With upcoming sci-fi epic Avatar set to end twelve years of cinema exile for James Cameron, Trevor Hogg profiles the career of the influential Hollywood filmmaker in the third of a three part feature… read part one and two.
“I started thinking about the film in two stages,” explained James Cameron on how he approached writing, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), the sequel to his science fiction classic. “In the first stage the future sends back a mechanical guy, essentially what the Terminator became, and the good guys send back their warrior. In the end, the mechanical guy is destroyed. But up there in the future, somewhere, they say well, wait a minute, that didn’t work; what else do we have? Something they’ve created that they keep locked up, hidden away in a box, something they’re terrified to unleash because even they don’t know what the consequences will be – they being the machines, now in charge of the future.” Taking a cue from the alien water tentacle featured in The Abyss, the filmmaker devised a futuristic assassin more lethal and menacing than the original one portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, “It’s a polymorphic metal robot that is nothing more than a kind of blob. I saw it as this mercury blob that could form into anything. Its powers were almost unlimited, and even in the future, they couldn’t control it.”
With the invention of the killer T-1000, Cameron was able to avoid repeating himself. “I absolutely refused to do another film where Arnold Schwarzenegger kicks in the door and shoots everybody insight and then walks away. I thought there must be a way to deflect this image of the bad guy as hero, and use what’s great about the character. I didn’t know exactly what to do, but I thought the only way to deal with it would be to address the moral issues head-on.”
The filmmaker found the solution in the character of the adolescent (Edward Furlong) who is destined to save the human race. “The key was the kid because it’s never explained why John Connor had such a strong moral template. For me, John was pushed by the situation when he sees the Terminator almost shoot the guy in the parking lot. I think everybody invents their own moral code for themselves and it usually happens in your teens, based on what you’ve been taught, what you’ve seen in the world, what you’ve read, and your own inherent makeup.” Cameron went on to add, “John Connor intuitively knows what’s right but can’t articulate it. John says, ‘You can’t go around killing people,’ and the Terminator says, ‘Why not?’ And the kid can’t answer the question. He gets into a kind of ethical, philosophical question that can go on and on. But all he says is, ‘You just can’t.’” The seminal creation from the original movie finds itself in an extremely awkward situation. “Essentially, you’ve got a character associated with being the quintessential killing machine; that is his purpose in life. Devoid of any emotion, remorse, or human social code, he suddenly finds himself in the strangest dilemma of his career. He can’t kill anybody, and he doesn’t know why. He’s got to figure it out. He’s got to, because he’s half human. And he figures it out at the end. The Tin Man gets his heart.”
Another problem had to be addressed when Cameron was constructing the screenplay with co-writer William Wisher Jr. “The tricky part was having it all make sense to the members of the audience who didn’t remember or hadn’t seen the first Terminator. Basically, I had a character popping onto the screen in a certain way and therefore I had to create a back story for that character. I told myself to write the script just like there had never been a first film. The sequel had to be a story about someone who encountered something no one else believes, like the opening scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers [1956], where Kevin McCarthy [Death of a Salesman] swears he’s seen something shocking and nobody believes him; then he starts telling the story.” The problem was solved with the introduction of the movie’s leading lady and protective mother. “In Terminator 2, the first time we meet Sarah, she’s locked up in a mental institution, but the real question is, ‘Is she crazy? Has the past ordeal made her nuts?’ I wanted to push her character very far.”
There was something in particular Cameron and his collaborator Wisher Jr. wanted to accomplish. “We wanted the two of them [Sarah Connor and the Terminator] to change as the film went on; she becomes the Terminator while he becomes a human being. And it’s partly through the Terminator’s transformation that she understands what humanity really is.”
As for developing the new villain played by Robert Patrick (Fire in the Sky), the director stated, “The more we thought about it, the more we saw the T-1000 as an advanced prototype, an experimental Terminator that could think and have a personality that could mimic other people’s personalities, which of course, the first Terminator could not do. By shape-changing, the T-1000 could adapt itself into almost anything. And the idea of this guy, this little guy who could kick Arnold’s ass, was fun to think about. But the real horrifying part of the T-1000 was that you couldn’t kill him.” However, there had to be an element of reality. “There had to be limits about his shape-changing. Could it turn into a Coca-Cola machine? No, because it can’t change its mass. It certainly can’t change its weight; weight and mass are two physical constants.”
Needless to say the T-1000 was a fearsome fighting machine. “It can’t make itself into a gun, but it could certainly make itself into a knife. Or something flat, line linoleum. Knowing it could be a knife we needed to show that once or twice because it would look cool, and we figured we could fit that into several different situations.” Cameron wanted to maximize the dramatic effect of the hit man’s morphing capabilities. “We’d be writing a sequence like Sarah’s escape from Pescadero, in which the T-1000 steps through the bars. But if he steps through them, it would be nice to let everyone know that he’s really stepping through them; so we let the gun get caught in the bars. He has to reach down and adjust it to get it through.”
