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I know we have some Avatar fans on the forum so I thought y'all might be interested to hear that they've released the first teaser trailer for "The Last Airbender" movie. It'll also be attached to the new Transformers movie when it opens on Wednesday.
It features the first action shots of Noah Ringer (Aang) in action. We also see the Fire Nation navy towards the end. There's also an unnecessarily long boring shot of a cliff and some water in the middle.
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I never watched the show meself, but as far as the trailer goes it looked good. If nothing else I know Shymalan will deliver on the visuals. It'll be interesting to see how he deals with adapting another's work instead of working from his own ideas (which seem to have taken a bit of a downturn in quality). I'm optimistic for it.
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I thought it looked pretty decent. It doesn't give us any indication that the story execution won't suck, but that's because it doesn't give us any indication of the story execution either way. Visuals look pretty decent, which is all a teaser can really show us.
The one thing that was kinda weird was that in the cartoon, I think you usually saw a "force line" drawn in to show you where the air was moving, and here the air was mostly invisible, which wasn't bad but a little weird at first.
I do still think Aang is a tad too chubby but I think I can deal with it. Still pissed about the white people thing, but I don't think that makes it a bad movie by itself - it's just happens in a place where I personally draw the line at Hollywood ridiculousness
I'm actually fairly optimistic about Shamalyan pulling this off suddenly. I think he's generally GOOD at execution, it's just that his first two movies used up his best story ideas and it went downhill from there. I agree with Daventor - when given a story we already know is good I think he can pull it off.
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Blayne Bradley
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Its lookin' alright so far.
I like Avatar, exlcuding the first 2-3 episodes I think it was the best Western Animation has pulled off in years, I don't want it to suck.
But I am also pissed at the white actos as well.
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Hmm. Maybe I'll just watch the rest of the cartoon. The deAsianification is kind of bothering me deeply.
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Personally, I expect it to be bad because I did catch the cartoon all the way through (and have the DVDs) and I'm generally meh on M. Night's movies. I also don't think this is a movie that can be done well in live action, even with CGI. And can't anyone in Hollywood get an original idea anymore?!
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Live action CAN work in this case as the series was entirely on the somewhat humorful and witty trope self referring dialogue between the characters preserve that and you have your loyal to the series movie.
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I know alot of people have complained about Noah's "chubbiness" but I don't see it. Yeah, he has a baby-face but he is still a kid playing another kid. I pleased by his martial arts in the trailer and he's obviously a young athlete. I wasn't sure how well he'd be able to adapt his Tae Kwon Do training to a kung fu style but the arms and the legs look good so far.
I am worried about recent news that Waterbending's tai-chi style has been replaced with bagua (the style that Airbenders use) so while Noah looks good in the trailer, I don't know if Shyamalan and the fight choreographers are planning to use generic martial arts for Aang or whether they will be making any sort of attempt to match his fighting style to his personality and heritage (evasive, circular, flowy, using an opponent's strength against themselves, etc.)
The lack of humor will be the straw that broke the camels back. So far we've only seen pictures of Aang being all powerful and epic, not a single grin in sight so far. The fact that Sokka's actor is mainly known for standing back quietly and making big eyes at everything, I fear he won't have the comedic ability to help carry the movie.
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M. Night needs a movie that proves he can put his ego behind him in service of moviemaking craft. Badly. I'm not sure this is going to be that movie; I don't know if working in a genre he's never done before (martial arts) and off of a property he had no hand in creating will work for or against him.
I'll wait for the reviews. It's CGI pretty, but CGI pretty is a dime a dozen (or a few tens of millions of dollars a dozen, same difference) these days.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
quote:Originally posted by neo-dragon:
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: They better get Toph right!
M. Night Shmaahamahuanyalayamn has picked a lead actor for the film because the kid's heavily invested in martial artistry, not because he is known to have any acting talent.
The main character of the film has not been picked based on his acting talent. It's because Shamanalaymalnnalanmnyn saw the kid do some moves and was all like 'and he kind of looks like him too, SOLD'
The first trailer comes out.
It involves Aang showing off his choreographed moves.
And definitely,
definitely
.... not saying anything
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Well, the choreographed moves were pretty cool. True, we don't know nothing about his acting talent yet, but Shymalan has a record of getting excellent performances out of child actors(The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs). And it's neat that on the martial arts side of it, you know that the kid really knows what he's doing. I could be wrong, but as I said before, I'm feeling optimistic about it.
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quote:Originally posted by daventor: Well, the choreographed moves were pretty cool. True, we don't know nothing about his acting talent yet, but Shymalan has a record of getting excellent performances out of child actors(The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs). And it's neat that on the martial arts side of it, you know that the kid really knows what he's doing. I could be wrong, but as I said before, I'm feeling optimistic about it.
This assumes the kid was doing the martial arts. I'm betting the hood was up for a reason.
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posted
I recall reading that the kid was chosen specifically because of his martial arts skills. And frankly, if that WAS a stunt double or CGI or whatever, I would have expected something... dunno. Cooler. The cartoon had the luxury of exaggerating everyone's skills to look really cool. If the kid is doing most of his own stunt work I'm fine with them letting it look realistic, but if they aren't then I'd expected them to have Matrix/Crouching-Tiger kinds of exaggerated abilities (these are supernaturally powered warrior monks after all).
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Well the kid playing Aang at least looks Asian from the trailer and at least knows martial arts, I figure he at least cares deeply about the things we'ld expect an asian martial artist to know.
