I'm not surprised. If it hits the ground running that well, I'm really really interested to see where the story starts going further in.
New The Last Airbender trailer
- Thread starter Hyperspace05
- Start date
I'm not surprised. If it hits the ground running that well, I'm really really interested to see where the story starts going further in.
Name one Asian/Inuit actor/actress the age of the main characters that is also diverse enough to know & speak perfect English? That type of exact detail is what required of the roles.
Seeing how studio set dates for film release before actual filming, how much of a overwhelimg challenge would that be on casting? How long and what resources would that take scearching the world for these actors and get them passports and go thru all the red tape to get them to film within the US?
How much of the films budget is now wasted due to all that just to make a the film racially PC?
Puhleeze.
None of the main kids cast in this movie, including the lead, are "names"; new actors are found all the time. And none of the racial groups listed would require going beyond the continental North America, at the most (Asians aren't exactly rare in Los Angeles), where English proficiency is absolutely common. Even if they had to go further afield, you don't think Hollywood does that all the time? They're currently planning a multi-national search for the lead for a film version of Miss Saigon, which would have a fraction of this film's budget.
Citing time as a factor is likewise ludicrous; this film was announced three years ago. Clint Eastwood planned and shot Gran Torino on a budget of $30 million in the space of a couple of months, and somehow managed to find all the authentic Hmong actors he needed.
RobertScorpio
Pariah
I am not a fan of Avatar. Most of what I know about it is from a fanfic on this website. So, speaking as an outsider, I liked the trailer.
Rob
Rob
Same here. The trailer makes me want to see the movie, and I've never seen the series.
I'll add that with all of the action and special effects work, this doesn't look like a Shyamalan movie to me. He's branching out.
So, Asians aren't rare in L.A., yet they still have to do a multi-national search to find one single young Asian girl that can sing. That only tells me that it's very rare to find young Asian actors to fit the bill of what they're looking for. So with all the try outs & auditions they had for casting "Airbender", none could carry the film for what they were looking for. I doubt very much the studio wanted to be labeled due to racial controversy, especially seeing how they put M. Night (of Asian culture himself) as the director as well as many other brown skinned actors in other main & supporting roles.
Last edited:
Exodus has a good point and since the film was shot in Pennsylvania it might be more difficult. But there is a counterpoint and it is. Did they even look? Does anyone know the budget of this film?
Also for those getting into avatar trust me you are in for a ride. Avatar has some of the best writing I have seen. Forget its a kids show it will soon not matter.
I think the thing is, they weren't looking to just any Asian kid that fit the bill but one they felt could carry the movie. The actors playing Ang, Sokka & Katara have to be good enough to pull you into the story and get you to care. If the requirement was just being Asian, they could have grabbed anyone off the street. As someone said before, they didn't want a Jake Lloyd.
Nobody wants to labelled due to a racial controversy.
As the villains. And also, they're not interchangeable; there were no whites in the Avatar universe (I was going to say there weren't any Indians either, but there was that one yogi-esque fellow who showed up near the end of season two).
If I had the time I'd go through the series and clip shots of the hundreds of characters that aren't the least bit Asian looking.
IMHO the show as not racial-based, the races were fairly mixed, it was cultural. And even the cultures themselves were exagerated characatures of what the cultures represent in popular fiction and mythology. I have Tibetan friends who see the Air Nomads as a flakey concoction made up by white people. Inuit never built cities like we saw at Avatar-world's North Pole.
We "see" Asians all over Avatar because in geek culture we worship Asian chicks and martial arts powers, we have katana's hanging on the walls and it is all so cool. And our geek perception of Asia is full of shit.
Avatar took memes from modern fantasy and built pseudo-Asian cultures out of them. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but anyone who watches and thinks they are seeing Asian culture and therefore the live action actors should be Asian is jumping through a few too many hoops.
They all have blue eyes though, right?
Well said!Inuit don't grow beards. Not even the women.
If I had the time I'd go through the series and clip shots of the hundreds of characters that aren't the least bit Asian looking.
IMHO the show as not racial-based, the races were fairly mixed, it was cultural. And even the cultures themselves were exagerated characatures of what the cultures represent in popular fiction and mythology. I have Tibetan friends who see the Air Nomads as a flakey concoction made up by white people. Inuit never built cities like we saw at Avatar-world's North Pole.
