Oh, and there are some spoilers for Avatar, as well as past Cameron films, in here.

Wrong Side of The Tracks Love

She's an alien and he's a paralyzed human. She's ten times his size, and he just wants to break all the rules. It's the tried-and-true odd-couple pairing that James Cameron took to its stereotypical heights in Titanic. It will never work out between these two and everyone is against them, but that's exactly while we'll root for them. It's cheesy, but it works. And it's all over Avatar.

Power Loader

The mecha power suit sure looks familiar. Maybe that's because you saw the first inklings of this idea in Cameron's mind during Aliens — sure, it's a much more stripped-down version, but if you look at the picture above you can see subtle resemblances between the two. I'd like to think that Cameron was clever enough to incorporate the yellow and black hazard tape on both as a subtle wink to his past, but then again who knows. Still in a film like this, there are very few things that sneak by Cameron unnoticed.

Breathing Masks

For The Abyss, Cameron has these masks made specially, so the audience could see the expression on the divers' faces underwater. It would make sense that he would incorporate the same decision with the Pandora breathing masks. Even if human skin could be exposed on Pandora, a half face mask would block just about all expressions. Plus, it's better than the Battlefield Earth nose plugs, that's for sure.

Save Her From Her Destiny

Boy does Cameron love a woman with a planned-out life. Sarah Connor's destiny is all planned out, Rose is to be married for money, and likewise, Neytiri's life plans are laid out in front of her. Why do Cameron's women always seem to have their lives planned out for them, for better or worse? Even Ripley — her destiny is forever entangled with that of the alien species, and by the time they bring her back as a half-alien and half-human, she's strangely accepted this fate.

The Samson Versus Hunter Killer

James Cameron did design spaceship models in his past. But it's pretty interesting to see how the Samson helicopters in Avatar are basically an upgraded version of the Hunter Killer from Terminator.

Military BAD! Scientists Good!

If you're in the military and not a defected member with a new lease on life, you are an evil killing machine with no respect for life, love, nature and especially aliens. In fact, you HATE aliens. KILL THEM ALL. If you are an everyday joe, driller or scientist who delights in wearing scrubby old clothes and band t-shirts, you are the hero of the story — congrats.

Even as more women are becoming astronauts and getting to pilot the space shuttle, science fiction has shown tons of women taking the helm. Here are some of the most awesome, in no particular order:

Lady Sharrow in Against A Dark Background by Iain M. Banks

We don't get to see combat specialist Sharrow doing that much piloting in this book — but when she does take the controls, she makes it count. The one sequence where she does some fancy flying is one of the best moments in the book.

Carolyn Fry from Pitch Black.

I don't know how I managed to forget her — I actually had her on my list, and had grabbed this cool pic of her in advance. She manages to bring a dead ship down in spite of incredible odds — and sure, she tries to jettison her passengers. But she's just being sensible, after all.

Sue Parsons from Virtuality

As with Sharrow, Sue Parsons spends most of her screen time doing other things — mostly, like all the other characters on this show, bickering and freaking out about virtual reality nightmares. But when she does actually get to handle the Starship Phaeton's controls — watch out. She does an incredibly complex series of maneuvers while giant bombs are going off in her wake. Makes all the drama totally worth it.

Jenna, from Blake's 7.

This smuggler is the best pilot around — there's no competition, except maybe that arrogant twerp Del Tarrant. Jenna manages to take the controls of the Liberator, the most super-advanced ship in space, and master them almost immediately. And she's able to take it on manual and do some fancy flying, on occasion.

Saint-Emxin from Battle Beyond The Stars.

She's a mean Valkyrie fighter pilot, who more than holds her own in the movie's crucial Star Wars-inspired firefights. Han Solo not only couldn't pull off her headgear, he also couldn't outfly her. (I almost included Padme Amidala in this list, since she pilots a ship in Attack Of The Clones — but could Amidala really hold her own against Saint-Exmin? I think not.)

Tak from Invader Zim.

The "hideous new girl" shows up hoping to do a better job of invading Earth than Zim, and she has the ability to hypnotize humans into doing her bidding — but she also pilots her own ship.

Faye from Cowboy Bebop

Faye is an awesome fighter pilot, and even held her own in a dogfight with Spike. Runner-up status also goes to space trucker V.T., aka Victoria Terpsichore.

