Is James Cameron the greatest filmmaker so far?

Really? The only ones i can think of where his films load or get anywhere near the top are the IMDB 250 and the Empire list. I'm usually shocked to see any of his films make an overall top 100 or whatever, a sci-fi or action list yeah, but it is rare to see a Cameron film in a best film list in my expierience. His highest film on the TSPDT 1000 is Aliens at 276. And TSPDT 1000 from the site is
"As voted by 3,873 critics, filmmakers, scholars and other likely film types.
Current Version: February 2016 (11th edition)"

http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000.htm

As Yoda noted, there's not really a "formula" that can be used to prove a filmmaker's greatness, especially if we're talking about two of those three criteria (IMDb and box office) being more likely to indicate a given film's popularity with audiences more so than its actual artistic merit (which tends to be a more reliable indicator of a film's worth). If we're going to talk about the merits of originals versus adaptations then it's worth noting that Aliens is a sequel to a hit film that Cameron did not create himself, Terminator 2 is a sequel (and he co-wrote it with William Wisher so even the "writes-his-own-films" rhetoric has a flaw in it), True Lies is itself a loose remake of a French movie, Titanic obviously involves one of the most famous disasters of all-time, and Avatar may technically be an original work but there's a reason that there were so many jokes comparing it to the likes of Dances with Wolves or Pocahontas or Ferngully. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that Nolan needs to release five more good/popular movies in order to match up to Cameron.

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Kubrick can't be the greatest because he did not write his movies alone which in my view is a major disqualification in the race to greatest filmmaker. He has credit for writing the movies he has directed but he doesn't have the sole credit (except once or twice) and all of his movies bar one are based on novels. James Cameron comes up with a spec script something Spielberg , Bay , Ridley et al can not achieve.

Avatar and Titanic are both in my Top 10 of the worst movie of all-time...

He's probably the most overhype and overrated director of all-time along with Peter Jackson.

__________________
''Haters are my favourite. I've built an empire with the bricks they've thrown at me... Keep On Hating''
- CM Punk
http://threemanbooth.files.wordpress...unkshrug02.gif

Peter Jackson knows were the moolah is. Convert a best selling book in to a screen and you are guaranteed a blockbuster.

Ugh. James Camerons screenplays are terrible. Why are they being used as a positive for him?

Did you see my last post? Cameron may write his own screenplays more often than not (and there are multiple instances where he collaborates with other writers, as is the case with both Terminator movies) but most of his films are not 100% original in their inception anyway, whether they're based off movies he didn't create (Piranha II, Aliens, True Lies) or have premises so shallow or derivative that they become laughing stocks (Titanic, Avatar). One could even make the case for him being like George Lucas in that he needs writing collaborators to reign him in from time to time and help him to produce his most focused work. Film is an inherently collaborative medium and to think that the best filmmaker must do as much of the work as possible to count as truly great is a reductive way of looking at it. Even though it may be your perception that a filmmaker needs to write their films from scratch as well as direct them, by these standards I don't think that Cameron necessarily qualifies as the greatest anyway because - as others have stated - the quality of his writing does not match up to his skill as a director.

So just to recap - most of Cameron's films aren't original or involve co-writers, being a solo writer doesn't automatically make you a great director (just ask Kevin Smith or Robert Rodriguez), and there are better writer-directors than Cameron.

The way Titanic was put together is testament that it is the work of a genius. The guy was just working on the true premise we all know that a ship sunk on its maiden voyage. The rest is his imagination. Titanic has a rating of 82% on Rotten tomatoes and Avatar 88% ,how can they be laughing stocks ? After Earth is a laughing stock or Independence Day 2 or Kick Ass 2. Also note that James created The Terminator and Gale Ann Hurd who produced the film and later became his wife and subsequently ex-wife is also credited a co-writer. Why has she not written anything else since The Terminator (1984) ? Something is fishy. James wrote Terminator 2 and the courts ruled that Bill Wisher be credited as co-writer because James had taken some of Bill's ideas and put in the film.

The only James Cameron films that are not original are Aliens (which trumped the og film in rating) and True Lies.

