When you think of a classic James Cameron action film, such as “Terminator,” “T2: Judgment Day,” “True Lies,” and definitely “Aliens,” you think about huge, violent action set pieces with lots and lots of guns. Today, Cameron is a different type of filmmaker, especially when it comes to gun violence, and he’s not sure if he could ever go back to the type of action he did previously.
Speaking to Esquire Middle East, James Cameron talked about how gun violence is portrayed in his films, including his most recent feature, “Avatar: The Way of Water.” The filmmaker doesn’t believe he’ll ever go back to the way he used to do action scenes that he said would “fetishize the gun.”
“I look back on some films that I’ve made, and I don’t know if I would want to make that film now,” Cameron explained. “I don’t know if I would want to fetishize the gun, like I did on a couple of ‘Terminator’ movies 30-plus years ago, in our current world. What’s happening with guns in our society turns my stomach.”
He added, “I’m happy to be living in New Zealand where they just banned all assault rifles two weeks after that horrific mosque shooting a couple of years ago.” (He’s referring to the Christchurch shootings in 2019.)
Not only does he not think he could make the same type of “Terminator” film today, Cameron went so far as to cut gun violence from the final version of “Avatar: The Way of Water.”
“I actually cut about 10 minutes of the movie targeting gunplay action,” he said. “I wanted to get rid of some of the ugliness, to find a balance between light and dark. You have to have conflict, of course. Violence and action are the same thing, depending on how you look at it. This is the dilemma of every action filmmaker, and I’m known as an action filmmaker.”
With Cameron looking to direct “Avatar” films for the foreseeable future, it’s easy for the filmmaker to likely avoid tons of realistic gun violence in his future films, considering the sci-fi nature of the series. That said, if fans are hoping he would go back to his macho, gun-heavy storytelling like “Aliens,” it appears the filmmaker is well past that part of his career.
“Avatar: The Way of Water” is in theaters now.