

by **Cagliostro** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 6:08 am

EddieH, you say I'm living in the past, what does that even mean in the context of film? Since great films have been made in the past how can saying such a thing even be bad. I said I like Cameron, and I do to a certain extent, he's great at relentless, mechanical film making but when it comes to the complexity and subtlety of character story telling expect schlock. Most people can view 10 seconds of a trailer and get the essence of that clip, I can tell from the Avatar trailer that the emotional relationships between the avatars is going to be Titanic-esque, I'm not into that no matter how it's presented. I will bet my cat that the bits in the trailer which look like the avatars acting out a Mills & Boon style romance, will actually end up being exactly that. It's new tech pasted on to old story telling, so it appears to me that James Cameron is also living in the past in a way.

by **AgentHelix** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 7:38 am

Elliotanimated wrote:I used to LOVE the Abyss.

I still think it's pretty good.

Can't really watch T2 or True Lies anymore, though. I need to revisit the theatrical cut of Aliens to see how I like it now, because all I've seen since has been the abysmal Director's Cut with a million hours of added unnecessary footage of numbers counting down.

by **Elliotanimated** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 7:52 am

Oddly enough, I've seen T2, Abyss and Aliens all within the last 2 weeks (they've happened to be on when I turned the TV on).
Abyss I still like despite the awful dialogue.
T2 is a relic, I think.
I have a soft spot for Aliens but it still has all the same awful dialogue as the rest of his films, and I agree entirely about the extended edition.
I find that scene with the automated guns hilarious.
It adds a good five minutes to the film and literally all you see is guns and smoke and nothing else.
I saw True Lies once many years ago and it struck me as being incredibly misogynistic so I've never revisted it.

by **AgentHelix** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 7:55 am

I do think Terminator is actually a very well paced, well made action/sci-fi/thriller.

Cameron's skills are definitely in staging action, and I can't deny that he can put together some visual feasts. I just have very little interest in him as a storyteller, so it's hard for me to get excited about something like Avatar, which looks more like a big fat tech demo than a movie. I'm sure it'll look amazing and make some tech geeks cream themselves, but eh.

by **Elliotanimated** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 7:56 am

Agreed.
Let's get married.

by **AgentHelix** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 7:58 am

Why did it have to be THIS movie that brought us together, Elliott? It all seems so anticlimactic.

by **Elliotanimated** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 8:05 am

It's best not to question the love, mate.

by **AgentHelix** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 8:13 am

Well okay, but I want a Satanic wedding.

by **HellboyOne** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 10:19 am

Elliotanimated wrote:James Cameron writes like a 14 year old boy.

My favorite bit of Cameron dialogue of all time is from Terminator 2.
EF - "You can't go around killing people!"
T - "Why not?"
EF - "You just can't".

Brilliant.

Well, I believe that was a 14 year old boy explaining that so...

I'm getting the impression that you really don't like anything, Elliot. Which is fine.

by **Elliotanimated** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 10:27 am

No, no - not at all, mate.
There are plenty of things I love, I promise.
Recently, I can't help but watch all of Step Brothers from wherever it happens to be when I'm channel surfing.

There's also a lot I would LIKE to enjoy, or think favorably of before I see it

by **EddieH** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 8:42 am

Some Hi-res promotional pics can be seen here.

http://spoilertv-movies.blogspot.com/2009/10/avatar-new-uhq-promotional-pics.html

by **Cagliostro** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 5:03 am

It just looks like a videogame, the Playstation 4 or XBox 900 will have games which look just like this, and I imagine the cut scenes for those games will be at the same standard as the narrative in Avatar. Totally bored even by the screenshots. I can understand why technicians would get enthused about this movie but what exactly are people who like the narrative and story telling of cinema meant to get excited about?

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