Completing the screenplay became a grueling affair for James Cameron and his creative partner William Wisher Jr.. “The last twenty-five pages of the script were written nonstop, and when I finally gave the computer the print command to spit out the entire script, the limo was waiting in the driveway to take me to the airport so we could announce the film at Cannes. We had been up for thirty-six hours straight.”
Filming and assembling the first movie with a hundred million dollar budget became a whirlwind project for the director. “We shot and edited the film in just under 13 months. It was an enormous grind. The first time I saw the film with an audience, the moment Arnold walked down the steps of the bar in his motorcycle outfit got the biggest reaction.”
Earning $519 million worldwide, Terminator 2: Judgment Day won Oscars for Best Sound, Best Make Up, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound Editing; the picture was also nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Editing. For his efforts, James Cameron was awarded with an exclusive twelve picture financing and distribution deal with 20th Century Fox worth $500 million.
“After T2, I didn’t go right into another film. We took the time to structure Lightstorm [Cameron’s production company], make foreign distribution deals, toy and ancillary rights deals. We were building a company and a digital effects studio [Digital Domain] at the same time.” During that period of time, the filmmaker was not entirely idle as a screenwriter; his third wife Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) needed help with a film she was going to direct. “I used to always dream about tidal waves. I don’t know if it’s a Jungian thing; I haven’t researched it. Waves are rather good metaphors, which is probably why I was attracted to [rewriting] Point Break [1991], even though I don’t surf.”
Negotiations were taking place for Cameron to helm a comic book adaptation of a Marvel comic book icon – Spider-man. As far back as 1989, the filmmaker had composed a screenplay and would go on to write a 45 page script-treatment. The plan fell apart when a key financial partner went bankrupt; the project was resurrected in 2002 by director Sam Raimi (A Simple Plan) and screenwriter David Koepp (Stir of Echoes).
Reuniting with Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Cameron produced an action-comedy which is a James Bond spoof with a domestic spin; True Lies (1994) has Schwarzenegger pretending to be a boring computer salesman for his family but in reality he is a super agent who embarks on dangerous missions to save the world. Complications arise when suspecting his wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) is having an extramarital affair, the covert operative inadvertently gets her involved with one of his international espionage escapades. The movie provided the filmmaker with the opportunity to visit the reclusive Stanley Kubrick. The two men spent the day in the basement of Kubrick’s English countryside house watching the picture on a flatbed editing station. Cameron explained to his idol how the effects where done for the various shots such as the scene where Schwarzenegger, while rescuing his daughter (Eliza Dushku), fires a missile with a villain attached through an office building and into a helicopter.
Criticized for being sexist in its treatment of the female characters, True Lies was not a complete misfire, as the picture grossed $378 million worldwide and Jamie Lee Curtis (Blue Steel) received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy. The possibility of a much-rumoured sequel was put on hold after the 9/11 attacks, as the director stated, “In this day and age, terrorism isn’t funny.”
A second collaboration with Kathryn Bigelow resulted when James Cameron gave her a script to read, which they would go on to develop with Jay Cocks (Gangs of New York). Strange Days (1995) was a social conscious futuristic thriller; the story mirrored the social unrest that occurred during the Rodney King race riots which torn the city of Los Angeles apart. Using the future to discuss current issues is something which Cameron believes to be a timeless tradition. “Isaac Asimov used to say, ‘Science fiction readers are people who escape from reality into worlds of pollution, nuclear war, and overpopulation.’ It’s a way of modeling the present through the future.”
Revisiting his cyborg assassin franchise in 1996, a mini-sequel was released called T2 3-D: Battle Across Time. The twelve minute short film was screened at Universal Studios in Florida, Hollywood, and Japan. Divided into two parts, the picture opens with a video demonstration for a fictional high tech company which is disrupted by the arrival of John (Edward Furlong) and Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). The two human resistance fighters are accosted by the T-1000 (Robert Patrick); John is saved by the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who transports him through a porthole which leads to a war-torn future. The New York Times reported that the resort attraction cost $60 million to produce, making T2 3-D: Battle Across Time, “the most expensive per minute movie in history.”
Replacing science fiction with historical fact, James Cameron decided to recreate the tragic sinking of the massive passenger liner, RMS Titanic. “Titanic [1997] was conceived as a love story, and if I could have done it without one visual effect I would have been more than happy.” The ambitious big picture production became a journey of epic endurance for the director and his crew. “Titanic was a situation where I felt, I think, pretty much like the officer felt on the bridge of the ship. I could see the iceberg coming far way, but as hard as I turned that wheel there was just too much mass, too much inertia and there was nothing I could do, but I still had to play it through.”