We "see" Asians all over Avatar because in geek culture we worship Asian chicks and martial arts powers, we have katana's hanging on the walls and it is all so cool. And our geek perception of Asia is full of shit.
Avatar took memes from modern fantasy and built pseudo-Asian cultures out of them. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but anyone who watches and thinks they are seeing Asian culture and therefore the live action actors should be Asian is jumping through a few too many hoops.
Let also mention in a world where there are things such as "Turtle Ducks" & "Platypus Bears", are we such the people themselves are 100% Asian and not some amalgam? Once again bring up the blue eyes.
Inuit don't grow beards. Not even the women.
If I had the time I'd go through the series and clip shots of the hundreds of characters that aren't the least bit Asian looking.
IMHO the show as not racial-based, the races were fairly mixed, it was cultural. And even the cultures themselves were exagerated characatures of what the cultures represent in popular fiction and mythology. I have Tibetan friends who see the Air Nomads as a flakey concoction made up by white people. Inuit never built cities like we saw at Avatar-world's North Pole.
We "see" Asians all over Avatar because in geek culture we worship Asian chicks and martial arts powers, we have katana's hanging on the walls and it is all so cool. And our geek perception of Asia is full of shit.
Avatar took memes from modern fantasy and built pseudo-Asian cultures out of them. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but anyone who watches and thinks they are seeing Asian culture and therefore the live action actors should be Asian is jumping through a few too many hoops.
I think that settles it for me. Until a better counter argument comes along.
No, the creators did an extraordinary amount of research into Asian art and cultural products, far more detail than was ever required.
The eyes thing has already been explained. And while you can bring up minor derivations, the fact remains that each civilization has core inspiration, and none of them, particularly the Water Tribe, look white.
If whitewashing the film doesn't bother you, that's fine, I suppose, but it's symptomatic of a much bigger problem in Hollywood.
No Captain, as a fellow Canadian you will know that you will not find a single Inuit in the world, much less a trained actor, that has a beard. The "races" in Avatar have been mixed right from the beginning, there was no "racial purity". If you think maybe you'll put a bearded Chinese in place of the Inuit, then I don't see what the heck difference it makes if you put an Italian or Spaniard. The whole actor/race thing is a red herring.
You can claim all you want that the writers did tons of research (and I agree they did) but can you point to a single thing in the Northern Water Tribe culture that has anything to do with Inuit culture, please? They sure as heck don't do Tai Chi up there.
The martial arts in the show are authentic if you're talking about commercial late 20th century versions. As far as anything that was practiced in the 18th or 19th centuries, no it's not authentic. And yes, I've done 30+ years of training and research to say that.
I don't know bugger all about Tibet, but my friend who is Tibetan does, and laughs at the depictions.
The cultures are researched as much from pop fiction as they are from any actual academic history or anthropology. Or I suppose you think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a documentary?
I love the show, I love the writing, I love the amount of creativity that went into it. And the creativity went into the design of the nations' cultures as much as anywhere else.
You can claim all you want that the writers did tons of research (and I agree they did) but can you point to a single thing in the Northern Water Tribe culture that has anything to do with Inuit culture, please? They sure as heck don't do Tai Chi up there.
The martial arts in the show are authentic if you're talking about commercial late 20th century versions. As far as anything that was practiced in the 18th or 19th centuries, no it's not authentic. And yes, I've done 30+ years of training and research to say that.
I don't know bugger all about Tibet, but my friend who is Tibetan does, and laughs at the depictions.
The cultures are researched as much from pop fiction as they are from any actual academic history or anthropology. Or I suppose you think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a documentary?
I love the show, I love the writing, I love the amount of creativity that went into it. And the creativity went into the design of the nations' cultures as much as anywhere else.
Whatever the problems in Hollywood are, they have no problem finding Asian actors, whether for large scale movies or TV shows. The "whitewashing" is purposeful IMHO exactly so that they aren't accused of racism in depiction certain nationalities in as bad a light as they do.
Hopefully this puts the debate over race for this film too bed.
Similar threads
- Poll
