Shyamalan unaware of “bender” slang use

About fews months ago Dev Patel one of the stars in M.Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender defended the use of the term “bender” in The Last Airbender.  When he was asked, he told The Times: “It was too integral to the movie. We couldn’t call them fire or air manipulators. It would have been moving too far from the source material.” That’s why he didn’t inform Shyamalan about the term. You can read that article at Digital Spy.

So today, Digital Spy  reports that M. Night Shyamalan has admitted that he was unaware of how the term “bender” is used as slang in the UK. Discussing the use of the term in The Last Airbender, Shyamalan told Metro that he did not consider changing the title.

When it was suggested that ‘some immature cinema-goers found dialogue such as, “look out he’s a bender” hilarious’, the director said: “I thought you guys used bender as a term for getting drunk, like, ‘I’m going on a bender’. “I wasn’t aware of that term. It was just the title of the cartoon show.”

He added: “Sometimes the title gets changed for particular territories. The title of my film The Happening was changed in some countries because happening meant party.”

6 Comments

  1. Some people were actually upset in the UK about the term ‘bender’ being used in the move, that was the main reason it was bashed there. The movie is fine, people just need to stop whining.

    Let’s throw a happening for this genius!

  2. Well this goes to show you the original series is not perfect either. I wonder if the U.K is showing the series on television with the word bender?

  3. M. Night should of used “The Legend of Aang” just as the show did for places like the UK…. -_-

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