With James Cameron's mammoth sci-fi motion-capture 3D epic, Avatar, opening in most markets tomorrow (December 18th), I thought it'd be interesting to share Cameron's thoughts on Terminator Salvation, the fourth installment in a franchise he made legendary with The Terminator and T2: Judgement Day in the '80s and early '90s.

Jordan Hoffman over at UGO managed to get some "quality one-to-one time" with the legendary Mr. Cameron. During their "b.s.-free" conversation, Cameron revealed his thoughts on McG's take on the Terminator franchise. Obviously, as Hoffman points out, Cameron has been a busy man, though he still managed to catch the fourth Terminator installment. Here's Cameron's "review" of it:

"It probably didn't get a fair day in court because I had to watch it at night when I got home from work, over a period of two or three nights. I think Sam [Worthington] is remarkable in the film because, well, I think Sam is remarkable in anything he does. Interestingly, I think McG did a good job in the sense...I think he was almost too referential to the mythos of the first and second film. He over-quoted them in a way?"

"It didn't feel to me to be enough of a reinvention. I mean the thing we did with the second film is that we reinvented the first film completely; spun it on its ass and made the Terminator the good guy, and came up with a whole new concept for a villain, it felt fresh. I didn't feel the fourth picture was fresh enough. It also lacked a certain stamp of authenticity because Arnold wasn't in it. I mean, he was in it briefly, digitally, but that's not the same thing."

"I didn't think it was bad. I didn't think it was embarrassing. I don't think he let the franchise down in some huge way, but I did feel some sort of unease that it didn't go beyond."

I have to agree with a lot of what Cameron has said about the latest Terminator installment. I ultimately had fun with it, particularly enjoying the performance of Worthington, as well as some of the special effects. But I agree with Cameron in that McG didn't take it to a whole new level the way Cameron did with T2 (Salvation had many plot issues). Although it wasn't meant to be an official reboot in the same way as Star Trek, for example,I still expected Salvation to push things a lot further than it did.

John Connor in Terminator Salvation (spoilers)

I'm hoping that if and when McG gets back behind the camera for Terminator 5 (if all goes well with the sale of the franchise rights, that is) that he'll try some radical things to "spin it on its ass," to quote Mr. Cameron :) . That might not be the case, however, as there's rumors that the fifth movie would go back to the old going back in time plotline that we got in the first three installments. We finally get to the future war with the machines and now they may be going back to the time travel thing? Talk about being stuck in the past (get it?).

Do you agree with any of Cameron's thoughts on Terminator Salvation? Would you like to see McG return to direct number 5? Which direction would you like to see the story go in - time travel or future war?

Source: UGO Movie Blog