Escape to the Movies: The Last Airbender

[Dangerious P. Cats]

You know I can't help walking away from this review feeling a little disappointed. The movie adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender has been a constant fascination of mine being both a fan of the series and somewhat offended at the poor choice of cast and I thought that MovieBob would deal with the larger controversy surrounding the film. Being as MovieBob is one of the small number of internet commentators who's both clearly intelligent and very sensible I was kind of hoping that he would discuss the topic in some respect, especially given the time devoted to race issues in Prince of Persia.

If anyone's curious as to what I'm babbling about there was a swarm of controversy about the film's casting decisions, most of them distilled in the site http://www.racebending.com/v3/. The controversy reached the point where even the well respected (albeit not always in gaming circles) Rodger Ebert [http://www.racebending.com/v3/press/roger-ebert-condemns-the-last-airbender-film-casting/] made public statements saying he felt that casting actors of European decent as characters who were canonically Asian was wrong. The casting decision played into a great many concerns within the Asian-American (not to mention internationally) community about the under-representation and emasculation of Asians in film. Comparison has been drawn with casting Aragon (a canonically European character) as an Asian or African, and how that would have felt wrong, although the issues go much deeper. Of communities represented in films Asians have received the short end of the stick, particularly those not born in Asia. Outside of Lucy Liu nearly all big name actors of Asian descent have proven themselves in Hong Kong, this is true of everyone form Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan. What's more is it's rare to see Asian actors cast as Action heroes outside of the genre of "martial arts" films. While much of the criticism of has focussed on the long history of "yellow face", for which this article [http://splinterend.tumblr.com/post/749364670/facepainting] gives a particularly good explanation there are other social factors that have funnelled in to the problem.

 

[Sartan0]

I just want to say for those who did not see the cartoon: Do yourself a favor and see it instead.

 

[ElvenMercinary]

Signs was good? I hated Signs. The ending was just way too bad.

 

[Freeall]

PLEASE READ! if you are a fan of avatar the last airbender like I am DON"T WATCH THIS MOVIE! The cast is awful they seem to talk without emotion, the names of aang and sokka are not pronounced right and everything has to be explained to the audience about 15 minutes before it happens so that people un-familiar with the show don't get lost.... If you are a fan of this show wait till a good director remakes this movie and does it justice because shamalyan just desecrates it.

 

[MB202]

Holy crap! Two reviews in one week! Awesome!

Although, it IS odd how you complimented this movie, considering most critics, particularly Roger Ebert, hated this movie. A lot.

 

[damocles23]

If it comes out here in Italy,i'll give it a shot. The show isn't know at all and is even aired on late night here.

 

[Usagi Vindaloo]

Bob, care to respond on the recent controversy on how the film has a mostly white cast and the only Asian actor is playing the villain?

As I've stated before, this is the Starship Troopers clause: when a movie is based off a story with a mostly ethnic cast of characters, the director opts to have white actors play their roles. Just like how in Heinlein's novel Johnny was Filipino but Verhoeven opted to have him cast as a white character with vaguely Aryan features (blond, blue-eyed: I have a habit of using that with people with those features, sorry.)

As a Mexican-American, I sympathize with how the protesters are making a very valid point in how we minorities are misrepresented in the many mediums we know and love: film, video games, comics, etc. On the other hand, as a realist: I realize that this is nothing but a shallow cash grab by producers and not so much the director in getting a wide audience to watch said film (IE: white people). So in this case, it's not so much Shyamalan's fault as much as it is Paramount's fault.

Just my $0.02

Really? We're playing the race-card?

Considering that one of the major points of popularity for the original animated series was that children of color *finally* had some heroes that looked like them, that acknowledged their existence as opposed to just neutral white-washing, that gave them a role model to look up to... yes, the race card should be played.

