James Cameron recently went to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the ocean. He was the first person to make this trip solo and spent his three-hour time at the bottom doing scientific research.

I know I will be alienating myself from my fellow film snobs with this, but I love James Cameron. Titanic (1997) is one of my favorite movies. A bit of a guilty pleasure, admittedly, but I still believe it is a good movie. But I would like to defend here James Cameron as a director.

Without adjusting for inflation, the two highest-grossing movies of all-time are Titanic and Avatar (2009). These two facts are enough to immediately cause people to write him off and mock him. It’s easy to look like you know what you are talking about, simply mock popular things. I feel that Cameron has ended up on the bottom of this fact.

James Cameron knows what he is doing. He knows how to make a good science-fiction movie. No, he knows how to make a great science-fiction movie. Let us begin with one of his early hits, Aliens (1986). With this film, Cameron accomplished the almost impossible feat of directing a good sequel to a film where he did not direct the original. This is not unheard of – it was done with the Star Wars trilogy. However, apart from those films it is almost unheard of. That film alone ought to prove that Cameron knows how to make a science-fiction film.

But apart from that, Cameron also directed not only The Terminator (1984), but Terminator II: Judgement Day (1991). It is debatable whether or not those are great works of cinema; however, it is undeniable that those are great spectacles. If you do not like Aliens or either Terminator movie, I won’t be able to convince you of Cameron’s talents. If you can see the merit in those films, you can at least say that you respect James Cameron as a director.I know I’m ranting, but I feel that Titanic is often written off because of its success, and it deserves a closer watching.