Avatar: The Last Airbender

[Lokhopkuen]

Originally Posted by AdrianK

I want to see some SPM in this movie, it looked pretty badass in the show, lets see if they pull through with it in the movie too.

What is SPM?

[Wildwoo]

So tell me if you still like the guy after you read this?


Exclusive Interview: 'THE LAST AIRBENDER' WRITER-DIRECTOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN GIVES iF THE SCOOP ON THAT OTHER 'AVATAR' FILM
After a decade long stint scaring the crap out of audiences, the filmmaker makes a movie specifically targeted for kids with this adaptation of the popular animated series
By EMMANUEL ITIER, Contributing Writer
Published 6/29/2009


On June 15, iF’s dutiful reporter Emmanuel Itier visited the Philadelphia set of THE LAST AIRBENDER, the latest film written and directed by scaremaster M. Night Shyamalan.

There is one big difference this time out. He’s trading his horror-suspense roots for something the whole family can enjoy. Based on the popular animated series AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER, the feature film focuses on a 12-year old boy named Aang (Noah Ringer) who must find a way to keep peace between the four elements of the world (Fire, Earth, Water, Air) during a 100-year war in which the Fire Nation has ruled.

The following is our exclusive interview with the talented director about his current project set to hit theaters July 2, 2010.

iF MAGAZINE: What was the plan with this film and what were you trying to achieve, to re-invent yourself?

M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN: I have always wanted to develop a long mythology based franchise like THE LORD OF THE RINGS. I always thought about it, but I had, until now, never found a good one where I could also add a little bit of my personal vision. I really wanted to find a franchise where my accent could be complementary to the piece. So this was the best thing that could have happened is that I didn’t have a real agenda, but I was on the look for it and waited for the perfect situation.

I was offered other franchises, but passed. And then this one came from my own family – it was suggested by my children who loved the TV animated series. When I saw the cartoon I thought it was so well thought out in term of mythology. It had Buddhism, and martial Arts, and CGI [and it was] character based. And so I thought we could do a great job by using ILM and do something with lots of emotions and texture. I knew we could do something that wasn’t going to be just a great treat for the eyes, but also for the mind and the soul. This is my approach when it comes to getting into this type of material, to approach it through the characters and keep it grounded. It has also deeper issues at its core, it talks about Genocide and Balance, and the connection to the Planet. And you know from my other movies that I’m interested with these subject matters -- it’s an important movie, not just a blockbuster summer movie.

iF: Are you going to push for the political tone in this film as we’ve seen in your other films?

SHYAMALAN: Well, there is a lot in the mythology. What I did was remove anything that was too slap-sticky and cheesy -- the stuff that was there for the very little kids, but wouldn’t work in a live action feature like the **** jokes. I grounded the thing a little more. I grounded Katara’s brother for example [played by Nicola Peltz] and it brought a great new overall tone to the whole movie. But the political tone is for sure intact and the one about a culture who is in an industrial revolution and use their way in their belief system and then decide “we don’t need to follow the old way of thinking, the old way of seeing God”. And the movie focuses on a higher power and the spirit world. And so this culture decides that we can make our own machine and be our own God -- it was there in the cartoon, but more affirmed in our movie.

iF: The movie feels a little bit like it was inspired by the art of Hayao Miyazaki?

SHYAMALAN: Well, I’m a huge and giant fan of his work and I had the chance to meet him and go to his studio when I did my last promotional tour for THE HAPPENING. My favorite is SPIRITED AWAY. He is amazing, but to be honest, the film was more influenced by martial arts movies in general. What is funny is that you can see so many influences in the cartoon with scenes almost copied entirely from martial art movies, but I wanted the live action film to be truly original with action scenes you had never seen before. I’m a huge martial art freak. I even have a Bruce Lee statue in my office!

iF: What was the biggest challenge for you before and during the making of this film?

