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Say what you will about James Cameron (just don't insult 'True Lies' in my immediate vicinity), but there's no denying that the man has a deep and abiding love for spectacle. Like God playing Kid Pix, Cameron mines and furthers technology in his relentless quest to create vivid cinematic pageants on an inconceivably epic scale, and he does so with a guileless sincerity that flouts the snark of our age. Not only does he refuse to wink at the camera, he's probably inventing a camera that refuses to render winks in the first place. In other words, dude takes his popcorn flicks very seriously, and he gets a bit pissed when you don't.

With that in mind, Cameron doesn't think much of Universal's forthcoming $200 million blockbuster 'Battleship,' which isn't a remake of 'Battleship Potemkin' so much as it's a movie based on a board-game so simple that Elle Fanning could reliably defeat Mike Leigh about 50% of the time (note to Universal: I would happily pay IMAX prices to watch that match-up).

Cameron recently sat down for an interview with the German site Spiegel Online (though our report comes via Movieline), and decided that it was high time he let loose his opinion on Hasbro's ambitious adaptation. He began by pronouncing that "We have a story crisis," and then proceeded to make things a bit more personal: "They want to make the Battleship game into a film... This is pure desperation."

As Cameron's brief rant goes on, it seems that he regards 'Battleship' as a particularly sad case of marque taking precedence over merit. He expounded: "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 become more ridiculous. Battleship. This degrades the cinema."

It's worth noting (albeit unnecessary to do so) that Cameron recently released a movie called 'Avatar,' an original property which laid waste to just about every modern box office record there is. In that light, it's tempting to read Cameron's comments as an ornery manifestation of his ego, as if he's underscoring the sad depths Hollywood has to plumb for franchises when he can conjure juggernauts directly from his own imagination. On the other hand, Universal is making a movie adapted from a board-game so simple that it can be won without even knowing the back half of the alphabet. And instead of varnishing the tentpole flick with a veneer of gravitas, Universal has seen it fit to populate their cast with pop-star Rihanna and tennis enthusiast / model Brooklyn Decker. Director Peter Berg has proven himself quite capable of creating visceral popcorn experiences, but 'Battleship' is certainly targeting the precise coordinates of our collective cynicism.

As for Cameron -- who has a recent history of disparaging substandard Hollywood fare -- the man has earned the right to speak his mind. His films might be waylaid by rather facile plots, but the effort and passion with which he devotes himself to his craft is beyond reproach. That someone of his esteem is refusing to be complacent is admirable, and it's a breath of fresh air for such an icon to be so unabashedly candid. Of course, at the end of the day it's we as the audience who are collectively endowed with the most powerful voice of all: our wallets. If you don't want a 'Battleship 2: The Quickening,' don't see 'Battleship.'

What do you guys make of all this? Are you happy to hear Cameron voicing his complaints, or would you rather he keep it to himself? Are projects like 'Battleship' actively hurting film culture? Am I the only one who's going to moan about it for the next 18 months and then see it on opening night, anyway?

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-10-2011, 09:17 PM:
 
Kudos for Cameron on speaking his mind about this stuff. Although Cameron has more than enough clout that he can shoot his mouth off about almost any movie project or almost anyone in Hollywood and not pay any sort of price for it.

I'd like to see someone take this issue a step farther. Ridicule the customers crazy enough to line up for all the derivative swill vomiting out of Hollywood. They're paying for this shit and by paying they're endorsing even more of this shit to be produced.

The endless parade of re-makes, sequels, TV shows blown up to the big screen and even movies about video games and super heroes is pretty tiring. It's removed a lot of my enthusiasm about seeing new movies. Add to that how ill-behaved some customers are in movie theaters, striving to ruin the movie-going experience for dozens of other viewers nearby. I find it amazing the industry can still attract visitors to theaters in the numbers that have been attending lately.
 

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Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 01-11-2011, 05:28 PM:
 
I think people still get bored, and still love going out to the movies just to get out. The problem is that there is so much crap, they are just getting used to it, jaded even. The standards just keep falling further and further in their eyes. What I wouldn't give for another 1939.

AJG
 

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Posted by Peter Howard (Member # 3491) on 01-13-2011, 12:52 AM:
 
I'm sick of just about every US summer film being made for 15 year old boys. Unfortunately, 15 year old boys are not my primary market and it's winter in Australia, so films like 'Thor' and 'Transformers 3' will have a shelf life of about 2 weeks but i'm stuck running them for 4 or 5 weeks.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-13-2011, 01:15 AM:
 
This year's Christmas crop looked substandard to me so we (for the first time in about 8 years) did not run any movies on the break this year during Christmas. We ran Harry Potter over Thanksgiving and that was it. Over-long playtimes are the reason. They're starting to insist on 3 weeks for everything. (3 weeks for Narnia? Gimme a break.)

I'd probably play a new movie every week, and pay the 60% or so, if we could just get a one-week or two-week playtime.
 

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Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 01-17-2011, 11:20 AM:
 
And "Pirates of the Caribbean" was ridiculed for being based on a Disney ride, but it actually was a pretty good movie.

Cameron is the last person who should be complaining about derivative movies considering that the Avatar storyline was basically a combination of Dances With Wolves, The Last Samurai and Fern Gully, as has been noted so many times before.

Most movies are crap, but you know what? They always were. It's just that we tend to remember only the great ones (whether you consider "great" to mean either commercial success or artistic merit). But if you check newspapers from any era, you'll see that most films made were garbage. This is not an indictment of film. Most books published are trash as well - whenever I go to the bookstore, I really have to wonder how the decision was made to publish most books.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-17-2011, 01:51 PM:
 

quote: Martin Brooks

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"Pirates of the Caribbean" was ridiculed for being based on a Disney ride, but it actually was a pretty good movie

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quote: Mike Blakesley

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I wish just once, when they stumble upon a pretty good movie like that and it turns into a hit, they would resist the urge to flog and milk it until it's nothing but a pitiful shadow of itself.

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