James Cameron defends those awful 4K restorations of his movies

While fans of James Cameron’s classic library of films may not be too fond of the 4K restorations, Cameron himself doesn’t seem to think the criticism holds much weight. In fact, the director recently had a few choice words for folks vocal about their problems with the 4K versions of his work.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, James Cameron addressed the universally poor reception that the 4K restorations of his work are getting, and he isn’t happy about it.

”When people start reviewing your grain structure, they need to move out of mom’s basement and meet somebody. Right? I’m serious,” Cameron told the Hollywood Reported. “I mean, are you fucking kidding me? I’ve got a great team that does the transfers. I do all the color and density work. I look at every shot, every frame, and then the final transfer is done by a guy who has been with me [for years]. All the Avatar films are done that way. Everything is done that way. Get a life, people, seriously.”

If you’re lucky enough to be unaware of the issue referenced, Cameron is talking about the recently released 4K restorations of films such as Aliens and True Lies – the only 4K versions currently available. They, well, they just don’t look good. Even though Cameron doesn’t mention it in the interview, most people seem to be complaining about the unabashed usage of, you guessed it, AI.

Though Cameron once made a name for himself for creating impressively realistic practical effects, we’ve lived long enough to see AI undo some of his most impressive work and make his best films look like bad CGI. The effects are rough, but the characters look even worse. Faces like they were rendered in good ol’ Unreal Engine 3, and everyone’s hair looks like the underwater CGI hair from Aquaman.

I could conjure a few examples of real Arnold Schwarzenegger looking like the worst CGI version of Arnie, but the best is to perhaps see the video below, which does a great visual breakdown of the problem:

Restoration can be a great thing because it helps with preservation efforts and allows younger audiences to experience classics they would otherwise have limited access to. Sadly, I doubt a first viewing of Aliens will be the mind-blowing event it should be for anyone experiencing it in its current format.

Cameron also very briefly touched upon the subject of Alien: Romulus but mainly clarified that he had little input on the film.

“I saw a rough cut six months ago, so I’m sure it’s changed a lot,” Cameron said. “And I viewed it once. I gave some notes to [director Fede Álvarez]. He and I aren’t close pals. I mean, I wish him the best with it, but I think it’s been overstated that I had some big creative input to that film. I think Ridley [Scott] did because Ridley was an actual producer on the film. So I’m just putting it in perspective.”

We don’t learn much about it from James’ input, leaving us wondering until it comes out on August 16.