Carol "Foe Hammer" Rawley in Halo.

She does some pretty nifty flying as the pilot of Pelican transport Echo 419 on the UNSC Pillar of Autumn. She specializes in doing lots of missions involving hostile insertions and rescues, making her stand out from the rest.

Ana Khouri in Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds.

This assassin joins the crew of the Nostalgia For Infinity, intent on killing one of the crewmembers, but then two different digital entities fight over control of her, and thus of the ship. Also a killer pilot is the ship's de facto captain, Illia Volyova.

Mary Raven from Ignition City.

This grounded space pilot journeys to Earth's last spaceport, Ignition City, to find out what happened to her dad, in this new comic by Warren Ellis and Gianluca Pagliarani. Space-jockey Mary Raven is determined to find out what happened to her dad, and she won't leave Ignition City until she gets some answers.

Lt. Shane Vansen from Space: Above And Beyond.

According to this site, she's "one of Earth's most celebrated pilots," piloting the SA-43 Hammerhead space fighter into battle.

Corp. Ferro in Aliens.

Okay, sure, she gets killed after speaking only a couple lines of dialogue. But she has cool sunglasses, and she manages to put the ship down through a lot of turbulence.

Carmen Ibanez in Starship Troopers.

Many of the badass pilots in this movie are women, and Carmen (Denise Richards) is the most memorable of them. She's a pilot in the SICON fleet, who pilots the drop ship, and even helps on the ground when things get rough.

Col. Wilma Deering in Buck Rogers In The 25th Century.

She doesn't just look good in a slinky jumpsuit, or boogieing next to Buck — Wilma's an ace fighter pilot in her own right, and a lot of episodes see her flying off solo to deal with the bikini-clad menace of the week.

Aeryn Sun in Farscape.

She's a formidable fighter generally, but she's also a former Peacekeeper pilot, and some of her best moments involve her taking the helm of a ship — like the season two finale, when Crichton is flying away with Scorpius' mind controlling him, and Aeryn chases after him in her own ship.

Yoninne Leg-Wot from The Witling by Vernor Vinge.

We don't actually get to see much of her piloting skills, since she and her companion Ajao Bjault get stranded on the planet full of telekinetic aliens early on. But she does turn out to be resourceful, and despite being unattractive by Earth standards, she helps win over the "witling" of the story's title, Prince Pelio.

River in Serenity.

Okay, so Serenity's real pilot is, and always will be, Wash. But you can tell, at the end of the movie, that River is gearing up to be a pretty great pilot in her own right. And in the series of movie sequels that unspool in my daydreams from time to time, she's piloting the ship all the time.

Manda in Burning The Ice by Laura J. Mixon.

Manda CarliPablo's stigmatized because she's the only colonist on a barren gas giant who's not a twin or triplet — her other clones died before they were "born" — but her isolation turns out to be a good thing, as she becomes the best pilot in the colony and explores the unexplored regions of this new world — discovering an alien race along the way.

Turanga Leela from Futurama.

Despite being captain, she's also always ready to take the helm of the Planet Express ship, and her lack of three-dimensional vision doesn't seem to interfere with her amazing piloting skills.

Jaina Solo from the Star Wars expanded universe.

The daughter of Han Solo and Princess Leia didn't just inherit her mom's Force powers — she also became a kick-ass pilot, like her dad. She flew the Millenium Falcon on a few occasions. When she got caught flying the Merry Miner, an unarmed mining ship, during the Yuuzhan Vong war, she managed to dodge the aliens' attacks until help arrived. And then she became one of the New Republic's most valued starfighter pilots.

Captain Beka Valentine from Andromeda.

Thanks to everyone who suggested adding her — Beka Valentine is, among other things, the Andromeda's first officer and pilot, taking advantage of her better-than-human reaction times and strength.

Tanni from Mutineer's Moon by David Weber

Here's the key sequence:

"And," MacMahan added gently, "Tanni will be your pilot."

"What?!"

"Tanni will be your pilot," MacMahan repeated mildly. "I'm speaking now as the commander of a military operation, and I don't have time to be diplomatic, so both of you just shut up and listen... we can't afford anything but our very best pilot behind those controls. You're good, Colin, and your reaction time is phenomenal even by Imperial standards, but good as you are, you have very little experience in an Imperial fighter.

