James Cameron is a 'tree-hugger' who loves innovation

Filmmaker James Cameron is "dead-set against" generative AI technology replacing human creativity, but says commercial pressures are changing how big films like those in his Avatar series are made.

During a day of media commitments coinciding with the Australasian premiere of the third film in the series, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Cameron points out that the business case for big effects-driven sci-fi and fantasy films is now fragile.

"This … theoretically might be the last of the Avatar films because the cinema marketplace is depressed. Streaming's taken a big chunk out of it [and] costs continue to rise in VFX," he tells RNZ.

"Can generative models help us in that human artist-driven pipeline? That's something I want to explore. But I refuse to see this stuff used to replace writing and acting and as much of the artistic process of filmmaking as we can hang on to."

Despite three of Cameron's films being in the top four highest box office titles of all time, there's no guarantee that there will be an Avatar 4, he says, or that such a film would be substantially produced in New Zealand.

Although all three Avatar films were produced here, generating billions of dollars for the local economy, Cameron says times have changed.

"Producers are flying over New Zealand to get to Australia because they have a 40 percent rebate.

"I would love to have that discussion with [the New Zealand] government because it's critical for the screen sector. The infrastructure that we need and the scale of crews that we need to be competitive as a world filming destination can only be sustained if we have those outside films coming in."

The story of Avatar: Fire and Ash commences a few weeks after the tumultuous conclusion of the second Avatar: The Way of Water (2022).

On the bioluminescent paradise moon of Pandora, paraplegic former Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), now permanently inhabiting the 10-foot-tall Na'vi body he was given in the first film, is recovering from the epic battle with the colonising Earth forces he was once a part of.

He, his Na'vi wife Naytiri (Zoe Saldaña), their blended and mixed-species family, and the indigenous clans who fought alongside him, emerged victorious but with heartbreaking losses, including their eldest son, Neteyam.

Hurt and grieving, the family must prepare for another assault from the rapacious, corporate, military-industrial forces of Earth, but they also encounter a darker side of the Na'vi, a clan called Mangkwan (led by Ooona Chaplin), who don't share Na'vi spirituality or values.

"Well, we like our tree-hugging; we're very fond of our tree-hugging. I'm a tree-hugger myself," Cameron says, "and certainly the Na'vi are, and we all should be if we want to survive on this finite planet.

"The [Na'vi] people we've seen so far represent that higher part of ourselves that knows better. And the humans in the story coming from Earth - the invaders, colonisers, extractors, you know - they represent our worst impulses as human beings.

"Then we've got the so-called bad, or at least aggressive, adversarial, Na'vi, who have fallen from grace with that principle of the great balance. They're apostate in a way, and they're highly aggressive and very dangerous."

Cameron says his films have often addressed how, left unregulated, technology can lead to disaster.

"Look atTitanic - the hubris that you can dominate nature just by building a bigger ship out of steel and putting it on the water, you know? It's like, what's wrong with this picture? It just means it's gonna sink faster!"

At the same time, Cameron's films have warned us about the dangers of unchecked technology; the director has been a giddy exponent of technical innovation and an extraordinary inventor in his own right.

"It's a little thing called dualism, right? You can embrace two aspects of a thing.

"Something that's intriguing to me is how technology is created by innovative, curious minds, and then almost immediately repurposed and weaponised to do harm.

"While I'm squarely in the camp of people that are curious and love to build things and love to innovate, I'm happy in my art and my storytelling to show how quickly it can get out of control."

Cameron likens the current rapid developments in AI to the view that we once had of nuclear energy, a technology which, back in the 1930s, people thought would "save the world".

"Of course, the first thing it was used for was to incinerate a few hundred thousand people in Japan. [Its first] practical application was as a weapon. Now we're looking at AI, we have all the same issues all over again."