The Last Airbender - New Trailer!

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No I forgot that there was a dragon in that episode. I was thinking about the

episode where Aang and Zuko meet the [STRIKE]mayans[/STRIKE] sun people
 
B

Biardo

yaay, momo!

although he doesn't look that good I fear, you can clearly see he's cgi :eek:hwell:
 
I want to be excited for the movie but I am really nervous about it. I am concerned over the acting abilities as well as the story line. I just can't see how they are going to cram all of season 1 into one movie without ripping it the heart of the beast out. That being said I still plan on watching it in theater.
 
The short clips I'm seeing of the kid playing Sokka make me really worry about this movie.
Yeah the actor playing Sokka seems like annoying crap.[/QUOTE]

THEN HE'S PERFECT[/QUOTE]

I gotta say... he's right on the money in that regard. Sokka didn't really become USEFUL until late in Season 1 anyway.

Also, I found a Manga style adaption of the movie in a store today. It was right next to a Manga adaption of the last few episodes of season one. The art style was different between the two... and I quietly shook with rage and how STUPID it was. If your going to make a live action adaption of an animated series, at least have the decency to make the Manga adaption LOOK like the animated series! ESPECIALLY IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A MANGA ADAPTION OUT!
 
It's not Sokka as a character that I'm worried about. It's that we hardly see him at all in the trailers, and every bit we do see, the acting is horrible.
 
If anything kills the movie it'll be the acting I'd wager. I mean, child actors aren't always known for being all that great. I imagine it'll be, at most, not distracting.


Interesting random tidbit I heard though: apparently the kid playing Aang trained at the ATA schools here in Texas. While I initially thought that was kind of cool it accrued to me that the kid was probably mostly chosen for knowing martial arts. So again there's something that'll make me think that the acting is going to be sub-par.
 
Ebert hated it.


The Last Airbender :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews

The Last Airbender
BY ROGER EBERT / June 30, 2010
cast & credits
Aang Noah Ringer
Prince Zuko Dev Patel
Katara Nicola Peltz
Sokka Jackson Rathbone
Uncle Iroh Shaun Toub
Commander Zhao Aasif Mandvi
Fire Lord Ozai Cliff Curtis
Princess Yue Seychelle Gabriel

Paramount presents a film directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Screenplay by Running time: 103 minutes. MPAA rating: PG (for fantasy action violence).
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"The Last Airbender" is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here. It puts a nail in the coffin of low-rent 3D, but it will need a lot more coffins than that.

Let's start with the 3D, which was added as an afterthought to a 2D movie. Not only is it unexploited and unnecessary, but it's a disaster even if you like 3D. M. Night Shyamalan's retrofit produces the drabbest, darkest, dingiest movie of any sort I've seen in years. You know something is wrong when the screen is filled with flames that have the vibrancy of faded Polaroids. It's a known fact that 3D causes a measurable decrease in perceived brightness, but "Airbender" looks like it was filmed with a dirty sheet over the lens.

Now for the movie itself. The first fatal decision was to make a live-action film out of material that was born to be anime. The animation of the Nickelodeon TV series drew on the bright colors and "clear line" style of such masters as Miyazaki, and was a pleasure to observe. It's in the very nature of animation to make absurd visual sights more plausible.

Since "Airbender" involves the human manipulation of the forces of air, earth, water and fire, there is hardly an event that can be rendered plausibly in live action. That said, its special effects are atrocious. The first time the waterbender Katara summons a globe of water, which then splashes (offscreen) on her brother Sokka, he doesn't even get wet. Firebenders' flames don't seem to really burn, and so on.

The story takes place in the future, after Man has devastated the planet and survives in the form of beings with magical powers allowing them to influence earth, water and fire. These warring factions are held in uneasy harmony by the Avatar, but the Avatar has disappeared, and Earth lives in a state of constant turmoil caused by the warlike Firebenders.

Our teenage heroes Katara and Sokka discover a child frozen in the ice. This is Aang (Noah Ringer), and they come to suspect he may be the Avatar, or Last Airbender. Perhaps he can bring harmony and quell the violent Firebenders. This plot is incomprehensible, apart from the helpful orientation that we like Katara, Sokka and Aang and are therefore against their enemies.

The dialogue is couched in unspeakable quasi-medieval formalities; the characters are so portentous they seem to have been trained for grade school historical pageants. Their dialogue is functional and action-driven. There is little conviction that any of this might be real even in their minds. All of the benders in the movie appear only in terms of their attributes and functions, and contain no personality.

Potentially interesting details are botched. Consider the great iron ships of the Firebenders. These show potential as Steampunk, but are never caressed for their intricacies. Consider the detail Miyazaki lavished on Howl's Moving Castle. Trying sampling a Nickelodeon clip from the original show to glimpse the look that might have been.

After the miscalculation of making the movie as live action, there remained the challenge of casting it. Shyamalan has failed. His first inexplicable mistake was to change the races of the leading characters; on television Aang was clearly Asian, and so were Katara and Sokka, with perhaps Mongolian and Inuit genes. Here they're all whites. This casting makes no sense because (1) It's a distraction for fans of the hugely popular TV series, and (2) all three actors are pretty bad. I don't say they're untalented, I say they've been poorly served by Shyamalan and the script. They are bland, stiff, awkward and unconvincing. Little Aang reminds me of Wallace Shawn as a child. This is not a bad thing (he should only grow into Shawn's shoes), but doesn't the role require little Andre, not little Wally?

