Story of Science Fiction

I found some of this interesting, some of it a set up for Cameron's Avatar sequels. They concentrate on movies & TV shows from the last 40 years and very little on the literature that bore science-fiction as a genre. This is the tip of the iceberg and showing older movies with effects that the younger generation can't take cause it "looks bad" are out except for some quick clips. Some nice philosophical discussions with directors, writers and actors.

The trailers for this made it seem like we'd be watching James Cameron chatting with legendary directors of Sci-Fi films. It looked like we'd get to hear the fascinating topics and ideas brought up by these brilliantly creative minds, and the stories they told about their careers and their famous works. I was excited to be a fly on the wall observing these amazing conversations. We do get that, but it's only about 1/6 of the show.

The rest is other random people talking about their thoughts on Sci-Fi topics. Sure we get some big names like Will Smith and Sigourney Weaver, but most are people I've never heard of. Some are people in the film industry like VFX artists or illustrators, but the majority are just intellectuals or writers or hosts from web sites, publications or radio shows that I guess deal with Sci-Fi. One guy even has the title "Grand Master of Science Fiction", whatever that means. While I don't want to devalue their thoughts, that's not really what I came for. If you're going to be presenting mostly people I've never heard of, at least tell me that in your marketing. Otherwise, I'm going to feel pretty mislead (as I do now).

The show is pretty interesting and worth watching, but it's not nearly as amazing as I was expecting it to be. They had enough good material to make around 2 or 3 good episodes, but they added a bunch of padding to be able to stretch it to 6. I'm guessing it was some TV exec who made that decision.

If you have Spielberg, Lucas, Ridley Scott etc for interviews and ask them questions, you let them finish, but no, James HAD to constantly interrupt, which was so annoying.

The series interviews a bunch of people, so the previews of him sitting down with other directors and interviewing them is misleading. You get very little of these iconic directors interview, especially with the interrupting it makes it even worse. Nicely shot and some interesting stories, but overall nothing new and again, Cameron needed to the them speak and finish.

This should have been called "James Cameron's Story of James Cameron and Friends". This show has less to do with Scicentfic and it's history and more to do with a bunch of old white men patting each other on the back for a job well done on that cool movie they did once. Just because it has Cameron or Spielberg attached to it, it doesn't mean it's good and this show is BORING.

This really is your favourite directors talking about your favourite films with a little insight into the thinking of some of their decisions