Tanni, on the other hand, is a natural pilot and the youngest of our Imperials, with reaction time almost as good as yours but far, far more experience. The overall mission will be under your command, but she's your pilot and you're her electronics officer, or neither of you goes."

Kathryn Fairly in Space Camp.

A group of teenagers get to go aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis during a test-firing of its engines. But the mean android named Jinx decides to — what else — jinx them by making the space shuttle blast off for real. They're stuck in orbit, without enough oxygen to get home. And Kathryn (Lea Thompson), who was struggling with the "multi-axis trainer" that's required for shuttle pilots, manages to ace the real-life situation that simulator creates: a flat spin after the shuttle's reorbit burn. She brings that bird down safe and proves she's an awesome pilot.

Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica.

As I said before, these are in no particular order — but if they were, Starbuck would be #1 in any list. She's clearly the best pilot among Battlestar's flyboys and -girls. Adama always refers to her as his best pilot, and she pushes herself harder than anyone else. Kat may have tried to challenge Starbuck's impressive kill rate, but she never really had a hope.

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown. Special thanks to Pete Gofton, Brian Williams, Erin Souza, Ira Wile, Jordan Hoffman, Austin Grossman, Ekaterina Sedia, and @soapboxx on Twitter.

The worst space operas are not just campy or silly. They're idiotic and braindead. They're so intent on cramming the cliches of Westerns or adventure serials into an outer-space setting that they not only leave behind even the most basic space science, they actually strip the danger and excitement out of space travel itself. They're usually derivative of better works, and have little undigested chunks of pilfered greatness floating around... like a debris field.

So here are the dumbest space operas of all time, according to us:

Battlestar Galactica (original series.) Sorry. Ron Moore pretty much summed it up when he explained why this version of BSG had so much wasted potential: You have the destruction of an entire civilization in the first episode, and then in the second episode they go to the casino planet and par-tay. Plus the dorky helmets. And the daggit. And Boxey. To be fair, though, this wasn't the dumbest space opera Glen Larson gave us. That honor must go to...

Buck Rogers In The 25th Century. Oh man. We rushed out and bought this on DVD as soon as it came out. And it is just unbelievably atrocious. Like the original BSG, it features a post-apocalyptic setting... which is forgotten right after the first episode. There's Twiki the penis-headed robot, who goes around getting into one hilarious scrap after another, and Princess Ardala, who's always trying to collar the tight-pantsed Buck so he will be her husband/boy-bitch. But mostly, this show is known for its amazing disco set pieces, including this bizarre rock band, Andromeda:

Guardians Of The Galaxy (the original comics). Marvel Comics' answer (sort of) to the Legion of Superheroes, Guardians Of The Galaxy charted the adventures of Vance Astro, who spent 1000 years in suspended animation before arriving at Alpha Centauri and realizing that humans had long since discovered faster-than-light travel. In the mean time, Earth has been invaded, first by Martians and then by the cruel Badoon. So Astro gathers a team of interplanetary misfits to free the Earth. In a typical later storyline, they find Wolverine's metal skeleton still intact (even though Wolverine is long dead) and Wolverine's great-great-granddaughter fights Doctor Doom for it. But Doctor Doom can control the metal skeleton with his mind. Snikkt!

Starslayer. I'm tempted just to say "look at the cover." But if you want more info, here goes. He's a Celtic barbarian, who's about to die in the distant past, but then his wife's descendant, in the distant future, summons him forward in time. Where he frees Earth from some alien invaders, reignites our sun, becomes a space pirate, and then dedicates a black hole to a Celtic goddess. Or something. Oh, just look at the picture.

Warlock. Another weird comic book hero. He's artificially created, his face is so radiant that only blind sculptor Alicia Masters can sculpt it into a human likeness. He gets hold of the Soul Gem, which sounds like the name of a mid-1970s R&B band, and goes around the universe fighting Thanos.

Space: 1999. Okay, I'm fully prepared for some pushback on this one. But even though I love this show, think about it for five seconds. The Moon is blasted away from the Earth at such high speeds that it visits a different planet every week. And somehow this doesn't kill everyone on the Moon, because of their protective Moonbase. Okay. Even though the Moon is hurtling through space at speeds much faster than the speed of light. Also, just how many Eagles do they have? And every planet is like a sillly horror movie or a crazy mind-trip. And then there was the crazy-browed shapeshifter.

