Cameron bashing

[SymphonicX]

I thought T2 wasn't bad. There were just a couple of things that annoyed me. Edward Furlong's constant squeak/scream thing when he tries to shout. Check it out, you cannot unsee this fact. Especially evident everytime he shouts "mom". Various inconsistencies with the movie's timeline...never quite understood how JC aged 12 years between 1984 and 1992. Robert Patrick was phenomenal though - but really this movie doesn't have half the atmosphere of the original. Notice how in T2, all the action happens from right to left - but when they are in the future, the action happens from left to right? Very clever and very subtle. To say Jim doesn't think about his films is lying. True Lies was a great comedy action, not bad at all. Very tongue in cheek and a nice nod to Goldfinger at the beginning. Wasn't remotely bad really, just not blow your socks off brilliant. Avatar wasn't bad. I enjoyed it. The story isn't winning points for originality but the 3D innovation and the world he created was spectacular. The visuals were stunning. the bad guy was SUCH a cliche though and I thought the anti-mililtary theme was perhaps a bit too obvious.....and big fighting machines with knives...stupid.

[Neil]

Off topic posts from the Titanic Anniversary thread

[Neil]

Have to say, T2 is one of the scifi greats IMHO. Basically achieving everything it sets out to perfectly. Of course there's a few flaws, but they're drowned under the tidal wave of what's f***ing awesome about this flick. Cameron's script is tight and intelligent and the resulting film is a rollercoaster of epic scenes! There's so many intelligent bits to the script, and they're all handled so beautifully it's easy to ignore/overlook them. Like the super subtle moment like the T-1000 coming through the bars in the aylum, and then... clunk the gun he's holding is at the wrong angle to fit through the bars. It's a beautiful little moment, but Cameron spotted the opportunity to show these machine could make mistakes!

[Andy]

I saw the title and thought this was a political thread, rolled up my sleeves and came in charging in..

[MinionZombie]

I'd imagine he took out those scenes because they weigh down the narrative, despite their historical Titanic buff interest. The love story might be twee and plays to the cheap seats in grand gestures, but Cameron has always had a sense of a grand, sweeping love story (take out the machines and The Terminator is a time-travelling love story, with big swelling emotions kicking right off in that motel room scene). The Abyss has a lot of that stuff in it too, but interesting the love story angle was deleted from T2 (Kyle Reese returned as a vision to Sarah Connor in a dream when she was still locked up in Pescodero). Despite the aforementioned twee-ness of the love story, it appeals to who it appeals to, and the others who aren't into it can bask in the historical accuracy and period detail, and then have a right old gawp-fest once the ice berg strikes. The sense of grandeur is why Titanic is sat on my DVD shelves (in a 4-disc deluxe edition, no less). I suppose the love story is to create a fake couple to try and create a central emotional core for the audience, two characters to follow throughout the entire movie, and exhibit the extremes of the social scale at the time ... it makes an awful lot of sense to do it, but if only it was handled a little more subtly ... but again, Cameron has always been a man for grand, sweeping gestures when it comes to the heart of his films.

[Neil]

I'd imagine he took out those scenes because they weigh down the narrative, despite their historical Titanic buff interest. The love story might be twee and plays to the cheap seats in grand gestures, but Cameron has always had a sense of a grand, sweeping love story (take out the machines and The Terminator is a time-travelling love story, with big swelling emotions kicking right off in that motel room scene). The Abyss has a lot of that stuff in it too, but interesting the love story angle was deleted from T2 (Kyle Reese returned as a vision to Sarah Connor in a dream when she was still locked up in Pescodero). Despite the aforementioned twee-ness of the love story, it appeals to who it appeals to, and the others who aren't into it can bask in the historical accuracy and period detail, and then have a right old gawp-fest once the ice berg strikes. The sense of grandeur is why Titanic is sat on my DVD shelves (in a 4-disc deluxe edition, no less). I suppose the love story is to create a fake couple to try and create a central emotional core for the audience, two characters to follow throughout the entire movie, and exhibit the extremes of the social scale at the time ... it makes an awful lot of sense to do it, but if only it was handled a little more subtly ... but again, Cameron has always been a man for grand, sweeping gestures when it comes to the heart of his films. The attention to detail is astounding - I love the way even their love scene was in a car that really is down there on in Titanic!

[Knighty]

The attention to detail is astounding - I love the way even their love scene was in a car that really is down there on in Titanic! The details are amazing but it's also some of the lack of detail that irritates damn you Cameron!

