James Cameron has done this a number of times before, offering his advice on the direction of the Terminator story, indeed McG even talked to the director about his film Terminator: Salvation (Filmstalker review). Now he's at it again offering advice to Arnold Schwarzenegger on what his involvement should be in the next film should he be offered a part.

His advice returns the idea of another Terminator film to the fore of the media even though the franchise carries with it a hefty price tag, a slowly waning fan-base and a number of behind the scenes business failures, could the fifth film happen?

Well it doesn't look likely with James Cameron taking the helm because he keeps reminding us of something he said some time back, he's already told the story with Terminator 2: Judgement Day and doesn't feel the need to revisit it. Yet fans think he needs to, like Ridley Scott is returning to the Alien franchise to maybe, just maybe, restore the creature back to the glory pre-AvP, couldn't Cameron return to bring the glory back to the Terminator pre...well, pre-third film?

I'm sure fans of the Terminator franchise would agree that he should, but right now it doesn't sound like he has the idea at the fore of his mind or anywhere near there, but he is still offering advice to the franchise and through MTV and The Guardian he reveals that when the talk of a fifth film surfaced and Arnold Schwarzenegger was announced to return to the film, he gave him some advice.

"Frankly, at that time, I thought it needed to be more about him...I told him he should not do it until it's focused on his [T-800] character, or he shouldn't do it. I think there are some great stories that can be told about that character that haven't even been thought of yet."

Not really that much then, and to be fair to Cameron this is the classic situation of responding to a direct and well led question by the interviewer, but his advice was clear.

The problem is though that the franchise has moved further and further away from the T-800, the Schwarzenegger model if you like and there's something else that's happened in the meantime, Arnold Schwarzenegger has grown older.

Now Schwarzenegger may still be able to get back some of the glory of the old Terminator, I mean we've seen him age through the character and there hasn't been a problem, but it seems to be hard to believe he can come back and play the T-800 again.

It's not just his age and the fact that the Terminator doesn't, but that his other film choices are keeping him really busy and the longer this goes on the less likely it is. Why would we need to return to the T-800 anyway? Going by the current evolution of the story the past is done with and the future is the way forward, or is it?

Remember the time travel element means that Terminators could be sent back to any point, even to times already visited, and just because they destroyed the time machine in the future after it was used doesn't mean that another couldn't be built. There are endless possibilities in a time travelling universe, but the problem remains, the T-800 is Arnie and Arnie is getting older and busier.

What about the possibility of James Cameron returning to the franchise? Well despite his willingness to give advice on every film I don't believe there's any way we're going to see him return, after all he's working on two Avatar (Filmstalker review) sequels then he has Battle Angel, those are rather big projects to complete, and by the time he got round to a new Terminator I wonder if the T-800 would be obsolete.