The Last Airbender - Grading & Discussion

[Gaith]

And I've always been startled by the fierce resistance I've gotten from some posters here to my suggestion of Gina Torres for Wonder Woman.

Well, I for one don't think WW should be played by a mind-bogglingly boring actress, though I admit I haven't seen her in anything beyond Firefly/the Matrix sequels...

 

[Christopher]

Gina Torres, boring? Does not compute...

 

[NuFan]

Was going tomorrow since there's no school, but sister said it's awful.

 

[OmahaStar]

Let me start by saying that before seeing the movie, I had not seen the tv series.

A co-worker is a huge fan of the series, and has been talking about it a lot lately. My boss and I have been having great fun reading negative reviews and sending her (co-worker) the funniest ones. One review that stands out said that in one scene, Dev Patel looks straight into the camera and "without words, begs the audience to forget he was ever in this movie."

After reading universally negative reviews, I had to go. I was hoping for a clusterfuck of 2012 proportions.

I didn't get it.

While it was a bit disjointed, and time seemed to have no meaning (they go from continent to continent in a few minutes? Um, ok then), it was just a few shades away from being a really decent movie.

Aang was believable as a child who had the world placed upon his shoulders, only to freak out and run away. I don't know how much of his fighting was the actor and how much was a stunt guy, but he came across as a very talented martial artist.

Zuko came across as a whiny crybaby. Oh, poor me, daddy kicked me out for speaking. When he shows just the tiniest bit of spirit, protecting Aang, it seemed like there was something there worth redeeming. Hopefully if there is a sequel, that can be referenced again, and he'll fight against these fire people.

What was the point of Sokka? Don't get me wrong, the actor was drool-worthy, and he's never looked hotter, but what was the point of his character? He serves as a sort of protector to his sister ... and so what? He falls in love with this princess girl he's known for three seconds, and it's like they're the loves of each others' lives. In a movie where time has no meaning, that is saying something. It's a very underdeveloped character, and needed at least another rewrite on the script.

The Uncle didn't seem to have any spirit in him until almost the very end, when he started kicking butt. I had a suspicion, later confirmed, that he was the fire king's brother (all we knew was that he was the prince's uncle .... could have just as easily been the queen's brother ... speaking of, why wasn't there a queen? I don't remember anyone addressing that). He seems to have the ability to make fire from himself instead of taking existing fire, and appears to be much more powerful of a "bender" than anyone around him. So why is he just a general, and not the king?

Yue has no point to her. She's in the movie for about 10 minutes, but is a throwaway character designed for only one reason, to be there to give away her life. Sadly, because she has so little screen time, it seems that the writer decided to not create an actual character. There's zero substance. Also, wtf was with her hair in her introduction. Seriously, the whole audience roared with laughter ... from behind, she looks like a human-sized penis. Somebody had to have realized that on the set!

Like I said, it's not the clusterfuck I had been expecting, and was a lot better than I had been expecting, based on the reviews I had read.

Because of this, and still being curious about the series, I went to Netflix and watched the first episode of the series via streaming. It is surprisingly good. And almost the whole first episode is right there in the movie. A few changes here and there (Aang ran off in the movie, but was in the middle of a fight in the series), but close enough. Since the whole thing is on sale at walmart and amazon, I might just go pick up the first season.

I give the movie a solid B.

 

[RoJoHen]

What was the point of Sokka? Don't get me wrong, the actor was drool-worthy, and he's never looked hotter, but what was the point of his character? He serves as a sort of protector to his sister ... and so what? He falls in love with this princess girl he's known for three seconds, and it's like they're the loves of each others' lives. In a movie where time has no meaning, that is saying something. It's a very underdeveloped character, and needed at least another rewrite on the script.

This was my biggest fear. In the show, Sokka is hilarious comic relief. It seems like a waste to have him not fulfill that role in the film.

The Uncle didn't seem to have any spirit in him until almost the very end, when he started kicking butt. I had a suspicion, later confirmed, that he was the fire king's brother (all we knew was that he was the prince's uncle .... could have just as easily been the queen's brother ... speaking of, why wasn't there a queen? I don't remember anyone addressing that). He seems to have the ability to make fire from himself instead of taking existing fire, and appears to be much more powerful of a "bender" than anyone around him. So why is he just a general, and not the king?

