When Avatar 2 finally hits cinemas (the projected release date is now 18 December 2020), it may well have a lot to answer for. Without James Cameron’s decade-long mission to bring us a follow-up as technically groundbreaking as the original 2009 film, this time without stealing the entire plot of FernGully: The Last Rainforest, it’s easy to imagine an alternative reality in which Alita: Battle Angel was hailed as the greatest manga-inspired sci-fi smackdown since Akira. Instead, the version overseen by stand-in Robert Rodriguez (because Cameron was too busy perfecting the CGI swell and ebb of Pandora’s oceans to direct his own pet project) has received a distinctly lukewarm reception.
It’s also possible we might have Cameron in charge of the new Terminator movie, whose title has just been revealed as Terminator: Dark Fate, rather than Deadpool’s Tim Miller. Does it matter that Cameron is stepping into the background, taking a “hands-on” producer’s role, rather than stepping behind the cameras himself? To answer that question you only have to imagine the level of perfectionism required for a film-maker of Cameron’s clout and industry standing to take 10 years to follow up the highest-grossing film ever. There is little doubt that he would have made Alita into a better movie, and there is clearly more uncertainty over whether Dark Fate will be the Terminator movie that revives the saga than there would have been if the saga’s original director had been behind the cameras.
An interview with Yahoo! suggests Cameron has delivered to Miller all the ingredients he believes are needed to make this the sequel to T2: Judgment Day that fans have been clamouring for since 1991. Arnie will be back, but crucially so will Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, while the addition of new female characters played by Mackenzie Davis and Natalia Reyes adds a Cameronesque twist of femme power to the proceedings – even if the film-maker’s reading of such dynamics isn’t one that’s universally recognised.
“Fans are going to want to see [Sarah Connor] again, and they’re going to want to see the real Sarah Connor and what time and dealing with these tragic futures has done to her,” Cameron tells Yahoo! “It’s hardened her even more, but in a way that made her much stronger. Maybe less likable, but stronger. And ultimately, she becomes a really important character in passing the baton to the new characters that come in. It’s a very female-centric film, [and] I’m glad Tim embraced those themes.”
Such talk of baton-passing inevitably recalls the approach taken by the latest Star Wars trilogy, which has seen Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford stepping aside for a new generation. While a little obvious, this may be preferable to yet another timeline reboot in which John Connor has joined the robots and Arnie is back as 19 versions of himself, all equally tedious. And Davis certainly has the spiky verve and statuesque cool required to become the new queen of sci-fi, as demonstrated by her small role in Blade Runner 2049 and by a rather larger one in the searing San Junipero episode of Black Mirror.
The history of famed directors palming off pet projects on to lesser-known names offers hope here. George Lucas did such an excellent job of hiring Star Wars directors the first time round – Irvin Kershner on The Empire Strikes Back, Richard Marquand on Return of the Jedi – that a lot of fans wondered why he insisted on directing all of the dreaded prequel trilogy. Likewise, no right-minded sci-fi fan would ever complain that the excellent Denis Villeneuve took on Blade Runner 2049, rather than saga originator Ridley Scott. And it is not as if Miller is a total noob – this is, after, the guy who directed the then highest grossing R-rated movie of all time.
Still, Avatar 2 (and 3 and 4 and 5) had better be worth it. There is no time machine to jump into for those who consider Terminator the superior venture, no way of creating an alternative timeline in which Cameron really did take charge of the cameras on Dark Fate and left the Pandorans to their USB tail-assisted frolickings – only the sneaking suspicion that the movie might have turned out rather better if he had.
