Movies: James Cameron's Current Reputation

Osprey

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Feb 18, 2005
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It infuriates me that Aliens has more of a reputation than Alien and seems to completely overshadow it. Re-hash the exact same premise and story structure, replace its grounded characters with dumb caricatures, replace its masterful suspense and tasteful execution with more-is-more action sensibilities, and shamelessly parade that little girl around to manipulate and get the audience invested in the cheapest way possible.

I love Alien, too, but it's not exactly original or complex, itself. In fact, it's a re-hash of the premise and story structure of slasher films. Roger Ebert noted the particular similarities between it and 1951's The Thing From Another World: at an isolated outpost, a crew disturbs a dormant alien, brings it inside and gets picked off one by one. The characters aren't the most fleshed out, either, as we barely learn anything about most of them before they're killed off. Like Halloween, the film is considered a masterpiece because of execution, not so much originality, character development or deepness.

Aliens is far from a "re-hash," IMO. You noted some of the differences, yourself, and that's largely why it's praised. Unlike nearly every sequel ever made, it's not even the same sub-genre as the original (being sci-fi action instead of sci-fi horror), yet still feels like a sequel and is still really effective and entertaining (just in a different way than the original). If it had been a "slasher" film like the original, then it would've been a re-hash and almost certainly not as good. I do agree about the dumb caricatures (in fact, it's one of my issues with Avatar) and the character of Newt is a bit manipulative, but it's not too hard to overlook those when you like the rest so much, just like it's easy to not nitpick Alien.

Anyways, you're welcome to your opinion and I'm not asking you to defend yourself. I'm just giving a rebuttal because I like arguing :).
 
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Osprey

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Feb 18, 2005
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Guy should make more deep sea movies.

Big portions of Avatar 2 and 3 are going to take place underwater. They're pioneering underwater motion capture, which has never been done before and was tricky to figure out. They also spent 6 months training the actors to hold their breath for minutes at a time so that they could do their scenes underwater without any supplemental air. Both are reasons why these sequels are taking so long. Cameron wants his underwater scenes to look as real as possible, not like they were filmed on a soundstage and made to look underwater in post-production (like Aquaman). I'm not too excited for the sequels, but the prospect of (once again) seeing something that I've never seen before is a bit tantalizing and could be enough to get me into the theater for the first one.

Exclusive: James Cameron Explains How He’s Shooting Underwater Mo-Cap for ‘The Avatar Sequels’
 
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Shareefruck

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Apr 2, 2005
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I love Alien, too, but it's not exactly original or complex, itself. In fact, it's a re-hash of the premise and story structure of slasher films. Roger Ebert noted the particular similarities between it and 1951's The Thing From Another World: at an isolated outpost, a crew disturbs a dormant alien, brings it inside and gets picked off one by one. The characters aren't the most fleshed out, either, as we barely learn anything about most of them before they're killed off. Like Halloween, the film is considered a masterpiece because of execution, not so much originality, character development or deepness.

Aliens is far from a "re-hash," IMO. You noted some of the differences, yourself, and that's largely why it's praised. Unlike nearly every sequel ever made, it's not even the same sub-genre as the original (being sci-fi action instead of sci-fi horror), yet still feels like a sequel and is still really effective and entertaining (just in a different way than the original). If it had been a "slasher" film like the original, then it would've been a re-hash and almost certainly not as good. I do agree about the dumb caricatures (in fact, it's one of my issues with Avatar) and the character of Newt is a bit manipulative, but it's not too hard to overlook those when you like the rest so much, just like it's easy to not nitpick Alien.

Anyways, you're welcome to your opinion and I'm not asking you to defend yourself. I'm just giving a rebuttal because I like arguing :).
I think you might have the wrong idea of what I'm saying about it.

I don't think I implied that Alien was deep or had character development, nor do I think those are necessary components to a great movie-- just that it was refreshingly grounded, organic, atmospheric, and the execution was tasteful, restrained, and thoughtful. I wasn't trying to say that Alien is completely original or that Aliens is inherently bad because it's a rehash, either (I don't think that technically matters-- although I would argue that Alien has more of an identity, feel, and personality of its own, whereas Aliens has the same sensibilities as the typical soulless crappy summer blockbusters that regularly get released-- that difference does matter to me). I'm merely saying that Aliens took the same premise and the spin that it chose to put on it was to dumb it down into some blunt and simple-minded crowd-pleasing version of it that I didn't appreciate and found ultra bland and uninteresting.

What I was trying to suggest about it using the same basic structure was more that I felt it cheapened the original and its reputation rather than that being original or deviation from expectation has some merit of its own. If it took the same basic structure and did an identical but better version of the same thing, while somehow still feeling organic, that would likely not be a point of criticism for me, or a consideration that I think matters-- in fact, I'd probably be praising it for getting the spirit of it right.

I can maybe see how someone could feel that the fact that it was able to do a 180 genre-wise and be even more successful is kind of impressive in its own way (I hear that said about it alot).... but I'm not really sold on that either. That's like being impressed that the Star Trek reboot movies were successful and enjoyed by so many people despite completely deviating from what made Star Trek good (especially considering how much harder it is to do the latter properly).
 
