Comparing the characters in his 'Avatar' film franchise to those in the superhero movies, the director criticizes how the characters in the MCU and DCEU don't really 'have relationships.'
- Oct 26, 2022
AceShowbiz - While he has been busy working on the "Avatar" sequels for the past few years, James Cameron apparently still has time to watch superhero movies, despite not being a fan of them. As the "Avatar: The Way of Water" press tour has kicked off, the filmmaker bashed Marvel and DC characters in an interview to promote his upcoming movie.
Joined by stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver to talk about "Avatar 2", Cameron compared the characters in his movie to those in MCU and DCEU. "Zoe and Sam now play parents, 15 years later," he told The New York Times of his protagonists Jake Sully and Neytiri. "In the first movie, Sam's character leaps off his flying creature and essentially changes the course of history as a result of this crazy, almost suicidal leap of faith. And Zoe's character leaps off a limb and assumes there's going to be some nice big leaves down there that can cushion her fall."
"But when you're a parent, you don't think that way," he elaborated on how the characters have evolved. "So for me, as a parent of five kids, I'm saying, 'What happens when those characters mature and realize that they have a responsibility outside their own survival?' "
As opposed to his characters' progress, Cameron thinks that Marvel and DC characters always act like "college" students no matter how old they are. "When I look at these big, spectacular films - I'm looking at you, Marvel and DC - it doesn't matter how old the characters are, they all act like they're in college," he said, particularly taking aim at superhero movies.
He went on arguing, "They have relationships, but they really don't. They never hang up their spurs because of their kids. The things that really ground us and give us power, love, and a purpose? Those characters don't experience it, and I think that's not the way to make movies."
As to why he shot most of the movie in large water tanks instead of taking more GCI approach as films like "Aquaman" and Disney's upcoming "The Little Mermaid (2023)", Cameron initially played it down as saying, "Oh, I don't know, maybe that it looks good?"
"Come on! You want it to look like the people are underwater, so they need to be underwater," he added in a more serious note. "It's not some gigantic leap - if you were making a western, you'd be out learning how to ride a horse. I knew Sam was a surfer, but Sigourney and Zoe and the others weren't particularly ocean-oriented folks. So I was very specific about what would be required, and we got the world's best breath-hold specialists to talk them through it."
This isn't the first time for Cameron to criticize superhero movies. Back in 2018, he said ahead of the release of "Avengers: Infinity War", "I'm hoping we'll start getting 'Avenger' fatigue here pretty soon." Noting "not that I don't love the movies," he reasoned, "It's just, come on guys, there are other stories to tell besides hyper-gonadal males without families doing death-defying things for two hours and wrecking cities in the process. It's like, oy!"
Cameron went on citing Marvel's movie "Guardians of the Galaxy", saying, "We can see the market drives us to a sort of science fiction now that's either completely escapist and doesn't require a technical consultant - an example of that would be 'Guardians of the Galaxy'. It's just fun. We don't care how those spaceships work or any of that stuff works." He added, "And then you have scientifically responsible science fiction like 'The Martian' or 'Interstellar'."