New "Last Airbebender" Trailer

Gia

Feb 11, 2010 19:48:04 GMT -6

Okay, we've had a conversation about the movie before, but just the other day, I saw the new extended trailer. I really hate to say this, but it looks good... I'm still not entirely sure about it, but they've put together a good trailer. Kanea and I are still kind of unsure about it all, but my mom's excited.

Has anyone else seen it? If so, what do you think?

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yulan

Feb 12, 2010 1:40:58 GMT -6

Allow me to first say that I've been following casting controversy updates with the folks over at the Racebending LJ community. At this point, I can no longer separate my frustration over Paramount's choices for lead actors from the movie itself, so whatever assessment I make of the trailer is going to be darn biased. Just putting that out there.

Does the trailer look pretty? Yes. Very much yes. I appreciate the generous panning shots of the environment, and the CGI bending is shaping up nicely. But a movie can't be upheld by the merits of its eye candy alone. I'm still very worried about the plot and characters. Everyone looks so serious. Was the original TV series dramatic? Sure, but it had a healthy dose of comedy per episode, too. If the trailer is any indication, it's not even remotely going to resemble the A:tLA I know and love. Of course, maybe this is just a trailer gimmick and the actual movie will have better pacing. However, going by comments from people who're more familiar with M. Night's style and words from the man himself, I shouldn't hold out hope.

So between the casting debacle and other aesthetic changes, even the extended trailer can't get me excited about the movie. Not in a positive way, anyway.

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Anonymous

Feb 12, 2010 17:26:13 GMT -6

I was actually not very impressed by the theatrical trailer. It looked a little strange to me. I will say this, when Katara first spoke, I seriously almost did a double take because she sounded so much like Her. Then she kept on speaking and I started to stop liking her actor. That was literally the only problem I had when it came to the actors, I haven't gotten over the choices, but what the hell.

After seeing the guy that plays Sokka, I am confident that he will do him justice, as will everyone else. I don't know why, but I wasn't feeling the girl playing Katara; she felt like the low point; my brother felt the same way in his words, "It's like they just picked some random girl and threw her there."

Overall, the CGI looked nice, but I expected more, especially from an M. Night Shyallamallamalan trailer.

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Anonymous

Feb 12, 2010 21:25:21 GMT -6

not like anyone's gonna pay attention to my two bits, but I have nothing better to be doing with my time at the moment than to rant about crap. So ladies and gents, you are stuck with Tenoko, the sarcastic, cynical hater of everything and everyone here to preach to you about things in a humorous, satirical, and not necessarily correct way.

Sometime around late 2008 or so when I heard that there was gonna be an Avatar movie form M Night Shamwow, I was like "'kay'." When I heard that some other douchebag was stealing our title, I was outraged.

Then the finale struck, and that massive vortex of suckage pretty much raped and decimated my loving of Avatar from 95% to about 17%. Nonetheless, I held out. [and for the record, still like the series, and still hate season III.]

And then of course I saw James Cameron's Avatar, was awestruck, and apologized in essence. [he was no douchebag, that's for sure xD]

Sure the storyline was just oversized space smurfs playing out the Pocahontas story,but there was enough of an element of badass that I just could not pass it up. It was one of those that I saw twice in theaters. And if anyone knows me [no one here does, which is probably a good thing for their sakes hahaha] I never see movies twice, let alone in theaters.

Anyhoot, I'm not here to rant about how amazing it was. I will just sum up that I did say "it's gonna blow TLA out of the water in every respect imaginable."

Anyhoot, M Night Shameofalifetime's movie to me just seems like another movie worth blowing $6.50 on. I have no intentions of seeing the first one, mostly because circumstances that are about to occur in my life are going to prevent me from seeing it theaters, I do not want to waste my money on the DVD , and I was never interested in season I to begin with [except Zhao, who is smexier than that Gary Stu Zuko--easily. And he doesn't have all those Mary Sues after him. >.>]

I called TLA "A live action, extended edition of The Ember Island Players. I wish that was true. It seems to me like an even worse Smash Bros. Brawl-Season III comparison.

and now tangent tiem--because Tenoko staying on topic for more than 38 seconds has been made illegal in every state except Rhode Island, which is technically not a state anyways, just a piece of land that Massachusetts did not want.

The Smash Bros. Brawl-Season III comparison is that both objects come from what were and are amazing series. They both were good, but they had a major downfall-they both tried to be too epic, and in the process took out some of the charm that the series originally possessed. So the relevance of this statement is that this movie looks like it is taking the Brawl-S3 comparison to a whole new level. Where are the laughs? Where is all the funny?

It made me cry inside, really. The Ember Island Players was and is my favorite episode, and one of three truly awesome episodes in season III. Why? Because it was the ultimate center of humor in the series, and I enjoy anything that has good humor. With a movie as serious-looking as M. Night Smilingisillegal's film, I just don't see that. Can anyone smile? PLEEEEEEASE?

As for the acting, I don't really care about it. the actors, actresses, and all that shiz is nothing worth me giving my three damns about. I mean, I've dealt with the Harry Potter series,as well as Anakin in Star wars: Episode III and so I can handle anything in the terms of 'meh' acting. [as for the Harry Potter series as a whole, tune in next time for me to prove how they suck and how Harry Potter fans need to burn in a pit of acid along with the Zuko lovers.]

Graphics... those were pretty good, actually, but looked a bit slow, mostly the fire. When I think of firebending, I think of badass shiz like Iroh spewing fire or Azula jumping and doing a spinning Falcon Kick of blue fire from foot, but maybe I haven't watched the series long enough. Earthbending was seen once, and so maybe I'll see it in its true badass form when I show up as Toph in season II.

