Avatar: Fire and Ash, interview with James Cameron and Suzy Amis Cameron

James Cameron: "Happy to be done. This is the culmination of an eight-year project. We started production in September of '17. So a year and a half of work with the actors in doing capture and then another over a year of live action, split in half by COVID, thank you very much, and then a lot of post-production to finish two and then to finish three. Pretty happy, pretty happy to be done."

Suzy Amis Cameron: "And now I have him back."

James Cameron: "Yeah. Exactly."

James Cameron: "I'm just unemployed now."

"Well, look, I think people expect to see new stuff in an Avatar movie, and new creatures, and new cultures, and all that, and we deliver on that. But I think it also expands vertically in terms of the depth of the characters as well. I think this is the most emotional of the three films. Not that we back off the throttle on on spectacle and grandeur, but it's a saga that sort of comes to its culmination in this film of this family family story, you know, the Sullys. And what they go through in this movie, it gets pretty intense."

Suzy Amis Cameron: "My bag is full of tissues, and I'm sure I'll go through all of them."

James Cameron: "Well, I think any of the premium formats and obviously seeing it in 3D adds a lot of value. Because when you go to a movie theater these days, when you can have anything you want on streaming any time you want, you want to go on a journey and have an experience, right? And so that's what the theatrical experience does, that's what the giant screen does, that's what 3D does. It just pulls you in and it sucks you along. I mean, obviously, you've got to do good storytelling, too, and you've got to have people, characters that you care about. But when you get all that stuff firing together, if it's firing on all eight cylinders like it's supposed to, that's an experience. And it doesn't matter that it's three hours, it just blazes past very rapidly."

"Well, there's an intergenerational kind of bonding and and also conflict that's going on. I think anybody that's going through their teens right now, I mean, historically, always, but but I think even particularly right now, there's a lot of anxiety, a lot of identity crisis, and that sort of thing, and being seen by your parents and being understood by your parents is important. But also speaking now as a parent, having been on the other side of that, which informs the writing and informs this movie a lot, it's understand your kids, see your kids, meet them where they are. And ultimately, that's what this movie's about."