What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.

James Cameron: Director Hall of Fame **VOTE HERE** (1 Viewer)

What movie should James Cameron go into the Movie HOF with?

  • The Terminator

    Votes: 20 19.8%
  • T2: Judgment Day

    Votes: 20 19.8%
  • Titanic

    Votes: 25 24.8%
  • True Lies

    Votes: 2 2.0%
  • The Abyss

    Votes: 2 2.0%
  • Aliens

    Votes: 25 24.8%
  • Avatar

    Votes: 7 6.9%

  • Total voters
    101

Ilov80s

Footballguy
So I was thinking when athletes enter the HOF, they have to pick the team they will go in for. Randy Johnson, Mariners or Diamondbacks? Gretzky, Oilers or Kings? Deion, Falcons or Cowboys?

What if directors were entered into the Movie Hall of Fame and had to choose 1 movie to represent them. Look at it however you want: best movie, most successful movie, breakout movie that put them on the map, etc. It's however you see the director best represented.

I went old school with John Huston last time but that was really pushing it for movies people had seen. So this time I will go with a director that I am sure everyone here will be very familiar with. It doesn't get much more main stream than James Cameron. 

Rd1: Jaws for Spielberg (50%)

Rd 2: Alien for Ridley Scott (43%)

Rd 3: Psycho for Hitchcock (44%)

Rd 4: 2001: A Space Odyssey for Stanley Kubrick (31%)

Rd 5: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by John Huston(46%)

 
It’s not his best movie (it’s at the bottom of this list with Avatar) but imo Titanic is clearly what he’s know for and what he’s put an ungodly amount of effort into both during and after the movie came out.  It feels the most to me like his passion project. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I am having a real hard time deciding here. I am not a big fan of Avatar and funny enough have never seen Titanic in full. So I think I am leaning a different direction. 

 
T2 is a top 5 movie for me.

But I'm waffling - I might have to vote Titanic.

And anyway James...WHERE'S MY ABYSS IN AT LEAST HD? And while you're at it, I'd like my Aliens and Titanic 4K, pretty please.

 
if Aliens loses, i quit 

☠️
Quit now, because it's T2. 

This is almost a 180 from Huston. We're talking quality and quantity, and I've seen neither's magnum opuses at each end of the spectrum, funny enough. 

This is like the Huston vote for me. I really don't know. I don't think I've seen any that I've watched with any sort of critical eye. 

T2? Really? 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
It’s not his best movie (it’s at the bottom of this list with Avatar) but imo Titanic is clearly what he’s know for and what he’s put an ungodly amount of effort into both during and after the movie came out.  It feels the most to me like his passion project. 
Compared to Avatar, Titanic was a small indie film. Cameron has dedicated at least the last 15 years to Not only Avatar, but the sequels (2,3 and 4 I think). 

To me its a choice between the Terminator films, as interesting as all the others on the list are. Terminator rises above its cheap indie production with thrilling action and direction, but when Cameron finally had the budget, T2 is just a masterpiece of not only its genre, but any type of film. T2 for me

 
Compared to Avatar, Titanic was a small indie film. Cameron has dedicated at least the last 15 years to Not only Avatar, but the sequels (2,3 and 4 I think). 

To me its a choice between the Terminator films, as interesting as all the others on the list are. Terminator rises above its cheap indie production with thrilling action and direction, but when Cameron finally had the budget, T2 is just a masterpiece of not only its genre, but any type of film. T2 for me
While he’s certainly dedicated a bunch of time to avatar now he literally created a whole new career for himself because the titanic. Deep sea exploring. He and his team went down to the titanic countless times, and are still doing it to this day I believe. He’s also redone the film multiple times as the technology has gotten better.  That’s hardly indie film territory. 

But I do agree with you, and as I said in my first post, it’s not his best movie. T2 would very likely be my vote for that as well. For a special effects sci-fi film it’s held up incredibly well all these years later. 

 
Guy has had an amazing career, went with Terminator.

Tough choice. T2, Titanic, Avatar also good choices. Aliens is great but there's a ton of them and he just added to it where he is the drive behind the others.

 
Honestly I’m not sure he gets in.  But if he does it’s Aliens.  
Not sure he gets in-  I’m surprised by that. He certainly not my favorite but his movies are incredible technical accomplishments. His success rate is through the roof despite major levels of difficulty. Also he’s responsible for some of the biggest commercial hits of all time. 

