Last Airbender full trailer postponed!

Initially to be attached to a December-released movie (no final word on which movie that would've been), the full trailer has been pushed back to February. Apparently, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) wasn't done with the special effects and the CGI of the movie yet, which means that the current shots that they do have, aren't that good.

Sounds promising.

/Film predicts that the trailer will be attached to Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, slated for release on February 12th.

James Cameron's Avatar Bible excerpt!

Care for a glimpse into the guide for Avatar? As in, the reference for writers on the show? Only nine pages, though, but it does give you a very good idea of how the setting and environment for the show is supposed to be (and how the movie is deviating from it).

To check it out, click here. It's from the revamped Racebending website.

Early draft of Last Airbender script?

LastAirbenderFilm.com has posted up a summary of some aspects of the new movie from aforementioned draft script. Faux or no, this part caught my attention:

The Dragon says that the comet that began the war will return in three years, giving the firebenders control over their Chi, and thus the ability to create fire themselves.

Sozin's Comet is supposed make the Firebenders more powerful, not give them "the ability to create fire themselves"! I mean, the reason why the Fire Nation has been able to keep the other Nations at bay all this time is because they can create fire just like that! Even Pyro from X-Men 2 admitted his lameness, since he could only manipulate fire instead of create it.

As awful as the change sounds, the movie can't really sink any lower now, can it?

To check out the rest of the spoilers (even though they may be untrue), mosey your mousey along to here.

Last Airbender trailer gets release date!

And it'll be on CHRISTMAS!

Right-o, folks, Frank Marshall had tweeted the news, but so far, which movie it'll be attached to has not been confirmed yet. AceShowbiz reckons that the movie will be Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey, Jr., and Jude Law.

I hope we don't get random scenes that flash by SO QUICKLY you can't make head or tail of anything. It really makes it difficult to criticize how the massive failit looks.

The Last Airbender cast photos!

Courtesy of the Racebending Community on LiveJournal, I come bearing these:

[For clarity's sake, I'll just put their character names below their pics.]

Aang

Katara

Sokka

Zuko

[Click here for larger headshots, where you can see a bit of their costumes.]

We now have a closer shot of Zuko, compared to my earlier post.
*clearsthroat*
YOU CALL THAT A SCAR?!! That's Gerard Butler Phantom of the Opera burn scarring, you lousy-ass make-up people! MovieZuko must have serious, SERIOUS self-esteem issues to wanna redeem his honor with a scar like that. I mean, he still looks good. LIKE GERARD BUTLER DID!!

Secondly, they better color in Aang's tattoo. Geez, the thing is supposed to be bright blue, man. It's supposed to be difficult to go incognito. With this, all it takes is a little foundation.

Normally, I find Jackson Rathbone quite youthful-looking, but in the above pics, the age gap between Sokka and Katara is, well, 10 years +, obvious. Oh well, I guess the kids need a babysitter, or worse, a responsible adult. *pukesinmouth*
Plus, I miss the blue on their costume, but that's secondary :P

And a promo poster-shot (larger one here):


And you know what? The poster shot actually looks GOOD! It looks COOL, which is MISLEADING, since the production team is messing up EVERY SINGLE THING THAT'S GOOD from the ORIGINAL ANIMATED SERIES!!

It's like the remix of your favourite song. It always sucks.

I'm so pissed right now.

Btw, can someone tell me who the frick that Earthbender is?

End-of-levelmovie Boss.

And it IS on YouTube!

The Last Airbender teaser trailer, that is:



Visually, it looks good. As expected for a big-budgeted Hollywood movie. And, we can see his arrow.

The trailer looks promising to people like us.

It seems accurate.

And that's what I hate about the trailer. Because based on production photos, it's far from accurate.

I used to go around telling people that AvatarThe Last Airbender is like a Chinese kung-fu movie, except that it's animated series and the characters speak good English. I mean, who doesn't love an old-fashioned Chinese martial arts movie, right? But with this movie coming along, everyone will come to know of the MOVIE first, rather than the original animated series. And there's nothing like lousy adaptations to deter you from delving into the original.

