10 Filmmakers Who Defended Their Terrible Movies
3. M. Night Shyamalan Says The Last Airbender's Problems Are Fine Because It's A Kid's Movie
When people started calling him "the next Spielberg" back in the early 2000s, M. Night Shyamalan quickly bought into his own hype.
He started rejecting studio notes and his films became more and more self-indulgent (see his cringe-worthy role in Lady In The Water, as a writer whose words will "change the world"), a recipe for disaster that resulted in the filmmaker churning out some of the biggest piles of cinematic trash we've seen in the last 20 years.
Released in the middle of the turd sandwich that is The Happening and After Earth was his universally-panned adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which currently rests at 5% on Rotten Tomatoes - a score so low that it's almost impressive.
Fans of the source material hated it, casual moviegoers hated it, and clearly, critics hated it too, but Shyamalan - perhaps feeling proud of the movie, or perhaps just wishing to massage his bruised ego - still came out and defended it, saying that he made it "for nine and ten-year-olds", as though that's supposed to excuse its flaws:
"Those kids, it's for them. It was for them, to talk about mysticism and Eastern philosophies through a ten-year-old's vernacular."
Mate, listen: Pixar movies also work for kids, but crucially, they actually have complex stories, wonderful characters, and great humour. It is possible to do both!