So all in all, I still stand at a neutral position. I don't think it's going to fail epically, but I don't think it's gonna be a blockbuster either. It'll probably be like "yay cool" for a few weeks and then we'll all be bored of it.

Maybe when I start seeing trailers for the 2nd one I'll get excited. After all, Toph and Azula show up there, and they're the only halfway cool characters in the show that are under 21.

Just my two bits.
~Tenoko~

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Anonymous

Feb 24, 2010 11:21:57 GMT -6

Feb 12, 2010 1:40:58 GMT -6 @yulan said:

Allow me to first say that I've been following casting controversy updates with the folks over at the Racebending LJ community. At this point, I can no longer separate my frustration over Paramount's choices for lead actors from the movie itself, so whatever assessment I make of the trailer is going to be darn biased. Just putting that out there.

And allow me to be the second to say the exact same thing, along with a 'yeah, girl!' I am quite frustrated with the racial problems presented by the casting choices, and I am aware that it taints my opinion of how the film may or may not go.

Does the trailer look pretty? Yes. Very much yes. I appreciate the generous panning shots of the environment, and the CGI bending is shaping up nicely. But a movie can't be upheld by the merits of its eye candy alone. I'm still very worried about the plot and characters. Everyone looks so serious. Was the original TV series dramatic? Sure, but it had a healthy dose of comedy per episode, too. If the trailer is any indication, it's not even remotely going to resemble the A:tLA I know and love. Of course, maybe this is just a trailer gimmick and the actual movie will have better pacing. However, going by comments from people who're more familiar with M. Night's style and words from the man himself, I shouldn't hold out hope.

So between the casting debacle and other aesthetic changes, even the extended trailer can't get me excited about the movie. Not in a positive way, anyway.

I believe something I read stated that they wanted to "ground" Sokka's character for the film — this, among other things, is really pointing to this film being made in a very "serious" way. One of the great things, in my opinion, about A:tLA was its capability to handle weighty issues in a light enough manner that they were still considered acceptable subject matter for a children's television program. I don't think this film is going to hold to that.

Also, I really don't like most of the body of M. Night's (I'm not going to attempt that surname spelling!) work, and I don't know if I'm going to like how he's going to handle this one, either.

But it is pretty. I'll give you that.

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cainvoorhees

Mar 30, 2010 21:40:37 GMT -6

From a filmmaker's point of view (and forewarned, I'm am optimist), there's a lot of challenges for the live action movie to tackle.

The movie's based on the first 20 episodes. About 23 minutes each episode, right? 460 minutes worth of source material to be smushed into at the most, 180 minutes (3 hours). Obviously, one would have to put the most important plot points (Aang discovered, Sokka/Yue relationship, etc.) in the first season and the parts that support those points into the movie. That means a lot of stuff from the first season is going to be dropped. M. Night hasn't worked much on films based on previously established material (except for Lady in the Water, which was okay, but not great), but doing TLA was a completely new challenge for him and I can only cross my fingers that he did well. (I say this in past tense because the production phase is long gone)

The target audience is young teenagers, if I'm not mistaken. They're hoping to get a PG rating from the MPAA. Now I may be an optimist, but I know teenagers have a low attention span and there's only a percentage of those teenagers that can appreciate good drama in a film. Now, there have been several good PG and G rated movies (Pixar usually proves that right), but on the most part, you can't expect much from that.

As for the "racebending," yes, there have been controversy, but while watching the show, I never thought of any of the characters to have similarities to any race in the real world (with the exception of that guru who tried to teach Aang to master the Avatar state. Very Indian). So, yeah, they could've casted Asian actors, but I'm not up in arms about it, because I didn't have the preception that the show's characters were Asian. The only problem I have with this is that the production didn't do much in reaction to the controversy. Personally, if M. Night feels that he couldn't do TLA without the actress for Katara (apparently, he has only said that once before and it was for The Sixth Sense, one of two movies I like from him), then more power to him and I hope that this wasn't an error in judgment. (To be honest, I don't care much for acting myself, as long as it's absolutely horrible)

Obviously, the CGI looks great (Industrial Light & Magic always does a great job with CGI), but of course that doesn't excuse a film from sucking. However, it does make a film much more tolerable so if anything, I think it'll be great eye candy.

My two main concerns are the humor that was featured in the show (which I'm hoping will be there at least for Sokka in a subtle to moderate level), and the complexity of the characters involved storywise. The show did a great job with the comic relief (MY CABBAGES!), but at this point it's unpredictable, based on the trailers. To be honest, I at least hope "My cabbages!" is in the film and would be severely disappointed if I don't hear it. I'm mostly concerned with how Noah Ringer portrays Aang, and Dev Patel portrays Zuko, however. Aang is a mostly smiles kind of kid, but in the trailers (and yeah, 'world at war' is pretty darn serious), we've yet to see the carefree Aang we know. And at the same time, we actually haven't seen Zuko speak in the trailers, which leaves a wonder about his portrayal. The main fascination with Zuko for me is that he's a complex character and for two seasons, his greatest enemy wasn't the Avatar or the Fire Nation, but himself.

Anyway I'm crossing my fingers that the movie won't completely bomb and get at least above a 7 on imdb.com a few weeks after I check. I mean, I know that a lot of fans are probably going to be disappointed, but I think it's because they have their own expectations of the film and generally are pretty high. I still think the movie's going to be catering to a younger audience but I'm a kid at heart so even if it does bomb, I'll still probably enjoy it.

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