Escape to the Movies: The Last Airbender
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
Hmmm...I can see you decided not to jump on the "hey lets utterly crucify Night's career" bandwagon like just about every critic I've heard has.....+2 to MovieBob.
=)
Although I think you're still being way too nice, and you know Night's career is now over...right?
=/
=)
Although I think you're still being way too nice, and you know Night's career is now over...right?
=/
Interesting conclusion... maybe its worth seeing, just so they have money to improve on the next one? 
I did not like Unbreakable. Not in the slightest. You do NOT cast Samuel L. Jackson as a cripple. You just don't do it.
Can't say I exactly had high hopes for it when I heard it was coming out. I've never watched the series so I'm not exactly a "fan", nor do I think the M. Night is essentially brilliant as a director.
I suppose, if anything, this could be a chance for me to be on "the other side of the fence" for once where I'm a non-fan sitting in an audience of fans and see how my perception of the movie differs from theirs, but other than that, I'll remain skeptical.
I suppose, if anything, this could be a chance for me to be on "the other side of the fence" for once where I'm a non-fan sitting in an audience of fans and see how my perception of the movie differs from theirs, but other than that, I'll remain skeptical.
Don't, ever trust Ebert!Hubilub said:
I mean he gave a lousy score to Kick-ass(1 star out of 5), and please tell me while looking me straight in the eye that Kick-ass is just a "1 star out of 5 movie"!
I mean that film isn't even mediocre(imo, and a lot of other people's), it's fantastic.
Go see it, but keep in mind that to experience the full movie you need to see the cartoon(that's still on my to do list)
I watched it, and I am a fan of the show.
As Bob said, it is a well made movie. It is a beautiful movie.
The way they portrayed the Spirit world was amazing.
I have no problem with "the lack of Asians" because this isn't an Asian work. Having the different nations represented by different actual Nationalities is a really good idea.
The Water Tribes are white and have a culture based on knightship and chivalry.
The Earth Kingdom are Asian seeing as Ba Sing Sa is practically build like Beijing.
The Fire Nation are Middle Eastern, a region we know as a giant desert would be the perfect place for Fire.
The Air Nomads have no distinct culture, because Nomads also have no distinct culture.
I have no problem with Fire Nation needing a source of Fire to bend, and that I think it makes a lot of sense to show how powerful Iroh is. When you see it you'll know.
Some of the characters (Zuko, Iroh, Zaoh) were really done well [wait, the actors who did a good job are Indian? smooth Mr. Shyamalan])
Other characters (Katara, Aang, Gran Gran) weren't amazing, but they weren't bad.
[here's where my complaints begin]
BUT a few characters just didn't jive well (Sokka [though he did have moments. a very few moments where it felt like he was Sokka], Fire Lord Ozai [I didn't know he was the fire lord until they said he was, and even then it was hard to believe])
Another thing is that it just took so long for them to do anything.
before anyone could bend their element it would take what felt like a 30 second dance. That wasn't how bending worked and in a movie trying to save as much time as it could they really shouldn't have done that. Bending in the show is an extension of yourself. Your energy flows through you and effects your element. You don't need to summon this power if your element is around.
And they were trying to do too much in the alloted time. a lot of the scenes weren't necessary, and the scenes that were felt really rushed. some of the dialog was taken right from the show, but it felt like it was peppered fanservice (remember when this character said this? Well here's this character saying this.)
all of the good unfortunately is drowned out by the amount of boring going on.
its hard to say what I want without giving anything away.
[EDIT]
As Bob said, it is a well made movie. It is a beautiful movie.
The way they portrayed the Spirit world was amazing.
I have no problem with "the lack of Asians" because this isn't an Asian work. Having the different nations represented by different actual Nationalities is a really good idea.
The Water Tribes are white and have a culture based on knightship and chivalry.
The Earth Kingdom are Asian seeing as Ba Sing Sa is practically build like Beijing.
The Fire Nation are Middle Eastern, a region we know as a giant desert would be the perfect place for Fire.
The Air Nomads have no distinct culture, because Nomads also have no distinct culture.
I have no problem with Fire Nation needing a source of Fire to bend, and that I think it makes a lot of sense to show how powerful Iroh is. When you see it you'll know.
Some of the characters (Zuko, Iroh, Zaoh) were really done well [wait, the actors who did a good job are Indian? smooth Mr. Shyamalan])
Other characters (Katara, Aang, Gran Gran) weren't amazing, but they weren't bad.
[here's where my complaints begin]
BUT a few characters just didn't jive well (Sokka [though he did have moments. a very few moments where it felt like he was Sokka], Fire Lord Ozai [I didn't know he was the fire lord until they said he was, and even then it was hard to believe])
Another thing is that it just took so long for them to do anything.
before anyone could bend their element it would take what felt like a 30 second dance. That wasn't how bending worked and in a movie trying to save as much time as it could they really shouldn't have done that. Bending in the show is an extension of yourself. Your energy flows through you and effects your element. You don't need to summon this power if your element is around.
