This book offers a comprehensive, academic and detailed study of the works of James Cameron, whose films include successful productions such as the first two Terminator films (1984-91), Aliens (1986), Titanic (1997), and Avatar (2009), but also lesser known films such as Piranha 2: The Spawning (1981), The Abyss (1989), and True Lies (1994), and a series of documentaries on the depths of the ocean or on the tomb of Christ. Cameronʼs major productions have an immense and enduring popularity throughout the globe and have attracted both public and critical attention. This volume investigates several distinct areas of Cameronʼs works and addresses the different approaches and topics invited by the multidimensionality of the subject itself: the philosophical, the artistic, the socio-cultural and the personal. The methodologies adopted by the contributors differ significantly from each other, thus offering the reader a variegated and compelling picture of Cameronʼs oeuvre. Contrary to the numerous volumes published in the past on the subject, each chapter offers specific case studies that have been previously ignored, or only partially mentioned, by other scholars.

Chapter One: We Must Not Forget about the Flying Fish: Piranha II’s Influence on Cameron’s Subsequent Works

Ian Thomas Malone and Antonio Sanna

Chapter Two: Reframing Tragedy: Titanic, Affect and the Arresting Image

Fran Pheasant-Kelly

Chapter Three: Exploration, Education and Humanity: James Cameron’s Deep-Sea Documentaries

Alissa Burger

Chapter Four: Avatar, SF Mannerism and the Anthropocene

Maurizia Natali

Chapter Five: She’s the ‘King of the World!’ Modernizing Melodrama in Titanic

Carol Donelan

Chapter Six: Losing Touch or Making More Contact? Cameron’s Use of Technology and Visual Effects

Paul Johnson

Chapter Seven: The Exodus Decoded, The Lost Tomb of Jesus and the Problem of History for Faith

Jonathan Fischer and Adam Barkman

Chapter Eight: No Fate: James Cameron, Jesus, and John Connor

Racheal Harris

Chapter Nine: The Simulated Sublime: Exploring Hollywood Ecocriticism in Avatar

Siobhan Lyons

Chapter Ten: The Backlash and Empowerment of Feminism in Xenogenesis, Piranha II: The Spawning, and Aliens

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns

Chapter Eleven: Taking Gettier to Tasker: True Lies, Knowledge, and the Prospects of Virtue Epistemology

Michael Versteeg and Adam Barkman

Chapter Twelve: “I Wanted to Do Something Outrageous”: On the Limits of Parody in True Lies

Russell P. Johnson and Naaman K. Wood

Section III: The Futurist

Chapter Thirteen: Genetically Modified Human Beings in Dark Angel

Sabine Planka

Chapter Fourteen: Of Shape-Shifters and Shifting Alliances: The Politics of the Terminator Franchise

Patrick Zwosta

Chapter Fifteen: An Abyss of Aliens: Action, Allegory and Mythological Elements in Aliens and The Abyss

Carl H. Sobocinski

Chapter Sixteen: Refining Genre, Reassessing Gender: Assessing the Sacrificial Heroine in the Works of James Cameron

Christian Jimenez

Chapter Seventeen: “Two Candles in the Dark”: James Cameron’s Modern Fairy Tales

Elsa Columbani