James Cameron says Palestinian plight is 'existential'

Avatar director James Cameron says Palestinian plight is ‘existential’

In an interview for his new Avatar sequel, James Cameron showed his understanding of why people in Palestine, Ukraine, and Sudan are standing up to their oppressors like Israel:

James Cameron… a surprisingly real interview. https://t.co/2ArGdLnoOh

— Brandon Davis (@BrandonDavisBD) December 19, 2025

Given that the Avatar films are explicitly anti-imperialist, it’s not surprising Cameron would think like this.

James Cameron: “it’s existential”

In the video above, the host asks:

You capture all-out war in this movie. Good guys are killing bad guys. They’re each killing each other. They’re each killing each other’s animals and creatures. And yet I feel like when we see the sort of suffering, we only see the pain, mostly see the pain inflicted on the good guys. As if you’re trying to make sure we don’t empathize with the bad guys. Can you talk about how fighting for what’s right, and walking that line, requires that sort of portrayal?

Cameron responds:

It’s a fine line, right? Because we go down, we go into Tulkun culture and they say, you know, killing only leads to more killing, an endless expanding spiral, right? And that’s the world we live in right now. That’s what we’ve seen. We’ve seen it in Gaza. We’ve seen it in Sudan. We’ve seen it in Ukraine.

And you know, you’re doing an action movie. People are going to fight, right? But are you fighting for a just cause? Are you fighting for what you believe in? Are you fighting from a place of hatred or revenge?

There are some fights that are righteous. And total annihilation is a reason to fight. It’s existential.

Cameron and his friends George Lucas have made similar comments in the past:

James Cameron: "In Star Wars the good guys are the rebels, they're using asymmetric warfare against a highly organized empire, I think we call those guys terrorists today."

George Lucas: "When I did it they were Vietcong. That was the whole point."
pic.twitter.com/SVW9rlZ22Q

— cinesthetic. (@TheCinesthetic) December 12, 2025