The Last Airbender

[Spidey-Bat]

Yep. I'm an African American, and I know more then a little something about racism in Hollywood and casting white actors to play black,Asian,and Native American characters.

So do you work in Hollywood or does just being black make you an expert on racism?

Hell, I even heard that the studio who put out BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (I think that was also Paramount) were dead set against the director of that movie (John Carpenter) casting actual Asian actors to play Asian characters. Fortunately Carpenter stuck to his guns and cast all Asian actors to play all of the Asian roles.

It was 20th Century Fox, not Paramount. Do you have any evidence to support this?

So excuse me for doing the right thing and refusing to spend money on a movie that is put out by a studio that refuses to hire non white actors to play non white characters.

The characters' races were mostly ambiguous with some exceptions. Don't try to pass off your own racism as being morally right.


On an unrelated note, why does no one care that many of the voice actors were white? Heck, the Earth King was voiced by Phil LaMarr

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Yep. I'm an African American, and I know more then a little something about racism in Hollywood and casting white actors to play black,Asian,and Native American characters. Hell, I even heard that the studio who put out BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (I think that was also Paramount) were dead set against the director of that movie (John Carpenter) casting actual Asian actors to play Asian characters. Fortunately Carpenter stuck to his guns and cast all Asian actors to play all of the Asian roles.

So excuse me for doing the right thing and refusing to spend money on a movie that is put out by a studio that refuses to hire non white actors to play non white characters.

I'm African American too, and don't bring up what's happened to Black and Native Americans being played by Caucasians. That hasn't happened in decades. I do understand that other races have the same problem. I really hated the casting for Prince of Persia and felt it was wrong. Where was the big controversy there?

But that's the thing, there is no concrete proof that the characters of Avatar non-white. If anything, the only castings I was the least iffy about were the water tribe castings, but I wasn't too bothered about it. Like I said in a previous post, I don't feel like the show's creators even put up a fight against the casting. I believe the feeling is that they were deadset on finding the best actors for the roles (and in this case, especially of Ang, Sokka, and Zuko, they did imo).

Hell, the director is Indian and "claimed" to be a fan of the show. Racebenders love to say that he probably didn't have control over casting, but that's BS too. He's the director, writer, and (most importantly) producer of the film! He definitely had control over casting and casted who he felt was best suited for the role.

And about John Carpenter. I've seen too different documentaries about directors that focused on him on Reels Channel (The Directors and Hollywood's best directors) and I've never heard him mention that or any mention of it. Do you have any proof that this ever happened?

 

[Jager X]

Well, I can honestly say that when I see Zuko, Iroh, Jeoung Jeong, etc. that I see Asians. Asians as in Chinese or Japanese, I mean. Aang, Toph, Suki, Jet, etc. are all racially ambigous. Thus, anyone can play those characters.

 

[ironwez20]

Ok so if a Naruto movie would be made then imo it would be appropiate to cast a white actor for the part. Why ? No offense but he looks white and and sorta did too. In most anime's the character's allways look rather white than asian. Even if it's set in japan. So if naruto live action would be made and the main character would be cast as white then we would probaly get the same problem.

In this movie the only problem i saw was in katara and sokka. They should have had an eskimo or darker complextion. It just seemed wrong. Zuko looked white or asian in the cartoon's in book 1 he looked more asin but in book 3 he looked a little more caucasion, but i have no problem with his casting though he was origanally supposed to be played be jesse mcarthy.

 

[Antrax255]

Anime characters are drawn different than American cartoons. You can easliy determine the race of any particular character. Anime culture is different it reflects the style of their culture and heritage. Could it be that for a character to be Asian in our eyes they have to be yellow with exaggerated squinty eyes?
They draw westerners who are white/black a specific way they are more muscular,older,square jaw, and with a different nose.

 

[Grillz]

Are we still going on about this? Look, the movie flopped, they didn't call him AANG ONCE, dans are pissed, ga thinks its stupid, we still have dumb fans screaming "Where's Toph?!", and the casting could've been better. Let's just move on and forget this thing happen... or we can speculate if there will be a sequel... or we can have someone create a "Racism in Hollywood" Thread, but please if you're not talking about The Last Airbender, then please leave racism out of this, and Blade X, I'm black too, and racism in hollywood is alive and well, it just isn't in blackface now.