If this was an original property (ie no TV series), then meh, whatever. He can cast who he likes. But considering how prominent people of color were in the original, he had a duty to at least try to match it up. That's why I find this ten times worse than Prince of Persia; the game Prince was of a sort of neutral, undeterminable race, so the whitewashing wasn't really as blatant. This was... really, really blatant. See this link: http://knowyourmeme.com/forums/general/topics/4848-last-airbender-movie

To add insult to injury, it's not like they got "the best" actors for the role; from what I hear, the three "whitewashed" actors were awful.

See, here's my problem with all this; everyone's so damn twitchy and sensitive that people are all too willing to toss down the race card at any fucking chance they get.

Shouldn't we be teaching our children better, anyway? Why does it matter what the color of their skin is if they're a good and positive role model? Should I not look up to Dr. King or Gandhi or the Dali Lama simply because they have different color skin than me? Should I only find positive role models in my fellow whites? NO. Doing shit like that and encouraging that sort of mentality is stupid and racist(a term I hate with a fucking passion).

To pull on your Star Trek analogy, I wouldn't give two shits since I hate Star Trek. But let's say I didn't hate all things Star Trek, for the sake of argument. If Kirk was suddenly black I wouldn't care, so long as he retained the CHARACTER. If Han Solo was to be recast as a jive talking black guy with an afro and had nothing in common with the original other than name I think THEN I would be pissed. It doesn't matter what color their skin is, it's their character and personality that counts. When they go and fuck that all up then you're 100% within your right to complain, but if you're bitching and moaning because suddenly "baaaaaawwww, they're a different color" then you just come across as whiny.

To be honest, I do agree with you that we should take inspiration from whoever is worthy of inspiring us, regardless of their color. I believe fully in the notion that we are all family when it comes down to it, and that we have a lot more in common than we think, so why not admire and respect each other? The problem is when we are discussing little kids who would just like to see people who looked like them. Think about this from the view of an eight year old; you want to be someone awesome, someone totally kick-butt, but the only kick-butt people you see on TV are all white. We as adult may understand that it doesn't matter, that you can still be awesome no matter what your color, but a small child might take away the message that people of color - like them - don't matter (at least not enough to have TV made about them) or can't be awesome.

As for the Star Trek analogy, I do see your point, and agree with it to a certain extent. The problem is that ***they DID fuck it up.*** If White!Aang, White!Sokka and White!Katara had come on screen and immediately embodied the role, made the characters come alive and basically kicked massive amounts of movie butt, then I think the anger would be a lot less... still a bit of grumbling for the reasons above, but hey, at least they chose the people who BEST played the character. But in this case, the actors are stilted, wooden, and basically don't resemble the original characters at all (for example, Sokka is supposed to be a wisecracker, but is apparently super serious). So the only "good" reason for this casting - that they picked the best actors to showcase the characters' personalities - doesn't apply.

 

[Mstrswrd]

At the very least, we know it won't pull an Eragon, where the movie changes some very important plo tpoints and puts itself in a corner, because all the stuff they changed was really important. We know it won't so that because, apparently, all 3 movies are already written,so, who knows, maybe it'll get better.

 

[Furrama]

It's a movie. It should have been gutted to fit the genre and show instead of explain.

 

[Popcicle42]

From what I've heard from friends, those who have seen the series will be disappointed, and those who haven't seen the series have enjoyed.

I haven't seen the series. I'm hopeful.

 

[obisean]

I always thought this would be a bad movie. I've been burned to many times by Holywood when it comes to adaptions of things I love (Eragon, Transformers, Dragonball)

But you've got my hopes up that it might not be as terrible as some of the others.

Ah, Eragon.

I remember seeing all of 2 mins (if that) of that movie. The part I saw was when: (book and movie spoilers ahead)

Spoiler

Brom is in the middle of a lake and says something like "I can't keep a secret from you anymore" and cuts open his glove. B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T. That guy had nothing but secrets and literally carried them to his death, revealing pretty much only that he was a dragon rider.

After that, I knew it couldn't be even close to the original in plot, and abandoned it.

