James Cameron’s latest big-budget epic, Avatar sequel will follow up on human Jake Sully and Na’vi Neytiri’s courtship from the first film as they start a family and raise their kids on Pandora. Jake and Neytiri are just one of many couples who have enjoyed heartwarming love stories in Cameron’s movies.
From romantic love stories like Jack and Rose in Terminator 2, Cameron’s movies are full of endearing love stories.
7 Harry & Helen Tasker (True Lies)
In his spy caper True Lies, Cameron reimagined the James Bond character with a double life as a suave secret agent and a suburban husband and father. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as the Bondian spy, Harry Tasker, and Jamie Lee Curtis appears alongside him as his oblivious wife, Helen. When Helen learns about the true nature of Harry’s work, they’re both abducted by the bad guys.
As they shoot their way out of the villains’ compound and save their kidnapped daughter, Harry and Helen reconnect after years of deceit, negligence, and complacency. Nothing will bring two lovebirds back together like dangling from a helicopter in the midst of a car chase.
6 Jake Sully & Neytiri (Avatar)
Cameron put a sci-fi spin on the familiar Pocahontas story with Avatar’s tale of a human colonizer sympathizing with the plight of the alien population of a moon being mined for its usually unobtainable natural resources. Jake Sully is put in a Na’vi body and sent to study the aliens’ culture so he can figure out a way to force them to give up their land. But he ends up falling for the clan leader’s daughter, Neytiri, and s their fight against the invading humans.
It’s one of the oldest stories in existence, but Cameron offered perhaps the most visually dazzling take on this narrative. Without an engaging romantic subplot, Avatar’s environmentalist message might have come off as preachy.
5 Sarah Connor & Kyle Reese (The Terminator)
In the first Terminator movie, Skynet sends a T-800 back in time to kill Sarah Connor, a perfect protagonist, effectively preventing the birth of her son John, who would lead the resistance against the machines in the future. At the same time, John himself sent his friend Kyle Reese back in time to protect Sarah. Cameron ends up creating a time-travel paradox as Sarah falls for Kyle and they have sex, conceiving John in the process.
Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn share such palpable on-screen chemistry that it’s easy to overlook the paradox, because the characters’ romantic tension rings true.
4 Ellen Ripley & Newt (Aliens)
Not all love stories are romantic. The love story in Aliens, Cameron’s super-sized sequel to the classic Ridley Scott sci-fi horror masterpiece, is one of mother-daughter love. After drifting through space following the first movie, Ellen Ripley is heartbroken to learn that the daughter she left behind on Earth has reached old age and died. When she gets down to the human colony that’s been invaded by xenomorphs, she finds the only survivor: a plucky orphan named Newt.
After Ripley and Newt have both lost their families, they need each other. Ripley becomes a surrogate mother to Newt and Newt becomes a surrogate daughter to Ripley. In the explosive final reel, when Ripley fearlessly ventures into the aliens’ nest to save Newt from their queen, her love overrides her fear.
3 Bud & Dr. Lindsey Brigman (The Abyss)
One of Cameron’s most underrated (and most technologically groundbreaking) movies, The Abyss, takes place deep in the ocean, where the crew of a marooned submarine has a close encounter with underwater aliens. Cameron masterfully uses this self-contained setting to force an estranged husband and wife to confront the issues in their relationship.
Ed Harris plays Bud Brigman, the foreman of the underwater drilling platform Deep Core, while Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio plays his wife Dr. Lindsey Brigman, the designer of the rig. Being stranded in a sub at the bottom of the sea is as effective for reconciliation as any marriage counseling.
2 John Connor & The T-800 (Terminator 2: Judgment Day)
After exploring one form of parental love in Aliens, Cameron explored a different kind of parental love in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. This time around, a T-800 is sent back in time to protect would-be resistance leader John Connor from another killer android, the T-1000. At first, T2 plays like a boy-and-his-dog story as John enjoys having his very own Terminator, but the cyborg eventually becomes a caring father figure.
Sarah herself explained what made the T-800 a perfect dad: “It would never leave him, and it would never hurt him, never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only one who measured up.”
1 Jack Dawson & Rose DeWitt Bukater (Titanic)
When Cameron set out to dramatize the sinking of the Titanic in his aptly titled blockbuster Titanic, he told the story through the lens of a Romeo and Juliet-esque doomed romance. Jack Dawson is a peasant with a heart of gold and Rose DeWitt Bukater is a wealthy socialite betrothed to an awful guy.
As the audience spends the whole movie with these two lovers, the impending shipwreck seems more and more tragic. Jack and Rose are perfect for each other, but they won’t both make it off the boat.
