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Thread: M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender

  1. #301
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    he is gearing up to some movie with bruce willis.

  2. #302
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    I'm going in(pause)

    alright first let me start of by saying this short review will be laden with SPOILERS ok here we go. man where do i start this movie SUCKED, horribly i mean what the f uck, i thought jonah hex was gonna be the worst movie of all ten. ehhh matter fact it still is, but this comes in a close second. first let me say that i really felt this movie was straight up and down blatantly racist, which is weird, the only good dark skin person was dead before the movie even started, even the iroh character was light skinned. M.night should bow his head in shame for that.matter fact we should get charlie and eddy murphy to do a rick james on his legs. also i they changed the pronounciation of the names, Aang became Ang, Iroh became erroh, sokka became Soka. the movie was basically a mantage of the first season, just lame, there was way to much talking heads i mean literally the actors would just stood there and vomited up there lines, no energy no flair no intensity what so ever. there were alot of gaps in there where character building that was in the cartoon was gone from the movie, like how Aang and katara and sokka actually become friends, not just meet. i mean its weird how they meet him and are like ok lets going around the world together, a stronger director would have figured out how to build the bond between the three. also i liked in the cartoon when they went to train with the water master how there was this whole thing with sokka not being able to learn, that should have been included. which is what gets me to my other prob. there wasnt enough bending or action for me. and what was offered wasnt really strong, i would have loved for someone like sammo hung to have been the actiond director/choreagrapher he would have taken this thing to the heavans.

    finally lets get to the end. where Aang goes into the avatar states and freezes all the ships.........i does not happen, instead he just let them go. wow i gotta say this wasnt good...and it could have been. if m night just added a tiny bit more, got rid of all the yakking...and the stupid voice over...rule number one of filmmaker...NEVER STATE WHAT YOU CAN IMPLY. anyway it seems that mnight is moving on and hopefully they get a much better director to helm the second film...

    ps. one last note this thing was devoid of comedy...i was like wth sokka isnt funny in this thing....its all drap and serious and when the funny parts do come you dont even care.

  3. #303
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    Whoa, Doug! Thanks for the review, you actually helped me make up my mind about this. I take your review seriously because you were actually trying to give this movie a chance, when everyone was dogging on it.

    That's just too bad. M. Night should just be kicked out of Hollywood, and I hate to say that about a fellow Brown (Indian) man since there are so few of us in that position. He had the HONOR of taking someone else's great story, and couldn't even get that right. It's like having the answers to the test and still flunking.

    It sounds like from your description, M. Night was not really a true fan of the series.

    Well hopefully when this gets panned big time and becomes a public disaster, it may make the money people listen just a little closer to the fans and what the fans would like to see.
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  4. #304
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    thing is 5-14 year olds dont read reviews and they are gonna beg their parents to see this and to see it in 3d(which is really a waste, 2d is just fine you wont miss nothing, i hate post pro 3d) so just by those factors its gonna do well..its not gonna do crazy numbers, because its going up against the beast that is twilight...but when they do a sequel to this and they will...hopefully the next guy can do better.

  5. #305
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    In almost all of M. Night's films, a lot of the actors tend to speak their lines with no energy or spirit. Sometimes like talking in their sleep. And they often act without spirit, almost like drugged-down zombies. I'm talking about good actors, like Bruce Willis, etc. It has everything to do with M. Night as a director, IMO.

  6. #306
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimbo View Post
    In almost all of M. Night's films, a lot of the actors tend to speak their lines with no energy or spirit. Sometimes like talking in their sleep. And they often act without spirit, almost like drugged-down zombies. I'm talking about good actors, like Bruce Willis, etc. It has everything to do with M. Night as a director, IMO.
    agreed a million percent....


    some other things...the indian actors were also the best actors who were the only actors to have some "fire"(pun no intended) in them when they spoke. also there was this actor who played an old man who betrayed the avatar...and im like this dude should have been iroh his voice and look were perfect.

  7. #307
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    I haven't seen the movie yet, but from Doug'd review I can see the problem was indeed with the direction.
    When taking a series and putting a whole season into a 2 hour movie, it takes LOTS of skill and great writing to make the chemistry work, like the relationship between Aang and Sokka, not so much Aang having the hots for Katara, love at first sight is easy, but the friendship thing needs time OR great writing to build up.

    I hate 3d too by the way, it takes away from the movie more than it adds.
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  8. #308
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    Quote Originally Posted by sanjuro_ronin View Post
    I haven't seen the movie yet, but from Doug'd review I can see the problem was indeed with the direction.
    When taking a series and putting a whole season into a 2 hour movie, it takes LOTS of skill and great writing to make the chemistry work, like the relationship between Aang and Sokka, not so much Aang having the hots for Katara, love at first sight is easy, but the friendship thing needs time OR great writing to build up.