 

[LaBambaMan]

Bob, care to respond on the recent controversy on how the film has a mostly white cast and the only Asian actor is playing the villain?

As I've stated before, this is the Starship Troopers clause: when a movie is based off a story with a mostly ethnic cast of characters, the director opts to have white actors play their roles. Just like how in Heinlein's novel Johnny was Filipino but Verhoeven opted to have him cast as a white character with vaguely Aryan features (blond, blue-eyed: I have a habit of using that with people with those features, sorry.)

As a Mexican-American, I sympathize with how the protesters are making a very valid point in how we minorities are misrepresented in the many mediums we know and love: film, video games, comics, etc. On the other hand, as a realist: I realize that this is nothing but a shallow cash grab by producers and not so much the director in getting a wide audience to watch said film (IE: white people). So in this case, it's not so much Shyamalan's fault as much as it is Paramount's fault.

Just my $0.02

Really? We're playing the race-card?

Considering that one of the major points of popularity for the original animated series was that children of color *finally* had some heroes that looked like them, that acknowledged their existence as opposed to just neutral white-washing, that gave them a role model to look up to... yes, the race card should be played.

If this was an original property (ie no TV series), then meh, whatever. He can cast who he likes. But considering how prominent people of color were in the original, he had a duty to at least try to match it up. That's why I find this ten times worse than Prince of Persia; the game Prince was of a sort of neutral, undeterminable race, so the whitewashing wasn't really as blatant. This was... really, really blatant. See this link: http://knowyourmeme.com/forums/general/topics/4848-last-airbender-movie

To add insult to injury, it's not like they got "the best" actors for the role; from what I hear, the three "whitewashed" actors were awful.

See, here's my problem with all this; everyone's so damn twitchy and sensitive that people are all too willing to toss down the race card at any fucking chance they get.

Shouldn't we be teaching our children better, anyway? Why does it matter what the color of their skin is if they're a good and positive role model? Should I not look up to Dr. King or Gandhi or the Dali Lama simply because they have different color skin than me? Should I only find positive role models in my fellow whites? NO. Doing shit like that and encouraging that sort of mentality is stupid and racist(a term I hate with a fucking passion).

To pull on your Star Trek analogy, I wouldn't give two shits since I hate Star Trek. But let's say I didn't hate all things Star Trek, for the sake of argument. If Kirk was suddenly black I wouldn't care, so long as he retained the CHARACTER. If Han Solo was to be recast as a jive talking black guy with an afro and had nothing in common with the original other than name I think THEN I would be pissed. It doesn't matter what color their skin is, it's their character and personality that counts. When they go and fuck that all up then you're 100% within your right to complain, but if you're bitching and moaning because suddenly "baaaaaawwww, they're a different color" then you just come across as whiny.

To be honest, I do agree with you that we should take inspiration from whoever is worthy of inspiring us, regardless of their color. I believe fully in the notion that we are all family when it comes down to it, and that we have a lot more in common than we think, so why not admire and respect each other? The problem is when we are discussing little kids who would just like to see people who looked like them. Think about this from the view of an eight year old; you want to be someone awesome, someone totally kick-butt, but the only kick-butt people you see on TV are all white. We as adult may understand that it doesn't matter, that you can still be awesome no matter what your color, but a small child might take away the message that people of color - like them - don't matter (at least not enough to have TV made about them) or can't be awesome.

As for the Star Trek analogy, I do see your point, and agree with it to a certain extent. The problem is that ***they DID fuck it up.*** If White!Aang, White!Sokka and White!Katara had come on screen and immediately embodied the role, made the characters come alive and basically kicked massive amounts of movie butt, then I think the anger would be a lot less... still a bit of grumbling for the reasons above, but hey, at least they chose the people who BEST played the character. But in this case, the actors are stilted, wooden, and basically don't resemble the original characters at all (for example, Sokka is supposed to be a wisecracker, but is apparently super serious). So the only "good" reason for this casting - that they picked the best actors to showcase the characters' personalities - doesn't apply.

