Battle Lines

“This has been a long and difficult shoot, fraught by many problems. But the one thing that kept me going, through it all, was the certain knowledge that one day I would drive out the gate of Pinewood and never come back, and that you sorry bastards would still be here.” — James Cameron

I got to chuckling over an old Hollywood tale concerning James Cameron’s sequel to the prized Alien film. The iconic director behind Titanic and Avatar found himself in the director’s chair at Pinewood Studios in 1985.

The thirty-one year old was hired off the success of The Terminator, saddled with a grizzled crew that despised a Yankee taking over Ridley Scott’s baby. The change came as a real shock after working with a young, hard-working non-union crew on his previous dystopian flick.

My favourite story centres around the union-mandated tea breaks. Each and every morning and afternoon the set would draw to a halt as the crew trundled off for a hot cuppa and biscuits.

While Cameron managed to eventually wrangle his vision into the can, he made it a point never to return to shoot in the UK, offering up the cracker of a quote above at the wrap party.

Try as we might to find ways around a problem, it’s important to remember that not every issue has a solution. 

Sometimes we have to agree to disagree.