The Last Airbender

[John Dawlish]

The teaser trailer to Avatar:The Last Airbender has come out.
It looked good, atleast to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfsojNtU ... re=related

[Dervon]

Huh... I haven't seen the cartoon this is based on, but I hear it is good. This also looks nice, but I have to say, there hasn't been a director quite like M. Night Shyamalan as far as me both loving some of his works and utterly hating others. I eagerly await this.

...

Actually, never having seen the original story might be an advantage. I hear that Shyamalan is messing with the back-story of the whole thing, and knowing him, he will likely also load the movie with aesops or somesuch moralistic crap. :D

...

And scroll down after watching the vid to get some classic Youtube RAAAAGE 'n STUPID! Anyone here who has watched the series, can you tell me if any of the anger is founded? Is the actor thing really an issue?

[Wittgen]

Kind of. I've never seen the actual series, but I do know that the setting is strongly rooted in Korean and Inuit cultures. So, it's kind of crappy what he's doing. Aang being white doesn't seem so unreasonable to me, but the other casting choices? Classic Hollywood bullshit.

[MrRigger2]

I saw that trailer last night when I went to go see Transformers 2, and it doesn't show me enough for me to make a decision right now. I do think that it'll be pretty far from the original cartoon, though that might now be a terrible thing. The cartoon was pretty good, though I think it's biggest flaw was the fact that it was on Nickelodean. The cartoon had a lot of forced silliness, or so it seemed to me. I don't think that will happen in the movie. I'm withholding judgement until a more detailed trailer comes out.

MrRigger

Ninja'd: I haven't heard most of the casting choices, so I can't say anything there, but I have heard rumors. And yeah, it looks like MST3K Mantra will be chanted a lot in regard to the cast members.

[Wittgen]

Unfortunately, "It's just a show" doesn't really apply. The casting inequities of Hollywood are a real life kind of nasty. It's so blatant in this case.

[MrRigger2]

I was talking more about when actually watching the movie, looking at the screen, and saying to yourself, "That's not right. Seriously, did he watch the show?" That's when you're using the MST3K mantra. But you're right. There's just not a lot we can do about it.

MrRigger

[John Dawlish]

Most of the actors can be found here.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0938283/

[MorphCross]

I saw the trailer Wednesday night. My first thoughts were, "Not bad, not bad at all." But i'm in the boat of waiting to see a more in-depth trailer. I did like what their makeup dept. did for Aang's arrow tattoo. It looks far more professional than a solid blue arrow.

The Airbending actually looked well done, but i'm curious to see how the Water and Firebending come out.

[Chuckg]

Basically, M. Night Smamalamadingdong's track record (which has been, y'know, dismal for the last few movies) is why I consider this movie guilty until proven innocent. I won't believe that it ain't gonna be a pile of suck until after the movie's out and I been proven otherwise.

Which is a pity, because the trailer did indeed look very very nice. If the director was somebody I didn't know, I'd be letting the trailer get my hopes up.

As is? Between 'The Village', 'Lady In The Water', and 'The Happening'... yeah, I'm not expecting him to break the streak.

[Dervon]

Kinda liked Lady, if only because you could tell in the reviews that critics took it personally that the only character to die is the jaded-movie crit. :D

Also, did anyone see the battleships at the end of the trailer and think "Hey, those are the soviet battleships in Command & Conquer!"? :D

[Wittgen]

I'm not too worried about M. Night as a director. He's pretty competent in the actual directing. It's the reliance on the twist crap that seems to really hurt him. Since he's using someone else's story this time out, that means he won't be able to pull that shit. Right?

...crap.

[Dervon]

...crap.

Yup. The man may have said he was a fan of the series, but I have no idea how much lee-way he was given in re-writing and adding in new stuff.

Again, going in as someone who knows next to nothing about Avatar seems like a good thing to me. I'll watch the series after the movie. :D

Wait...

It's gonna be a trilogy...

*head-desk*

Guess I wont be seeing the cartoon for a while yet. *sigh*

[ewuvi]

I'm not sure what I think. Having the Inuit characters being played by pasty people doesn't exactly thrill me, but whatever.

And I liked The Happening. Okay, yeah, you can't out run wind, but it was cool. And it had viola and cello featured prominently in the musical score.

[Chuckg]

Guess I wont be seeing the cartoon for a while yet. *sigh*

Ignore the movie, watch the cartoon *now*.

Note for first-time 'Avatar' viewers: For the first half of season 1, its still not bad but oftentimes feels a little too much like a kid's show.

They then do a mid-course correction and that stops entirely.

I had a little trouble getting into the pilot, and didn't watch the show for quite some time. Then somebody made me watch some season 2, and I realized what I was missing.

The first half of S3 is the show's other mini-slump, but individual episodes within it are still great, they just have a pacing problem with the main arc.

But really, its one of the most well-written shows I've seen in a while. Think of like the best anime you know, it compares to that.

And even at its worst, its still far too good to let M. Night Shyamalan keep you from seeing it.

