Not to long ago a friend of mine posted an article making the rounds about M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Last Airbender”. The live action, big screen, adaptation of the hit Nickelodeon show “Avatar: The Last Airbender”. The movie did well financially in the theaters back in 2010, but was mostly panned by critics and movie goers alike, mostly for the poor story writing and the casting of white actors in roles that were more ethnic of various degrees in the original show.
This article stems from a post made on a message board from a former member of the crew of the movie. In it the poster makes the case that the faults of the movie were not those of Mr. Shyamalan, but of the studio itself for making a number of changes in the script as well as the casting. My friend argued that jumping on Shyamalan’s case was in large part just bandwagon hating on him because it is the popular thing to do and the article was proof that the movies failures were not his fault.
I disagreed. Here is why.
Firstly I’m not making much of a call as to whether he had a hand in the casting or not. The original post claims he had little to do with it, citing that the casting largely revolved around matching the skin tone of Nicola Pelt, who only had been cast as a favor to her father. Although the post claims it was the faults of the producers and casting director (which it should be), Mr. Shyamalan claimed in an interview that he “didn’t want to do the movie without her”. So who knows if he did or not.
My biggest point with the article and the discussion afterwards was the script. The original post claimed that the script Mr. Shyamalan wrote was “Gorgeous” and that the studio ruined it by making a bunch of rewrites and changing everything, along with the fact that M. Night was a big fan of the show and knew what it was about and about the characters, but no one in the studio did and that’s why the movie was hated so much. Thus, the idea is that M. Night wasn’t to blame since he was a fan of the show. I disagreed with this argument then and still do that this really doesn’t clear anyone of anything. Why?
We don’t actually get to read the script.
See, it’s perfectly acceptable to believe that the studio and producers made a lot of changes to a script, not only that but that these changes were made by people who were not familiar with the show. It’s as old as film itself. Hell, I was lucky enough to transcribe a bunch of cast and crew interviews for Dragonball Evolution before that movie came out and the one constant I heard from just about everyone was “We wanted to do this from the original but the studio didn’t want us to”. And look what happened *shivers*. But my argument was to the people defending the article was that we honestly didn’t know if the script was really good or not. For all we know the first draft could have been one giant wish fulfilling self insert fan fic. Just because someone related to production says it was “gorgeous” doesn’t mean anyone else would.
Just because someone is a fan of source material doesn’t automatically mean something they write is going to be instant gold. I spent 11 years writing a single Sailor Moon fan fiction series. Nearly 200 stories long. Does that mean it was good and would have made a good movie? Hell no. If my series could have been turned into a movie I’d be burned at the stake and then served to a bunch of hungry animals, just to spite me for it. Just being a fan and knowing the source material isn’t a free pass. Everyone has different interpretations, different motives, and different backgrounds. What a fan sees in a character may not be what the original creator sees.
Now, this poster could be perfectly right in his assessment as well. Maybe it was a much better movie before the producers and the studio got a hold of it. I’ve heard some say the original was MUCH longer, and maybe dragged on for a while. But we will never know unless the full first draft is released, and to me it makes the argument invalid. It could be true, it could not, we don’t know.
And the broader point is a matter of opinion anyway. What one person sees as a terrible movie could be another person’s favorite piece of work. People using this article to decry that the movie was ruined because the first draft was described as gorgeous are putting an awful lot of weight in this person’s judgment. Remember that someone in the studio thought the final script was wonderful to or they would have not filmed it.
In the end my feeling is that it is HIS name on the movie’s title so credit/blame SHOULD fall into his lap (although not his alone). Exonerating him because he was a fan of the original source material doesn’t hold any water with me. I won’t just blindly agree with some random person’s assessment of a script just because he worked on the movie, I will judge that for myself. What I HAVE seen is the end result. I didn’t think it was very good, and M Night Shyamalan’s name is plastered all over the title and he defends it to this very day so, that’s where my opinion of it ends. If you enjoyed it, wonderful! You had a good time and enjoyed a piece of work. I don’t fault anyone who doesn’t share the same opinion I do. In the end it’s your experience that judges whether you like it or not.
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