James Cameron admits parts of The Terminator are 'pretty cringeworthy'

James Cameron has admitted parts of The Terminator are "pretty cringeworthy".

The 70-year-old filmmaker has looked back on his directorial debut to mark its 40th anniversary and while he acknowledges some of the movie — which stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a cyborg assassin — was done "pretty well" and he has no problem with the dialogue, he doesn't think the "production value" has aged very well.

He told the upcoming new issue of Empire magazine: "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.'

"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. You know what? Let me see your three-out-of-the-four-highest-grossing films — then we'll talk about dialogue effectiveness."

But despite his critique of the film — which took US$78 million (S$100.8 million) at the global box office and spawned a successful franchise — James admitted it will always hold a place in his heart.

He said: "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.

"Terminator was my first film, and it's near and dear for that reason."

James credits the key to Terminator's staying power as the casting of the Austrian bodybuilder, even though he wasn't what he had envisioned initially for the role.

He said: "I think a lot of filmmakers, especially first-time filmmakers, get very, very stuck in a vision, because of insecurity.

"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."

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