James Cameron calls parts of Terminator 1 cringy. Threatens

While The Terminator became a thing of Hollywood legend, Cameron is clear-eyed on the film these days. “I don’t think of it as some Holy Grail, that’s for sure,” he tells Empire. “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.’” Those qualms? “Just the production value, you know?” he elaborates. “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.” The box office results speak for themselves. “You know what? Let me see your three-out-of-the-four-highest-grossing films — then we’ll talk about dialogue effectiveness.” Nay-sayers: terminated.

If you’re wondering why Cameron is talking about new Terminator movies in the first place, here’s the recap. For over a year, the filmmaker has been teasing that he has some new ideas for the franchise and believes new projects will be coming (in addition to the new Netflix show). He’s still being rather guarded about what that might mean but, apparently, it’s slightly more developed than we may have assumed. “It’s more than a plan,” Cameron said. “That’s what we’re doing. That’s all I’ll say for right now.” Could there be an outline to this thing? A script even? We’ll have to wait and see.