1 of 2 | Director James Cameron and his wife, actress Suzy Amis, at the premiere of "The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies" on December 9, 2014. Cameron said he thinks "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" took only "baby steps" forward with its characters, and mostly showed viewers more of what they'd already seen in earlier films. File photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI |
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LOS ANGELES, June 29 (UPI) -- James Cameron has shared his opinion of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, saying the sci-fi epic lacks the "visual imagination" of the earlier Star Wars.
"Well, George Lucas is a friend of mine, and he and I were having a good conversation the other day about it. I don't want to say too much about the film because I also have a lot of respect for J.J. Abrams, and I want to see where they're taking it next, to see what they're doing with it," Cameron said of The Force Awakens in an interview with reporter Hannah Litchfield that has surfaced on Youtube.
"I have to say that I felt that George's group of six films had more innovative visual imagination, and this film was more of a retrenchment to things you had seen before and characters you had seen before, and it took a few baby steps forward with new characters," Cameron said.
"So for me the jury's out. I want to see where they go with it," Cameron said of the Star Wars franchise.
The Avatar and Titanic director also said he wants to keep his planned Avatar sequels away from any future installments in the Star Wars series. "I don't want to go head-to-head with Star Wars. That would be stupid. And hopefully they won't want to go head-to-head with us," he said.
In April, Cameron announced that four sequels to 2009's box-office smash Avatar are now in development and set to arrive in theaters on Christmas in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023.
"We've begun to bump up against the limitations of our art form. There's just too much story," he said at the time. "Each one of which stands alone, but which together form a complete saga."
