It always feels like we’re on the verge of another Time Bandits. Save for Labyrinth and NeverEnding Story (just kidding), the ‘80s kids’ fantasy adventure genre is easy pickings for media execs looking to give their burgeoning streaming enterprise a shot in the arm. The quest for that mythical pre-existing I.P. knows no bounds. Alas, many of these properties have not been handled with care. One can’t even watch Disney+’s Willow show if they wanted to—though they’d probably sooner ask, “There was a Willow TV show?”
The next property to get its day in the streaming sun before being whisked into the Apple TV+ Vault is Time Bandits, a remake of Terry Gilliam’s 1981 fantasy. Created by Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, and Inbetweeners co-creator Iain Morris, Time Bandits closely follows Gilliam’s premise. A gang of time-traveling robbers takes a “time egress” from one point in history to another in search of treasure, but one portal lands them in the bedroom of an 11-year-old history buff, who gets swept up in the adventure.
Based on the trailer, Time Bandits offers a far more modern and very Waititian version of the property. Characters talk with that same disaffected tone, slipping in and out of the scene’s reality for a joke, which can rankle some and delight others. However, at least recently, that’s been feeling more welcome on television, where Our Flag Means Death and What We Do In The Shadows amassed passionate fan bases in ways Thor: Love And Thunder and Next Goal Wins have not. With any luck, the Our Flag Means Death fandom will have a new port to call their own.
Of course, gone is the D.I.Y. scrappiness, and, in its place, is a heavily computer-generated wonderland that offers some visual inventiveness in a much glossier form. The only shocking thing about the trailer is that all the bandits, played initially by actors of shorter stature, have been replaced by average-sized actors. Unsurprisingly, the show has been criticized for its casting—criticisms the production ultimately decided to ignore. On TikTok (via The Sydney Morning Herald), Abbie Purvis, the granddaughter of Time Bandits’ star Jack Purvis, said, “For a generation that is so big on talking about inclusivity and diversity and making sure everyone’s heard, this whole casting choice just seems absurd […] The fact that you’ve taken an ‘80s film, which is quite niche and tried to make it almost ‘normal’ to fit in with the industry clarifies everything I’ve ever thought—that people like me are forgotten about.”
Disability advocates also took issue with the show’s casting. Bethany Bale of Disability Rights UK argued, “What was once a story that centered a group of disabled individuals is now a story that has chosen to deliberately exclude disabled actors.”
“The media has for a long time lacked the inclusion and representation needed to give disabled actors equal opportunities, and too often non-disabled actors are given the few disabled roles on offer,” Bale continues. “This new iteration of Time Bandits is an excellent opportunity to start to change that; I hope that Taika Waititi and his crew choose to.”
Based on the new trailer, he did not. The new crew, all of apparently average height, includes Lisa Kudrow, Rune Temte, Kiera Thompson, Kal-El Tuck, Tadhg Murphy, and Roger Jean Nsengiyumva.
Time Bandits will premiere with two episodes on Wednesday, July 24. New episodes will drop on Wednesdays.
