James Cameron on creating the world of "Avatar"

Brut America

James Cameron talked to Brut about the creating the world of "Avatar" and what the latest movie is really about …

Transcript

00:00I read that your first idea for Avatar came to you in a dream, when you were 19.

00:08Can you tell us about this dream?

00:10Well, it was really just an image or a series of images with a bioluminescent forest with

00:15purple moss underfoot.

00:17When you stepped on it, it lit up and, you know, a glowing river filled with bioluminescent

00:21animals and, you know, even down to the little flying lizards that spin around.

00:27It was kind of all there, but it was just an image.

00:29It wasn't a story.

00:30There was no story yet, you know, so I painted that and I kept it in the back of my mind

00:34and then years later, in 1995, when I sat down to write what I thought I was, you know,

00:39a planet story, something that took place in another world, those images came back and

00:44I incorporated them into the story that became Avatar.

00:47The first Avatar was released 13 years ago.

00:50Did you change the script of this new movie throughout the years in the wake of the climate

00:55crisis?

00:57Not really.

00:58The script, the new story for The Way of Water and then, you know, movie three, movie four,

01:04and movie five, this story evolved in 2013, 2014 with the writers, okay?

01:10So I put together a room of writers and we worked with whiteboards and we worked out

01:14the whole story from end to end, all five, you know, all four sequels.

01:20And it really hasn't changed since then.

01:22It was refined over the next two years.

01:24We began shooting in 2017.

01:27I don't think I really thought about how the world will have changed by the time the

01:33movie actually landed, you know, but of course it has.

01:36We look at climate change differently.

01:38It's not over the horizon.

01:39It's here now, you know.

01:41There's a lot more angst and anxiety about it.

01:44People are better informed.

01:45Of course, the good news is that The Way of Water is not really about climate change.

01:50It's about the ocean, you know.

01:52So the emphasis changed from the rainforest, which was about, you know, rainforest, indigenous

01:58culture, biodiversity loss, all the things that are happening in, let's say, Brazil or

02:03Central Africa, that sort of thing, around the world.

02:06The focus now is on the ocean.

02:08So the ocean is worldwide.

02:09That's a global problem, a global issue.

02:13But I would say the movie is not—it's not kind of thumping the Bible about, you know,

02:19about environmental issues.

02:21It's just there.

02:22It's just challenging the viewer to feel something for a pristine, beautiful world

02:29that's being systematically destroyed, which is really what we're doing on our own world.

02:35It's all a metaphor.

02:36Showing the ocean the way you show it, it kind of shocks the audience in comparison

02:41to how the ocean is now today.

02:43Yes.

02:44Well, there are places in the ocean even now, even after it's been degraded and so much

02:48of the fish have been taken out of the ocean by us.

02:51There are still places now that are quite beautiful and have quite profuse biomass and

02:57high diversity.

02:58Some of the reefs in the Western Pacific are still great.

03:01But our coral reefs, if we keep going the way we are going, within the next 50 years

03:06we won't have coral reefs.

03:07They just won't exist anymore, at least alive.

03:10There will be dead coral reefs.

03:12And so this is something that's worth fighting for.

03:14So what we show is that beauty that we still have here in places, that we used to have

03:20everywhere, but that we still have enough that we can preserve it if we accept that

03:25challenge.

03:26Do you think that it is part of your job as an artist to speak up about social and environmental

03:33issues and to try to raise awareness with your audience?

03:36I think different artists define their roles differently.

03:39Some artists are not concerned at all with social or immediate issues in the world.

03:45Others are concerned, such as myself, but they do it through the lens of entertainment

03:51and fantasy, science fiction.

03:54We step outside ourselves, we go to another world so that we can look back at our values

03:59and the things that are important to us.

04:01That's what I would like to do.

04:02And then other filmmakers just go straight at the problem and they make a movie about

04:06that problem, whether it's racism or gender bias or whatever it is.

04:12Do you hope that you might influence your audience's action with your movies?

04:16And do you think that movies can change the world?

04:19I think cinema changes the world every day.

04:21I think it's always changed the world, you know, television, cinema, whenever we come

04:27together to share ideas as an artist and an audience of that artist, we're in a dialogue,

04:34we're talking about things, we're working our stuff out, you know, it's therapeutic.

04:40I think it's also important for any filmmaker to understand the limitations of what a film

04:44can do.

04:45The first thing, the first and highest priority is get the audience to care about your characters

04:51and their problems.

04:52You know, so this movie isn't really about climate change.

04:56It's not even mentioned.

04:57It's about the oceans, but it's primarily about family and the dysfunction of family,

05:03the conflict in family, how family is a strength, you know, so I wanted to make it something

05:08that was universal, that anybody anywhere on the planet could relate to.

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