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sdf

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Jan 23, 2015
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Very overrated director IMO. A handful of his movies are okay (Terminator 1 & 2), but his obnoxious and excessive use of cliches, stereotypes, and cheap manipulation tactics have always rubbed me the wrong way.

It infuriates me that Aliens has more of a reputation than Alien and seems to completely overshadow it. Re-hash the exact same premise and story structure, replace its grounded characters with dumb caricatures, replace its masterful suspense and tasteful execution with more-is-more action sensibilities, and shamelessly parade that little girl around to manipulate and get the audience invested in the cheapest way possible.

Technology-wise, he's done some admirable things (I guess, not that I care too much about that aspect), but as a storyteller, it's like he's cynically determined what tricks inherently work on people at a base level and just successfully exploits the **** out of it. People rightfully criticized it in Avatar, but he's done something similar in nearly every movie he's made.
Also the action scenes sometimes is cheezy af
 

RandV

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I think you might have the wrong idea of what I'm saying about it.

I don't think I implied that Alien was deep or had character development, nor do I think those are necessary components to a great movie-- just that it was refreshingly grounded, organic, atmospheric, and the execution was tasteful, restrained, and thoughtful. I wasn't trying to say that Alien is completely original or that Aliens is inherently bad because it's a rehash, either (I don't think that technically matters-- although I would argue that Alien has more of an identity, feel, and personality of its own, whereas Aliens has the same sensibilities as the typical soulless crappy summer blockbusters that regularly get released-- that difference does matter to me). I'm merely saying that Aliens took the same premise and the spin that it chose to put on it was to dumb it down into some blunt and simple-minded crowd-pleasing version of it that I didn't appreciate and found ultra bland and uninteresting.

What I was trying to suggest about it using the same basic structure was more that I felt it cheapened the original and its reputation rather than that being original or deviation from expectation has some merit of its own. If it took the same basic structure and did an identical but better version of the same thing, while somehow still feeling organic, that would likely not be a point of criticism for me, or a consideration that I think matters-- in fact, I'd probably be praising it for getting the spirit of it right.

I can maybe see how someone could feel that the fact that it was able to do a 180 genre-wise and be even more successful is kind of impressive in its own way (I hear that said about it alot).... but I'm not really sold on that either. That's like being impressed that the Star Trek reboot movies were successful and enjoyed by so many people despite completely deviating from what made Star Trek good (especially considering how much harder it is to do the latter properly).

You are more in tune with the structural themes than I am but from a story perspective I can't really disagree with the last bit. Alien was a very tense horror movie set in space, the horror suspsense and atmosphere being the prime focus, but it left some questions - like exactly what was that thing plus what was all that weird stuff at the beginning. You say it changed genre's but while maybe they could have done some other stuff better from a story/world building perspective I'd say Aliens was a strong follow up. Expand the threat, introduce their 'natural' environment and the queen, and give the humans a military response angle appropriate to the threat level to keep the suspense.

They could have just left things ambiguous and ended with Alien, it didn't really need anymore, but if they were going to follow up I personally love what they did, Alien -> Aliens. I'd say the bigger problem is they didn't know where to go after Aliens. Again whether they needed to or not they tried but Aliens 3 reversed directions and tried to go back to the original flavour but just wasn't as good, and since then they've just never been able to get it right.
 

Shareefruck

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Apr 2, 2005
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Vancouver, BC
You are more in tune with the structural themes than I am but from a story perspective I can't really disagree with the last bit. Alien was a very tense horror movie set in space, the horror suspsense and atmosphere being the prime focus, but it left some questions - like exactly what was that thing plus what was all that weird stuff at the beginning. You say it changed genre's but while maybe they could have done some other stuff better from a story/world building perspective I'd say Aliens was a strong follow up. Expand the threat, introduce their 'natural' environment and the queen, and give the humans a military response angle appropriate to the threat level to keep the suspense.

They could have just left things ambiguous and ended with Alien, it didn't really need anymore, but if they were going to follow up I personally love what they did, Alien -> Aliens. I'd say the bigger problem is they didn't know where to go after Aliens. Again whether they needed to or not they tried but Aliens 3 reversed directions and tried to go back to the original flavour but just wasn't as good, and since then they've just never been able to get it right.
I agree that it could have been worse-- that Aliens is still somewhat fun and competently made overall, rather than the barely-even-trying awfulness of the endless parade of sequels that came afterwards. Aside from the previously mentioned sensibilities that I find to be total deal-breakers for me, I just find it completely inferior to the original in general and really bothersome that it seems to get all of the credit (a part of that problem comes from the fact that their titles are almost identical and people seem to default to the crowd-pleaser).
 
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chicagoskycam

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He was responsible for some of the greatest movies/franchises in my lifetime. I enjoyed Avatar as well. I assumed he was just semi-retired and my interests in movies have changed as I grew older. Pure action flicks are rarely my thing anymore. Terminator, Alien, Titanic all amazing!

He has contributed to some revolutionary tech in film, including underwater filming. Let's not forget his cameo in Entourage!
 

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