 
Went with Terminator.  Although, I see what you are trying to do with the single movie thing, I am not sure that a series should be broken up.  Perhaps if you have a "franchise" it should be considered together.  The fact that a franchise exists represents some level of success on that reality alone.  How many Terminator movies were there?  5-6???  There wouldn't be that many without something working with the earlier collective works.

 
Not sure he gets in-  I’m surprised by that. He certainly not my favorite but his movies are incredible technical accomplishments. His success rate is through the roof despite major levels of difficulty. Also he’s responsible for some of the biggest commercial hits of all time. 
Aliens is a top 10 movie for me. Terminator and T2 are excellent. But his most critically acclaimed movie is frankly a bore and a bit of a mess, though technically solid. Avatar?  Come on, and he’s making how many more?  Of all the directors for your hall I think his nomination is premature. 
 

and ETA, for a director supposedly in his prime, when was his last release?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I love the abyss

But when you get some dudes head pinging off the propeller of a sinking ship while others plunge past him and after him and the frigid near frozen waters await our hero and heroine as they are dragged down by millions of pounds of steel and the lasts gasps of "help" are drowned out by silent anguish of the Mostly women and children you get an unforgettable movie experience that sticks with you, warts and all. Equal in some measure to Gone with the Wind imo.

 
I came in here expecting T2 to be in the lead, but to me it's Aliens and not very close.   

Tier 1

Aliens

T2: Judgment Day

Tier 2

Avatar

The Terminator

True Lies

The Abyss

Tier 3

Titanic

 
It’s certainly not my favorite Cameron film, but Titanic.

All I remember is that the hype for it was real.  The pressure on Cameron was enormous.  He walked the walk by actually going down to view the Titanic dozens of time I believe.

Then when the movie came out, it became a global phenomenon.  Fact is, of all his movies, really the only one that truly crossed over and appealed to women.

 
This is a little extreme :lol:

I mean it won a dozen Academy Awards, was the highest grossing movie of all-time. That’s a pretty decent resume.
Crash won best picture.  So did Driving Miss Daisy.  The academy gets it wrong fairly often.   Forest Gump made a lot of money too.  Not a good movie.

 
Crash won best picture.  So did Driving Miss Daisy.  The academy gets it wrong fairly often.   Forest Gump made a lot of money too.  Not a good movie.
I mean a lot of great movies have won Best Picture too. Titanic was at the very least impressive technically.

Despite opinions of a film, winning 11 Oscars and being the Writer, Director, Producer of the best selling movie of all-time are pretty big ticket items for the HOF resume.

Titanic (and Forest Gump) was a fantastic mainstream Hollywood movie IMO. Now we get like 20 Spiderman movies a year :lol:

 
Aliens is a top 10 movie for me. Terminator and T2 are excellent. But his most critically acclaimed movie is frankly a bore and a bit of a mess, though technically solid. Avatar?  Come on, and he’s making how many more?  Of all the directors for your hall I think his nomination is premature. 
 

and ETA, for a director supposedly in his prime, when was his last release?
Not too bad when the 2 duds on his filmography are the #1 and #3 highest grossing movies of all time and had a total of 23 Oscar nominations.

 
The spirit of the question changes the calculus.

I mean, put all Cameron movies on a table, make me pick one, and Titanic isn't the first one I choose (although I do like it and will probably watch it this weekend). 

But if you have to pick the one movie that demonstrates his style AND popularity - categories that a mythical HOF would, I think, consider - and the answer is Titanic.

 
I came in here expecting T2 to be in the lead, but to me it's Aliens and not very close.   

Tier 1

Aliens

T2: Judgment Day

Tier 2

Avatar

The Terminator

True Lies

The Abyss

Tier 3

Titanic
This.  All day.   I voted Aliens over T2.  Titanic was a drawn out mess.   The sinking ship was the best part and it felt like I had to wait 13 hours of a soap opera to see it.   

 
Interesting career. Arguably the greatest sci-fi film maker ever. Aliens, T1, T2 and Avatar are all landmark sci-fi films. One of the great action directors too: The truck chase scene in T2 and the Hive Battle in Aliens are insanely good. Then the 2 movies he makes outside of sci-fi are the decade defining romance movie of the 90s and a killer spy action comedy. 
 

He’s not very active- maybe Kubrick like in how selective he is with projects. Once he chooses a project he throws his entire self into. He reaches to the absolute limits of what movie making can be both in terms of scale and budget. That said, I wish he had done something since Avatar. Just seems like a major loss having devoted the last decade+ to trying to franchise the Avatar movie. 

