In my opinion, he would have made it more violent, more realistic, less cheesieness, it would have been about an hour longer as well. What little things do you think he would have changed?
True, and the story/plot/script along with the effects would have been absolutely mind blowing to say the least. If James could manage to land a 200 million dollard budget for the Titanic in 1997 then just imagine the budget he could have landed with T3 in 2003.
I completely agree with y_monkee, James would have really made T3 an epic and something new and fresh that movie fans would have never seen before. It would have been as importnat a film to the film industry as Terminator 2 and the original Matrix were.
if you are asking: what if Cameron had directed, using the same (or slightly altered screenplay and premise) then:
more of the 'little things' would have been fixed, or paid attention to
things like John Connor's age, how and why the 2004 T-101 seemed to have 'learned' as much as the 1994 T-101 ( example: knowing to look under the sun visor for keys rather than hot-wiring the vehicle)
more back and more future story stuff, connecting to the present story stuff
Sarah Connor might still have 'died' but only to take herself off the grid, as John had done (and as revealed in my version of T4) she would return, to help John save the day...
oh, and best of all: imagine all the boo-hoo fanboys who would be falling all over themselves with praise over the 'ultimate Terminator flick' using essentially the same damn script and story, if Cameron had directed, vs Mostow's direction of T3...
that would be the funniest and most ironic thing to witness!
Of course, we'd never know those same idiots were the hypocritical critics they are, since we can't go back and relive, and alter, timelines with just a few modifications... but you can bet some of these punks would be all over T3 as the 'greatest Terminator ever made' rather than the greatest steaming pile ever made, simply based on the director, all other things being equal...
__________________ 'The future is not set...'
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In the book version of Terminator 3 : Rise of the Machines, Kate Brewster had one of the HR Techies(a guy that knows how to reprogram Terminators) with the keys under the sun visor and where the coffin full of weapons is.
Benhacker
P.S. : I would have been cool if they put more future battle sequences.
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