Indeed, why isn't he the king? I don't remember if this is explained in Season 1 or 2, but it has to do with him losing his son in the war. The previous Firelord made the call to make his brother the new Firelord instead of the uncle.

Yue has no point to her. She's in the movie for about 10 minutes, but is a throwaway character designed for only one reason, to be there to give away her life. Sadly, because she has so little screen time, it seems that the writer decided to not create an actual character. There's zero substance.

This is a shame. She was a major love interest for Sokka and her death in the show was tragic.

Because of this, and still being curious about the series, I went to Netflix and watched the first episode of the series via streaming. It is surprisingly good. And almost the whole first episode is right there in the movie. A few changes here and there (Aang ran off in the movie, but was in the middle of a fight in the series), but close enough. Since the whole thing is on sale at walmart and amazon, I might just go pick up the first season.

It's definitely worth watching.

 

[CaptainCanada]

I had a suspicion, later confirmed, that he was the fire king's brother (all we knew was that he was the prince's uncle .... could have just as easily been the queen's brother ... speaking of, why wasn't there a queen? I don't remember anyone addressing that). He seems to have the ability to make fire from himself instead of taking existing fire, and appears to be much more powerful of a "bender" than anyone around him. So why is he just a general, and not the king?

Without going into details (if you're going to check out of the show), those are both plot points in the second season of the show.

Yue has no point to her. She's in the movie for about 10 minutes, but is a throwaway character designed for only one reason, to be there to give away her life. Sadly, because she has so little screen time, it seems that the writer decided to not create an actual character. There's zero substance.

This is a shame. She was a major love interest for Sokka and her death in the show was tragic.

I disagree on that. Yue is really the biggest hitch in terms of adapting the season into one film. Even in the cartoon, I thought she was introduced way too late for the finale revolving around her to have any real impact; the film just amplifies this problem further. I think both the series and the film should have introduced her a lot earlier.

 

[exodus]

This was my biggest fear. In the show, Sokka is hilarious comic relief. It seems like a waste to have him not fulfill that role in the film.

That may work in the cartoon but lets be real, his mother was murdered, his father is has gone to war and during part of season 1 of the show, his sister and him were under the suspicion he might be dead. In the show he's the sole young male provider for his village. The whole world he lives in is being so torn apart by war, even someone as young as he is has to fight for his freedom and that of his tribe. His whole way of life is being wiped out.

What's to joke about?

 

[RoJoHen]

It's simply the nature of his character. A person can have a tragic past and still have a sense of humor.

 

[Skywalker]

The destruction of Sokka was probably the most film's most egregious mistake, for me. Sokka was far and away my favorite character in the cartoon. Sure, he started out as just the goofy, sarcastic comic relief, but by the series' end he'd matured into a leader and a true warrior, while still maintaining his sense of humor. There's still time to salvage Sokka in the movies, but it's going to take a lot of work and a much more talented writer.

And see, that's the thing about this movie. It really wasn't all that great, but there are a couple bits here and there that could have been great. I'd like to see Books Two and Three be translated to film, but not by Shyamalan. Take him off of the sequels and let someone else write and direct them, and maybe we'll get lucky and the sequels will redeem the trilogy.

Yeah, probably not. But I can hope!

 

[LaxScrutiny]

He falls in love with this princess girl he's known for three seconds, and it's like they're the loves of each others' lives...

Well...

Also, wtf was with her hair in her introduction. Seriously, the whole audience roared with laughter ... from behind, she looks like a human-sized penis..

And that explains it!

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Let me start by saying that before seeing the movie, I had not seen the tv series.
...
After reading universally negative reviews, I had to go. I was hoping for a clusterfuck of 2012 proportions.

I didn't get it.

I was wondering what someone who hadn't seen the series first would think.

What was the point of Sokka?

In the series, comic relief...

I give the movie a solid B.

You wouldn't know it though from all your points though I tend to focus on the negative when I review as well.

