We know that he’s previously called the Last Airbender trilogy his Lord of the Rings. Now he’s also comparing it to Star Wars and The Matrix with good reason to do so.
For M. Night Shyamalan, it was his then 7-year old daughter who hooked him on the Nickelodeon series “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”
“She made us watch as a family and all four of us were hooked, “ Shyamalan said. “I was like, ‘This would make a killer movie. And my wife who really has been kind of in neutral about my career was insane about it. Insane about it: ‘You have to do it. This is it. This is the one.’ ”
“Aang himself needs to find balance to be the Avatar and to master each of these elements,” the director said. “We get to see the process of someone mastering themselves through the three seasons to get to peace.”
Shyamalan sees similar spiritual motiffs in “Star Wars” and “The Matrix.”
“In the first ‘Matrix,’ you realize that what you’re seeing is all false,” Shyamalan said. “Those are really ancient ideas. Basic old, old religion. This has that as well. So if you go on the journey and you’ll feel that epiphany on top of a great roller-coaster ride. It’s going to be something.“
-via L.A. Times
