With two Avatar sequels shooting back-to-back and a Terminator franchise to reboot, James Cameron doesn't have a lot of free time. And yet, the acclaimed director wasn't too busy to double down on controversial comments he made in August, in which he called Wonder Woman "a step backwards" and said the hero, played by Gal Gadot, was "an objectified icon."

At the time, Cameron cited Linda Hamilton's Terminator character, Sarah Connor, as the ideal female protagonist, since she was not a "beauty icon." Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins responded to Cameron via Twitter, arguing that his "inability to understand what Wonder Woman is, or stands for, to women all over the world" was "unsurprising," since "he is not a woman." Moreover, Jenkins said, "There is no right and wrong kind of powerful woman."

In a wide-ranging interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Wednesday, Cameron said he will continue to "stand by" his original comments. Referring to Gadot, he said, "I mean, she was Miss Israel, and she was wearing a kind of bustier costume that was very form-fitting. She's absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. To me, that's not breaking ground. They had Raquel Welch doing stuff like that in the '60s. It was all in a context of talking about why Sarah Connor—what Linda created in 1991—was, if not ahead of its time, at least a breakthrough in its time. I don't think it was really ahead of its time because we're still not [giving women these types of roles]."