 

[Rii]

Well, sure. Casting, say, John Wayne as Genghis Khan would obviously be wrong. To offer a more hypothetical scenario, casting Laurence Fishburne as the founder of the Ku Klux Klan would be a non-starter.

But when we're talking about, say, the Kingpin or Nick Fury or Felix Leiter, the character isn't defined by a specific ethnicity.

Sure. I think it's fair to say that in most cases ethnicity isn't a significant factor in a character's makeup. I just don't want to give away the principle to the majority.

What I find interesting is that the new ST cast is a lot more international than the original. In TOS, the main seven cast members included two Canadians and five Americans, of whom three were the children or grandchildren of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, one was the child of Irish immigrants, one was Asian-American, and one was African-American. In the new cast, you have an Anglo-American, an Irish-Italian American, an Afro-Latin American of Caribbean parentage, a New Zealander of German parentage, an Englishman, a Korean immigrant to America, and a Russian Jewish immigrant to America.

I hope you had to look at least some of that up.

But again, as a viewer, that's not the kind of diversity that interests me. I don't care where the actors come from, but where the characters come from. Obviously the actor needs to be able to portray all aspects of the character to the audience convincingly, and certainly using an actor whose background matches that of the character in various respects (sex, of course, being one quality for which this is almost universally done) is one of the better ways of ensuring that; but it's not always feasible, nor necessary.

Well, first off, the animated series was created by two white guys from the United States, one with an Italian name, one with a Polish name. Second, as I've pointed out many times now, the movie's cast is just as diverse as that of the animated series, if not more so; all the animated characters are various Asian or Native American types, but the movie has Indian, Iranian, Maori, Latina, Asian-American, African-American, and Caucasian actors. Nothing has been "scrubbed," just rearranged.

I should've been clearer that I wasn't referring to The Last Airbender there, rather my sympathy for the kinds of concerns that have been raised about it; which, as you say, appear to be largely unfounded in this case. Only reason I'm in this thread is as someone who's maintained an interest in Shyamalan's work up till now. It's difficult to see how he can recover from this point.

My interest in the series has been piqued somewhat by these threads, though. I might give it a shot when I run out of other stuff to watch.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Because it's not about characters, it's about the real live people who get paid to play them. It's an employment issue. Ideally you want people of all ethnicities to get a fair and equal chance to make a living as actors. But in classic fictional franchises like comic books, the overwhelming majority of characters are Caucasian due to the racial biases of the past. Therefore, casting them based strictly on the original ethnicities would deprive nonwhite actors of employment opportunities. Conversely, in those all-too-few cases where prominent characters are nonwhite, if you preferentially cast white actors in them, that also constitutes employment discrimination.

So you're dead wrong to call it a double standard. It's the exact same standard -- the desire to see fair hiring practices -- applied to two different scenarios. Your mistake is in thinking it's about the characters. It's not, because characters aren't real and don't have to feed their families. It's about real human beings and their right to fair employment opportunities.

So - when a caucasian actor wants a job portraying a character of different ethnicity, he can't have that job.
But, if a non-caucasian actor wants a job portraying a caucasian character, he is more than entitled to that job.

Christopher, this IS a double standard.
It may be founded on the desire to give every ethnicity an equal chance; this doesn't change the fact that it is a double standard - a non-caucasian actor can have a certain type of job (play caucasian characters), while a caucasian actor can't have the same type of job (play non-caucasian characters) because he's white - and other caucasian actors (strangers) have jobs (which changes nothing for him).

Ironically, Christopher, what you're advocating is racial discrimination.

 

[TheBrew]

Riiight cause the other attitudes were appropriate. Perhaps cause they are the majority opinion you let it pass?
Critics opinions never sway me. The general public can be fooled, I give you Obama in the White House and Avatar(Camerons that is). So Rottentomatoes may as well be a blocked site on my computer.

What an oddly out of place comment. This is a topic for a movie about a bald kid bending elements and you throw in a dig against Obama. Perish the thought, but you weren't trying to get a reaction out of people now were you?

I was surprised that they showed movies under bridges.