So what you're saying is that 8-year-old kids are all morons that we can't possibly teach to embrace humanity? When I was 8 I was watching the Cosby show with my mom. I can understand that kids are easily suggestible sometimes but parents needs to do their fucking jobs and teach their kids that it doesn't matter what color that superhero's skin is, but that he's a good person and does the right thing; that's what counts.

And having not seen the movie I can't really comment on the personality thing for the characters.

 

[Usagi Vindaloo]

Bob, care to respond on the recent controversy on how the film has a mostly white cast and the only Asian actor is playing the villain?

As I've stated before, this is the Starship Troopers clause: when a movie is based off a story with a mostly ethnic cast of characters, the director opts to have white actors play their roles. Just like how in Heinlein's novel Johnny was Filipino but Verhoeven opted to have him cast as a white character with vaguely Aryan features (blond, blue-eyed: I have a habit of using that with people with those features, sorry.)

As a Mexican-American, I sympathize with how the protesters are making a very valid point in how we minorities are misrepresented in the many mediums we know and love: film, video games, comics, etc. On the other hand, as a realist: I realize that this is nothing but a shallow cash grab by producers and not so much the director in getting a wide audience to watch said film (IE: white people). So in this case, it's not so much Shyamalan's fault as much as it is Paramount's fault.

Just my $0.02

Really? We're playing the race-card?

It would appear so. I mean thats the norm now days. If you don't agree with the way someone does something or their stance on an issue, you are deemed a biget. Doesn't matter that your stance is a valid one.

OT: I really wish Bob would have said if the 3D was worth it. If a movie was not made for 3D then I don't want to see it that way. Adding some 3D content to a non 3D movie is a practice that needs to stop.

Out of curiosity, then, why do you think it was a good move to cast white actors in roles that were originally ethnic in the series? I'm not being snarky, but genuinely curious. Usually the answer is, "because they did a great job acting the role," but it sounds like the acting was terrible. I don't think anyone is calling anyone a bigot, but the fact remains that there seems very little *good* reason to whitewash the cast, and plenty of rather uncomfortable *bad* reasons...

I never said it was a good move. I know nothing about the TV show and there are times I wish a movie cast the right Ethnic persuasion for a part. I guess I was just talking in generalities. Just sick of people throwing the race card out when there is nothing remotely racist about the issue at hand. Maybe my post was a knee jerk reaction to yet another ?Race card Referee?. I do find it funny that the people of ?Hollywood? are looked at as the ?enlightened ones? of our culture and yet they are usually the most close-minded and bigoted people on the planet.

Definitely agree on that last point! I think the reason people pull out the "race card" is that racism is not always about an action, but... I dunno, a state of being? Like, I don't think Shyamalan and the producers sat around saying, "Colored people suck, let's hire white actors!" If they did, I think we could all agree that that is racist. The point where some people see racism and others don't is when we're talking more about the subconscious culture and the subtle stuff. Let's say, instead, S and the producers said, "We should cast these white actors in the role, they're more accessible to a wider audience." Which *may be true*, but if it is, that truth is evidence of something that IS racist, the idea that we can only identify with white people or that they are the "everyman" while people of color are "different". Another person upthread made a very good point about how difficult it is for Asian (or other ethnic) actors to break into the industry vs. white actors (if that seems odd... when was the last time we saw a romantic comedy with the main male lead as an Asian?) This doesn't mean it's a case of BROWN PEOPLE STAY OUT, more a subtle and uncomfortable sign that "we" are not as "colorblind" as we think.

I think a lot of discussion of racism ends up in the, "This is racist!" vs "STOP PLAYING THE RACE CARD FOR EVERYTHING" situation because the two sides are thinking of entirely different definitions of the word. The latter is thinking of it as an act, a choice, an individual or group of individuals being jerks. The former is thinking in terms of institutions, of subconscious elements, of things in our culture we take for granted but perhaps should not. Wacky hijinks and misunderstandings ensue.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

You were nicer to this film then Ebert, and just about everyone else.