 

[Timstuff]

^ The pronounciations of the names are not the reason the movie is getting bad reviews, nor is the cast's race. It's getting bad reviews because it's got a broken narrative, almost 100% exposition dialogue, and no character development. Also the movie has not "flopped" yet. Transformers 2 wasn't a "flop" even though it was horribly reviewed. "Flop" refers to financial performance, and so far TLA has not flopped financially. It very well could, but we don't know yet because it had a strong opening and we don't know what kind of drop off it will have.

 

[Grillz]

^ The pronounciations of the names are not the reason the movie is getting bad reviews, nor is the cast's race. It's getting bad reviews because it's got a broken narrative, almost 100% exposition dialogue, and no character development. Also the movie has not "flopped" yet. Transformers 2 wasn't a "flop" even though it was horribly reviewed. "Flop" refers to financial performance, and so far TLA has not flopped financially. It very well could, but we don't know yet because it had a strong opening and we don't know what kind of drop off it will have.

Yikes. I was'nt complaining, the "AANG ONCE" thing was a joke, the guy in a hat said that on TV, and the rest is just telling everyone to chill out about the race stuff.

 

[Nathan]

I'm really curious to see what Shy (that's what I call him now, since I can't spell his name) has fabricated with this live-adaptation of Avatar. But I don't know if my curiosity is big enough, to sit through something what most people essentially call boring.

I was watching the "Blind Bandit" Episode today and I can't imagine what the Avatar would be like without any humor.

 

[The Chris]

Okay so, saw this last night. Here's a little of what I think.


**1/2 out of *****

My Likes are

Dev Patel as Zuko
The bending scenes, nice to see graceful martial arts and chi in an american film
The way M. Night shot the action
The technical aspects like production design and cinematograhy

The dislikes
Big time miscasting of some characters, especially commander zhao, so intense in the series, you want to laugh in his face here.
The Overall acting just doesn't work. Lack of chemistry, horrible line reads, no personalities.
The script is a mess and really feels choppy and rushed.. The structure and narrative is strange. It feels like a greatest hits collection of Avatar: TLA instead of a cohesive film. Also, the dialogue goes kindergarten on us. Lord, what was up with that beliefs line. Also a balance is not struck between light and serious, something that the series does a great job at. Aang is almost all angst here, which is fine if the movie was longer and had those other moments that remind you that he's still a child.

Last thing is The 3D is a disgrace. This is theft right here. The studios are stealing your money when they do this. There is no 3D here. No depth enhancement, no gimmicky things being thrown at you. It's just where a pair of glass so your stupid picture stays in focus. It's criminal. Then it ruins the picture by darkening everything. UGH!!!!!!

 

[the a1ant]

Just came back from seeing this. Overall, the film was enjoyable, although some of the acting was horrid. It's weird. I like the main cast, and visually, they look great, but the acting was very inconsistent. In some scenes the acting was great, and in some scenes it was terrible. I'm going to blame this on the director, because he probably could have gotten better performances out of his actors. It's like he did just one take for each scene - hit or miss.

Visually, it's a great film. Story-wise, it's ok, but the editing is odd. The music score had memorable parts, but it did not have enough "oomph" is many scenes.

I hope they get to make "Book 2" with a new director. This films had a lot of good potential, but it felt like M Night was sleepwalking through his duties.

BTW, the 3D was pathetic and barely noticeable. Out of the entire movie, there were only two memorable 3D scenes (the intro, and a shot of the fire nation ship). I've pretty much given up on 3D, unless it's actually shot in the medium.

 

[TNC9852002]

Don't you dare give up on 3D. The last films I've seen in 3D were damn good (Toy Story, Shrek, How To Train Your Dragon)...

I thought I told you not to see this in 3D anyway!

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Well a1ant did say if it was shot with 3D cameras he would see it in 3D, which makes sense. I'm tired of studios trying to make a quick buck by doing rush 3D post production jobs.

Funny story btw. I read in an interview a few weeks ago about Christopher Nolan's opinion on 3D (not the recent one but an interview a few months before). He said that if were to film in 3D, he would prefer to do it in post production. I still find myself surprised by that remark.

 

[TNC9852002]

Is there an actual list of movies that were released in 3D that weren't shot in 3D or weren't done in post production?

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

I believe the only live-action film shot in 3D was Avatar.

EDIT: I believe though if done right and if done slowly 3D post-production can be done right too. Look at Alice in Wonderland. There weren't any problems with the 3D effects and they were done right. The movie sucked, but it still looked good.

