James Cameron Questions if Famous Titanic Scene Would Have Looked “More Splendid” With Better Technology

Stay tuned aboriginal this week for much from our Big Inteview with James Cameron including his thoughts connected AI successful filmmaking and spoilers from Avatar: Fire and Ash.

It’s 1 of the astir iconic scenes successful movie history: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet perched connected the bow of the Titanic, Winslet’s Rose leaning backmost to buss DiCaprio’s Jack arsenic a glowing prima fades against a purple sky. And portion overmuch of the country was machine generated, the sunset itself (in immoderate shots astatine least) was precise real. Titanic’s writer and manager James Cameron says he’s not definite helium would movie the celebrated buss the aforesaid mode today.

Speaking with IGN up of the theatrical re-release of Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron was asked which changeable from the 9 films he’s directed to day serves arsenic the "quintessential James Cameron shot.” He says that the memorable buss from Titanic is 1 that comes to mind.

“I deliberation astir that due to the fact that contiguous we tin bash thing with CG,” Cameron says. “We tin make the astir beauteous sunset, we tin make the astir beauteous sky, we tin make the ship. It's each precise straightforward. Now, backmost then, we had to physique the damn happening and we had to person a existent sunset, and we had to drawback that moment.

“I often inquire myself, there's a benignant of a brooding quality to that sunset. It's got these benignant of glowering purple clouds, but past there's this agleam set of aureate orangish astatine the horizon. If I was designing that changeable from scratch, would I person chosen that sky? Probably not. I would've chosen thing much splendid, thing we would each hold connected arsenic a gorgeous sunset arsenic opposed to thing that was what quality served america successful that moment.”

Although a antithetic mentation of the celebrated country whitethorn look blasphemous to immoderate Titanic fans, precise existent accumulation difficulties down that cinematic infinitesimal constituent to the crushed Cameron ponders doing it differently. In fact, arsenic Cameron has recounted previously, the accidental to movie a existent sunset was truthful fleeting that there’s a beauteous glaring accumulation mistake successful the finished film.

“Those 2 actors (Winslet and Dicaprio) had astir 4 minutes to hole for that moment,” Cameron says. “We got 2 takes, 1 of which is wholly retired of absorption and 1 of which is partially retired of focus. And that's the 1 that's successful the movie. And if you watch, it's retired of absorption arsenic the camera moves in, and past it comes into absorption and the bulk of it is successful focus. It’s conscionable this beauteous acted infinitesimal and confluence of events.”

Titanic primitively released successful 1997 and was a planetary phenomenon, raking successful 11 Academy Awards– including Best Picture and Best Visual Effects– and billions astatine the container office. It was the highest grossing movie successful past until Cameron’s ain movie Avatar surpassed it much than a decennary later.

Cameron's full assemblage of enactment pre and post-Titanic is filled with films that utilized groundbreaking accumulation techniques and ocular effects to transport audiences to wholly caller worlds. But looking back, it’s that 1 memorable changeable successful Titanic that Cameron tends to revisit successful his mind.

“We evolved retired of that satellite into a satellite wherever you tin make thing you tin imagine,” Cameron says. “The question is, would I person imagined that infinitesimal precisely that way? Maybe not. Or possibly it would've been chill anyway. I'll ne'er know.”

The theatrical re-release of Avatar: The Way of Water hits cinemas October 3.

Michael Peyton is the Senior Editorial Director of Events & Entertainment astatine IGN, starring amusement contented and sum of tentpole events including IGN Live, San Diego Comic Con, gamescom, and IGN Fan Fest. He's spent 20 years moving successful the games and amusement industry, and his adventures person taken him everyplace from the Oscars to Japan to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Follow him connected Bluesky @MichaelPeyton