As the villain, Shyamalan has cast Cliff Curtis as Fire Lord Ozai and Dev Patel (the hero of "Slumdog Millionaire") as his son Prince Zuko. This is all wrong. In material at this melodramatic level, you need teeth-gnashers, not leading men. Indeed, all of the acting seems inexplicably muted. I've been an admirer of many of Shyamalan's films, but action and liveliness are not his strong points. I fear he takes the theology of the Bending universe seriously.

As "The Last Airbender" bores and alienates its audiences, consider the opportunities missed here. (1) This material should have become an A-list animated film. (2) It was a blunder jumping aboard the 3D bandwagon with phony 3D retro-fitted to a 2D film. (3) If it had to be live action, better special effects artists should have been found. It's not as if films like "2012" and "Knowing" didn't contain "real life" illusions as spectacular as anything called for in "The Last Airbender."

I close with the hope that the title proves prophetic.
 
Jeeze, 8 reviews so far on Rotten Tomatoes plus a friend of mine who got to see an early showing. I guess I'll save this one for the dollar theater.
 
S

Soliloquy

I'm seeing it with a rather obsessed friend tonight. I never really had high hopes for the movie (it looked to me like it'd be garbage from the trailer), but he was convinced it would be awesome.

We shall see.
 
Well based on recent reviews it seems my fears are founded and I probably won't bother watching it in theaters maybe when it hits DVD I will rent it.
 
I've been a little touchy about Ebert ever since his comment "Games aren't and can never be Art", but I've a little less hostility for him now. He basically echoes all of my points:

1.) It should have been an animated movie, finishing off the story and remaining plot threads of the series (Finding Zuko's Mother, political changes from Fire Nation's surrender, fate of the Air Nomads as a culture now that Aang is around to rebuild it, whether or not Avatar cycle is gone or not since Aang regained it's powers). Retelling the story makes no sense when you can just watch the series, which is still on TV.

2.) They shouldn't have cleansed the ethnicities of the main characters, because it's distracting and insulting.

3.) M. Night Shyamalan hasn't made a good movie since before The Village and never should have been the director. Attaching a big name isn't always a good idea.

4.) Making it 3D was a bad and unneeded move. I know everyone wants to make movies 3D because they think people want 3D for the sake of 3D (Hint: We don't. We only want it when it's done well) and it's harder to pirate movies in 3D (because your losing resolution with the camera and not everyone has glasses for it at home), but it's not catching on.

As it is, they've basically ruined the franchise and the best we're likely to ever see from it again is ether a direct to video movie (That'd be nice) or a manga series.
 
We had planned to give this a chance, even though the trailers looked bad.

Now reading Ebert's review, I'm thinking "rental" and we'll just see Toy Story 3 this weekend.
 
You haven't seen Toy Story 3 yet? Dude, I saw it already and I'm probably seeing it again this weekend instead of Airbender anyway. That shit is amazing.
 
I know, but DG was out of state and I didn't want to see it without her. We were planning to go Saturday, realized Airbender was out, considering changing plans... and now we're back to the old plan.
 
Hahahahah EVERYONE hates this movie. And not just dislikes it mildly, but every critic is lining up just completely upset that they had to experience it. Amazing. I can't wait to read internet posters trying to defend it and call it a good movie. One of my favorites on twitter said it was just a pain to watch, not even bad-funny like The Happening. I hate to say this, but I can't wait for Eclipse to destroy it at the box office this weekend.
 
and why do people insist on calling this anime?

It is as anime as Scooby-Do.
Probably because the entire art style was based on Eastern influences like Miyazaki and Osamu Tezuka? Honestly, it's probably a better indicator to judge animation by it's style than it's country of origin, as it's less confusing. Hell, Japan has cartoon series like Stitch! (Lilo & Stitch, set in Okinawa instead of Hawaii) and Transformers Animated that were made in Japan, but based on Western styles. Calling THEM Cartoons makes more sense than call them Anime, even if they are made in Japan. Even Europe has shows that are based on eastern stylings (namely Code Lyoko and Ōban Star-Racers) that have been widely distributed and localized. Would you call them Anime, despite being concieved and developed in Europe? Or would you call them Cartoons, despite being based on Japanese animation traditions?

Honestly, the Anime and Cartoon geeks need to get together and hash this one out, because it's confusing as hell.
 
O

Oddbot

It has a lower score than Twilight Saga: Eclipse...



oh, and fuck you Shamalamadingdong.
 
S

Soliloquy

Just saw it with my friend. I am actually amazed at how awful it is for such a big budget movie.

I am seriously thinking about buying this on DVD just so I can use it as a reference for all the possible pitfalls a person can make when writing a movie. It failed in ways I didn't even realize were possible.

For example: Remember at the end of Unbreakable, when the big twist is followed by a idiotic text explanation of what happened next, creating an odd pacing that makes you feel a bit ill at ease? Well, the pacing for this movie will make you feel that way for the entire film. Plus, there's a grand total of zero time spent getting to know the characters, the movie's theme seems to change every ten minutes, the direction didn't even try to take advantage of the 3D, And the fight scenes were often filled with soldiers standing around making odd postures with their weapons and not showing any concern about actually attacking.

Everything felt so... off. So forced. So Arbitrary. So Nonsensical. Usually the kind of money that goes into a movie like is kept away from incompetence of the magnitude found here.

Shyamalan's career is dead. He won't get another chance after this.
 
The reason it didn't take advantage of the 3D is that it was shoved into 3D theaters after it was already made. Anyone that pays 3D prices for this movie is getting completely robbed, because it's not a 3D movie
 
Shama-whatsa-who's-it seems to be the George Lucas of this generation. He makes 2 good movies, and coasts for the next 30 years on reputation alone.
 
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