[Or misleading adaptations. *cough*Golden Compass*cough*]

Sure, the current idea for the movie has the potential to be a huge summer blockbuster. If the entire concept for this franchise had just randomly come to M. Night Shyamalan in a dream or something a few years ago, provided there's no twist, he'd be sitting pretty, and his film-making skills wouldn't be made fun of in discussion forums. Yeah, white people saving yellows from brown baddies is offensive, but it wouldn't be THIS offensive. I'd just be avoiding the movie, instead of ranting about every other production photo that's coming out, or blogging about it every other post.

But that's not the case here. The movie is an ADAPTATION, which means that it's BASED on something, in this case, the Nickelodeon animated series. And to drastically change important aspects of the source material, loosely-based adaptation or no, that's a major faux pas in my book.

[That's despite my puristic beliefs]

The potential for TLA to be a hit on the big-screen is definitely there; fans can see it, the people involved with the movie can see it (heck, Paramount is calling it, "Their Harry Potter") , even NON-FANS can see it.
And the fact that Hollywood is going about it the wrong way is what really pisses me off.

Last Airbender trailer on June 24th!

It'll be attached to the Transformers 2 movie, but since I'm not in the States, I'm not sure that I'll be able to see it on June 24th proper.

A preview-type thing will be on Entertainment Tonight on June 22nd. We don't get that here, either, so I'll be scouring YouTube from then till I find one of it.

Stay tuned, folks! :)

EDIT: I found an 8-second preview from ET on YouTube:

More sucknews on The Last Airbender.

We have here a new article in the "Racial Impact" series (links to the previous few can be found here), titled Gaiden - Hanzi Characters.

In essence, the article compares the original title shot from the animated series with the supposed movie shot (taken off a ComicCon promo T-shirt), where the original title shot has Chinese calligraphy, and the promo T, doesn't, and discusses the direction the movie might be heading.

(l-r) Original title shot from the animated series, title from ComicCon movie promo T.

The article further discusses that there may be NO CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY in the movie, instead, replacing it with a made-up language akin to Elvish or Klingon.

[Or worse. Smudge it out like 4Kids does. Imagine a world that reads and writes Smudge. Ugh.]

Once again, the writer of the article has mentioned that this is a rumor. However, if it DOES turn out to be true, I really doubt I'll be wasting bandwith on this movie.

[I'll just wait till it comes out on satellite TV the following year.]

"Racial Impact" - A Last Airbender Commentary.

An excellent serial write-up analysing each character, between both animated and movie versions. Without spoiling too much of the articles (aside from full titles, of course), the links are below:

Racial Impact (Part 1): Being Amazing and Asian is Not Enough

Racial Impact (Part 2): The Barbification of Katara

Racial Impact (Part 3): The Evil Brown Fire Nation

The series hasn't ended yet, so I'll be adding more links as they come.

Another photo of Zuko!

From SlashFilm.com

[A South Asian in East Asian attire? Why, that's as almost ridiculous as East Asians IN East Asian attire! Ya don't say...]

Judging by the look on Dev Patel's face, I'm guessing this is post-Agni Kai (I think the snow-white background is also a tell-tale sign, since they're probably at the Southern Water Tribe, i.e. somewhere like the South Pole).

If that's so, then where the fuckity-fuck is Zuko's SCAR??!

The article mentioned that Night is going for "a more minimal and realistic look than the one seen on the show". "Minimal" does not justify WHY Zuko wants the Avatar so bad, WHY Zuko wants to prove himself and do right in his father's eyes, because if he'd just gotten MINIMAL damage from the Agni-fucking-Kai (where his father basically own–no, wait–PWNED his teenaged ass), he wouldn't even WANT TO and/or BE chasing Aang all over the fucking world in the first place!

[Also, where is his top-knot?]

New pictures from The Last Airbender!

Article link here.

Let the nitpicking commence!

Dev Patel as Prince Zuko.

First of all, as cool as Dev Patel looks with the fire and all, where the hell is his scar? And why does he still have his hair? Is he not supposed to be half-bald with top-knot? Did the producers realise that putting an East Asian hair-style on a South Asian dude looks as ridiculous as it sounds?

