James Cameron's Movieline Interview: So Why Did That Avatar Sex Scene Get Cut in the First Place?

Last Thursday, I had a lengthy, terrific interview with James Cameron in advance of the special edition of Avatar (rereleased to theaters August 27), and all this week, Movieline will bring you pieces of that wide-ranging talk. For the first installment of our interview, Cameron explained his tendency to revise his films after their release, where he draws the line, and why he thinks a test audience bristled at Avatar's infamous sex scene, which has now been reinstated.

Sigourney Weaver once said that you were devastated when you had to cut some crucial scenes from the theatrical cut of Aliens.

Right! How crushed I was, or how crushed she was?

How crushed both of you were! I assume that since then, what we've seen from you onscreen is exactly how you wanted it to be, yet you've had frequent special editions of your work. Now, we have the Avatar special edition. Is there such a thing as the definitive version of a James Cameron movie anymore?

See, the thing is that making a film is an evolving creative process. There are things that you propose to yourself -- and I'm speaking as the writer, proposing something to myself as the director -- that seem like a good idea. Then you get into it and shoot it, and why wouldn't I shoot it because I've got great actors and it's relatively quick to do? Then when I'm in the cutting process, I think, "Maybe I don't need that beat because the actors are so good that they made that same point here," or "As an audience member, I'm getting the point between the lines," or whatever. So it's an evolving process, and things come in and they go out. That's normal, but there are certain things that you love and hate to take out, but it has to come out because it's a digression, no matter how great or beautiful or exciting it is.

That's an example of one of the scenes in the nine minutes we're reinstating, is a scene like that with this big Sternbeast. It's a huge spectacle and a kinetic piece of filmmaking, but we didn't need it, and it came out without a trace. It's amazing, but we put it back in because we loved the scene, and that's sort of what we've been doing here. It's a little bit of a revision of history, but after the release of the movie and how successful it was, we realized that in a theatrical setting it played very well and nobody was fidgety and the 3D wasn't distressing anyone's eyes and people wanted more of that dreamstate that the film created. So we thought, "All right, that's permission to go back." We're not talking about doubling the length of the movie, we're talking about making it six percent longer, so I think something that applies at two hours and forty-one minutes is gonna still work at two hours and fifty minutes.

You've added new scenes and moments, but did you cut or tweak anything that was already there?

No, no. To me, that's a little weird, to second-guess yourself in that way. I don't know., everybody makes up their own rules for this. I know George Lucas goes back and reworks even stuff that's already in the film, but for me, it would seem strange to do that. I used to tease the mixers -- they'd be rolling back before the part we were supposed to work on, and I'd say, "Hey, why don't we redo this part, too?" And they'd freak out and I'd say, "Just kidding."

You obviously know that a lot of people are curious about the sex scene that's been put back. Why did you take it out in the first place?

You know, we got an interesting reaction from a test audience to that moment. Maybe it was because it wasn't finished, but I always felt that it was a good moment, so I wanted to put it back in. I mean, what have I got to lose? The film's already a big hit. I think it's actually an illumination of the Na'vi way: There's a Na'vi way for everything, including making love. Of course, I just want to be clear for the record that it's only an additional twenty seconds. The "horizontal bop" part of it still takes place off camera after the dissolve. [Laughs]

Something for Avatar 2, then.

There you go. Exactly.