SHYAMALAN: It’s been a great on-going experience both as a director and a human being. You know, I’m a complete control freak. I love the idea of controlling everything that is in the composition of every single frame and I feel pain if I look at a frame and it’s not perfect. But with this movie, where there are so much factors going on, it taught me to let go and not be in such a control freak mode. It’s two and half times compared to my other movies. It feels like I’m a student again and I’m learning new things, new tricks and for me this is the way to get a great movie, when you’re a student again. You learn again and you’re open to everything again. I think I have become a much better director with the process of filming THE LAST AIRBENDER and not controlling 400 extras and all the action scenes. But in a way I’m scared to death because it’s such a huge endeavor. I hope this film will find its own personality and that the whole world will appreciate it.

iF: When did you realize, “wow, this is an insane film!”?

SHYAMALAN: Right away when we were filming in Greenland. It was great filming over there and if I had the all money in the world I would have filmed this movie on location around the world -- but that would be so expensive. It was great shooting in Greenland, in the tundra and to see the actors moving. It felt so real. This is when I realized this was an amazing movie. Also, when I saw the army coming in the village I was overwhelmed by the size and the scope of this film.

iF: Can you talk about casting for this film?

SHYAMALAN: It was a real trick to find the perfect cast, because not only did I need excellent actors, but also great action driven fighters. There are so many fight scenes in this film, that this was a cruel experience to locate and find the right team of actors and actresses. I was so lucky to have this young actor Dev Patel [who plays Prince Zuko]. He is now known worldwide due to the success and Oscars for SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. He is so vulnerable and so strong at the same time and this was the perfect mix to play Zuko. I had auditioned him for the role before the Oscar success and I wasn’t sure if I could get him after, but he wanted to be part of this film and I’m blessed. He is like a man-child and this is perfect. Another blessing was to find Noah Riger who plays Aang, the Avatar, the principal hero of our movie. He is a young 12-year-old and a true martial arts expert with several titles. He teacher encouraged him to send us a demo tape and we were blown away by his presence, his grace and his technique. And after we sent him to be trained a little bit as an actor we knew we had found the perfect Aang. He is so similar to the Aang in the cartoons and with this great cast I was then able to build a natural structure for the movie itself. When you look at the whole TV series, you can see clearly the three movies I want to create as live action adaptations. Also this is great to be able to incorporate all along the clear philosophy that lies at the core of this mythology and how each element, Air, Earth, Water and Fire are so important as a balance for yourself.

iF: How does this compare to the STAR WARS trilogy?

SHYAMALAN: Wow, this is hard to compare it to STAR WARS. STAR WARS is true religion to me. I can understand what people who are into religion feel when I think about STAR WARS, but if I can make a comparison, it is with the notion of “journey” both trilogies have. THE LAST AIRBENDER is truly the journey of this young maverick boy, Aaang. His journey is similar to the one of Luke Skywalker.

iF: The movie is about the balance of the four elements, what element do you identify to and why?

SHYAMALAN: I think AIR is my element, because I always try to do things with the minimum amount of effort. I like things clean and simple.

iF: What do your children think about this film?

SHYAMALAN: They totally dig it and they were great advisers at telling what to do or not to do.

iF: Will there ever be a sequel to UNBREAKABLE?

SHYAMALAN: Well, I’m not sure where all the pieces of the puzzle are these days. Sam [Jackson] is Mister Comic Book and doing bigger things. Bruce [Willis] is hard to reach and what kind of movies he wants to do. But, hey, who knows -- maybe one day we’ll figure it out.

[doug maverick]

i dont know whats ur beef with the article, i mean im not a fan of m night. but it seemed fairly simple and straight forward. he is right the cartoon does look like it lifted whole scenes from kung fu movies....so i dont know why you highlighted that part. maybe you can go into further details.

[doug maverick]

Originally Posted by Lokhopkuen

Giggle

One of the reasons the animation was so successful was the amount of time and detail we spent on using traditional martial essences as the model impetus for the "elemental bendings".

My student who was one of the creators really dedicated himself to internalizing the basics before he even ever approached me to work on the project. Then he proceeded to give me complete oversight on everything to do with the martial art.

I did a couple of consultations for preproduction and had a meeting with the director (who i liked) I outlined a strategy for the film. I explained there are no short cuts in training Gung Fu so I insisted on 6 months to a year to train the actors and drill them in some basic skill sets until they would at least be able to appear to manifest the proper geometry's, initially they agreed:

But then!