Universal opinion seems to be that everything is lousy, except the Choreography.

NEVER LET THE DIRECTOR WRITE THE DAMN SCRIPT.

 

[deth2munkies]

Eh...condensing what appears to me to be a Dragonball Z meets Inuyasha anime series into a single movie is a bad idea to begin with. Also, given what you said about the exposition, it probably follows the series too closely for its own good, with characters often breaking into unwarranted exposition mid-fight scene (ok, so that's a problem for ALL Anime). I'm really not inclined to even give this one a chance as I'd be going to see inventive special effects and combat sequences that are already present in other, better movies (see the other Avatar from last year*).

*Which falls into the same category: shitty narrative + awesome special effects, yet it looks and was rated so much better than this one, I'm not inclined to bother.

 

[Usagi Vindaloo]

Bob, care to respond on the recent controversy on how the film has a mostly white cast and the only Asian actor is playing the villain?

As I've stated before, this is the Starship Troopers clause: when a movie is based off a story with a mostly ethnic cast of characters, the director opts to have white actors play their roles. Just like how in Heinlein's novel Johnny was Filipino but Verhoeven opted to have him cast as a white character with vaguely Aryan features (blond, blue-eyed: I have a habit of using that with people with those features, sorry.)

As a Mexican-American, I sympathize with how the protesters are making a very valid point in how we minorities are misrepresented in the many mediums we know and love: film, video games, comics, etc. On the other hand, as a realist: I realize that this is nothing but a shallow cash grab by producers and not so much the director in getting a wide audience to watch said film (IE: white people). So in this case, it's not so much Shyamalan's fault as much as it is Paramount's fault.

Just my $0.02

Really? We're playing the race-card?

Considering that one of the major points of popularity for the original animated series was that children of color *finally* had some heroes that looked like them, that acknowledged their existence as opposed to just neutral white-washing, that gave them a role model to look up to... yes, the race card should be played.

If this was an original property (ie no TV series), then meh, whatever. He can cast who he likes. But considering how prominent people of color were in the original, he had a duty to at least try to match it up. That's why I find this ten times worse than Prince of Persia; the game Prince was of a sort of neutral, undeterminable race, so the whitewashing wasn't really as blatant. This was... really, really blatant. See this link: http://knowyourmeme.com/forums/general/topics/4848-last-airbender-movie

To add insult to injury, it's not like they got "the best" actors for the role; from what I hear, the three "whitewashed" actors were awful.

See, here's my problem with all this; everyone's so damn twitchy and sensitive that people are all too willing to toss down the race card at any fucking chance they get.

Shouldn't we be teaching our children better, anyway? Why does it matter what the color of their skin is if they're a good and positive role model? Should I not look up to Dr. King or Gandhi or the Dali Lama simply because they have different color skin than me? Should I only find positive role models in my fellow whites? NO. Doing shit like that and encouraging that sort of mentality is stupid and racist(a term I hate with a fucking passion).

To pull on your Star Trek analogy, I wouldn't give two shits since I hate Star Trek. But let's say I didn't hate all things Star Trek, for the sake of argument. If Kirk was suddenly black I wouldn't care, so long as he retained the CHARACTER. If Han Solo was to be recast as a jive talking black guy with an afro and had nothing in common with the original other than name I think THEN I would be pissed. It doesn't matter what color their skin is, it's their character and personality that counts. When they go and fuck that all up then you're 100% within your right to complain, but if you're bitching and moaning because suddenly "baaaaaawwww, they're a different color" then you just come across as whiny.