 
This.  All day.   I voted Aliens over T2.  Titanic was a drawn out mess.   The sinking ship was the best part and it felt like I had to wait 13 hours of a soap opera to see it.   


spot the hell on!

Titanic was destroyed by the romance angle - and, once again, seeing LEO trying to portray a gritty street dude is the height of hilarity to me. 

there was a great movie to be made, considering Cameron's immersion (literally), but they opted for the easy money. 

you can have it. 

 
This is just my opinion, but I think Cameron uses Spielberg as a type of template for how he makes movies, but he wants to go bigger. To me, both of them have often relied on spectacle over substance in their works, so I find it interesting and I agree with Jaws being Spielberg's HoF film.  In that vein, I judge all 'special effects' as non-factors and look for the other things they do to tell their story. In Jaws, for example, the tension was created more by what we didn't see as opposed to what we did see. Cameron somewhat accomplished that in Aliens, but there was also a precedent set by the previous film. I will give him credit that military camaraderie is a strength that we also saw in Aliens and Avatar, and I don't mean to imply he's a one-trick pony. Where I do think he falls short of Spielberg, however, is where the tension comes from in his his movies. The tension between Quint and Hooper adds to the overall tension of the story and I have a hard time thinking of a comparison in Cameron's films. Not saying there aren't examples, I just can't think of any.

That said, when I think of the James Cameron films I've seen and the one that would be his signature, I would probably go with The Terminator. It's Cameron in his ascendancy and gives us a glimpse of where he was going to take us in the coming years, plus the film itself is iconic not just for its special effects but also how it played on a timeless fear--helplessness--and took us on a rare heroic female character's heroic journey (while Ellen Ripley had been established 5 years earlier, she didn't reach full-blown hero status until Aliens came out 2 years after this film). Also, even though The Terminator looks dated, I think that adds to its charm. We always see the present as timeless but this film embraced it's 80's Los Angeles context and was able to paint the future in a more unique, gritty, hostile way than the future that is typically portrayed, where everything is more advanced and shinier/better than now.

 
IMO, while Aliens is a great movie, I don't think that should be considered his master work based on the fact that he didn't launch the series and Aliens was a sequel. I would also wonder if T2 has a similar issue, as the framework and characters were developed in The Terminator.

Overall, these director HOF threads confuse me, as they poll fans and not academy directors. I thought for sure Schindler's List was going to win the Spielberg one. If we polled actual Hollywood movie directors, I would guess Titanic would walk away with a decisive victory here.

 
i've been amazed by portions of every Cameron flick, but Aliens is about the only one i've watched all the way thru without ughs. the guy cant write, make me believe that his characters are anything but appliances for what he wants to do. dont think i should vote.

 
IMO, while Aliens is a great movie, I don't think that should be considered his master work based on the fact that he didn't launch the series and Aliens was a sequel. I would also wonder if T2 has a similar issue, as the framework and characters were developed in The Terminator.

Overall, these director HOF threads confuse me, as they poll fans and not academy directors. I thought for sure Schindler's List was going to win the Spielberg one. If we polled actual Hollywood movie directors, I would guess Titanic would walk away with a decisive victory here.
We aren’t just fans, we are the gatekeepers of the director hall of fame. 

 
Hmm...I will have to say Titanic.   I mean it was a massive undertaking and grand on so many levels--from a director point of view.  

Avatar was amazing in 3d in the theatre, but I have had no desire to see it ever again since that time

Terminator was awesome.    

Personally I love True Lies....I mean it isn;t a great director movie, but the movie is fun

Big fan of the Abyss..But mostly because I read a novelization of it before I actually saw the movie, and that made the movie 100X better for me

 
That said, when I think of the James Cameron films I've seen and the one that would be his signature, I would probably go with The Terminator. It's Cameron in his ascendancy and gives us a glimpse of where he was going to take us in the coming years, plus the film itself is iconic not just for its special effects but also how it played on a timeless fear--helplessness--and took us on a rare heroic female character's heroic journey (while Ellen Ripley had been established 5 years earlier, she didn't reach full-blown hero status until Aliens came out 2 years after this film). Also, even though The Terminator looks dated, I think that adds to its charm. We always see the present as timeless but this film embraced it's 80's Los Angeles context and was able to paint the future in a more unique, gritty, hostile way than the future that is typically portrayed, where everything is more advanced and shinier/better than now.
I ended up going T2 because of it falling in the middle of his career and maybe bridging gaps of his grittier early work and more big budget heavily staged set piece later career. 

 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top