M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender

[GeneChing]

...wrong Avatar above

Here's the official website with the new trailer (different from the Superbowl one)

[Skip J.]

...wrong Avatar above

Here's the official website with the new trailer (different from the Superbowl one)

Thank you Gene, very nice.....

[@PLUGO]

...wrong Avatar above

Here's the official website with the new trailer (different from the Superbowl one)

****... well i guess that's why the trailer looked so good.

[Lokhopkuen]

Thank the Avatar for ILM

[sanjuro_ronin]

Still not convinced about the casting...I don't like the choice for Prince Zoku that's for sure.
The special effects are, of course, amazing.
I am on the fence.

[Zenshiite]

^Same here. I'm less riled about the Aang casting right now than I am Sokka and Katara though. Those two lily whites stick out like a sore thumb amongst the Inuit-seeming extras they got for the Water Tribe.

[sanjuro_ronin]

^Same here. I'm less riled about the Aang casting right now than I am Sokka and Katara though. Those two lily whites stick out like a sore thumb amongst the Inuit-seeming extras they got for the Water Tribe.

Yeah, I don't get that either...
I don't know why the director didn't use the actors who's voices were in the series if he was gonna go "non-asian".
I am not happy with Zoku's casting and from the trailier, if the guy with the beard speaking to Zoku is supposed to be Uncle Iroh, and am even less happy.
I know its too soon to make a call but the casting is looking like the weak part.
But Aang is growing on me too.

[Zenshiite]

Oh yeah. Uncle Iroh. Yeesh. The dude playing him is a great actor, and you've seen him in basically anything that calls for a skinny bald Iranian. As Uncle Iroh though? No. Does not work.

Iroh is probably my favorite aspect of the series, with the character changed in this way that kind of takes away everything of what Uncle Iroh was an homage to. That sucks big time.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Oh yeah. Uncle Iroh. Yeesh. The dude playing him is a great actor, and you've seen him in basically anything that calls for a skinny bald Iranian. As Uncle Iroh though? No. Does not work.

Iroh is probably my favorite aspect of the series, with the character changed in this way that kind of takes away everything of what Uncle Iroh was an homage to. That sucks big time.

Agreed.

[Lucas]

thats the problem with things like this. sure its the same characters names, the same story line, but the essence is changed. is it really the same or is it a someone similar carbon copy....

[Zenshiite]

Ironically, so many fans of the Avatar series are so enamored with the idea of a live action movie that they are clamoring to be the loudest proclaimers of how "true" this will be to the source material and how it's "okay" to stray from the visual and ethnic cues of the TV show to make it happen. I'm not so into live action movies that I even necessarily concede that the series could ever have justice fully done for it in film. I'm certainly not so into it that I'm willing to let the very world be morphed into something different just for the sake of Hollywood execs being too cowardly to give us an Asian fantasy epic of Star Wars or LOTR proportions.

Not even Chinese cinema has really managed that, yet. What Hollywood has done is take a quintessentially Asian fantasy cartoon world and stripped it of it's unique qualities by giving us, yet again, a band of white people who are going to save the day. Worse yet, save the day from the evil brown people. Compound matters, those brown people are apparently all South Asian, Persian and Arab! Thanks for hijacking something cool and turning it into yet another "white is right" propaganda piece Hollywood!

[Lucas]

well said.

[Skip J.]

well said.

yessss....

[Zenshiite]

[Skip J.]

you're welcome! I grew up in the '60's so I come by "it" naturally myself...