[Just like the idea of casting white people in Asian-looking roles! But who'm I to criticise, I just have common sense.]

Noah Ringer as Aang.

Surprisingly, despite the lovely complexion (and I'm not being sarcastic here), he doesn't look too abnormalweird, which seems a bit promising. Maybe it's the expression on his face Now, where the hell is his blue tattoo? If he's gonna walk around looking like he has that mark etched into his forehead... Ehkk.

If the original cartoon was drawn this way, with an Indian/brown dude as a bad guy and a bunch of white/near-white kids running around saving the world, there wouldn't be any issues with the movie; rather the production crew would be lauded for sticking to and respecting the source material. Just like Watchmen.

[Sorry, couldn't resist.]

Instead, you have people setting up websites, debating endlessly on the cast, and most of all, have the possibly-true presumption that this movie adaptation will suck as much lame as Dragonball: Evolution.

Apparently, the teaser attached to Transformers 2 was a rumor.
[Can't remember where I put the link.]
We shall see on June 24th.

Last Airbender teaser attached to Transformers 2!

From what I've heard, it's going to show Noah Ringer as Aang for the first time ever.

Let's see whether it'll be the Dragonball of 2010.


[After all, those who saw the Dragonball trailer and yelled, 'FAIL!" weren't contradicted when it finally came out.]

Viva la resistance!

In brief, the Avatar fandom has been torn with the casting of the leads in the upcoming The Last Airbender live-action movie. This has led to an online movement called Saving the World with Postage (also known as Aang Ain't White), which also has an offshoot called Racebending. Both websites aim to create awareness of the casting travesty (NONE of the four leads look like their animated counterparts, and are 3/4 white), as well as the indifference of the movie-makers to racism claims.

And now, they're on YouTube.

[They're on FIYAHH!!]

For more information on contributing (as in 'effort', and not 'money', don't worry) to the cause, clickie here: http://www.youtube.com/user/racebending

First look at the Fire Nation.

[Pic taken from LastAirbenderFans.com]

And here I was thinking that all of Fire Nation is going to be Indian/Middle Eastern.

[Maybe these are the stunt guys.]

Anyway, the costumes look pretty okay to me, plus I see some fake background ice blocks there, so they may just be on Water Tribe ground. I hope they'll do more post-production work on the ice, since the whole scene would just look ridiculous if the sky looks more realistic than everything else.

How difficult is it to find Asian actors in Hollywood?

There was a TV spot on Dragonball: Evolution last night, where there were snippets from interviews with the actors and the directors.

[For some reason, James Marsters with dark hair and an American accent still caught me off-guard. Watdaeff.]

I'll have to admit that the movie scenes looked cool, provided you didn't know what the original looked like.

There was this bit when the director was talking about how they were following the anime and stuff. I told my mom the fans were up in arms because Goku was played by a white guy, in an obviously Japanese/Asian environment, and my mom was like, "Then why is the director saying that he stuck to the source material?"

Bingo.

I don't follow Dragonball, but even I knew that the whole movie was wrong from the first time I saw the trailer. It gave me the impression that Piccolo wasn't green (but turns out he was, in the movie), and someone had even commented that this was actually Bulletproof Monk 2.

[Gave me lulz, partly 'cuzza Chow Yuen Fat's Hawaiian shirt. Also, I found out that Master Roshi is bald in the anime.]

If they could find Asian actors (that speak good English, by the way) to play Yam Cha and Chi Chi, why couldn't they have gotten an Asian actor to play Goku? I don't think a white actor would look any less ridiculous in Goku's famous orange-and-blue outfit than an Asian actor.

Which brings me back to the topic at hand, and to Avatar. Earlier on, the cartoon creators were talking about how M Night Shyamalan was excited and will be respecting the source material

[Now we know that the word 'respecting' is to be referred to in inverted commas.]

