James Cameron Says ‘Terminator’ Is ‘Cringe-Worthy’ Now But Future Sequels Will ‘Kick A**’

Director James Cameron reflected on one of his first films, “The Terminator,” and how elements of it have not stood the test of time.

The 70-year-old filmmaker called the action movie “pretty cringeworthy” on the 40th anniversary of its big premiere.

“I don’t think of it as some Holy Grail, that’s for sure,” Cameron told Empire during a recent interview. “I look at it now and there are parts of it that are pretty cringeworthy, and parts of it that are like, ‘Yeah, we did pretty well for the resources we had available.’”

”Just the production value, you know? I don’t cringe on any of the dialogue, but I have a lower cringe factor than, apparently, a lot of people do around the dialogue that I write,” he continued. “You know what? Let me see your three-out-of-the-four-highest-grossing films — then we’ll talk about dialogue effectiveness.”

“The Terminator” was a major hit when it debuted in 1984, grossing more than $78 million at the worldwide box office and cementing Arnold Schwarzenegger as a major movie star. The film also put Cameron on the map.

“I was just a punk starting out when I directed ‘The Terminator.’ I think I was 29 at the time, and it was my first directing gig,” the Academy Award-winning filmmaker told the outlet. “‘Terminator’ was my first film, and it’s near and dear for that reason.”

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There have been multiple “Terminator” spinoffs since then, and Cameron has alluded to the possibility of more in the future. But he said they won’t be the same.

“This is the moment when you jettison everything that is specific to the last 40 years of Terminator, but you live by those principles,” Cameron told Empire. “You get too inside it, and then you lose a new audience because the new audience care much less about that stuff than you think they do. That’s the danger, obviously, with ‘Avatar’ as well, but I think we’ve proven that we have something for new audiences.”

The filmmaker explained how that meant giving up on returning characters and starting fresh. 

“You’ve got powerless main characters, essentially, fighting for their lives, who get no support from existing power structures, and have to circumvent them but somehow maintain a moral compass. And then you throw AI into the mix,” he went on. 

“Those principles are sound principles for storytelling today, right? So I have no doubt that subsequent ‘Terminator’ films will not only be possible, but they’ll kick a**. But this is the moment where you jettison all the specific iconography.”

This update comes after each subsequent “Terminator” franchise addition has done a little worse than the one before, with “Terminator: Dark Fate” grossing just $62 million in 2019. 

Cameron alluded to more “Terminator” in the future. “It’s more than a plan,” he said. “That’s what we’re doing. That’s all I’ll say for right now.”