Via Variety.com:

It’s safe to say that James Cameron isn’t the biggest fan of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
The “Titanic” director tiptoed around answering a question about what he thought about the sequel before taking a dig at the film.

“Well, George Lucas is a friend of mine,” he prefaced. “I don’t want to say too much about the film because I also have a lot of respect for J.J. Abrams and I want to see where they’re taking it next.”
But the rest of the “Avatar” helmer’s answer hints that he was not impressed.

“I have to say that I felt that George’s group of six films had more innovative visual imagination, and this film was more of a retrenchment to things you had seen before and characters you had seen before, and it took a few baby steps forward with new characters,” Cameron said. “So for me the jury’s out.”

Still, the director said in the interview, which recently surfaced on YouTube, that the original “Star Wars” films majorly influenced his career.

“It was fun, it was exciting,” Cameron said about the 1977 original. “It was a big revolution and I wanted to be in on it.”

The director said the “Star Wars” franchise shifted his career from passionate fan to aspiring practitioner. “‘Star Wars’ was the film that made me want to go actually do it.”