As I've mentioned before, I don't follow DB, so I can't nitpick as I do on Avatar, but on surface value (indeed!), it looks like the Avatar movie will be disrespecting the source material even more than DB did, with the producers making radical alterations in the glaring of all aspects: appearance and race.

If DB:E could find a bunch of Asian actors (to be background fodder, but to act in the movie, no less), why couldn't the people behind the Avatar movie do the same? Oh wait, they already have. Looks like there's a trend here, folks.

It's going to be an epic failure on Paramount's part to make Avatar "the next Harry Potter" since all else points to the fact that Avatar is going to be the next DB:E, except with the elements of nature.

[Cross-posted]

New castmembers for The Last Airbender!

Fire Nation bigwigs and an Earthbender have been cast!

Aasif Mandvi will be playing Commander Zhao

Shaun Toub will be playing Uncle Iroh
[Hey, at least it won't be an M Night cameo.]

Cliff Curtis will be playing Fire Lord Ozai

[Also not M Night. The world can breath (slightly!) easier.]

Keong Sim will be playing... Earthbending Father.
I have no idea who the heck that is.

[I don't remember a character like that, and the Google isn't bringing up anything.]

Fire Nation actors look like they're potential bad-asses, provided you ignore what their characters are supposed to look like based on the TV series. The only bright side is that M Night won't be playing a pivotal role us fans will be cringing at. Hopefully.

[He might be the Cabbage Merchant, though.]

Full article on the casting here.

Washington Post writes on Last Airbender controversy!

The Washington Post just did a great write-up on the whole Last Airbender casting fiasco, highlighting the reasons why the fandom has been up in arms the past few months.

[Also puts the casting director in a BAD light, I feel :)]

Check out the article, linked at: In Va., Casting About For Mongolian Actors

Probable The Last Airbender casting sheet?

According to a write-up by one of the protestors who went to the Flushing, NY casting call on March 1st, Paramount seems to be casting actors based on 'element nations'. Below is what the protestors found out on March 1st:

1) Water Tribe = Caucasian actors (evidenced by Nicola Peltz and Jackson Rathbone – Katara and Sokka)

2) Fire Nation = Indian actors (Dev Patel - Zuko)

3) Earth Kingdom = Asian actors (Jessica Andres - Suki)

4) Air Nomads = (possibly) Caucasian actors (Noah Ringer - Aang)

For a TV show with a setting that existed in an alternate universe (with borrowed elements from ours), the producers seem pretty bent on bridging the gap between our world and their's. Based on this info, this would mean that:

• Fire Nation = India
  

• Earth Kingdom = East Asian countries (China, Japan, Korea, etc.)

• Water Tribe & Air Nomads = North Americas (or maybe Europe)

How easy they make it for us to draw parallels and similarities based solely on race.

More on the The Last Airbender controversy...

The Media Action Network for Asian Americans just sent a letter to the producer of the Avatar movie. You can read it here.

[No, not the James Cameron's Avatar. I don't care he has first dibs; I shall refer to the more awesome of the two by its original name. As in, the animated series by Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.]

Here's to hoping that the casting shall be righted, including Zuko's (just 'cuz he's Asian doesn't mean you can randomly 'cast one in'), and that M Night Shyamalan won't deviate TOO much from the source material.

UPDATE: The East West Players (an Asian American theatre organization co-founded by Mako, voice of Uncle Iroh) have also sent a letter to the producers. More info on that here.

Zac Efron to be Jonny Quest?!

Apparently WB wants him, says this article here. But as of this moment, the actor hasn't signed on to the production yet, so we'll have to wait for the official announcement.

Briefly, the original sci-fi animated series chronicled the adventures of Dr Benton Quest, his 12-year-old son Jonny (yeah, Zac Efron doesn't look 12, either), pilot Race Bannon, and Quest's adopted son Hadji, as they go around and investigate strange occurances. You can read more about it in its Wiki entry.

Personally, I haven't followed the original series (I've only seen ONE episode of the revamped versions, and my friend was the one who alerted me to this), so I can't really elaborate on how blasphemous it would be to make changes in the movie. But it looks like it's going to be another example of a movie adaptation not following the source material.

Sigh. Hollywood.