James Cameron has a pretty short filmography, but most of his films have made so much money that his reputation as a filmmaker and hitmaker looms larger than almost any of his contemporaries. The only reason that it's taken me this long to feature him is because he didn't make his tenth narrative film until "Avatar: Fire and Ash." I could've used some of his documentary work to fill the gap, the way I have with other directors, but here it didn't feel right. James Cameron will never be famous for being a nature documentarian. He will always be known for the gigantic blockbusters that blew everyone's minds, and raised our expectations for cinema spectacle. His influence has been unmissable in the modern film landscape, and this entry is definitely overdue.
So, let's go back to the summer of 1991 when every kid's favorite movie was the R-rated Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick with the awesome chase scenes and brain-bending CGI special effects that let the bad guy look like liquid metal. The hype was inescapable. I remember watching the edited version of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" multiple times on television, and discovering the gnarlier original years later, with all the swearing and more disturbing kills, plus a whole nuclear annihilation sequence I hadn't known about. But to be honest, the edits didn't make much of a difference to me. What caught my attention from the beginning were the effects and action sequences directly related to Robert Patrick's T-1000 Terminator character, which were so much cooler than what anybody else was doing at the time.
Cameron has always been known as a technological innovator, and has made this part of his public persona. There was an upswing in interest about the "movie magic" of special effects during this era, and Cameron's movies were often the primary examples of the use of new technologies like computer generated imagery, advanced prosthetics, and novel creature effects. "Terminator 2" was sold on the appeal of all this shiny maximalist spectacle, with a larger-than-life movie star fighting an impossible science-fiction monster that could only exist on the silver screen. However, the film was also full of old fashioned filmmaking tricks like the use of doubles, models, clever editing, and skillful stunt work. I always watched the behind-the-scenes features about the making of Cameron films whenever I could, to marvel at all the effort that went into visuals that might appear onscreen for only a few seconds.
"Terminator 2" was a hit in spite of several things working against it. It was a sequel to a horror film that was switching genres to action-adventure, in order to accommodate the rising stardom of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The marketing completely spoiled what was supposed to be the big surprise of his T-800 Terminator being the good guy in this movie, where he'd previously been the bad guy in the original. Watching the movie as a child, however, the story was easy for me to grasp. You had a good Terminator helping Edward Furlong and Linda Hamilton, and a bad Terminator who was trying to kill them. Arnold's difficulties with the English language were solved by having him speak entirely in catchphrases, which young Xennials quickly adopted into their own lexicons. I also salute the decision to let Linda Hamilton become a full-fledged badass action hero in this movie, paving the way for more female action stars in the years ahead.
It's the simple, uncomplicated nature of "Terminator 2" that still appeals to me, and why I never attempted to write this post about any of James Cameron's other films. In "Titanic" and "Avatar" you have to contend with middling melodrama and tepid romance before you get to the fun parts. "Terminator" is just one set piece after another - chase scenes, escape scenes, infiltrations, showdowns, and eruptions of beautifully orchestrated cinema carnage. Arnold Schwarzenegger was so impossibly cool onscreen, we were all on a first name basis with him after this. If you believe that blockbuster films are worthy of being treated as art, and I do, then you have to give the work of James Cameron its due. In terms of pure spectacle, I don't think any film has ever surpassed "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" for me.
And I watch a lot of movies.
What I've Seen - James Cameron
Piranha II: The Spawning (1982)
The Terminator (1984)
Aliens (1986)
The Abyss (1989)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
True Lies (1994)
Titanic (1997)
Avatar (2009)
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)
---
No comments:
Post a Comment