Rather than be crippled by the stress, James Cameron thrived, living on the edge. “I just like to do it full bore. For me it’s not about being comfortable. I want to be in there. I want to help the guys move the dolly. I’m at my best when I’m neck deep in water trying to work out how we’re going to, you know, keep the lights turned on when the water hits the bulbs. I mean, the more the challenge is, the more I enjoy it. And the more I can lead other people into these situations where they all think they’re going to die, the more fun I’m having.” Not everyone was enjoying the experience. At one point an unidentified culprit sprinkled the crew’s dinner with phencyclidine (PCP) sending Cameron and dozens of others to the hospital.
“I think that it was definitely a goal of Titanic to integrate a very personal, very emotional, and very intimate filmmaking style with spectacle.” Starring Kate Winslet (Sense and Sensibility) and Leonardo DiCaprio (Blood Diamond) as two social class separated lovers, Cameron viewed their onscreen chemistry as a critical element in making the movie a box office success. “I think the spectacle got people’s attention, got them to the theatres, and then the emotional cathartic experience of watching the film is what made the film work.”
The formula worked. The first movie to exceed a two hundred million dollar budget, it became the highest grossing film of all-time, earning $1.8 billion worldwide. Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times, “It is flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted, and spellbinding…Movies like this are not merely difficult to make but impossible to make well. The technical difficulties are so daunting that it’s a wonder the filmmakers are also able to bring drama and history into proportion. I found myself convinced by the story, and the sad saga.” Not all of the film critics found the picture to be praiseworthy. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote, “What really brings on the tears is Cameron’s insistence that writing this kind of movie is within his abilities. Not only is it not, it is not even close.” Responding years later to Turan’s scathing review, the director stated, “It must be a great burden to be cursed with such a clear vision when your misguided flock bray past you, like lemmings, unmindful.” The phenomenon that surrounded Titanic after its release would see the film sweep the Academy Awards winning eleven of its fourteen nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Score.
Riding the wave of popularity, James Cameron immersed himself in the creation of a television series; Dark Angel (Fox, 2000 to 2002) featured a trademark of his – a female action hero. “[It] was a story idea I had about 15 years ago about a genetically engineered kid or group of kids. I threw that out to [co-creator Charles Eglee] and he said, ‘What if it were a girl? What if she was in a kind of a near-future urban environment, kind of young, hip, tough?’” Cameron had no worries about the two-hour pilot costing $10 million, “I felt good about that. Even Terminator – which was done cheaply – still went over budget.” The director viewed the venture as a “13 hour movie” and remarked, “Television is a very Darwinian process. If people connect with [the show]…then fine. We’re in business. If they don’t, and we don’t find the audience, then we deserve to be off the air.” The science fiction-action T.V. series lasted two seasons and made its superhuman leading lady, Jessica Alba (Sin City), into a Hollywood starlet.
Following in the footsteps of his boyhood idol Jacque Cousteau, James Cameron produced a series of underwater exploration pictures. The Emmy-winning Expedition: Bismarck (2002) was a ninety-minute film produced for the Discovery Channel; it documents the seabed grave of the German battleship and digitally reconstructs the events leading up to the sinking of the infamous WWII vessel. Ghosts of the Abyss (2003) saw Disney produce its first 3-D movie which followed James Cameron and a group of scientists who travel to the wreck of the Titanic. Specially designed cameras travel inside the sunken passenger liner while computer generated images recreate for viewers what the ship looked like before sinking. Aliens of the Deep (2005) documents Cameron as he joins a team of NASA scientists and Russian marine biologists who explore the exotic life-forms that inhabit the Mid-Ocean Ridge, an aquatic chain of mountains. Leaving the sea behind, the filmmaker entered into religious territory serving as the narrator for The Exodus Decoded (2006) and producing the documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus (2007).
Public and movie industry curiosity regarding when James Cameron would return to direct his next movie spilled into the HBO television series Entourage. A major plotline involved the main character Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) trying to get the lead role in the director’s next picture called Aquaman; Cameron was in on the joke and made a cameo appearance.
Although the filmmaker stated that he had finished telling the story which launched his Hollywood career, others decided to pick up the mantel. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) directed by Jonathan Mostow (U-571) had Arnold Schwarzenegger battling against a female cyborg assassin (Kristanna Loken) to protect the college-aged John Connor (Nick Stahl); while Terminator Salvation (2009) helmed by McG (We Are Marshall) was supposed to start a new trilogy which takes place in the war-torn future, however, the ambitious project was been put on hold due to financial difficulties. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox, 2008 to 2009) bridged the gap between the second and third movies, and featured a female Terminator (Summer Glau) assigned to protect the teenaged saviour (Thomas Dekker).