The legion of Star Wars ripoffs. Not surprisingly, in the wake of Star Wars' success, a huge wave of incredibly vapid Wars knock-offs flooded theaters, from all over the world. (And we've presented many of them in our regular "found footage" feature.) There were the Italian Star Wars knockoffs, like The Humanoid, Star Odyssey, War Of The Robots and many others. You had your Japanese knock-offs, like Message From Space. There were animated Star Wars fakes, like Starchaser: The Legend Of Orin. And don't forget Galaxina. And of course, Turkish Star Wars. These knockoffs all have one thing in common: they borrow from the trappings of Star Wars, and completely skip over what made the original movie great. It's like a generation of B-movie directors watched only the Star Wars Holiday Special, snorted a mountain of cocaine and crushed Dilaudid, and then fired up the cameras!

Here's the whole thing of War Of The Robots in just ten minutes:

Cosmos: War Of The Planets. This Italian space opera, which came out around the same time as Star Wars, is just sort of brain-dead, with very little direction or originality. Our heroes drift through set-pieces ripped off from 2001 and Barbarella, before coming to a planet ruled by an evil computer. Which they overthrow, of course. It's all thanks to the positive power of red headgear with funny ear-circles. The whole movie is public domain and you can watch the whole thing (if you really want to) online.

Battle Beyond The Stars. It's Roger Corman's space opera, which is really all you need to know. Oh, there's an evil overlord, Sador, and he's going to destory a planet unless they submit to him utterly. And only one plucky young hero (and eventually, his girlfriend) dare to stand up to Sador, stealing an old spaceship and going off to hire some mercenaries to help. Actually, all you really need to know is that there's a spaceship-shooting babe with a ridiculous boob window:

Event Horizon. They travel to the aid of a long-lost spaceship, which turns out to have punched a hole into a universe of pure oatmeal... sorry, I meant pure chaos and pure evil. Not oatmeal, because a universe of pure oatmeal would make no sense whatsoever. Unlike a universe of pure evil, which makes perfect sense. Anyway, it makes them have wacky head trips. Mmmm... Oatmeal...

Supernova: I have to admit, any movie that features James Spader traveling through space naked can't be all bad... but the rest of it? Ugh. There's an alien artifact and a giant star that's about to (you guessed it) go supernova... and everything is messed up, until Spader gets naked again. Why can't he just always be naked?

Solaris (remake). We loved the original Tarkovsky film, but the Soderbergh remake? Just sort of navel-gazey and pointless, with just a few too many trippy moments for trippiness' sake. George Clooney explains it best in this video: "Uh, all sorts of strange things start happening."

Captain Eager. A recent direct-to-DVD British movie about an old space hero who comes out of retirement to save the day one more time, this film sort of rides the line between pastiche, homage and copy, trying to channel Dan Dare and falling a bit flat in the process. Although Tamsin Grieg is great, as always. And we love Scamp the Rocket Dog. Here's the trailer:

The script, currently entitled Doomsday Protocol, was written by Shane Salerno, a man known for his slick but essentially shitty big budget movies - Sam Jackson's Shaft remake was another of his scripts - but not his sterling work as music supervisor on NBC's UC: Undercover, is being pitched as "an epic science fiction adventure in the vein of 'The Seven Samurai'" that sees aliens and humans with special abilities coming together to save the Earth, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

While we hope that the movie is better than Roger Corman's "homage" to Kurosawa's classic, Battle Beyond The Stars (the only movie to bring together Corman, James Cameron and re-used sound effects from the original Battlestar Galactica), it's unlikely to beat the awesome 2004 steampunk anime adaptation Samurai 7.

Fox picks up 'Doomsday Protocol' [Hollywood Reporter]

Akir is a peaceful world. They have no weapons! They don't even have proper houses, just weird mud huts that look like bad Star Trek cast-offs. What's funny about Battle Beyond is that the space battle scenes look pretty great, using the same style of effects as Star Wars. Except that the "Samurai" whom the young Shad recruits to save his "town" include a woman with a huge boob window, who blows up spaceships with her giant space-gun while pushing out her chest as far as she can.