I AM KING OF THE WORLD! Ranking James Cameron's Films

[MarkB]

I’ve always thought an article taking a side jab at another movie, show or book, does nothing to strengthen its credibility or argument. The subject and points being made are about The Terminator - taking those potshots always risk taking me out of the writing. War Games was an excellent movie…and now I have to wonder where the writer’s head is coming from.

I think the author basically had to dismiss WarGames because its existence takes away from their central theme that Cameron was the one being all prescient about AIs bringing about the doom of mankind. To take WarGames seriously would be to undermine and maybe even invalidate the author's point, therefore it must be written off.

 

[TiQuinn]

I think the author basically had to dismiss WarGames because its existence takes away from their central theme that Cameron was the one being all prescient about AIs bringing about the doom of mankind. To take WarGames seriously would be to undermine and maybe even invalidate the author's point, therefore it must be written off.

I remember the ending of Wargames being a great tension builder as they’re trying to get this computer to understand the concept of mutually assured destruction, and thought it was a brilliant set up and conclusion.

 

[GreyLord]

Uwe Bol.

So, going back a few pages...

I'm actually a pretty big Dungeon Seige fan. It's a great series of games. Each is basically a very different game than the one that came before it.

The First one has the Best music. The music is just...well...awesome. However, I'd put it as the weakest of the bunch as far as the actual game goes.

The Second one has the best game within it. I absolutely love the gameplay. It's fabulous. Weak story to a degree, but fabulous game.

The third probably has the best writing of all of them and a more intricate control scheme for it's gaming mechanism than the first one.

All of them good.

So...how does this fit into this movie.

The Movie really has nothing to do with the games, but because it's a Dungeon Siege Tale...I love the movie. It takes some ideas from the first game and runs with them, but really is something...else.

But...I love the movie. I'm a Dungeon Siege fan...what else can I say.

 

[Mannahnin]

People who criticize unobtainium as a stupid Cameron invention are simply displaying their own ignorance.

Unobtainium - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I think most of us are aware that he didn't invent the term and it was kind of an in-joke, but it's still dumb in the film.

1. Yes, people know about unobtainium and its usage. In a past life, I may have done some work for a major DARPA contractor, so it's not like I was unaware of it. But that doesn't mean it works in a movie- it throws you out of the fiction. It would have been much better to just give it a different name. The fact that it's a punchline doesn't mean that people are stupid, it means that it was a bad choice.

Right. Lampshade, as a verb, is a form of joking. Self-mockery.

You can absolutely lampshade your McGuffin or all sorts of other things in a comedy. But Avatar isn't a comedy.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone suggest that Cameron invented the term. The derision was in part at him puncturing the credibility/verisimilitude of his own otherwise po-faced story, and in part at his apparent assumption that his audience would be ignorant of the term.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Purely based on what I enjoyed watching, I'd switch the the Abyss and Avatar's rankings. Everything else is fine.

Was going to say exactly this.

 

[Bohandas]

Avatar: The Way of Water. Quick- name three interesting things you remember about this film. Right, I know! Did you know it made over TWO BILLION DOLLARS?

I heard this, but I'm not sure I believe it. I don't know a single person who saw it or cared to see it. I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't a money laundering scheme. Or conversely maybe its record profits are due to it being one of the few films that is aboveboard. A lot of studios use creative accounting to make it look like they lost money so that they won;t have to pay their taxes; maybe with Way of Water they simply didn't lie about their earnings

 

[Bedrockgames]

I heard this, but I'm not sure I believe it. I don't know a single person who saw it or cared to see it. I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't a money laundering scheme. Or conversely maybe its record profits are due to it being one of the few films that is aboveboard. A lot of studios use creative accounting to make it look like they lost money so that they won;t have to pay their taxes; maybe with Way of Water they simply didn't lie about their earnings

I don't doubt it made this amount. I saw it. It was definitely a fun movie. But I think like the first one, it didn't leave a lasting impression impact. My sense is people do like to go see them, especially for the special effects. With the Avatar movies it isn't so much that I don't know people who have seen them, it is that they just aren't the subject of conversation six months after release the way a lot of other movies are (this is literally the only type of conversation I have about Avatar)

Something that really didn't help with impact was the movie was so long between the previous one. I could barely remember who was who, and how everything was connected. That made retaining anything even harder than with the first one

 

[Bohandas]

I don't doubt it made this amount. I saw it. It was definitely a fun movie. But I think like the first one, it didn't leave a lasting impression impact. My sense is people do like to go see them, especially for the special effects. With the Avatar movies it isn't so much that I don't know people who have seen them, it is that they just aren't the subject of conversation six months after release the way a lot of other movies are (this is literally the only type of conversation I have about Avatar)

No, I mean unlike the original part 2 wasn't the subject of conversation with anyone I knew even while it was in the theaters

 

[Clint_L]

I think the author basically had to dismiss WarGames because its existence takes away from their central theme that Cameron was the one being all prescient about AIs bringing about the doom of mankind. To take WarGames seriously would be to undermine and maybe even invalidate the author's point, therefore it must be written off.

Not to mention the previous fifty years of science fiction writing. Longer if you consider Frankenstein’s monster a sort of A.I.

I mean, Terminator is basically an updated Frankenstein with time travel.

 

[Bohandas]

Yeah, Avatar movies happen, they are huge and a big deal in that brief moment, then no one really seems to talk about them the way they keep asking about Titanic, Terminator or Aliens. My personal thoughts on them is I really enjoyed watching them when they came out, but they impacted me more like a night at the circus than at the movies (in that it was always thrilling to go to the circus

What exactly was his association with Worlds Away?