 

[Tulin]

Because it's not about characters, it's about the real live people who get paid to play them. It's an employment issue. Ideally you want people of all ethnicities to get a fair and equal chance to make a living as actors. But in classic fictional franchises like comic books, the overwhelming majority of characters are Caucasian due to the racial biases of the past. Therefore, casting them based strictly on the original ethnicities would deprive nonwhite actors of employment opportunities. Conversely, in those all-too-few cases where prominent characters are nonwhite, if you preferentially cast white actors in them, that also constitutes employment discrimination.

So you're dead wrong to call it a double standard. It's the exact same standard -- the desire to see fair hiring practices -- applied to two different scenarios. Your mistake is in thinking it's about the characters. It's not, because characters aren't real and don't have to feed their families. It's about real human beings and their right to fair employment opportunities.

So - when a caucasian actor wants a job portraying a character of different ethnicity, he can't have that job.
But, if a non-caucasian actor wants a job portraying a caucasian character, he is more than entitled to that job.

Christopher, this IS a double standard.
It may be founded on the desire to give every ethnicity an equal chance; this doesn't change the fact that it is a double standard - a non-caucasian actor can have a certain type of job (play caucasian characters), while a caucasian actor can't have the same type of job (play non-caucasian characters) because he's white - and other caucasian actors (strangers) have jobs (which changes nothing for him).

Ironically, Christopher, what you're advocating is racial discrimination.

Didn't you know......only white people can be racist.




But thank you. Good to know there is one more sane, sensibly thinking person here. Ironically, this kind of affirmative action is actually discriminatory to the ethnicity being "aided". It assumes they are helpless and need a "hand up".

 

[Christopher]

So - when a caucasian actor wants a job portraying a character of different ethnicity, he can't have that job.
But, if a non-caucasian actor wants a job portraying a caucasian character, he is more than entitled to that job.

Christopher, this IS a double standard.

No, it's a straw man. You're dishonestly twisting my words to make them sound ridiculous, rather than fairly and intelligently engaging with my point. I never said anything as stupidly absolutist as "can't have." That is an outright lie on your part. I'm saying that actors of any ethnicity should be free to compete for any part that isn't unambiguously defined as a certain ethnicity. I'm saying that the system should not be set up in such a way that favors white actors over nonwhite actors.

 

[firehawk12]

All you have to do is quote the original casting sheets, which say something like "looking for white or any other ethnicity" for each of the characters.

 

[Christopher]

All you have to do is quote the original casting sheets, which say something like "looking for white or any other ethnicity" for each of the characters.

Actually that wasn't the original casting sheet. It was a flyer put out by a subsidiary agency that did casting in one specific location. The original casting documents said "All ethnicities."

 

[ProtoAvatar]

So - when a caucasian actor wants a job portraying a character of different ethnicity, he can't have that job.
But, if a non-caucasian actor wants a job portraying a caucasian character, he is more than entitled to that job.

Christopher, this IS a double standard.

No, it's a straw man. You're dishonestly twisting my words to make them sound ridiculous, rather than fairly and intelligently engaging with my point. I never said anything as stupidly absolutist as "can't have." That is an outright lie on your part. I'm saying that actors of any ethnicity should be free to compete for any part that isn't unambiguously defined as a certain ethnicity. I'm saying that the system should not be set up in such a way that favors white actors over nonwhite actors.

Your previous posts beg to differ:
"But the specific question being raised here was why there was allegedly a "double standard" approving of casting nonwhites in traditionally white roles but protesting the casting of whites in nonwhite roles. The answer to that specific question is that it's a hiring issue."
"So you're dead wrong to call it a double standard. It's the exact same standard -- the desire to see fair hiring practices -- applied to two different scenarios."


You did not say "I'm saying that actors of any ethnicity should be free to compete for any part that isn't unambiguously defined as a certain ethnicity."

You contested that "approving of casting nonwhites in traditionally white roles but protesting the casting of whites in nonwhite roles." is a double standard, Christopher.
And you were wrong - you see, it IS A DOUBLE STANDARD, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION.

 

[Gojira]

Please forgive me if this has been asked before. Would someone who doesn't know the source material still enjoy this movie?