James Cameron doesn't so much make films as dramatize planetary events. From “Terminator” Titanic ($2.2 billion) “Avatar” films (currently worth more than $5 billion), the 71-year-old Canadian-born director has created fantasy worlds that bend technology, box office logic, and sometimes cinema itself.
Actor Stephen Lang, 73, has built a four-decade career playing people you underestimate at your peril, from Avatar's cold-blooded Colonel Miles Quaritch turned badass Marine to the blind recluses you shouldn't try to rob. (“Don't Breathe”). Over the course of three Avatar films, he became the franchise's implacable threat center, rising from the dead in a new blue body to continue waging a colonial war on the distant moon of Pandora.
Two silver foxes teamed up for a world promotional tour Avatar: Fire and Ash. trek that recently made its final stop in Toronto. A new film in 3D and IMAX formats, continuing the 16-year odyssey that began with Avatar in 2009 and its first sequel. “Avatar: The Way of Water” in 2022, It is the darkest and most war-scarred chapter to date, steeped in grief, scorched landscapes and cycles of retribution between indigenous clans and colonizers.
In separate interviews with Star, Cameron and Lang described “Fire and Ashes” as a symbol of optimism and hope, words that may not immediately sink into the skull while watching the ongoing chaos of this scorched earth fantasy.
The first Avatar was released early in the Obama administration as an environmentally themed sci-fi adventure, in tune with the US government's environmental agenda, which also included the recent Biden administration. The current Trump regime has rolled back many previous environmental achievements, making the ongoing Avatar saga now seem almost at odds with official American government policy. But Cameron was not afraid.
“Even now there are many, many people in the world with a clear conscience who are still trying to do the right thing,” he said.
“And I'm not going to let one boneheaded government dampen my optimism about this. I think the rest of the world will just have to move forward for the next three years without the United States… (and that includes) Canada, by the way. We're not going to be the 51st state, damn it! We'll fight to the last moose!”
Lang said he believes the main message of “Fire and Ashes” can be summed up in one word: hope.
“I really mean it,” he said. “In the face of adversity, in the face of destruction, in the face of corruption and callousness, take action, be courageous. And all of this is underpinned by a sense of hope, I think. Without hope, you will achieve nothing.”
Optimism, hope and environmentalism don't stop Cameron and Lang from embracing the show's most evil character to date, the Pandoran witch Varang (Oona Chaplin), who leads a clan of volcano survivors bent on violent chaos and retribution because they feel their deity Ava has abandoned them.
Cameron said Varang “comes from the same place the Terminator came from,” and Lang noted that she scares even big bad Miles Quaritch.
“The Terminator actually came out of a dream—I have very rich dreams,” Cameron said. “But I don't think Varang's character necessarily came from a dream. He was just figuring out, OK, what is a hostile culture? What could it be? What could turn the Na'vi culture away from Eywa, make them renegade, make them hostile?
“And then I thought, OK, a volcano erupts. Eywa can't do anything about it, so their homeland will be destroyed. OK, I need a leader, let's go female. This could be interesting. I came up with shamanic practice as understood in the indigenous world, plant medicine and all that. If someone turned it into a dark art, she would become some kind of witch or sorceress, a negative witch, although I think I only use the word “witch” one times in the film.”
Stephen Lang plays Quaritch in Avatar: Fire and Ash.
20th Century Studios via AP
Lang takes Varang more personally. His character Quaritch is both admired and fascinated by her.
“I'm afraid of her,” he said. “She's a badass. I might add that she's very formidable, powerful and seductive. And so she can really get under Quaritch's blue skin.”
Acting vs Animation
One thing that does bother Cameron is the “lack of attention” given to acting in the Avatar franchise due to the misconception that the films are created on a computer, essentially like Pixar animation.
Nothing could be further from the truth, Cameron said. Avatar features real actors and real acting.
“I love Pixar movies, don't get me wrong. But there it's just a voice part that's done in about a day, and then they take it and run with it and have a whole committee of animators create the characters. That's not how we do it at all.
“We go straight from the writing to the acting process. And I worked very closely with the actors on these two films: The Way of Water and Fire and Ashes, it was an 18-month process. To put it in perspective, it took me six months to direct Titanic, the whole movie. So we spent a lot of time and a lot of attention to the acting. And obviously we had a lot of underwater work, and the actors do all of that. If you see that character does something, it’s actually a person who does it.”
For his part, Lang has no problem with how Quaritch is perceived. He's really happy just to be here, as his character was killed off in the first Avatar only to be resurrected in a giant blue Na'vi form in the next two films, with more to come.
“I continue to be absolutely stunned, delighted and confused to remain a part of this universe,” Lang said with a wicked grin.
“I remember in 2007 we had a day off (after filming Avatar). We were in Wellington, New Zealand and had a cast party. I was having a beer with Jim Cameron and he said to me, “You know, you're coming back.” And I said: “Yes, great!” But I thought it was the beer talking. But damn, it turned out to be prophetic.”
The threat of artificial intelligence
What everyone hopes won't turn out to be a prophecy is the digital horror depicted in Cameron's 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, in which a global artificial intelligence system called Skynet becomes sentient and begins attacking people. Cameron seems genuinely concerned about where AI is headed – people often call it Skynet – but he claims he didn't have the foresight when he made the Terminator films.
“I just responded to science fiction as literature,” he said. “I talked about this for years before I made The Terminator. I think what The Terminator got right about the danger is the coupling of machine superintelligence with a weapon system. This, I think, is the danger for us in the coming years.”
But he remains fascinated by advances in film technology, 3D and other visual enhancements that have attracted audiences and given him a reputation as the savior of film and theatrical cinema in an era of the growing dominance of stay-at-home streaming.
Many studios have closed or slowed down work release of 3D films, however, Cameron continues to move forward and promises that the experience will soon become even better.
“There will be new technologies coming out in the next year or so. Very, very comfortable VR/AR/XR glasses that look as good as Dolby Vision or an IMAX theater in 3D, and they are natively stereoscopic 3D displays. So I think we'll be able to see that market really expand, and not just in movie theaters. Once you have more artists, more directors, more filmmakers using stereoscopic 3D, it will will be distributed on these (other) platforms.”
Oscar winner Cameron is arguably the most successful director of all time, having directed three of the highest-grossing films in history.
What motivates him to constantly improve his game by bringing new technologies to the silver screen? Isn't it enough to have a giant IMAX screen to enjoy movies? Why do we also need 3D?
“Count the eyes on my face,” Cameron responded, pointing to her face.
“Every creature has two eyes. There's a reason for that. It's how we perceive the world. It's our sensory interface with the world around us. And so I just think that's what our entertainment should be. You know, it should be as real as possible, an assimilation of reality. And that's what 3D does.”
“My goal has always been to make 3D as uncommentable as color. You don't comment on color (in movies) anymore, and no one should go to see a movie because it's in 3D. You should go to see a movie because it's a good movie.”
You always want it to be a good movie, and that brings us back to the hope expressed by Lang.
“That's the word on my mind right now because we need hope in the time we're living in right now, and it's a very, very dark time,” he said. “And without him we are doomed. With him we can win.”