[MinionZombie]

Ah I've just gone and posted in the other thread about the film ... well, considering the forum is dragging it's arse for me (and has been for three days now ), I'll let someone else ship the comments over, but as for the film in general, let's see... First saw the movie on rental VHS in 1997/1998 (whenever it was that it hit rental shelves). Liked the grand scale, but was put off by all the 'Titanic fever' that struck in a way that smacked a bit of teenage girls in their fluffy pink bedrooms swooning over posters of Take That ... so I didn't watch it again for years after. Then I distinctly remember in one of the first seminars at uni on the Key Issues in Film Studies course in year one, the topic was moved to Titanic and the lecturer asked everyone their thoughts - and they were overwhelmingly snobbish responses (mine included). I hadn't actually seen the movie in years, and was pissing and moaning about it because of my perception of it based on one viewing years ago and then years and years of my grumbling to the response to the movie. Anyway, a couple of years ago I got it on deluxe edition DVD (4 discs, two of which are just for the film, replete with a whole host of fascinating documentaries about the film and the ill-fated ship). I've yet to re-watch the film proper (I watched it with JC's commentary, which proved fascinating, with added facts, and even a few things he wanted to do differently - e.g. apologising for any upset caused by how he staged the scene where money is put into the pocket of a crew member organising one of the boats). I do want to watch the movie again - particularly with the 100th anniversary being this year - and I'm much more forgiving in my opinions these days mostly. I will say, and just have said elsewhere, that there are problems with the film ... the central love story, while I totally understand and indeed support it's use, is handled with far too broad brush strokes. It's too on-the-nose many times, and the pantomime villain that thingymy plays starts taking the piss at times (JC wisely removed a whole chunk of the chase sequence in the waterlogged dining rooms after negative audience response to ridiculous personal revenge drama as a ruddy ship is sinking), but the sense of grandeur and historical interest - as well as, yes, spectacle (as occasionally uncomfortable a word that is to ascribe to a blockbuster version of a real tragedy) makes this a worthwhile film. Cameron has never been all that subtle when it comes to human emotion (often going for grand sweeping gestures), but he has definitely got more blunt in recent films ... well, Titanic and Avatar anyway. I see Armageddon and Pearl Harbour were mentioned above, but I'd say the key influences on those movies in general were the wave of 1990s disaster flicks during that particular revival of a sub-genre, and Saving Private Ryan respectively. Perhaps there's an element of Titanic-influence in the soppy love story parts, sure, but I think the above sentiment for the movies in general. I do enjoy Armageddon as a guilty mainstream dumb-but-fun time, but Pearl Harbour is dreck ... speaking of which, Mark Kermode went off on a pretty good rant about PH in his latest book. So yeah, my hatred of Titanic back in 2002 was much more based on perception ... my perception of the 'Titanic effect', and importantly my perception of what others would think about me if I actually defended the movie or said I liked it. At the time I couldn't have done either of the latter things (having not seen it in years), but there was still that over-riding sense of "the popular consensus is" ... you know, that "it's popular to piss on this movie, so I'll join in" ... it's not perfect by any means at all, and the whole Titanic fever that happened is a bit silly to look back on (but it's also kind of sweet in an innocent kind of way too), but there are many positives. Few movies can offer such a sense of grandeur, historical interest, and period detail, and JC's passion for the doomed ship, it's stories, and underwater exploration shine through ... not to mention his rather demanding reputation, that seems to have softened since (as addressed directly in the extra features for Avatar ... another impressively grand epic with a too-blunt love story, and some scene-chewingly-obvious lines of dialogue, which I enjoy nonetheless). Right ... I'm off to re-watch The French Connection for the first time in a decade (only seen it once). It was on Sky Movies last night and I fancied giving it another spin.

[Danny]

Ugh...one of the reasons I HATE T2. Thumbs up!!! Feck off Arnie... Loved the first one though, I dont hate it, but as ive gotten older i can see how a lot of it is just masturbatory fanservice riffing of the last one rather than being a proper sequel- and when you think about it the villain was pretty wasted. I mean a liquid metal terminator and you never have it going through pipes or through cracks in floorboards or something? hes meant to be liquid metal but in the film is used more like liquid putty. great movie monster, but wasted potential looking back.

[Knighty]

Been watching the deleted scenes on YouTube recently and funnily enough I love that deleted fight scene, would have been very odd when in place in the film but simply watching the dining room slowly fill up and the background ship noises make it a very effective scene.

[Zombo]

He's an incredibly over-rated director in my opinion. 'Titanic' bored the beejeezuz out of me.

[Philly_SWAT]

I saw the title of this thread, and immediately thought that is was a thread that was gong to complain about "Cameron" Romero and Staunton Hill

[Mike70]

um, this dude gets a pass, totally. this is the guy who made "the terminator", "aliens", and "the abyss." why in the fook are we even...nevermind; i'm simply not arguing about this. if those 3 films were all he had ever done, he'd still be one of the all-time sci-fi greats.

[Christopher Jon]

This thread was a fail from the very first post.

[Neil]

um, this dude gets a pass, totally. this is the guy who made "the terminator", "aliens", and "the abyss." why in the fook are we even...nevermind; i'm simply not arguing about this. if those 3 films were all he had ever done, he'd still be one of the all-time sci-fi greats. ^^ This! And then keep in mind he not only directed, but wrote them too!