Diksha Sundriyal
Apple TV+’s ‘Time Bandits’ takes the audience on an adventure where a group of thieves floats through time and space, landing in all sorts of historical events and places to steal valuable things. They are joined by a boy named Kevin, a history nerd who is ecstatic to be on a journey that happens to be the only exciting thing in his life. His story and adventures unfold over the course of a season, but originally, they were contained in a movie. 1981’s ‘Time Bandits’ is the inspiration behind the TV show, which makes many changes to the story, including the bandits themselves. In the movie, the role of bandits was played by little people. In the show, however, they don’t seem to have the same place in the story.
The Absence of Little People in Time Bandits Has Led to Backlash from the Audience
Whenever a beloved movie receives a modern treatment, some things are bound to change. However, in the case of ‘Time Bandits,’ this change has become a cause for controversy, and the show and its creators have received backlash from the community of little people and the fans of the movie who have pointed out that the show entirely rewrites the roles for the bandits (who are the main characters in the story, along with 10-year-old Kevin). In the movie, they were played by actors with dwarfism, but the show gives those roles to normal-sized actors.
When asked about this, creators Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement revealed that they had initially thought about casting little people as bandits. Because they were revamping the story, they wanted to mix it up a bit and make the bandits a group of people with mixed heights. They didn’t want to repeat the movie’s formula of portraying the stereotype of dwarves as magical people in a fantasy. A couple of actors were brought on board to play those roles, but the whole thing fell out due to one thing or another. Eventually, they ended up casting entirely different actors for all the bandits.
Clement acknowledged the criticism and revealed that the team did wrestle with “two big sides of the debate.” On one side was the stereotyping they didn’t want to fall into, and on the other side, by not doing that, they didn’t want to take away opportunities from actors with dwarfism. Having become aware of the concerns of the little people community, he and Waititi decided to make up for it and wrote new parts for people with dwarfism in the story, which they hope to expand in the following season.
Adding to the conversation, Waititi stated that their focus was not to replicate the story, and they welcomed several changes across the plot while adding their own spin to the story. He also mentioned that while the film enjoys a huge popularity and did feature little people in the main cast, he doesn’t believe that it should be “defined because of the presence of little people in it.” Still, as Clement said, it makes the whole issue complicated because of the legitimacy of both sides of the argument. Still, he hopes that the audience enjoys the show, which was made keeping in mind that families could watch it together and have a wholesome time.
Read More: Is Time Bandits Show a Sequel to Time Bandits (1981)? How are They Connected?
