Sci-Fi Wire Interview with Cliff Curtis

[star_bolt08]

Hey guys! *waves* I was poking around Sci-Fi Wire today, and I came across this interview with Cliff Curtis, the actor playing Fire Lord Ozai. Here it is: http://scifiwire.com/2009/08/last-airbender-villain-lo.php

It does provide us a little information about Fire Lord Ozai's costume. Curtis described it and said:

"It's sort of like a cross between

Comments

[mrcab]

They've changed SO much, removing all the "asianness", but why keep the "asian" names?! A little awkward.

[pretty_angel]

Yeah, they could've easily made up a movie on their own.

[mrcab]

Would have been so much better than bastardizing Avatar; pardon.

What if MNight got together with Mike & Bryan to create something new?... uhg... okay, never mind. I'd like to think that was wishful thinking, but it's not.

[pretty_angel]

Exactly.

[caterfree10]

God, seriously. Just change their names already because this is NOT Avatar at all. >_<;

[amredthelector]

I get the feeling they're only keeping the name because it's bankable. >(

[caterfree10]

Stop reminding me. *headdesk* It'll probably be the only way they'll get any money. :T

[amredthelector]

Honestly, if M. Night had just come up with his own fantasy movie instead of trying to make white ninja Star Wars Avatar, I may have gone to see it.

Fortunately, they went and stapled the Avatar name onto it and saved me from seeing the white ninja-Star Wars-ripped off failure that it is. The only white ninja movie I would ever be interested in seeing is a Dr. McNinja movie.

[caterfree10]

Seriously, this. The whole STORY concept of Avatar had been done a million times before in European fantasy, it was very refreshing to see it done with Asian influences instead. Now that that's being stripped away, there's no point to it even sharing names. :T

[00thefool]

I was thinking the same thing. It's probably the only thing left in the show that Asian AND Relative to the original Avatar. If M. Night just changed their names then things would probably make a 'little' more sense.
It looks like M.Night was originally going to leave it all Asian because if he wanted a 'Global Approach' in the first place it would of made more sense if he have changed the names relative to the current cultures of the movie... but like the other person said the original names are bankable.

[mrcab]

You know, even if he changed the names, it would still piss me off. It's like We don't want Asians, and we think changing the names would make it more "Global Friendly": in other words, "Who doesn't like like white people?!"

New names:

Aang: Aanakin

Katara: Kristy

Sokka: Simon

Zuko: Punjab

[imnotasquirrel]

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if some people didn't find anything distinctly Asian about the names. At university, I once met someone who admitted that she thought I would be black based on my first name. I am Asian.