James Cameron has talked about the future of the Terminator movie franchise. Y'know, the guy who created the whole thing back in the 1980s? Perhaps we should listen. He thinks its fortunes rely on basically jettisoning almost everything we thought was essential in the 1980s and 1990s.

Although many consider it a masterpiece, James Cameron has enough distance from The Terminator to give it his honest review. Marking the 40th anniversary of his directorial debut, the 3x Oscar-winning director looked back on parts of the 1984 film as “pretty cringeworthy” as he admitted the “production value” didn’t age well.

Last year we learned that James Cameron was developing a new Terminator movie. At the time he said that the project is heavily inspired by AI, and before he made it, he wanted to see how things play out with AI in the real world.

Plans are being made for more Terminator movies. James Cameron’s The Terminator, which stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton, was released in 1984. It kick-started a franchise that led to five other theatrically released movies,

The filmmaker stands by his dialogue, though: "Let me see your three-out-of-the-four-highest-grossing films — then we’ll talk about dialogue effectiveness."

James Cameron doesn't want to hear your complaints about his dialogue. Cameron has directed a number of the highest-grossing movies of all time, including 1997's Titanic, 2009's Avatar, and 2022's Avatar: The Way of Water.