As noted on the first page, Rotten Tomatoes' whole fresh/rotten rating system operates on an extremely simple binary where even the slightest positive rating is on par with a perfect rating - a 3/5 is essentially a 5/5 in RT's book and anything less might as well be a 0/5. Their percentages can be useful for gauging a critical consensus at a glance but they don't necessarily hold up too well under scrutiny. Avatar may have an 83% fresh rating but the reason I called it a laughing stock is that, as time goes on, its status as a technical marvel that wowed everyone on release is gradually being overshadowed by its bland, derivative story that has allowed for many _____ in space jokes (as I mentioned earlier) that do not speak to its strength on a writing level (also, unobtainium). The same goes for Titanic, where his imagination gives us a hokey old-school melodrama about a rich girl and a poor boy that just so happens to play out aboard the Titanic. While I don't necessarily think either of these are the worst movies ever made, they still reflect Cameron's flaws as a creator at least as much as his strengths. This is the problem with arguing that Cameron is the greatest overall filmmaker on the basis of his original writing - his original writing just isn't that good in the first place.

I do consider James Cameron one of my favourite directors, in terms of the amount of films of his I love and consider favourites, but I wouldn't call him the greatest of all time. Definitely influential to cinema (we have him to thank for the current glutton of visual effects-driven blockbusters), but his films, even the ones I consider dear favourites, have their issues. So no, not the greatest.

__________________
"George, this is a little too much for me. Escaped convicts, fugitive sex... I've got a cockfight to focus on."

How does Metacritic work ? On metacritic.com Avatar has a metascore of 83/userscore of 7.5. Titanic 74/8.5. On the other hand Christopher Nolan's Inception which he co wrote with his Brother has 74/8.7 and Interstellar 74/8.4

Metacritic is more strict than RT, Aliens that has 98 on RT only manages 87 on MC.

James Cameron set the bar too high with his first films that its very difficult to match earlier exploits. This happens all the time in different fields. Michael Jackson never matched Thriller and his last album Invincible was deemed a flop though it went x10 platinum.

The Closest thing to James Cameron is Christopher Nolan. If you disagree who is better than these two ?

OK. You're either trolling or you're James Cameron's wife.

Which isn't really a good thing when you're telling everyone your film is based on a true story. His imagination was so active that he had to apologize to the family of one of the officers for immortalizing their ancestor as a murderer rather than the hero he was in reality.

He's also been accused of plagiarism a lot. I emphasize "a lot" because I realize every successful filmmaker gets accused of this sometimes, but in Cameron's case it's happened very often, from otherwise reputable people (not just random folks trying to get rich), and it's resulted in multiple lawsuits.

They can be laughing stocks as stories. I'll bet if you comb through those positive reviews you'll find plenty that have middling things to say about narrative and dialogue, but ultimately give it a positive review based on scale, spectacle, and general technical achievement.

if its not 100% obviously there are bound to be not so great reviews.

Also its important to note that though Jim has been accused of plagiarism only but one has been found to be with merit.

I'm saying a bit more than that: I'm saying I think it accounts for a sizable portion of the "good" reviews. Heck, I think Avatar is awful, and I still gave it an okay review (), simply for the technical prowess involved.

I don't think that helps much; plagiarism can be hard to prove unless the plagiarizer is horrendously careless. And the fact that one accusation was found to have merit makes me think some of the others do, too, but just weren't provable. If I see a guy with one aggravated assault charge but a dozen others that were dropped for lack of evidence, I'm not exactly confident he's only done it once, ya' know what I mean?

Anyway, I don't think trying to divvy up credit for his scripts based on the number of co-writers, or whatever, really works either for or against the argument here. My main thing is just that "positive" reviews don't tell us much, because people can think the basic blocks of the movie are crappy and still give it a positive review for technical achievement, and anecdotally, this seems like a common thing with Cameron, who has basically only ever made films that shortchange us on the former and revolve around the latter.

I can't put it much better than I did in the aforementioned, aforelinked review, so I'll just reproduce part of that:

Expert opinion aside. You give Avatar 5/10. what do other users say ?

894,250 users on imbd say - 8/10 that likes an A-.

Writing your own screenplays has nothing to do with someone's quality as a filmmaker, I recall posting something similar in a thread recently actually. Having recently watched Aliens I'd say it's weakest points might be the writing, especially some of the macho/combat dialogue, where as the parts I liked were more down to direction. In my opinion he's okay, I don't particularly dislike anything from him, although I've yet to finish Avatar (watched parts but didn't look appealing really). It's a shame that his personal touches (more evident in The Terminator) seem to be overshadowed by more clichéd Hollywood storytelling tropes, I have no interest in any of the upcoming four Avatar films, no interest at all, he/they are just not exciting to me in any way.

As a counter point to the implication that popular vote determines quality, I present the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.

Also, as I was just saying, ratings tell us nothing about the reasons behind them. How many of those ratings are just "wow, this was so pretty!"?

1. Titanic (1997)
2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
3. The Terminator (1984)
4. Aliens (1986)