My Beef With Airbender
So I ended up going to see The Last Airbender with my boyfriend on opening night.Caught the midnight show, 3D and all of that good stuff. I have been TRACKING this film from the start of when i first heard it was in production and everything. WHY? Because I LOVE the series Avatar: The Last Airbender.
I even bought Katara's necklace and went dressed as a semi-water bender to the premier! (I would have gone dressed as Azula or Suki had i had time to actually make a costume)
Now.... To start things off M. Night. Shyamaln is an insane master of the movie twists. A lot of people don't like his work. A LOT of people. I'm not one of them. I think he's great! His mind is filled with so much creativity and intruige that I think the typical person just doesn't know how to handle the stories he tries to convey.
People hated The Happening, Lady in the Water, The Village, Signs..... Yet they loooved The Sixth Sense. They harp and harp on this guy saying "OMG you suck! Learn to write/direct!!"
Some people JUST don't get it.
Whatever. I don't need to argue with stupid people.
However... The Last Airbender..... was... an incredible disappointment. INSANE DISAPPOINTMENT.
The only aspects I liked about it:
The bad?
(Anyone else want to add to this list? I know I missed on on some other stuff)
This movie played with my emotions so bad!
I'm sure any real fan of the series out there is as pissed off as I am.
It's just.... ARUGH.
This is exactly how I feel when they bring superhero movies to life on the big screen. Considering I'm SUCH a comic fan it is always hard for me to watch my comic heroes get trashed. I've learned to just look at it as an Elseworld anymore and be done with it.... But still. It's the SAME DAMN THING.
Apparently The Last Airbender is picking up more controversy than I originally thought imaginable. Not only are diehard fans mad... but there are others out there extremely pissed off on how they've done the casting on the movie.
RaceBending.com even made a site dedicated to what they thought was just a travesty to how they cast the roles of the entire cast. All the heroes were cast as white people and the Fire Nation was represented with people of Indian and Japanese/Chinese/Korean decent save for the gentleman who played Uncle Ihro (Shaun Toub)-- He's that guy from Iron Man that saved Tony Stark's life if you're trying to put a name on the face.
Now..... I don't care that they cast people in this manner.
Now before you bash me-- hear this:
Why are we still looking at people casted by their SKIN TONE!? Who the HALE cares anymore!? Come ON people. Shit. That irritates the living SHIT out of me.
Maybe they choose these people because they were the ones that the creative director saw as best fit for the roles?
Okay... so maybe the actors that played Katara and Sokka weren't of Inuit decent.
SO?
Okay so Aang wasn't cast as an Asain kid.
Okay......?
Now I understand that movies like this don't come along all the time. And that people of other ethnic decent should have been showcased for certain roles. It would have been NICE if they could have found those types of people for the role, but seriously? Realistically?
It... doesn't matter.
People of every color are AWESOME. Fabulous. And everything in between. Just because some roles weren't met with the right person for the part doesn't mean you need to go all Ninja about it.
For those that are allowing their panties to get in a bunch over the skin color of the actors?
Grow up!
This was probably THE most ethically diverse film that has been put out in an incredibly LONG time. Which i think is great! I mean have you seen how many different nationalities were represented in that film? Are you people BLIND?
If you guys really want to bash things-- why don't you go bast the television station BET. THAT is racist! There's no... Indian Entertainment Channel featuring all one race. They might have television stations that cater to SPANISH SPEAKING people, or JAPANESE speaking people, or KOREAN speaking people..... but.... um.... that's a LANGUAGE thing.
Do you understand? What does that say?
I just.... I dunno.
Normally I don't write rants about movies. I find it a waste of time really. But this time I had to say something. it's bugging the crap out of me.
But aren't you at least happy they ATTEMPTED to immortalize Aang with a movie about him? I thought that was rad in itself. Of COURSE it's gunna be messed up though! All comic/cartoon/tv show to film movies are! That's all Hollywood does! You shoulda knew this was coming...
And NO i will put this behind a LJ cut. Screw off. Don't read it, scroll past, IDC.
I'm done.
I even bought Katara's necklace and went dressed as a semi-water bender to the premier! (I would have gone dressed as Azula or Suki had i had time to actually make a costume)
Now.... To start things off M. Night. Shyamaln is an insane master of the movie twists. A lot of people don't like his work. A LOT of people. I'm not one of them. I think he's great! His mind is filled with so much creativity and intruige that I think the typical person just doesn't know how to handle the stories he tries to convey.
