Hollywood Cinema master: Who is James Cameron?

In addition to being a successful filmmaker, James Cameron brought both his career and the names of the actors he included in his films to the heights in the history of cinema with his idealistic vision. In addition to the visual effects in the films he produces, we also recognize him with the messages and thoughtful details in his films. Although his latest movie, Avatar: Way of the Water (2022), is a sequel after 13 years and has almost the same theme as his first movie Avatar (2009), its success should not be a coincidence. In this article, we will talk about what is behind the success of James Cameron.

Born in Canada as the son of an engineer, Cameron had dabbled in drawing as a child and studied physics at university. Not wanting to pursue a career in physics, Cameron had already met with cinema. He was particularly impressed by the movie Star Wars (1977), which was written and directed by George Lucas, and had just been released at that time. Here, Cameron's influence from Star Wars is an important detail because the Star Wars series has been the pioneer of most science fiction, fantasy, and action movies that he has created.

As James Cameron got older, he became more and more interested in cinema and visual effects. Maintaining himself economically by working in various jobs, including a truck driver, Cameron later started working on movie sets, making his first professional experience as an art director on the set of a movie. After he started producing films, he first shined as a screenwriter and director in Piranha 2: The Spawning (1982). Later, with Terminator (1984), he started to carry his career to the top.

After the movie Jaws (1975), directed by Steven Spielberg, the science fiction master of the time, the fashion of making movies with deadly creatures called "Creature Feature" was very popular. This fashion, which did not last long, became the first step of his career for Cameron. Although it is thought to be a sequel to the movie Piranha (1978), directed by Joe Dante, because of its name, it is completely unrelated to this movie.

Piranha 2 is a horror movie about the attack of deadly dangerous piranhas on a Caribbean resort. It was shot with visual effects that can be considered bad even when we consider the possibilities of the period. But if we are going to take a look at Cameron's filmography, we should definitely talk about this movie because the director was able to make people watch this movie with the story he told and did a successful job. It is also quite significant as it was one of Cameron's first professional jobs.

Although Piranha 2: The Spawning (1982) is Cameron's first professional film, the film in which he actually revealed himself is Terminator (1984), which he wrote and directed. The film tells the story of a cyborg hitman from the future who comes to the past and tries to kill Sarah; Sarah's unborn son will save humanity in the future and destroy the system called Skynet, which is the enemy of humanity, and therefore must die.

The action it contains, and especially the visual effects used in the second movie, has been talked about and appreciated a lot. After the movie Terminator (1984), not only James Cameron but also the two leading roles in the movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton, also shined in their careers. We can say that this movie is a turning point, especially for Arnold Schwarzenegger. The actor, who accelerated his career with the movie Conan: The Barbarian (1982) before Terminator, made his name known to the masses with the movie Terminator. These two actors also appeared in James Cameron's later films.

After the Terminator movie, James Cameron, who thought that he could be successful in action and science fiction genres, continued to produce films in this style. He maintained his success with the films Aliens (1986), The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies, and Strange Days. During this period, he also wrote the script for the movie Rambo: First Blood Part 2 with Sylvester Stallone, the leading actor of the period. Although he tried to enrich the content by making comedy-action movies, he was criticized by the audience who thought that the content in his films was not satisfactory. As a result of these criticisms, Cameron took a break from the action genre and rolled up his sleeves for the most important job of his life.

Titanic (1997)

Titanic, which we can call the biggest turning point in James Cameron's career; It has become a magnificent cult with its almost perfect reflection of reality, storytelling, and visual effects used. James Cameron avoided even the smallest mistakes in the shooting of this movie and devoted almost his life to this movie. In this movie inspired by the real sinking of the Titanic Ship, James Cameron first went to see the wreck and made long-term research. For the shooting of the film, the famous director, who first thought of having a real ship built and sinking it properly, gave up on this idea due to the high cost and the risk of not being able to make a second shoot, and shot it with a model of the ship.

Before starting the shooting, Cameron examined how the ship sank on models many times and processed everything so that everything was realistic. You can watch how detailed James Cameron thought about this movie in the documentary "Titanic 20 Years Later with James Cameron". The movie Titanic is also remembered for being the most costly movie in history and the highest-grossing movie ever.

Avatar and the Present

James Cameron, who took a break from feature films after his success in the movie Titanic, made a science fiction series called Dark Angel to be broadcast on television. James Cameron, who was also involved in documentary filming during this period, achieved success in this field thanks to his idealistic approach. He managed to win an Emmy for going deep into the Atlantic ocean in the documentary Expedition: Bismarck (2002). In 2009, James Cameron returned to producing feature films with Avatar (2009).

The Avatar movie has been very successful due to its magnificent visual effects and the originality of the subject, like the Cameron movies we have mentioned so far. It surpassed the record of the movie Titanic and became the movie with the highest revenue, with a revenue of $ 2.7 billion.

When choosing the color of the Na'Vi race, James Cameron thought that no aliens were blue, and he was also inspired by the Hindu god Vishnu to have a unique blue.