That still-hilarious clip from The Simpsons was the first thing I thought of after James Cameron’s recent comments offering some back-handed praise, then outright criticism of Aquaman. Let’s keep in mind who Cameron is; he’s a damned legend behind the camera and a man who knows what it’s like to be underwater. Diving is one of his great passions. He’s made movies such as Titanic, The Abyss, and his upcoming Avatar sequels that are heavily set in the water. But for Cameron, who was speaking with EW to hype Alita: Battle Angel, he just doesn’t understand why Aquaman is so unrealistic. Oh, but he had fun with it…or so he claims…
“I think its great fun. I think its a movie I could have never made …people just kind of zoom around underwater because…they propel themselves mentally? I guess? I don’t know. But it’s cool. You buy it on its own terms. But I’ve spent thousands of hours underwater. I’m very literal about my underwater. It needs to look like it’s real. And while I can enjoy that film I don’t resonate with it because it doesn’t look real.”
That does not sound like someone who had fun at Aquaman. I imagine him whispering every five minutes, “The ocean doesn’t work that way. See, it goes like this…” and driving whoever was next to him crazy.
Cameron wasn’t done, however…
“And by the way, [‘Aquaman’] doesn’t help us with our issues of actually understanding the ocean and exploring the ocean and preserving the ocean – though they did throw in a couple things like whales and things like that to remind us we are using the ocean as a garbage dump, so I applaud the film for that. Yeah, I couldn’t have made that movie. We’re doing a lot of underwater in the Avatar sequels and it’s going to have such a different feel.”
Maybe I missed the point but I didn’t go to Aquaman so I could learn to be a conservationist. I appreciate the nods toward ocean preservation that James Wan included in the story, but it wasn’t high on my list of reasons for enjoying it. Something tells me Cameron’s Avatar sequels are going to be so damned technical it’ll be like they were made by a guy with a rod up his butt.
