Before The Last Airbender...M. Night Wanted Harry Potter!
So I am thinking today like I have been since I first heard of the casting of "The Last Airbender" on how much I want to give M. Night a piece of my mind and how I will never EVER work with Paramount Pictures in a billion years.
Then a thought came back to me. Long time ago, when I use to be really into the Harry Potter fandom (though I guess not as much as I thought it was, I knew Emerson, that was enough for me) I use to listen to the at the time new Harry Potter podcasts. One was called MuggleCast and the other PotterCast.
And that got me remembering...wasn't M. Night at one point OFFERED to do a Harry Potter movie!
Well I looked it up and not only was it true...but PotterCast did a fifteen minute interview with him about shooting Lady in the Water, thoughts on Fantasy and what he would do with Harry Potter.
You can hear it here:
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://media.libsyn.com/media/pottercast/pc060716.mp3
The interview comes in at around 47:28.
I found this interview fascinating since M. Night's interview predates our situation, but I think there is lots of valuable info we can mine from this interview.
I'm not going to sum up the details of the entire conversation, however, here is what I can point out...
-- Many of his reasons for getting into Harry Potter would be the SAME EXACT REASONS he used to get into The Last Airbender. Apparently if M. Night did not have his daughter, he would be screwed way more than he is now. I hope one day she will grow up and become a director. Not only could she have the potential to do adaptions that follow the source material UNLIKE her father, but there are a dearth of Women and Indian directors.
-- He also stresses on how he views adaptions in film making "sacred" and how he would treat the Harry Potter source material like a bible. However, knowing what he now did to The Last Airbender, either this conforms that Paramount has way more control over the project than M. Night or that M. Night is a pathological liar.
-- I find it really fascinating and telling about his insight into fantasy. Basically, he says it's really hard to do because HIS view of fantasy is that it works best as "metaphorical" to something "larger". Interesting, because as far as I know (as a literary critic) that there is not much metaphor in The Last Airbender besides some very broad ones. Perhaps M. Night and his team is looking too much into something that is simply not there? If so, then he would not be the right person for either Harry Potter or Avatar: The Last Airbender.
-- Again, he mentions that his style is that he "grounds fantasy into reality". As we now know, that means smashing it into the ground.
-- He is attracted to "Lord of the Rings/Star Wars/ect". I think he likes them but has no idea why it works.
-- Lastly from my end, one of his hopes is that Ron some how flirts or turns over into the "Dark Side". He would use this as a same interest into the Zuko character.
Anyhow, thought this would be an interesting piece of data as we try to figure out and expose this massive clusterf#@k. =D
P.S. Terry Gilliam should have done at least one of the Harry Potter films. DAMN YOU WARNER BROTHERS! =(
Then a thought came back to me. Long time ago, when I use to be really into the Harry Potter fandom (though I guess not as much as I thought it was, I knew Emerson, that was enough for me) I use to listen to the at the time new Harry Potter podcasts. One was called MuggleCast and the other PotterCast.
And that got me remembering...wasn't M. Night at one point OFFERED to do a Harry Potter movie!
Well I looked it up and not only was it true...but PotterCast did a fifteen minute interview with him about shooting Lady in the Water, thoughts on Fantasy and what he would do with Harry Potter.
You can hear it here:
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://media.libsyn.com/media/pottercast/pc060716.mp3
The interview comes in at around 47:28.
I found this interview fascinating since M. Night's interview predates our situation, but I think there is lots of valuable info we can mine from this interview.
I'm not going to sum up the details of the entire conversation, however, here is what I can point out...
-- Many of his reasons for getting into Harry Potter would be the SAME EXACT REASONS he used to get into The Last Airbender. Apparently if M. Night did not have his daughter, he would be screwed way more than he is now. I hope one day she will grow up and become a director. Not only could she have the potential to do adaptions that follow the source material UNLIKE her father, but there are a dearth of Women and Indian directors.
-- He also stresses on how he views adaptions in film making "sacred" and how he would treat the Harry Potter source material like a bible. However, knowing what he now did to The Last Airbender, either this conforms that Paramount has way more control over the project than M. Night or that M. Night is a pathological liar.
-- I find it really fascinating and telling about his insight into fantasy. Basically, he says it's really hard to do because HIS view of fantasy is that it works best as "metaphorical" to something "larger". Interesting, because as far as I know (as a literary critic) that there is not much metaphor in The Last Airbender besides some very broad ones. Perhaps M. Night and his team is looking too much into something that is simply not there? If so, then he would not be the right person for either Harry Potter or Avatar: The Last Airbender.
-- Again, he mentions that his style is that he "grounds fantasy into reality". As we now know, that means smashing it into the ground.
-- He is attracted to "Lord of the Rings/Star Wars/ect". I think he likes them but has no idea why it works.
-- Lastly from my end, one of his hopes is that Ron some how flirts or turns over into the "Dark Side". He would use this as a same interest into the Zuko character.
Anyhow, thought this would be an interesting piece of data as we try to figure out and expose this massive clusterf#@k. =D
P.S. Terry Gilliam should have done at least one of the Harry Potter films. DAMN YOU WARNER BROTHERS! =(