James Cameron Goes To War Against Dialogue Critics

Key Takeaways

• James Cameron disregards criticism on dialogue effectiveness; focuses on commercial success.
• Cameron acknowledges cringeworthy film elements but dialogue doesn’t make him cringe.
• Despite this criticism, Cameron’s movie franchises remain highest earning of all time.

When it comes to the science fiction adventure genre of movies, there are few creators that are more lauded and beloved than James Cameron. Whether telling stories about killer robots from the future or giant blue aliens fighting for their homeland, the director and producer is considered quite the visionary.

However, while audiences love the stories that James Cameron has to tell, there have been some complaints here and there. Chief among those complaints are that the dialogue in films like Terminator and Avatar are sometimes a bit choppier than someone of his reput should be pushing forward with.

James Cameron Doesn’t Care If Fans Don’t Like His Dialogue

The famed filmmaker is aware of those complaints but in a recent interview with Empire, he made it clear he’s not particularly interested in hearing them. At least he doesn’t care if those who are simply fans of his films are going to talk trash about his dialogue choices.

“You know what? Let me see your three-out-of-the-four-highest-grossing films — then we’ll talk about dialogue effectiveness.”

The comments about the dialogue came when Cameron was talking about some of the things that he has cringed about in his early filmmaking. In particular, he said that when he made the first Terminator film, he was quite young and didn’t have the most significant budget. He also knows that it wasn’t as loved when it was first released as it is now. As time as has gone on, it’s found more and more fans. It’s also spawned a franchise that James Cameron didn’t necessarily see coming with the latest installment being a Netflix original anime gathering rave reviews.

Speaking to Empire, he said that he does see things that are “cringeworthy” about the production and special effects. However, he said that he doesn’t see any of the dialogue making him cringe. He did add that he believes he probably has a lower cringe factor than some of the people going to watch his movies.

It is, of course, worth pointing out that despite some people claiming that Cameron writes some rather cringy dialogue, he’s spawned more than one movie franchise that is among the highest earning of all time.Terminator managed to do it with an actor who was almost completely unknown when Arnold Schwarzenegger first stepped into the role of the murderous robot who has since turned into the protector of all mankind in several subsequent sequels.

He’s spawned more than one movie franchise that is among the highest earning of all time.

The other massively successful series is made up of the Avatar films which will become a trilogy in the next few years. The first two entries in that storyline have arguably come under more fire for James Cameron’s dialogue choices than any of his other projects. Despite moviegoers laughing at things like those movies centering around an alien element known as unobtanium, audiences are packing the theaters whenever the installments are released and will almost certainly be laying out hundreds of millions of dollars when Avatar 3 releases. Knowing all that, it’s not exactly a surprise that the superstar filmmaker can shrug off any criticism of how his characters interact.

Source: Empire