Also the air/force lines seems visible enough to me.
I like the take on the fire navy ships.
But they BETTER manage to keep the Humor!
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quote:But then there are people that say they *really* liked Lady in the Water and The Village.
Oh no. That's tragic, nighthawk.
Are they okay? Do they have someone to look after them? At least tell me they have some sort of disability coverage they can live on.
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Samprimary, I must confess that I do really like The Village and enjoyed Lady in the Water (though I thought it was uneven and a step down from his other stuff). Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to get any sort of disability coverage yet but I'm working on it.
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Oh come on, I got someone to help me dress myself in the morning when I confessed I loved Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. It can't be that hard to get you help as well. You should contact a claims lawyer.
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Signs was a far superior movie to Unbreakable, your meter's broken. Also I see it as promising that Shamalamadingdong has been taking such a beating at the box office, it keeps him from falling in love with his own legend. I think he's going to put alot of work into this movie because MANY people think it's a ridiculous project.
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posted
*I* liked Kung Pow (although it's enjoyability is largely contingent on watching it late at night with a bunch of teenagers).
I do think Lady in the Water was a step down but I don't think it was truly bad. The interviews I've read from M. Night regarding the Avatar suggest that he realizes the differences between what he's done and what this will require, and that he's taking it on as a creative challenge. I think he's leaned towards "artsy" movies that don't make good box office hits because he could get away with it by milking his reputation from sixth sense. From what I hear the story for Happening was a little silly too, but I'm not too worried about those kinds of problems having much impact on the Avatar movie.
We already know the story's good, The only problem I anticipate is the movie either being on the long side or stripping away too many subplots, but that's an issue I think any writer/director would have difficulty with given this material.
The movie may not be great but I don't think it'll be terrible.
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posted
Well, I'm with Samprimary. That progression is pretty funny since if you take a linear line of best fit, it seems to project a 0 rating for this.
In fact, I used to think it was horrible that Asians were shut out of the casting for this project.
I'm starting to wonder if it was a blessing in disguise. Not only would would a box office disaster potentially wipe out the careers of three potentially promising Asian American actors but it could be held up as a "reason" not to do Asian American casting for years afterwards.
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Regarding the casting, I am completely okay with Aang being white. Based on how he looks in the animated series, I think the casting for him could have gone either way. I would have been happy with a diverse casting that spanned races from all over the globe.
I am more upset by the casting for Sokka and Katara who are obviously not supposed to be Caucasian.
And I am seriously disturbed by the fact that so far, all the "good" lead characters are white and the "bad" Fire Nation is filled with Indian and other non-Caucasian actors. Sure, the fans know what's going to happen to Zuko's character but his redemption is a long way coming. This whole split down the middle seems hugely out of date. Didn't we stop doing this nonsense some decades back??
It will be interesting to see how they handle casting Toph if they are able to make the second movie. Will they stick with all white leads or will they bring in some diversity?
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posted
I'm I the only one who saw the soldiers (or things) climbing up the cliff on the long boring shot?
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Watching it in full screen I can definitely see things climbing up the cliff on ropes, and some being blown off of it, I'd assume fire nation soldiers.
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posted
The Village was excellent. Lady in the Water was horrible.
The Happening was my favorite Shymalan movie and was FANTASTIC . If you've only seen it once, watch it again. And this time ignore everything about the movie except the character development.
If you watch the movie thinking "OMG trees, they aren't explaining this, this movie sux", then you're missing the entire point of the movie. It's about the characters, NOT the plot.
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nik, I thought the Village was alright, I really liked Lady in the Water (especially once you looked at it as not a horror movie), and was really, really disappointed in the Happening. I thought the acting was bad, the plot was bad and the delivery was bad. It had some really good moments, especially at the beginning. But I felt like it was insulting my intelligence throughout.
Like when two groups of people were walking towards each other, on some hillside. At this point, the virus or whatever ignored the smaller groups, but when they got together it kicked in and they all started going suicidal. It was a stupid scene that showed us nothing new, only what we should have already figured out.
And I couldn't help but hearing everything Mark Wahlburg said in the same vocal inflection as "Say hi to your mother for me!" from SNL.
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I just didn't "get" Lady in the Water, . But I have that problem a lot. For instance, Royal Tennenbaums, and Life Aquatic, I just didn't get those movies. I can understand that some people may like them, but I didn't see the point.
And I understand that, for someone who just talked about a movie being "about the characters", that the above may surprise you. But maybe it was the characters in those movies I "didn't get". Oh well.
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What I liked about Lady in the Water was that is was very original. I think it was marketed as a Fairy Tale for Adults, which I think is the way you have to look at it. That's how I see it, and I think that's partly why I like it so much. I also am a huge fan of Paul Giamatti, and really like watching him act.
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posted
I think one of the biggest problem with M. Night is that his movies keep getting marketed as horror when they're really not, and horror fans keep going and being "uh... that wasn't scary. WTF?"
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quote:Originally posted by nik: If you watch the movie thinking "OMG trees, they aren't explaining this, this movie sux", then you're missing the entire point of the movie. It's about the characters, NOT the plot.
Okay, yes, I see what you are saying. I can admit that while the plot was abysmally bad and corny, the acting was wooden, terse, and plodding. So it's kind of a mixed bag, there.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
watched unbreakable for the first time it was a terrific movie.
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