Said without having seen either the film or TV version of The Last Airbender, and as someone who runs hot and cold on Shyamalan but wants him to do better than this: I really feel he should try directing another writer's script at least once, like how Terry Gilliam stretched by filming Richard LaGravenese's script for The Fisher King.
Also, I wonder how much writing/rewriting he did this time; he usually rewrites a lot (it wasn't until the 10th draft of The Sixth Sense that he realized what was really up with Dr. Crowe, and he wrote more drafts after that). You might find interesting the book The Man Who Heard Voices: How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career On a Fairy Tale. It's about his process making Lady in the Water, which he also rewrote like mad before he shot it (and re-edited after a lot of people close to him had to tell him that they "didn't get it" at first). Reasonably detailed portrait of what Shyamalan is like, too. I reviewed it (http://chris-walsh.livejournal.com/710321.html).
I'm trying to have thoughts related to people's massively negative reactions to the casting, but I think I'd just start ranting. It bothers me that it seems that Shyamalan did try to be careful about casting (http://www.cinematical.com/2010/06/28/shyamalan-rants-about-airbender-and-racism/) (he's mentioned that he has enough clout to cast who he wants -- here is a more thorough transcript of what he said on the casting (http://www.indiemoviesonline.com/news/m-night-shyamalan-in-his-own-words-on-the-last-airbender-race-controversy-250610)), and he was casting with an eye to how he'd also cast a second and third film if they ever happen (that's his plan at least (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1643066/20100706/story.jhtml)), and still people got mad. It's like many people are saying, You didn't try hard enough! And I can get the annoyance that the hero is once again white and the villain once again isn't; I can sort of understand the reaction of Even someone not-white defaults to a white hero! But oy, this makes me tired. Welcome to America's favorite game, You Can't Win.
More trivia: Shyamalan originally pictured Cole from The Sixth Sense as being of Indian descent, but changed his mind because he felt Haley Joel Osment was the strongest of the kid actors he saw. (Are people going to get retroactively mad at him for that?)
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Date: 2010-07-09 02:57 am (UTC)Also, I wonder how much writing/rewriting he did this time; he usually rewrites a lot (it wasn't until the 10th draft of The Sixth Sense that he realized what was really up with Dr. Crowe, and he wrote more drafts after that). You might find interesting the book The Man Who Heard Voices: How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career On a Fairy Tale. It's about his process making Lady in the Water, which he also rewrote like mad before he shot it (and re-edited after a lot of people close to him had to tell him that they "didn't get it" at first). Reasonably detailed portrait of what Shyamalan is like, too. I reviewed it (http://chris-walsh.livejournal.com/710321.html).
I'm trying to have thoughts related to people's massively negative reactions to the casting, but I think I'd just start ranting. It bothers me that it seems that Shyamalan did try to be careful about casting (http://www.cinematical.com/2010/06/28/shyamalan-rants-about-airbender-and-racism/) (he's mentioned that he has enough clout to cast who he wants -- here is a more thorough transcript of what he said on the casting (http://www.indiemoviesonline.com/news/m-night-shyamalan-in-his-own-words-on-the-last-airbender-race-controversy-250610)), and he was casting with an eye to how he'd also cast a second and third film if they ever happen (that's his plan at least (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1643066/20100706/story.jhtml)), and still people got mad. It's like many people are saying, You didn't try hard enough! And I can get the annoyance that the hero is once again white and the villain once again isn't; I can sort of understand the reaction of Even someone not-white defaults to a white hero! But oy, this makes me tired. Welcome to America's favorite game, You Can't Win.
More trivia: Shyamalan originally pictured Cole from The Sixth Sense as being of Indian descent, but changed his mind because he felt Haley Joel Osment was the strongest of the kid actors he saw. (Are people going to get retroactively mad at him for that?)