And they were trying to do too much in the alloted time. a lot of the scenes weren't necessary, and the scenes that were felt really rushed. some of the dialog was taken right from the show, but it felt like it was peppered fanservice (remember when this character said this? Well here's this character saying this.)
all of the good unfortunately is drowned out by the amount of boring going on.
its hard to say what I want without giving anything away.
[EDIT]
When I saw Michael Dante DiMartino's and Bryan Konietzko's names I was crushed because it was like they didn't care how the names were pronounced.AWDMANOUT said:
The only way anyone could possibly enjoy this movie would be to have never seen the television show it's based off of. If you have no idea what the movie is supposed to be, then it's possible you will enjoy it based on the positives mentioned in the video review.
However, if you have seen the TV show, then be prepared to go into a complete nerd rage. I mean, it would acceptable if Shyamalan had maybe gotten a couple things wrong in the story, or had to skip certain points in order to fit so much into one movie of acceptable length. That has been done before with many book-to-movie and show-to-movie adaptations in the past and some have come out on the other side just fine. But he didn't take the time to hire competent actors, he changed certain canon aspects so they make absolute zero sense, he made an utter catastrophe of casting people who actually fit the roles they were playing, and he couldn't even be bothered to pronounce the names of the characters correctly.
As far as reestablishing Shyamalan as being good for ANYTHING? My hope is that it reestablishes in the eyes of everyone in all the world that he has become an utter failure and needs to just crawl back into whatever hole he crawled out of.
However, if you have seen the TV show, then be prepared to go into a complete nerd rage. I mean, it would acceptable if Shyamalan had maybe gotten a couple things wrong in the story, or had to skip certain points in order to fit so much into one movie of acceptable length. That has been done before with many book-to-movie and show-to-movie adaptations in the past and some have come out on the other side just fine. But he didn't take the time to hire competent actors, he changed certain canon aspects so they make absolute zero sense, he made an utter catastrophe of casting people who actually fit the roles they were playing, and he couldn't even be bothered to pronounce the names of the characters correctly.
As far as reestablishing Shyamalan as being good for ANYTHING? My hope is that it reestablishes in the eyes of everyone in all the world that he has become an utter failure and needs to just crawl back into whatever hole he crawled out of.
You know, Eragon wasn't as bad as it could have been, considering that the vast majority if the movie's budget went into the special effects for Saphira.Lizardon said:
As for The Last Airbender, I'm going to see it tomorrow, even though my younger brother saw it and told me it was terrible, and we can only hope that the other two live-action tie-ins aren't as bad.
Considering that one of the major points of popularity for the original animated series was that children of color *finally* had some heroes that looked like them, that acknowledged their existence as opposed to just neutral white-washing, that gave them a role model to look up to... yes, the race card should be played.LaBambaMan said:
If this was an original property (ie no TV series), then meh, whatever. He can cast who he likes. But considering how prominent people of color were in the original, he had a duty to at least try to match it up. That's why I find this ten times worse than Prince of Persia; the game Prince was of a sort of neutral, undeterminable race, so the whitewashing wasn't really as blatant. This was... really, really blatant. See this link: http://knowyourmeme.com/forums/general/topics/4848-last-airbender-movie
To add insult to injury, it's not like they got "the best" actors for the role; from what I hear, the three "whitewashed" actors were awful.
By the way, for the record, Zuko is not played by Asif; he's played by Dev Patel, from Slumdog Millionaire.
nice review
you can see he's strugglin tryin not to be harsh on the movie tho.
dont know why, but everytime i see a moviebob vid i always expect him to say "oh and halo sucks, you dont believe me? well here's a gazillion reasons of why it isnt good" wich usually ends up with me playin halo 3 online for a while. i love his movie reviews and watch TGO every once in a while.
you can see he's strugglin tryin not to be harsh on the movie tho.
dont know why, but everytime i see a moviebob vid i always expect him to say "oh and halo sucks, you dont believe me? well here's a gazillion reasons of why it isnt good" wich usually ends up with me playin halo 3 online for a while. i love his movie reviews and watch TGO every once in a while.
Sounds like not seeing the cartoon at all isn't a bad thing if there's so much exposition. Perhaps I'll try getting to a theatre to see this.
Woot for two Escape episodes this week. I was disappointed when I popped in on Wed and saw Eclipse up, because I had wanted a review on this film for the week. So yay for Bob! Now go to a bbq over the weekend, watch some fireworks shows, and attempt to scour Eclipse out in any way you can.
Woot for two Escape episodes this week. I was disappointed when I popped in on Wed and saw Eclipse up, because I had wanted a review on this film for the week. So yay for Bob! Now go to a bbq over the weekend, watch some fireworks shows, and attempt to scour Eclipse out in any way you can.
what i dont get is why didnt they do three movies for this? i mean the cartoon pretty much set it up to with each season being water, earth, and fire. i mean this would allow the movie to move at a good pace instead of this hypersonic lightspeed bullsht.
It would appear so. I mean thats the norm now days. If you don't agree with the way someone does something or their stance on an issue, you are deemed a biget. Doesn't matter that your stance is a valid one.LaBambaMan said:
OT: I really wish Bob would have said if the 3D was worth it. If a movie was not made for 3D then I don't want to see it that way. Adding some 3D content to a non 3D movie is a practice that needs to stop.