    I hate 3d too by the way, it takes away from the movie more than it adds.
    well ill disagree on the 3d part, i think when used correctly and effectively it can truly enhance the scenery and the action of a film...however, that only works when the movie is actually shot with 3d cameras, like say avatar and alice and wonderland... then you can feel the movie...but doing it iin post just doesnt have the same effect because you cant 3d the entire movie its to expensive you can only do parts..the failure in this movie lies on M.night and his failure to communicate a story to the audience, when i watched the movie i see how he could have added this moment or that moment and taken away other useless scenes and lines...it felt almost like a really bad expensive student film but it wasnt. and m.night has just further proven that he has peaked as a filmmaker and needs to go back to the drawing board.

  9. #309
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    Beaten to the punch by Doug.

    In my defense, I'll say it's an east coast/west coast thing.

    The movie races to try and cover the entire first season (Book One: Water) adding narration to try to pick up the slack, and sacrifices the humor and character development. M. Night Shyamalan has been struggling to produce a mcgguffin on the level of Sixth Sense, but Airbender has no mcgguffin really, so there's just nothing. It really suffers from not being called Avatar. It's budget is 280 million, but it will be devoured by vampires this weekend, and I predict it will join the ranks of unfinished attempts to make a new kid franchise, the Harry Potter wannabes, like Golden Compass, City of Ember and Narnia.

    On the upside, the wushu looks good. Was that Li Jing giving the foot massage? Obviously I've been doing my forms all wrong as I can't bend nothing.

    NOTE: I am not a fan of the cartoon series, mostly because I've just never had the time to watch it. Also, as for all the complaints about whitewashing, Avatar has always been western for me as the elements are western: air, water, earth, fire. If it was Asian, it would be water, wood, fire, earth, metal. The fact that the fire nation all looked middle eastern, well, that's another issue entirely.

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  10. #310
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    my beef wasnt with the white washing...that part was whatever..it was how he blatantly made the indian/middle eastern actors bad guys and iroh the one good one was light skin/white. it was done blatantly

  11. #311
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    NOTE: I am not a fan of the cartoon series, mostly because I've just never had the time to watch it. Also, as for all the complaints about whitewashing, Avatar has always been western for me as the elements are western: air, water, earth, fire. If it was Asian, it would be water, wood, fire, earth, metal. The fact that the fire nation all looked middle eastern, well, that's another issue entirely.
    If I recall, the elements being 4 is an indian thing, not western.
    Earth covers all the earth elements like metal and wood.
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  12. #312
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    Indian elements are a trinity

    The four elements are Greek: water (thales), air (anaximenes), earth (xenophanes), and fire (heraclitus). Indian cosmology is three: fire (agni), water (ap), & earth (prithivi).

    I FB'ed Li Jing and she confirmed that it was her giving Uncle Iroh the foot massage.
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  13. #313
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    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    The four elements are Greek: water (thales), air (anaximenes), earth (xenophanes), and fire (heraclitus). Indian cosmology is three: fire (agni), water (ap), & earth (prithivi).

    I FB'ed Li Jing and she confirmed that it was her giving Uncle Iroh the foot massage.
    Actually, you are right and wrong

    Classical Elements

    Babylonian
    Sky
    Sea Wind
    Earth

    Greek
    Air
    Water Aether Fire
    Earth

    Hinduism (Tattva) and
    Buddhism (Mahābhūta)
    Vayu/Pavan (Air/Wind)
    Ap/Jal (Water) Akasha (Aether/Space) Agni/Tejas (Fire)
    Prithvi/Bhumi (Earth)

    Chinese (Wuxing)
    Wood (木)
    Water (水) Fire (火)
    Metal (金) Earth (土)

    Japanese (Godai)
    Air/Wind (風)
    Water (水) Void/Sky/Heaven (空) Fire (火)
    Earth (地)

    Tibetan (Bön)
    Air
    Water Space Fire
    Earth

    Medieval Alchemy
    Air
    Water Aether Fire
    Earth
    Sulphur Mercury Salt
    Psalms 144:1
    Praise be my Lord my Rock,
    He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !

  14. #314
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    That said, wood and metal ARE part of the Earth.
    Psalms 144:1
    Praise be my Lord my Rock,
    He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !

  15. #315
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    honestly doing the eastern elements including metal as one would mess with the story.

    example: if you had a civilization full of metal benders....they would WTFPWN everyone. it would ruin the story. straight up.

    this way the one earth bender that creates metal bending is because her earth bending is strong enough to effect the alloys....

    as for the civilizations themselves, they are mix mashed. example: the fire nation have a distinctly japanese flair though not in the LOOKS of the people. they have black hair, pale complexion and yellow/red eyes....though look to have a euro features...there is asian influence woven through out it all.
    Last edited by Lucas; 06-30-2010 at 01:22 PM.
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