[Dervon]

It's not so much a desire to watch to movie over the cartoon, as much as a general philosophy of mine that if there is a bunch of stuff tied to a particular franchise (books, cartoons, movies, etc...) I like to start with what is probably the worse and work my way up.

So, instead of facepalming and groaning at all the horrible things that were done to a story I loved, I instead am left with the feeling of: Well, the movie was nice, but I know the cartoons are better, so let's go watch!

...

Meh, I lack the patience to wait the 4+ years for the trilogy to rap up, might take you up on your advice Chuck and watch it during Summer. :D

[Phht]

Also, did anyone see the battleships at the end of the trailer and think "Hey, those are the soviet battleships in Command & Conquer!"? :D

YES. Freaking Soviet Dreadnaughts. It's clear that Yuri wants the last Airbender under his thumb. Or dead. Not sure if Yuri cares one way or the other.

So, instead of facepalming and groaning at all the horrible things that were done to a story I loved, I instead am left with the feeling of: Well, the movie was nice, but I know the cartoons are better, so let's go watch!

So you read Starship Troopers after seeing the movie?

[Dervon]

So you read Starship Troopers after seeing the movie?

It's on my "to-do" list, and is a perfect example of what I was saying in action: Most people who have read the book and then commented on the movie say it is trash. I found it highly enjoyable, since I wasn't burdened with a love for the originating source material. :D

BRB, the theme to the movie is stuck in my head again, going to listen. :P

[doc.exe]

IMO, M. Night Shyamalan is actually a competent director. He is very good when it comes to capture the emotions of his characters, as well as creating scenes full of suspense and tension. The problem with his movies is mostly in the writting department. He is a terrible writter! But overall, he is not that bad as a director.

In the case of this movie, so far I want to give Shyamalan the benefit of doubt. As said before, he is adapting the story of somebody else, not to mention that the trailer doesn't let out much of the actual movie. I just pray to any entity out there that somebody put restrictions as to how much of the original story he can touch/re-write.

As to the cast.... Usually, I tend to care more about the talent of the actor/actress involved rather than about his/her ethnicity contradicting the one from the original version. But in this case, I don't know who most of these guys are, so I can't really comment there (although that fact is kind of a double edged sword by itself).

BTW, I haven't seen yet The Lady in Water, neither The Happening. But I kinda liked The Village. Signs was the one that didn't worked for me.

[Chuckg]

*twitch*

Oh dear Lord, Signs... I thought I'd repressed those memories.

[MorphCross]

I actually kinda enjoyed Sign's...up to the wall-banger that the Aliens are vulnerable to water, and they are invading a Planet thats surface is 73% water.

[Wittgen]

The thing about Signs is that it actually worked as a movie for quite a ways into it. The twist at the end wasn't so much "God did it," as it was "M. Night is kind of sucky."

[Kitsune no Arashi]

Huh... I haven't seen the cartoon this is based on, but I hear it is good. This also looks nice, but I have to say, there hasn't been a director quite like M. Night Shyamalan as far as me both loving some of his works and utterly hating others. I eagerly await this.

...

Actually, never having seen the original story might be an advantage. I hear that Shyamalan is messing with the back-story of the whole thing, and knowing him, he will likely also load the movie with aesops or somesuch moralistic crap. :D

...

And scroll down after watching the vid to get some classic Youtube RAAAAGE 'n STUPID! Anyone here who has watched the series, can you tell me if any of the anger is founded? Is the actor thing really an issue?

The cartoon was VERY good but I don't have enough data to really give you an opinion on the movies quality yet. All I can say is I've yet to see a cartoon that maintained its quality when converted to live action; The movie will either outstip the cartoon or positivly fail to measure up. Did anyone get a timeline for the movie? There are three acts and one movie to the orrigional series so if they try to go below three movies for the whole thing they're going to need to change a LOT. That can be good or bad but we'd really just have to see.

[Dervon]

It's going to be a trilogy. Or so the Wiki says.

[MrRigger2]

Well, if they cut out the filler episodes, and some of the less important plot points, I can see it fitting into a fairly long movie. For them to cover what is really needed, they need Katara and Sokka waking Aang up, Aang's confrontation with Zuko's ship at the South Pole, Kyoshi Island (for Suki), and then they could go onto the events of the North Pole. Yeah, it drops a lot, but I think that's what we can reasonably expect to fit in a movie.

MrRigger

[Dervon]

Well, if they cut out the filler episodes, and some of the less important plot points, I can see it fitting into a fairly long movie. For them to cover what is really needed, they need Katara and Sokka waking Aang up, Aang's confrontation with Zuko's ship at the South Pole, Kyoshi Island (for Suki), and then they could go onto the events of the North Pole. Yeah, it drops a lot, but I think that's what we can reasonably expect to fit in a movie.

MrRigger

This being just a season's worth?

I mean, the fact is there are probably gonna be 3 movies, so that is, what, 270 minutes minimum if each movie is an hour and a half. Is Avatar over or is it ongoing?