To be honest, I do agree with you that we should take inspiration from whoever is worthy of inspiring us, regardless of their color. I believe fully in the notion that we are all family when it comes down to it, and that we have a lot more in common than we think, so why not admire and respect each other? The problem is when we are discussing little kids who would just like to see people who looked like them. Think about this from the view of an eight year old; you want to be someone awesome, someone totally kick-butt, but the only kick-butt people you see on TV are all white. We as adult may understand that it doesn't matter, that you can still be awesome no matter what your color, but a small child might take away the message that people of color - like them - don't matter (at least not enough to have TV made about them) or can't be awesome.

As for the Star Trek analogy, I do see your point, and agree with it to a certain extent. The problem is that ***they DID fuck it up.*** If White!Aang, White!Sokka and White!Katara had come on screen and immediately embodied the role, made the characters come alive and basically kicked massive amounts of movie butt, then I think the anger would be a lot less... still a bit of grumbling for the reasons above, but hey, at least they chose the people who BEST played the character. But in this case, the actors are stilted, wooden, and basically don't resemble the original characters at all (for example, Sokka is supposed to be a wisecracker, but is apparently super serious). So the only "good" reason for this casting - that they picked the best actors to showcase the characters' personalities - doesn't apply.

So what you're saying is that 8-year-old kids are all morons that we can't possibly teach to embrace humanity? When I was 8 I was watching the Cosby show with my mom. I can understand that kids are easily suggestible sometimes but parents needs to do their fucking jobs and teach their kids that it doesn't matter what color that superhero's skin is, but that he's a good person and does the right thing; that's what counts.

And having not seen the movie I can't really comment on the personality thing for the characters.

I do see what you mean. Under that rationale, though, it STILL doesn't make sense of the majority of actors/characters/etc to be white. Because under your argument, it doesn't matter what color the superhero's skin is... so why not cast/create more PoC characters as well as white? It's not like it's hurting anyone.

I don't think it's a case of children being morons, but rather children asking difficult questions that we don't have the answers to (or at least, not good answers). Mommy, if everyone is special and equally good, then why aren't there any superheroes who look like me? Daddy, if humanity is all together and are all friends no matter what they look like, then why do all the people on Friends look the same? *These are good questions to ask*. We as adults should really think about what the answers are, and whether we need to change the world so as to give these children better answers than the ones we can give now.

Don't get me wrong, I totally 100% agree with your basic premise that we should all embrace humanity no matter what our color and creed, and should teach our children to respect everyone equally. Unfortunately, we're not quite there yet, and there is still prejudice against many minorities (and yes, to a certain extent, there is prejudice against majorities too, which is also problematic). I think it's good to at least *acknowledge* this prejudice and work to fight against it AS WELL AS teaching a credo of all-embracing humanity. In other words: "Yes, Virginia, it doesn't matter what color/gender/orientation/etc you are, because we're all equally awesome. Having said that, this casting is still problematic, because the filmmakers don't seem to realize that, and think that audiences will like white people more. What can we do to tell the filmmakers that they're wrong?"

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I'm confused now...

I was going to see it because it seemed like shit and Ebert gave it half a star, but now I might go see it because there's a chance that it might entertain me...

I can't make up my mind! See it because I want to rag on it or see it because I want to enjoy it...

THE ONLY WAY TO ANSWER THE QUESTION IS TO GO SEE IT!

Watch it and review it.

If you hate it, you'll have fun coming up with insults.

If you like it...You'll have liked it. And scrap the review.

 

[Coldman42]

I got the same feeling from this movie that i did when i saw the Lord of the Rings movies. I read the Fellowship book then saw the movie and was so surprised at just how good it was and how much they got in there. Then i was again blown away with the extended DVD. I think that is what to expect out of the Last Airbender, a good movie with a much better extended version when it comes out on DVD.

Also, i have seen the entire series on T.V. (they showed every episode in a couple days before the end of the series and nothing better was on) and i must say they did good getting all the main points in here. Rather pleasantly surprised.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

I was sure this would be a travesty... I may actually watch this.

I hope they make a second. Toph FTW.