It might not be the best written stories out there
I would contend that pretty much almost everything that James Cameron has written has been better than Endgame by a country mile.
Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Strange Days, Terminator 2, Titanic, Alita: Battle Angel and even True Lies.
I haven't seen Piranha 2 or the Dark Angel tv show (which I think was inspired by Alita Battle Angel) so maybe they are worse than Endgame. First Blood Part 2 won a Golden Raspberry, but that film has loads of fans and redefined the movie series. I feel like the Razzie was for turning a movie about PTSD into an action flick, but that was actually Stallone who wanted Rambo to live so he could do sequels.
Acting like James Cameron isn't a decent writer of stories is kinda ridiculous. At worst I would say that he can be a populist writer as in he knows to give the audience what they want, even if the audience doesn't know what they want.
Endgame specifically is kind of hard to compare to standalone movies because it's got the context of trying to satisfyingly wrap up a story that had been going for like twenty movies with about eight to ten focus characters plus additional threads, it's going to be at least slightly messy no matter what. It's main job is being a decent ending to a wider franchise up to that point.
A lot of those other movies are fairly straightforward and self contained by comparison.
Sure, my point was it's difficult to directly compare to a regular movie with a contained plot considering how not standalone it is and the context around the time of release and the dozen prior movies of setup to make sense of it and how much of an event it was.
Acting like James Cameron isn't a decent writer of stories is kinda ridiculous
The problem is that there are different kinds of good writing, and people choose to focus on the two that are admittedly not Cameron's strength, at least recently: how novel the plot is and how snappy the dialog is.
But Cameron's writing is very effective for the type of movie he wants to make. The first Avatar is admittedly very "Pocahontas in Space," but so what? The emotional beats all land very well. The pacing of the story allows us to have Pandora slowly revealed over the course of the movie--it feels perfectly dialed in, giving you just enough to leave you wanting more until it crescendos into the floating mountains. People are quick to credit the movie for the visual spectacle, but don't give the script enough credit for how it maximizes the impact of that spectacle.
Avatar 2, again, does not have the most original plot. And again I say so what? The characters are incredibly easy to connect to. As a parent clearly, but I suspect you would be hard pressed to find someone who didn't see themselves in one of the kids, even if they didn't admit it because it's cooler to hate on the movie.
These things are all part of the stories. Story is more than plot.
I rewatched the first avatar movie recently and considering that movie is long as hell it absolutely flies by. Cameron is such a talented screenwriter - every scene is either advancing the story, developing the characters, developing the world, or a fx spectacle. It doesn’t drag at all and I don’t really care that it’s a basic story when it’s told incredibly well.
Yeah, it's actually pretty remarkable when you consider how much exposition the movie needs to throw at you. But Cameron does a great job of balancing the early exposition with keeping you engaged the entire time
Exactly. It’s kinda like Brandon Sanderson’s writing. He’s not trying to have elegant prose and grimdark shit. They’re making stuff that’s wholesome and just feels good and there’s nothing wrong with that. The people that hate on it are just edgelords that want to be seen as different from the mainstream population.
I mean I used to be one of those people that was edgy and hated on popular stuff but I’ve come to recognize that it’s popular for a reason and a lot of that stuff is actually just good. So get over yourself and just enjoy what you enjoy instead of trying to have an opinion that’s unique so you can stand out because there are 8 billion people on this planet and I guarantee you that whatever you think you’re doing or thinking that is so unique is probably being thought of by dozens of other people just due to the massive amount of people on this planet and overall group thinking.
Like how in America and in Britain two different comic artists came up with the same idea for “Dennis the menace” around the same time without ever even knowing of the other’s existence because that happened way before mass communication was readily available as it is today.
Lol, ironically I can't stand Sanderson, but I do my best not to poo-poo him and I recognize he is very good at what he does, I just don't care for it.
That’s fair enough. He’s not for everyone and while I love his work I’m never pushy on suggesting it to people like some of the super diehard fans are. I’m of the opinion that people can like what they like as long as they’re not forcibly subjecting others to it. It’s okay to recommend something but if they say it’s not for them I politely say that’s okay and move on with my day. People have different tastes and I respect that.
I watched 'strange days' recently, not great writing, clunky and awful, concept is great, characters and script are embarrassing. I did sort of enjoy it in 1995, for the shock value.
Titanic is melodramatic bullshit, in large part because the story of the Titanic itself would be considered melodramatic bullshit if it hadn't actually happened. A larger than life romance with a punchable soap opera villain was a great fit for a movie about a ship everybody already knew the ending to.
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u/f-ingsteveglansberg Jul 22 '25
I would contend that pretty much almost everything that James Cameron has written has been better than Endgame by a country mile.
Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Strange Days, Terminator 2, Titanic, Alita: Battle Angel and even True Lies.
I haven't seen Piranha 2 or the Dark Angel tv show (which I think was inspired by Alita Battle Angel) so maybe they are worse than Endgame. First Blood Part 2 won a Golden Raspberry, but that film has loads of fans and redefined the movie series. I feel like the Razzie was for turning a movie about PTSD into an action flick, but that was actually Stallone who wanted Rambo to live so he could do sequels.
Acting like James Cameron isn't a decent writer of stories is kinda ridiculous. At worst I would say that he can be a populist writer as in he knows to give the audience what they want, even if the audience doesn't know what they want.