M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender

[doug maverick]

Nice Lokhopkuen, very nice! Way to give KS props! BSL#8 on Fox!



I suspect Rathbone will have a hard time looking at Box Office results next week. Too bad he couldn't have hung on to Twilight.

i think he is still in twilight gene

[GeneChing]

Shows you how much I know about the Twilight franchise.

Click below for vid, assuming you got nothing better to do...

Regis Philbin Tests Dev Patel's Martial Arts Skill (VIDEO)
by TV Squad Staff, posted Jul 1st 2010 7:21PM

Dev Patel, who stars as Prince Zuko in M. Night Shyamalan's 'The Last Airbender,' which opens this weekend, visited 'Live With Regis and Kelly' (weekdays, 9AM ET on ABC), where he discussed how his martial arts training helped him with all the stunts in the film

"I practiced martial arts for eight years before I got into acting," Patel told Philbin and Ripa. "That really came in handy."As Patel talked about being a "really tall guy" and worrying if the camera would make him look cool when compared to "the Jet Li's and Jackie Chans," who are "so compact and muscular," Philbin begins to squirm in his seat. You just know he's up to something.

Sure enough, without warning, Philbin sneak attacks the young actor with a "karate chop."

"By the way, Regis just pulled his groin," Ripa remarks.

[Wil-Hung]

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.

I could not possibly agree more, in fact you were to light on criticism. I actually nodded off 3 times. Went with my son and his best friend, and they woke me up 3-4 times. I was disappointed, but I didn't realize each movie was a book, and they didnt advertise it that way. My expectations would have been different. I wish they had focused more on training. Book 2 should be nice, though. Did you notice all of the earthbenders were asian. Like they were from another part of the world.

[Wil-Hung]

That's big corporate movie making brother

I walked out of the free screening and then signed 1,500 autographs for a movie I didn't even work on. Now THATS Hollywood

Can you be more involved in Chapter 2, This was as weak as it could possibly get. Why can't the creators have more input? they had to be wretching.

[doug maverick]

I could not possibly agree more, in fact you were to light on criticism. I actually nodded off 3 times. Went with my son and his best friend, and they woke me up 3-4 times. I was disappointed, but I didn't realize each movie was a book, and they didnt advertise it that way. My expectations would have been different. I wish they had focused more on training. Book 2 should be nice, though. Did you notice all of the earthbenders were asian. Like they were from another part of the world.

well they arent physical books...but seasons in the cartoon...well im hoping that m.night has departed from the series as he is prepping to do another movie. this movie needs a director like guerrmo del toro...now there is someone who could make this movie down right epic...and maybe sammo hung pulling double duty as uncle iroh and martial arts choreographer.

[KC Elbows]

I have yet to watch the series, but it seems to me that they were trying to include too long a story curve in one movie. They should have either made it longer or cut it off at a different point.

[doug maverick]

70 million, which is just about half its budget(150million) so it looks like what is being called the worse reviewed movie this year may in fact garner a sequel. lets just hope paramount, which was the first studio to cross the billion dollar thresh hold this quarter beating out the champ of the previous 9 years warners. get rid of M.night and move on to a director more comfortable with this type of material.

[Wildwoo]

well they arent physical books...but seasons in the cartoon...well im hoping that m.night has departed from the series as he is prepping to do another movie. this movie needs a director like guerrmo del toro...now there is someone who could make this movie down right epic...and maybe sammo hung pulling double duty as uncle iroh and martial arts choreographer.

The choice for who should have provided martial art choreography (and who will be doing it in the future) is glaringly obvious don't you think? Sifu Kisu was responsible for some of the most amazing martial art sequences ever seen in animation. 61 action filled episodes of the original Emmy award winning animated series. The same man just happens to be coordinating Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness (a new Nick/ Dreamworks Series), The Kung Fu Panda 2 feature film and the brand new series set in the Avatar Universe.
If something isn't broken it certainly does not need to be fixed, warped, twisted, substituted, imitated or distorted.

[doug maverick]

(Just between you and me) I was the original consultant hired to coordinate the movie.... Paramount paid me a nice chunk of change to create a series of reference DVDs and It's a shame they didn't bother to watch them <CHA/CHING!> They "went another direction" Also anyone outside of the company wouldn't know that the Paramount upper management shifted 4 times during the course of production of the movie and I suspect it will shift again before the dust settles on this one. We'll see

paramount is a tentpole studio their whole system is built around how many sequels can they make off of a film, they really arent in the art aspect of a film, as seen by how they ruined the visual of airbender by making it 3d, all they want to make is a franchise, now the defeatist part of that is had they made the movie the right way it could have been an amazing even oscar winning trilogy(actually seeing how the trend goes they would and probably will break the last part up into two films). but poor judgment really ruined this film. and to willow and the reason why i mention sammo over our illustrious sifu kisu is simple,.....he is sammo. and can craft amazing martial arts fight scenes and has for over 30 years. but i love all the stuff in the cartoon as well.

[taai gihk yahn]

Kisu did the MA choreography for the series, which AFAIK was one of the reasons it was so popular, and Paramount decides to bag that and go another direction? lol, typical - just like my CLF / Lama hing dai / friend who worked for DIsney back in the '90s as an animator - he was working on Hercules at the same time they were putting together Mulan, and he got a wif of the MA they were going to use: all 'crotty'! so he went in and showed them what TCMA looked like, in fact they sketched him doing jian / gim and even used it in the sequence when Mulan's dad is practicing at the beginning, and then when she fights the Ghengis Khan type guy at the end; but instead of using him for the rest of the fight scenes they go and get BH Barry, lol, and of course the rest of the movie MA stunk! typical Hollywood BS when it comes to accurate portrayal of non-western idioms...

[Scott R. Brown]

...non-western idioms...

Who you calling an idiom you dumb cluck!!!!!!

[SPJ]

just saw the movie on the big screen.

already known the stories from watching animation series on DVD.

princess azula showed up at the end.

waiting to see the next episode on the big screen.

cool.

[taai gihk yahn]

Who you calling an idiom you dumb cluck!!!!!!

Hi, stalker, hi.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I watched it.
It sucked !
At certain points the fighting was even blurred, probably from the conversion to 3d ( I saw it in 2D).
Storyline sucked, making Aang a reluctant Avatar is one thing, a pathetic excuse for an avatar is another.
Acting sucked.
The name changes were pointless.
The addition of Lord Ozai dialouge was pointless, the direction that Shamalaya took it didn't work at all.
No chemestry between Aang and Katara, no humour in Sokka.
Basically, everything that made the series a huge hit was either changed or elimenated.
Shamlaya should be shot and ****ed on.

The ONLY thing good was the FX and even that was screwed up in the final battle.

[MightyB]

I watched it.
It sucked !
At certain points the fighting was even blurred, probably from the conversion to 3d ( I saw it in 2D).
Storyline sucked, making Aang a reluctant Avatar is one thing, a pathetic excuse for an avatar is another.
Acting sucked.
The name changes were pointless.
The addition of Lord Ozai dialouge was pointless, the direction that Shamalaya took it didn't work at all.
No chemestry between Aang and Katara, no humour in Sokka.
Basically, everything that made the series a huge hit was either changed or elimenated.
Shamlaya should be shot and ****ed on.

The ONLY thing good was the FX and even that was screwed up in the final battle.

I pretty much agree... but the thing that was the most irritating was M Night's overzealous crediting of himself... big ol' written by credit being the one that most peaved me off. Screenplay by, or film adaptation by... but not written by.

Yeah- Sokka sucked (no humor), and the name changes... wtf!