People hated The Happening, Lady in the Water, The Village, Signs..... Yet they loooved The Sixth Sense. They harp and harp on this guy saying "OMG you suck! Learn to write/direct!!"
Some people JUST don't get it.
Whatever. I don't need to argue with stupid people.
However... The Last Airbender..... was... an incredible disappointment. INSANE DISAPPOINTMENT.
The only aspects I liked about it:
- The CGI.
- Beautiful soundtrack.
- The fact that they decided to even attempt to make a movie about one of my beloved series.
- Racially Diverse cast* (I'll go into this a bit later)
The bad?
- The actors sucked.
- The 3D in the film was minimal.
- They messed up the pronunciation of the character's names.
- The story was more rushed than Harry potter and the Half Blood Prince.
- OMG NO AZULA! (Oh excuse me. She got what... 5 seconds of screen time?)
- They go to Kyoshi Island and there are NO KYOSHI WARRIORS--!??!?!? WTF.
- Not enough of wise cracking Sokka.
- Fire Lord Ozai wasn't menacing enough.
- No real "epic chase" between Zucco and Aang + Katara + Sokka really existed.
- No Toph!!
(Anyone else want to add to this list? I know I missed on on some other stuff)
This movie played with my emotions so bad!
I'm sure any real fan of the series out there is as pissed off as I am.
It's just.... ARUGH.
This is exactly how I feel when they bring superhero movies to life on the big screen. Considering I'm SUCH a comic fan it is always hard for me to watch my comic heroes get trashed. I've learned to just look at it as an Elseworld anymore and be done with it.... But still. It's the SAME DAMN THING.
Apparently The Last Airbender is picking up more controversy than I originally thought imaginable. Not only are diehard fans mad... but there are others out there extremely pissed off on how they've done the casting on the movie.
RaceBending.com even made a site dedicated to what they thought was just a travesty to how they cast the roles of the entire cast. All the heroes were cast as white people and the Fire Nation was represented with people of Indian and Japanese/Chinese/Korean decent save for the gentleman who played Uncle Ihro (Shaun Toub)-- He's that guy from Iron Man that saved Tony Stark's life if you're trying to put a name on the face.
Now..... I don't care that they cast people in this manner.
Now before you bash me-- hear this:
Why are we still looking at people casted by their SKIN TONE!? Who the HALE cares anymore!? Come ON people. Shit. That irritates the living SHIT out of me.
Maybe they choose these people because they were the ones that the creative director saw as best fit for the roles?
Okay... so maybe the actors that played Katara and Sokka weren't of Inuit decent.
SO?
Okay so Aang wasn't cast as an Asain kid.
Okay......?
Now I understand that movies like this don't come along all the time. And that people of other ethnic decent should have been showcased for certain roles. It would have been NICE if they could have found those types of people for the role, but seriously? Realistically?
It... doesn't matter.
People of every color are AWESOME. Fabulous. And everything in between. Just because some roles weren't met with the right person for the part doesn't mean you need to go all Ninja about it.
For those that are allowing their panties to get in a bunch over the skin color of the actors?
Grow up!
This was probably THE most ethically diverse film that has been put out in an incredibly LONG time. Which i think is great! I mean have you seen how many different nationalities were represented in that film? Are you people BLIND?
If you guys really want to bash things-- why don't you go bast the television station BET. THAT is racist! There's no... Indian Entertainment Channel featuring all one race. They might have television stations that cater to SPANISH SPEAKING people, or JAPANESE speaking people, or KOREAN speaking people..... but.... um.... that's a LANGUAGE thing.
Do you understand? What does that say?
I just.... I dunno.
Normally I don't write rants about movies. I find it a waste of time really. But this time I had to say something. it's bugging the crap out of me.
But aren't you at least happy they ATTEMPTED to immortalize Aang with a movie about him? I thought that was rad in itself. Of COURSE it's gunna be messed up though! All comic/cartoon/tv show to film movies are! That's all Hollywood does! You shoulda knew this was coming...
And NO i will put this behind a LJ cut. Screw off. Don't read it, scroll past, IDC.
I'm done.