Sci-Fi Wire Set Visit Report
Hey guys, I happened to come across this last night, and thought I'd share.
http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/what-shyamalan-showed-us.php
It's an article from Sci-Fi Wire about "The Last Airbender." Basically, there's a lot of undeserved praise being given to Shyamalan for his decision to work on this project, which is expected, I suppose. Frank Marshall even says a thing or two, and the article makes a big deal about all the "firsts" for Shymalan as a director. However, what surprised me the most is that the article didn't even bother to mention the casting controversy, or the protest movement, especially since they released this article a few months ago:
scifiwire.com/2008/12/is-m-night-shyamalans-last-airbender-casting-racist.php
I skimmed through some of the comments, and while there are the usual types that think we're blowing this out of proportion or are so caught up in fanboy/fangirl joy to seriously think about any of this, I was pleased to see that there were several, intellegent and reasonable fans who are against the film making comments...as well as a few Shymalan haters. *gigglesnort* (And that reminds me, I saw a commercial for tomorrow's episode of Tosh.0 on Comedy Central, where Terrel Owens makes a big apology, and finishes up with something the effect of "And to all fans of M. Night Shymalan, I apologize for everything after The Sixth Sense." I don't know about you guys, but I'm lumping this one into that as well. But yeah, I'll see if I can find the clip after it airs if anyone's interested.) Anyway, I was wondering if we should send messages to Sci-Fi Wire to address this? I know that the Sci-Fi Channel belongs to NBC Universal, and not Viacom, so mentioning the controversy probably wouldn't hurt them, which confuses me as to why they didn't in the first place...unless Marshall or Shyamalan may have told them that they wouldn't discuss it, which probably was the case. Anyway, just random speculation on my part.
EDIT: There's an article on the Entertainment Weekly site now that addresses the casting controversy, and is actually pretty sympathetic to all of us that are confused/upset/incredibly pissed about the unusual casting decisons.
popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/06/avatar-the-last-airbender-trailer-does-it-make-you-forgive-m-nights-questionable-casting-decisions.html