Golden Globes Live Blog: Cameron says science fiction is the Rodney Dangerfield of film categories

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8:16 p.m.: ‘Avatar’s’ James Cameron, Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver and producer Jon Landau make their way backstage, and Cameron is quick to make two points: take 3-D seriously -- and take sci-fi seriously.

‘It changes things if it changes things,’ Cameron says in response to a general question about the impact his film will have. We think he’s talking about politics, but he’s talking about filmmaking. ‘The one thing (my movie) can do...is give permission to other filmmakers to think of 3-D as something that isn’t relegated to animation for kids movies or schlocky horror movies,’ he says. ‘It creates a new and very broad category, and permission for filmmakers to use these tools.’

We’ve heard the 3-D spiel before. But then he makes some more pointed comments about how critics and awards-voters see the category in which he works. ‘You’ve got a genre that’s critically treated as a second-class citizen,’ he says of science fiction, saying that before ‘Avatar,’ ‘E.T.’ was the only science fiction movie to win best picture -- drama at the Globes. ‘Hopefully this is part of a trend as science fiction as a legitimate form...not a genre, but a drama.’