More Avatar thoughts
Avatar being the Airbender and not the CGI blue people. Thanks for making things more confusing Hollywood.
With it coming out today, it's been in my thoughts, between reading other people's commentary and just seeing the ads plastered on television. I am a big fan of the animated TV show (and now that I know there's an art book on it's production I'm so buying that). I'm a fan for many reasons. For one, I'm a fan of animation and anime and it held up a good number of anime themes. Asia has also been a big part of my personal culture as I grew up on Okinawa and so even though we lived on the military base, from first grade until eighth, Asian aesthetics and artwork were a big part of my visual and personal cultural background. My visual education was expanded when I did an East Asian Studies minor in college. I loved seeing all that influence that was in Avatar, that you could see where they were taking each element from, where they were combining elements, and even influence from anime itself. The attention they paid to the martial arts, that they HAD a martial arts specialist to help them as well as someone to help with the kanji. That they PAID ATTENTION to the kanji and how using different kanji that make the same sounds can completely change the meaning of it (main example is them changing the kanji for Zuko's name depending on his point in the storyline). I also loved that while they took the culture seriously, they could laugh at themselves in regards to plots and characterization.
So I was excited about the live action movie because as a very visual person and an artist I was salivating at the level of detail that could do into in a live action movie that you can't do in a cartoon because otherwise you have your animators quitting very quick. All I could think about was the level of detail that we'd get to see and the research to go into it. The cartoon at Lord of the Rings level and oh the art books to come. And then the casting came out and I lost my enthusiasm. The commercials tried to tempt me with the shiny, but my faith in what sort of research and accuracy for costumes and setting has been shot down and I'd rather spend my money supporting the original series than the movie.
Which brings me to the main point of writing as it's been bugging me since reading it. I've read some of the complaints about 'shut up about the casting' and the one that stuck with me is the person who pointed out that it 'wasn't Asian' because there were swamp hillbillies, 'Arab' sand benders (someone please inform them that that area is part of Asia), and sun worshippers which were not Asian at all. Of how it could be an Asian inspired world if there were Central American inspired sun warriors in the middle of a Japanese inspired Fire Nation.
First off, sun worship isn't restricted to Central America. It exists all over Asia and Japan is known as the land of the Rising Sun, not to mention that the Imperial line is said to be descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu, and all three of its Imperial treasures are linked to the sun goddess. Not to mention sole worship of her was known as the cult of the sun and samurai wore sun symbols into battle. So there not being the concept for sun warriors in Asian culture, considering that's just a little of what occurs in Japan is bullshit.
So, maybe it's the architecture that makes them think this. As with the first, 'pyramid' architecture is also not restricted to Central America. Especially when you look at the details that are put into the structures. Even if they happened to take the pyramid style from the Mayan temples, the details are Asian from the etchings to the dragons along the stairwell to the motifs on the walls and floors. And then there is the fact that there are pyramid structures in Asia.
Ok, but the face make-up and costumes have to be only Central American. Nope. It can easily be inspired by Pacific Island dress and costume.
And I'm losing steam now, so that'll be it. I mostly needed to vent out my frustration of the matter. Granted, I'm not the creators, so I can't really say what they were thinking when they created these 'un-Asian' parts of the world.
With it coming out today, it's been in my thoughts, between reading other people's commentary and just seeing the ads plastered on television. I am a big fan of the animated TV show (and now that I know there's an art book on it's production I'm so buying that). I'm a fan for many reasons. For one, I'm a fan of animation and anime and it held up a good number of anime themes. Asia has also been a big part of my personal culture as I grew up on Okinawa and so even though we lived on the military base, from first grade until eighth, Asian aesthetics and artwork were a big part of my visual and personal cultural background. My visual education was expanded when I did an East Asian Studies minor in college. I loved seeing all that influence that was in Avatar, that you could see where they were taking each element from, where they were combining elements, and even influence from anime itself. The attention they paid to the martial arts, that they HAD a martial arts specialist to help them as well as someone to help with the kanji. That they PAID ATTENTION to the kanji and how using different kanji that make the same sounds can completely change the meaning of it (main example is them changing the kanji for Zuko's name depending on his point in the storyline). I also loved that while they took the culture seriously, they could laugh at themselves in regards to plots and characterization.
So I was excited about the live action movie because as a very visual person and an artist I was salivating at the level of detail that could do into in a live action movie that you can't do in a cartoon because otherwise you have your animators quitting very quick. All I could think about was the level of detail that we'd get to see and the research to go into it. The cartoon at Lord of the Rings level and oh the art books to come. And then the casting came out and I lost my enthusiasm. The commercials tried to tempt me with the shiny, but my faith in what sort of research and accuracy for costumes and setting has been shot down and I'd rather spend my money supporting the original series than the movie.
Which brings me to the main point of writing as it's been bugging me since reading it. I've read some of the complaints about 'shut up about the casting' and the one that stuck with me is the person who pointed out that it 'wasn't Asian' because there were swamp hillbillies, 'Arab' sand benders (someone please inform them that that area is part of Asia), and sun worshippers which were not Asian at all. Of how it could be an Asian inspired world if there were Central American inspired sun warriors in the middle of a Japanese inspired Fire Nation.
First off, sun worship isn't restricted to Central America. It exists all over Asia and Japan is known as the land of the Rising Sun, not to mention that the Imperial line is said to be descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu, and all three of its Imperial treasures are linked to the sun goddess. Not to mention sole worship of her was known as the cult of the sun and samurai wore sun symbols into battle. So there not being the concept for sun warriors in Asian culture, considering that's just a little of what occurs in Japan is bullshit.
So, maybe it's the architecture that makes them think this. As with the first, 'pyramid' architecture is also not restricted to Central America. Especially when you look at the details that are put into the structures. Even if they happened to take the pyramid style from the Mayan temples, the details are Asian from the etchings to the dragons along the stairwell to the motifs on the walls and floors. And then there is the fact that there are pyramid structures in Asia.
Ok, but the face make-up and costumes have to be only Central American. Nope. It can easily be inspired by Pacific Island dress and costume.
And I'm losing steam now, so that'll be it. I mostly needed to vent out my frustration of the matter. Granted, I'm not the creators, so I can't really say what they were thinking when they created these 'un-Asian' parts of the world.