James Cameron has a very specific vision when it comes to his movies, which may or may not be why they take so long to produce. But it obviously works, and even though he may say some silly things while he’s hyping up his movies, it doesn’t negate the impact that his little blue army has on society, both good and bad.
So, when making Avatar: The Way Of Water, Cameron was very aware of how violence would be portrayed in the film. “I look back on some films that I’ve made, and I don’t know if I would want to make that film now,” Cameron recently told Esquire Middle East via Variety. “I don’t know if I would want to fetishize the gun, like I did on a couple of Terminator movies 30-plus years ago, in our current world. What’s happening with guns in our society turns my stomach.”
Cameron also revealed that he cut nearly 10 minutes of the film in order to reduce the amount of gun violence on screen. Of course, the movie is already close to three-and-a-half hours long, so that was probably a good idea no matter what the content. “I actually cut about 10 minutes of the movie targeting gunplay action,” Cameron explained. “I wanted to get rid of some of the ugliness, to find a balance between light and dark.”
The director explained that the various strifes on Pandora could be handled in a different way, without excessive amounts of violence that are often shown in other action movies and, unfortunately, real life. “You have to have conflict, of course. Violence and action are the same thing, depending on how you look at it. This is the dilemma of every action filmmaker, and I’m known as an action filmmaker.” While there is little gun violence, the movie is not safe for people who are afraid of water and/or drowning, because there is water everywhere. But that’s kind of obvious at this point.
Eventually, Cameron might want to add back the deleted scenes for an extended edition, if the fans decide they need to spend 6 more hours in a movie theater. Who doesn’t?