Movie Swap: 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day' and 'Titanic.' Plus: 'The Green Knight'!

The Swap: 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day'Amanda's first watch

Terminator 2: Judgment Day 1991

Amanda's assignment, seen for the first time the night before. She hated the opening 20 minutes of sci-fi voiceover but came around once it settled into a buddy-comedy road movie; two thumbs up, minus the one-too-many endings. Sean, who was nine when it came out, calls it his Terminator and reads it as a Western: white hat, black hat, a child to protect. They agree the LA River chase still looks unimprovable, and both flag the Sarah Connor voiceover about the robot making the best father as the film's strangest 30 seconds.

The Terminator 1984

The 1984 original, which Amanda skipped in favor of reading the Wikipedia page. Sean rewatched it early in the 2020 lockdown and admits it never imprinted on him the way T2 did, too stripped-down and independent.

Aliens 1986

Amanda's other Cameron point of reference; the dark opening of T2 reminded her of it. Its Ripley sits alongside Sarah Connor as the two Cameron heroines the hosts keep coming back to.

The Abyss 1989

Cited as an early version of the recurring Cameron theme: found technology that could save us or kill us.

The Swap: 'Titanic'Sean's first watch in 24 years

Titanic 1997

Sean's assignment, unseen since its theatrical run 24 years earlier. He was a 16-year-old refusing it on principle while everyone he knew saw it eight or nine times. Both find the Jack-and-Rose romance thin but concede it's the reason the movie works, and both are floored by the scale of the sinking. Amanda, 13 when it came out, treats it as the last true theatrical phenomenon: $2.2 billion, months in theaters, then a third life on TNT and the internet.

True Lies 1994

The Cameron film that landed between T2 and Titanic; the hosts note it and Titanic are his non-sci-fi outliers, both built partly around a broken marriage.

Avatar 2009

The recurring shadow over the conversation: a movie more successful than Titanic that, they argue, left almost no cultural footprint. Sean was gobsmacked seeing it in IMAX; both wonder whether late-period Cameron lost himself in his own imagined world.

In conversation

David Lowery on

The Green Knight 2021

Lowery's Arthurian fable, adapted from the Middle English poem. He describes chasing an epic scale out of a small budget (War and Peace and Lord of the Rings as impossible references), with the Green Knight and Arthur's round table built practically. He cast Dev Patel for a boyishness that lets Gawain grow from manchild to adult, and edited the film himself over a year and a half; the pandemic delay let him keep cutting.

David Lowery on

A Ghost Story 2017

His template for a film that had to be discovered in the edit, which is why he cut it, and The Green Knight, himself.

David Lowery on

Pete's Dragon 2016

His Disney film, many times The Green Knight's budget yet a far smaller-feeling production.

David Lowery on

The Old Man & the Gun 2018

The movie he says represents his personality most (affable, lighthearted) even as his films drift toward a serious edge.

David Lowery on

Ain't Them Bodies Saints 2013

His first feature, an early attempt to take familiar images and reshape old archetypes.

David Lowery on

Peter Pan & Wendy 2023

In production for Disney during the interview; ironically, he says, his most adult and complex film to date.

Also mentioned raised along the way

James Cameron, also mentioned Piranha II: The SpawningGhosts of the AbyssAliens of the Deep

In the Cameron conversation Jurassic ParkGood Will HuntingThe Polar ExpressPet Sematary IIAmerican HeartGone with the WindBack to the FutureAvengers: EndgameBen-HurSpartacusLawrence of ArabiaOnce Upon a Time in HollywoodShaneThe SearchersThe Devil Wears Prada

David Lowery's touchstones Lancelot du LacPerceval le GalloisWar and PeaceThe Lord of the RingsWillowHenry VSlumdog MillionaireThe Sparks BrothersBlade Runner

Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads

TV Growing PainsMare of EasttownGame of ThronesHacksLegends of the Hidden TempleGutsNBA Countdown

Podcasts The RingerverseThe WatchThe RewatchablesGene and Roger

Songs Oops!... I Did It AgainYou Could Be MineBad to the Bone

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