James Cameron Considers ‘The Terminator’ Obsolete Compared to the Sequel
Movie maker James Cameron left his mark on cinema with his Terminator films. But he felt one Terminator movie aged much better than the other.
What James Cameron thinks of his original ‘Terminator’ film
Cameron once confided that he drew from inspiration from other stories when he first came up with The Terminator. But even he asserted that the core premise of his sci-fi film had been done before. What he considered fresh at the time was the movie’s presentation.
“The idea of a hit man from the future trying to change past events was certainly not new,” Cameron told Wired not too long ago. “What I thought was cutting-edge was deciding to not have the Terminator be a guy in a robot suit. That’s how it was typically done. But a flesh-covered endoskeleton?”
The movie’s success not only inspired an entire franchise, but a long list of sci-fi movies. Elements of Cameron’s film can be found in features like Robocop and The Matrix, to name a few. But despite the movie’s timeless impact, Cameron felt the first film might’ve been outdated. Whereas the sequel T2 Judgment Day adapted well to the times.
“People pay the compliment, ‘Oh, it still holds up’,” Cameron told The Guardian. “I actually think that’s true of Terminator 2 qualitatively. I think Terminator 1 qualitatively is pretty obsolete, although story-wise it’s still pretty intriguing. There’s some interest around this idea that it was a bit prescient on certain things, like the emergence of AI, the potential existential threat of AI, which is transforming our world before our eyes.”
James Cameron is considering a new ‘Terminator’ film
Cameron left the franchise in other hands after T2, choosing to pursue other creative endeavors.
“I kind of turned my back on the Terminator world when there was early talk about a third film,” Cameron said. “I’d evolved beyond it. I don’t regret that, but I have to live with the consequence, which is that I keep seeing it resurrected. I’m not involved in Terminator Salvation. I’ve never read the script. I’m sure I’ll be paying 10 bucks to see it like everybody else.”
However, he was involved in in other Terminator projects in a much smaller capacity. He endorsed Terminator Genysis, giving it his seal of approval at the time. He also served as a producer for the last Terminator feature Dark Fate.
But lately, it seems that he’s been giving a lot of thought to truly creating another Terminator feature. However, the growing evolution of A.I. has ironically made it difficult for Cameron.
“We’re at a point right now where it gets it gets harder and harder to write science fiction because we’re living in a science fiction world on a day to day basis,” Cameron said. “I’m working through some of the themes that I want to bring into a new Terminator film or possibly even a kind of a reboot of a larger story framework and it’s difficult right now because I want to let the smoke clear on the whole thing. That’s going to be a ride that we’re going to be watching for probably the rest of human history but certainly the next few years are going to be quite telling.”’
James Cameron considered having his Terminator come from space
Having Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator come from the future wasn’t always set in stone. One of the reasons the first Terminator took place in the present was due to budget. Cameron couldn’t secure the financing necessary to set up a more futuristic environment. But when he decided The Terminator would be set in the 1980s, he briefly wondered if it’d be better for the cyborg to come from space.
“We couldn’t afford the sets and all that sort of thing without it looking cheesy, so we set it in the present day,” Cameron once said according to Forbes. “And then, okay, is he gonna come from space or from the future? Those are the two choices. Space? That doesn’t feel right, how about the future? Okay. Why is he coming from the future? And it just kind of [went from there].”
