Airbender Gripe
[disclaimer: I've had a couple of bad, stressful days. So I'm going to vent about something completely irrelevant in general.]
So. Avatar: The Last Airbender. Never actually watched the show. Seen a few clips. Seems cute enough. For a fantasy show claiming to base its combative styles on actual, well-known systems of kung-fu, it's pretty okay, from what little I've seen.
So then news that M. Night Shyamalan is casting a ton of Caucasians for his movie adaptation. Now, even a casual viewer can see that the show is clearly set in some sort of fantasy version of Asian, with clearly East and Southeast Asian ethnicities for the main characters. So already, boo.
It doesn't get any better when Jackson Rathbone - who is so white that he can easily play a Twilight vampire without makeup - is cast as the lead. It gets even worse when he says, "I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan. It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit."
Which all reminds me of crap like this:
Sadly, Jasper, even Mickey Rooney and David Carradine looked more Asian than you ever will. Even if you put on a conical hat, saffron robes, and insert false buckteeth into your stupid, stupid mouth.
So already, I'm irritated, and I have no connection at all of any sort to the show.
However, I am curious enough to watch the teaser trailer. I figure that the choreography might be interesting. Given that the original show was reasonably faithful to its martial arts roots, I thought that the movie might at least get some of that right.
Excuse me? Wasn't airbending supposed to be based on baguazhang? 'Cos I don't see it at all in this little solo form segment. If anything, it looks like bastardized old-school "Shaolin."
Wow. Normally, my Schadenfreude doesn't go beyond a snarky thought or two, but I now really want this movie to fail. I want this movie to bomb so hard that careers are ended. Because it gets so much so wrong so badly. Fuck everyone involved in this movie.
So. Avatar: The Last Airbender. Never actually watched the show. Seen a few clips. Seems cute enough. For a fantasy show claiming to base its combative styles on actual, well-known systems of kung-fu, it's pretty okay, from what little I've seen.
So then news that M. Night Shyamalan is casting a ton of Caucasians for his movie adaptation. Now, even a casual viewer can see that the show is clearly set in some sort of fantasy version of Asian, with clearly East and Southeast Asian ethnicities for the main characters. So already, boo.
It doesn't get any better when Jackson Rathbone - who is so white that he can easily play a Twilight vampire without makeup - is cast as the lead. It gets even worse when he says, "I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan. It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit."
Which all reminds me of crap like this:
Sadly, Jasper, even Mickey Rooney and David Carradine looked more Asian than you ever will. Even if you put on a conical hat, saffron robes, and insert false buckteeth into your stupid, stupid mouth.
So already, I'm irritated, and I have no connection at all of any sort to the show.
However, I am curious enough to watch the teaser trailer. I figure that the choreography might be interesting. Given that the original show was reasonably faithful to its martial arts roots, I thought that the movie might at least get some of that right.
Click to view
Excuse me? Wasn't airbending supposed to be based on baguazhang? 'Cos I don't see it at all in this little solo form segment. If anything, it looks like bastardized old-school "Shaolin."
Wow. Normally, my Schadenfreude doesn't go beyond a snarky thought or two, but I now really want this movie to fail. I want this movie to bomb so hard that careers are ended. Because it gets so much so wrong so badly. Fuck everyone involved in this movie.