Wednesday, January 12, 2011

More Unintended Consequences

James Cameron is at it again....And he's really hacked me off...

Last August he attacked Piranha 3-D in Vanity Fair as an example of "what we should not be doing in 3-D. Because it just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3-D horror films from the 70s and 80s"

I made the point that it was thanks to him and his film Avatar that the studios now feel the pressure to make more films in 3-D

And speaking with the German website Spiegel Online Cameron attacked Peter Berg's  forthcoming Battleship film, ex halting from on high that the game inspired pic is an example of the lack of originality in Hollywood and the industry's tendency to play it safe by green lighting films that are already established franchises.

Here's what Cameron said:

"We have a story crisis ... Now they want to make the Battleship game into a film. This is pure desperation. Everyone in Hollywood knows how important it is that a film is a brand before it hit theaters. If a brand has been around, Harry Potter for example, or Spider-Man, you are light years ahead. And there lies the problem. Because unfortunately these franchises are becoming more ridiculous. Battleship. This degrades the cinema."

While I do agree that the industry has gone too far turning everything into a potential film franchise like Battleship and its ilk--If Cameron feels so strongly about franchises now though--why is he bothering to make Avatar 2 and Avatar 3? And just how original are those sequel's plots gonna be? How original is the plot of the first film? Sure the tech used in making the film was new but "Star Trek" in all of its forms has shared  Tar's premise: at some point That of the big bad complex forcing the inhabitants of planet x off their own world for some ill gotten gain--hello Star Trek: Insurrection

Why did you even make Aliens or Terminator 2: Judgment Day a couple of decades ago?

Cameron's concerns about industry originality--as far as I'm concerned exist in a vacuum now that the train has left the space station for 2 more visits to Pandora...

And for the record the Piranha remake is a great Throwback!

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