James Cameron: Writing sci-fi is harder than ever because our world is sci-fi now

Last Updated on August 27, 2024

James Cameron has always been on the cutting edge of technology in the film industry. His ideas, too, have proven to be gauges of just where our future was headed, especially in the realm of sci-fi with films like The Terminator. So what does it say about our society when even James Cameron struggles to find ideas?

As James Cameron put it, “We’re at a point right now where it gets harder and harder to write science fiction because we’re living in a science fiction world on a day to day basis.” He noted that he is currently trying to expand on a fan favorite universe but is hitting snags due to the current state of artificial intelligence. “I’m working through some of the themes that I want to bring into a new Terminator film or possibly even a kind of a reboot of a larger story framework and it’s difficult right now because I want to let the smoke clear on the whole thing. That’s going to be a ride that we’re going to be watching for probably the rest of human history but certainly the next few years are going to be quite telling.”

Artificial intelligence has been a hot button issue with James Cameron as of late, although not in the ways that The Terminator could have predicted. Instead, we have seen a number of his films suffer from the use – or, rather, overuse – of it when it comes to 4K. Everything from Aliens to True Lies to, yes, The Terminator, have all seen controversial “upgrades” as of late, by and large sparking disdain from fans.

James Cameron has criticized people for being overly picky about these transfers, saying they need to “move out of mom’s basement.” Instead, he is less concerned about glossing up Ripley than the widespread effects of AI on our society. Concerning the original Terminator, he thinks “qualitatively [it] is pretty obsolete, although story-wise it’s still pretty intriguing. There’s some interest around this idea that it was a bit prescient on certain things, like the emergence of AI, the potential existential threat of AI, which is transforming our world before our eyes.” What the continuing transformation will be remains to be seen, although we are getting some frightening looks to be sure.

What do you think the sci-fi genre needs to stay ahead of our society? Give us your predictions for the genre in the comments section below.