James Cameron may be one of the biggest filmmakers of all time, smashing box office records with his blockbuster films like Titanic and Avatar.
Despite Cameron’s success, he still gets bashed for his films now and again, with some making fun of his ‘cringe’ dialogue when it comes to movies. Cameron was recently asked about this, and he has a message to all the haters.
James Cameron on the ‘Cringe’ Dialogue in His Movies
In a recent interview with Empire Online, Cameron was asked about his views on the original Terminator now that the movie has turned 40 years old. He says, “I don’t think of it as some Holy Grail, that’s for sure… 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.’”
When asked about the ‘cringe’ dialogue that was in the original Terminator, Cameron just said:
“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… You know what? Let me see your three-out-of-the-four-highest-grossing films — then we’ll talk about dialogue effectiveness.”
Admittedly, some consider the first Terminator movie to get a bit dragging in some parts, and a lot of it is thanks to the big blocks of exposition that Kyle Reese has to go through to explain what a Terminator is. There is also the case of some stop-motion effects that haven’t aged as well as the second film, but a lot of fans still accept the movie for what it is. After all, it is what launched the entire Terminator franchise and solidified Arnold Schwarzenegger as a box office legend.
James Cameron 40 Years Later
40 years after he started with Terminator, Cameron’s filmmaking techniques have only gotten more refined, and the visuals in his movies have managed to age better than the rest. Avatar: The Way of Water looked absolutely dazzling when it was released in theaters, and fans are expecting more of the same when it comes to the next incoming films in the franchise.
As for dialogue though, Cameron’s knack for it seems to have evolved since Terminator, but time and again some cheesier lines manage to make it to the final cut. Though they could lead to some eye-rolling from the critics, it’s very likely that the appeal to the general audiences is what makes Cameron’s movies very successful worldwide. Snarky and sarcastic humor is great, but a joke that can be pulled off in several languages should be considered a golden standard when it comes to Cameron’s movies.
When it comes to Terminator though, Cameron is still very proud of what they achieved, despite the film not being exactly what he set out to make. He ends the interview:
“I’m proud of the fact that we weren’t stuck enough to not be able to see how it could work with Arnold, because it wasn’t our vision. Sometimes, when you look back from the vantage point — at this point 40 years — we could have made a great little film from a production-value standpoint, and it would have been nothing if we hadn’t made that one decision that captured the imagination of people.”
Cameron may not be working on any new Terminator films for now, but his next Avatar movie is expected to come to cinemas sometime in December of 2025.
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The Terminator