 

[blksuperman2]

Saw this today.

Visually this movie was awesome. The special F/X were top notch. Other than that I was pretty disappointed. The dialog was horrendous and the acting was almost as bad. It's sad that the cartoon series is able to convey better character narrative than a big production film.

Oh yeah. 3D sucked too.

 

[the a1ant]

Don't you dare give up on 3D. The last films I've seen in 3D were damn good (Toy Story, Shrek, How To Train Your Dragon)...

I thought I told you not to see this in 3D anyway!

I know, I know...my mistake

 

[Octoberist]

I saw the movie and it wasn't that bad. Nor was it a good movie. My brother was p*ssed since he was a fan of the show. I was just familar with it, but I thought the movie felt empty. Everybody was going through the motions acting wise (besides Shaun Toub and a select few) and despite it looking pretty, everything looked way too dark and dreary. And that was in 2D!

It's kinda hard to see the entertainment value in this unless you have extreme geek denial or just easy to please.

5/10

 

[Rumpy Bulge Dubz]

^I've always admitted to being easy to please

and have always held the opinion that a lot of you on this board are too damn difficult when it comes to films. The movie could be pure gold and I guarentee half this board would find some way to trash it

it's been done plenty before

and also, a movie doesn't have to be flawless in order for me to enjoy it. As along as it has a couple of things I like, I'm straight. Yes, the acting was atrocious, that was the first thing I noticed when I was watching it, fortunately for me, that was the ONLY flaw (thanks to never having seen the show). I loved the score, loved the actors, loved the action/visuals, and that's enough for me to sit through a viewing here and there

 

[Timstuff]

Hey, I liked GI Joe Rise of Cobra, and I thought this movie was a letdown. ROC was at least a well rounded entertainment package that managed to hit the right beats and keep me entertained throughout. TLA had no humor, there was no relationships between the characters (except Sokka an Yue, and even that felt rushed), and the plot did not follow a clear 3 act structure-- instead, what we had was 2 acts, one of which felt like it would have been the first and second act but was dramatically compressed. Also, the editing on this film was very poor. There were jump cuts and clipping in the sound track all over the place, probably because they were editing out anything that wasn't plot exposition.

 

[craigdbfan]

Finally got to see the movie and I have to say its so disappointingly bad that I'm embarrassed to have been so excited for it and sad that the original property its based on has any relation whatsoever with this botched attempt of an adaptation.

Let me just say that the trailers had better editing and flow than any moment in the movie had.

 

[camp Blood]

A while back when this movie was annouced I came on here and said he would ruin it and some people got all pissed saying he promised to keep it like the show

Fast forward to present day and what do we have a movie that's nothing like the show a souless copy of what was and bad acting plus he changed it like I said

 

[Timstuff]

The changes were the least of this movie's problems. The problem is that it's a short, horribly edited mess that has way too much exposition and barely any character development.

 

[louiebling$]

The changes were the least of this movie's problems. The problem is that it's a short, horribly edited mess that has way too much exposition and barely any character development.

I agree... I could have dealt with the changes a lot better if this was an actual structured movie and had character development or didn't feel so rushed/Chopped.

 

[Blade X]

So do you work in Hollywood or does just being black make you an expert on racism?

Don't be a jackass. I don't have to work in Hollywood to know that there is still racism within the industry. By using your flawed logic, someone had to live in Nazi Germany in order to be an "expert" on the Holocaust.

It was 20th Century Fox, not Paramount. Do you have any evidence to support this?

Thanks for the correction. I guess that explains why a white actor was cast to play Goku in the crappy DBZ movie. I recall seeing at least one interview or documentary about BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA where it was mentioned that the studio was against casting actual Asians to play the Asian roles.

The characters' races were mostly ambiguous with some exceptions. Don't try to pass off your own racism as being morally right.

BULLCRAP. The series was based entirely around Asian culture, so those characters were indeed Asian and Inuit.

And how the hell am I being racist for criticizing the casting? Am I racist for criticizing the casting of Sam Jackson as Nick Fury?

On an unrelated note, why does no one care that many of the voice actors were white? Heck, the Earth King was voiced by Phil LaMarr

Because voice acting is one of the few acting gigs that you can do "color blind" casting. That being said, I would love to have seen more Asian actors be given voice acting roles in the animated series.