The "stunt coordinator" suddenly became a Martial Art Master

plus they got hung up on the casting for way too long from what I heard.

Now I'm hearing people are so surprised that a caucasian kid was cast as the Asian lead?

SHOCKING NEWS!!

Kindda like the Kung Fu TV Series when David Carradine beat out Bruce Lee for the lead. I mean goodness we all know David Carradine. was by far superior in the martial arts compared to Bruce Lee, go figure

i had quite a few friends work on this film as stunt actors, and "featured martial artist" and they all made alot of shall i say comments....about said stunt coordinator.

[Lokhopkuen]

Originally Posted by doug maverick

i dont know whats ur beef with the article, i mean im not a fan of m night. but it seemed fairly simple and straight forward. he is right the cartoon does look like it lifted whole scenes from kung fu movies....so i dont know why you highlighted that part. maybe you can go into further details.

The martial art movements in the animated series are all from my teacher's training curriculum related to Northern Shaolim, Hung ga Tiger and Crane, iron thread, palm change bagua, yang tai chi and nothing to do with any martial art films.
Some homage was given in various scenes to martial art popular media by the writers and creative staff but that had nothing to do with me.

[rizzol0219]

In that article M Night started talking about Spirited Away and stated the film was influenced by martial arts movies in general. (WTF) Spirited Away has absolutely no martial arts in it what so ever. Then he talks about the cartoon scenes (Spirited Away or Avatar?) looking like they were copied from martial arts movies. M Night is claiming he wants the Airbender movie to have action that no one has ever seen before. Well he is doing a **** poor job at that. The teaser trailer portion when Aang is training in the temple looked rather mediocre, slow with no power. Hmmm I never seen a martial art movie with someone training in a temple before. That is really unique. (Sarcasm)

I really like the promotional photo of Noah holding his staff above his head with a ****ed up looking gong bu and a costume that he looked like he stole off a toddler at Shaolin. Obviously done by a photographer who doesn't know how to photograph martial artists.

[rizzol0219]

Originally Posted by Lokhopkuen

What is SPM?

Southern Pray Mantis?

[aktionmancer]

watching the series, i could really see how big kung fu movie fans the writers were.

biggest nod to HK kung cinema is when Aang and Zuko go into the mountains to search for the two Masters.

they turn out to be dragons, thought to have been hunted down to extinction.

the names of the two dragons:

Run

and

Shaw

referencing the Shaw Brothers studios ( all four named Run: Run De, Run Run, RunMe, RunJe)

of course Shaw Brothers studios brought us pretty much ALL the kung fu fighting films produced in the 70s

[AdrianK]

Originally Posted by Lokhopkuen

What is SPM?

Southern Praying Mantis.
I haven't seen much of the series. I've seen clips of Toph using it. And I saw the episode where she's introduced, she uses it as well. It looks kick-ass in the cartoon. Hopefully they use it in the movie.

[Lokhopkuen]

Originally Posted by aktionmancer

watching the series, i could really see how big kung fu movie fans the writers were.

biggest nod to HK kung cinema is when Aang and Zuko go into the mountains to search for the two Masters.

they turn out to be dragons, thought to have been hunted down to extinction.

the names of the two dragons:

Run

and

Shaw

referencing the Shaw Brothers studios ( all four named Run: Run De, Run Run, RunMe, RunJe)

of course Shaw Brothers studios brought us pretty much ALL the kung fu fighting films produced in the 70s

Ren and Shaw.

[aktionmancer]

Originally Posted by Lokhopkuen

Ren and Shaw.

well, ive also seen it spelled Ran and Shao,

but W/E dude, I KNOW WHAT I HEARDZ!

[Lokhopkuen]

You'd know better than I

[Lucas]

i just saw the preview for the live action movie this past weekend. looked interesting. it promted me to start watching the series, finished the first episode yesterday. pretty intertaining stuff.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Does it have anyhting to do with the cartoon?
Doesn't look like it...

[dirtyrat]

Originally Posted by sanjuro_ronin

Does it have anyhting to do with the cartoon?
Doesn't look like it...

The movie will be called "The Last Airbender" rather than "Avatar: The Last Airbender" to avoid confusion with James Cameron's upcoming film entitled "Avatar".