Contrary to public perception, James Cameron did not abandon the idea of producing a follow-up to his massive Oscar-winning box office hit. “Battle Angel and Avatar were being developed at the same time. The thinking was that we’d be using similar technology to create either one or both of those films. It was little bit of a horse race for a while to see which one was going to be done first. The way I pitched it to Fox was, ‘We’re doing both these films.’” Eventually, the filmmaker decided to focus his attention on one of the pictures. “I began to run into a bunch of script problems with Battle Angel, because I was synthesizing down these graphic novels. There are ten of them. It was the kid in the candy store problem – too many good ideas and no story. So we went through five drafts and didn’t solve them [the problems]. I switched to Avatar [in August or September of 2005].” The story has been percolating for a long time. “I wrote an 80-page treatment eleven years ago. We were working from the treatment in designing the world and the creatures and so on. I wrote the script [during] the first four months of 2006.”
Set one hundred twenty-five years in the future, humans are mining the moon of Pandora for a precious superconductor called Unobtanium. The biggest deposit is located underneath the tribal grounds of the native Na’vi. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic ex-marine, has his consciousness projected into an “avatar” which is a genetic hybrid of human and Na’vi DNA. Instructed to infiltrate the indigenous population, Sully finds himself protecting the people he is suppose to betray.
“My inspiration is every single science fiction book I read as a kid,” revealed James Cameron. “And a few that weren’t science fiction. The Edgar Rice Burroughs books, H. Rider Haggard – the manly, jungle adventure writers. I wanted to do an old fashioned jungle adventure, just set it on another planet, and play by those rules.” The futuristic tale was not entirely derived from the literature of Cameron’s childhood. “I wanted a film that could encompass all of my interests: biology, technology, the environment – a whole host of passions. But I’ve always had a fondness for those kinds of science fiction/adventure stories, the male warrior in an exotic alien land overcoming physical challenges and confronting the fears of difference. Do we conquer? Exploit? Integrate? Avatar explores those issues.” When asked whether the story is political, the filmmaker responded, “Only in the very broadest sense of how we as a Western technological civilization deal with indigenous cultures; we basically supplant them.”
Rumoured to cost twice its two hundred thirty million dollar budget, Avatar (2009) is the first action blockbuster to be shot in 3-D, utilizing a camera system developed by James Cameron. “This film integrates my life’s achievements. It’s the most complicated stuff anyone’s ever done.” The director relishes the time he spends in production. “I get that rush much more on the set than I do when the film is done. When the film is done you’ve lived with it for so long that it’s not new anymore, and it almost seems like it’s just destiny. That’s just what it is. But there’s a time on the set when it’s new, and you can walk into it and you can see it, and it’s this physical tangible manifestation of pure imagination.”
Next on the agenda for James Cameron will be his cinematic adaptation of Battle Angel Alita (2011), a Japanese magna series created by Yukito Kishiro; the main character is a discarded female cyborg who becomes a bounty hunter. Another project currently in development will see Cameron replace the world of science fiction with his other great passion – water. The Dive is based on a Sports Illustrated article about the life of Cuban free-diver Francisco “Pipin” Ferreras, who dove a world record 531 feet (162 meters) in January of 2000.
“I’d love to do a film with a scientist as a main character and really try to communicate to people the passion of science, because our culture thinks science is kind of unhip,” confided James Cameron. “I’d love to be able to crack that nut because I don’t think Hollywood has served the science community well. They are usually stereotypes: geeks, bad guys, or distant, unemotional people.”
Summarizing his body of cinematic work, the director stated, “All of my films, at some level are about the uses and misuses of technology, how the tool can become a weapon, and the technology to build a weapon can be a tool.” As for his approach to filmmaking, Cameron declared, “I think it’s the old adage: ‘The harder I work, the luckier I get.’ I think chance is not a big factor in the long run. It can be a huge factor in the short run, being at the right place at the right time. But even with that chance, the critical factor is being able to recognize a true opportunity and seize it the moment it presents itself, and not wait and think it over, because it will pass.”
Avatar faces a monumental task if it is to surpass the box office and Oscar glory achieved by Titanic; however, if there has ever been an individual who could thrive on attempting to meet the challenge, it is James Cameron.
For more on James Cameron, visit JamesCameronOnline or James Cameron’s Movies & Creations blog. For more on Avatar, visit the official site.
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Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada.
