[Trailer] Last Airbender: what's the appeal?

[Piratecat]

You pretty much summed up my experience with the movie today. I did enjoy it, I don't think it's torture to watch . . . but it wasn't a good movie. Visuals were fantastic, but storytelling was muddled and the acting was terrible.

Right, I agree completely. I saw it because my 12 year old Little Brother (in the Big Brother/Little Brother program) wanted to, and it was gloriously air conditioned. It was far from the worst movie I've seen (Kangaroo Jack), but damn, it was bad and fairly boring. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the animated series to get the taste out of my mouth.

I disagree with you on the casting, though. It continuously pissed me off as I watched the film. There are several incidents where all the actors are the appropriate race in the tribe except for the main characters who actually matter. How much cooler it would have been for me if they had actually cast good Inuit actors for the main roles.

 

[Mallus]

I saw it over the weekend. It's not a good film, by any means, but it's not travesty. Just a disappointment. It is surprisingly inept in many places, which did surprise me, given Shyamalan's technical skills.

It kinda reminded me, of all things, of David Lynch's Dune. The wrong director for the material. Except for everything Lynch did wrong, he did something else right, adding bits of his weird vision which wound up resonating w/the source material. M. Night didn't do that.

Eh, it looked pretty in places, and I wasn't bored by it, clumsy as it was. And as for the whitewashing... not to sound cynical, but as a member of a seriously underrepresented-in-popular-media ethnic minority, I'm not surprised nor particularly bothered.

Actually, I think The Rock and Keannu Reeves are pretty close to my stock, but how much is their ethnic derivation a part of their public image?

 

[Felon]

$70 million over the extended weekend...but The Village and The Happening also had a strong opening.

 

[Mark CMG]

I've resisted the urge to go and see the FX because of the outrage of the fans who like the source material.

 

[CrimsonReaver]

It kinda reminded me, of all things, of David Lynch's Dune. The wrong director for the material. Except for everything Lynch did wrong, he did something else right, adding bits of his weird vision which wound up resonating w/the source material. M. Night didn't do that.

I'm probably one of the few people who doesn't condemn David Lynch's Dune. No, it's not Frank Herbert's Dune, but it's definitely David Lynch's. As sad and disappointing as it was that it wasn't a faithful adaptation of the source material, I'm still able to (mostly) enjoy it because Lynch pretty much made it his own. If you were someone who never read the book, I think you'd be able to enjoy the movie as a weird sci-fi flick with Lynch's unique brand of bizarre visual and storytelling oddities.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

If you were someone who never read the book, I think you'd be able to enjoy the movie as a weird sci-fi flick with Lynch's unique brand of bizarre visual and storytelling oddities.

I was someone who never read the books but saw the movie. Actually, I saw a strange 6-hour long (with commercials) version that aired on USA years and years ago. I LOVED it, I kept that VHS tape for years and watched it now and then until the tape just degraded. That extended-extended version was the only version I knew for the longest time, yet I only read the books a few years ago . . .

Okay, 'nuf on the tangent

 

[RedBeardJim]

I disagree with you on the casting, though. It continuously pissed me off as I watched the film. There are several incidents where all the actors are the appropriate race in the tribe except for the main characters who actually matter. How much cooler it would have been for me if they had actually cast good Inuit actors for the main roles.

Shyamalan justified this, IIRC, by making the Northern Water Tribe Scandinavian instead of Inuit -- and since Sokka and Katara's grandmother was from the NWT, they could be the Only White Folks in the South Pole.

What I don't know is if they explained in the movie that Gran-Gran was from the NWT.

 

[Piratecat]

I just went back and watched The Sixth Sense, which really is a masterpiece. How the heck did Shyamalan forget all those storytelling skills in the intervening years?

 

[Felon]

I was someone who never read the books but saw the movie. Actually, I saw a strange 6-hour long (with commercials) version that aired on USA years and years ago. I LOVED it, I kept that VHS tape for years and watched it now and then until the tape just degraded. That extended-extended version was the only version I knew for the longest time, yet I only read the books a few years ago . . .

Okay, 'nuf on the tangent

Six hours long? Sounds more like the Sci-Fi channel mini-series than the David Lynch version.

 

[coyote6]

Wikipedia says the TV version was 190 minutes long; add in commercials, and that would push it to four hours.

Interesting - I didn't know KTVU did their own cut.