Your opinions about the earthbenders sequence are wrong.

Round three
FIGHT!

The role of Toph Bei Fong has not been cast yet, nor have there been announcements for auditions. This is because since a total of 280 millon dollars is needed for M Night Shyamalan to get the OK from Paramount to start the casting for the next movie but currently things are not looking to be in his favor since many groups are boycotting the movie.

From http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Film:The_Last_Airbender_2

Opinions??

>>84253
Good. With the weird racial casting Toph would probably be black. I'm really into to dark brown and don't want to feel like a pedophile.

>>84253
Then again, I do want to see Mai and Ty lee.
I'M CONFLICTED!

>>84253

Yeah... the boycotts are why the movie's doing shitty.

Uh huh, riiiiight.

>>84258
I'm not sure I want to see what they do with them.

Wait, why did we make a new thread?

The old thread hadn't hit 400 posts yet, if somebody posts to it, it would just bump.

I just watched the pirated movie and the only way it could have been worse if it has been longer.

I can understand now why critics said it was confusing, I haven't watched the show in a while and I had to keep reminding myself what was this or that. And it was boring.

And the kowtow thing at the end I found that bit disturbing but don't know why...

>>84253
Fingers crossed that they won't make enough for a sequel to be greenlit and we can forget this piece of shit movie ever existed. The cynic in me thinks that won't be the case though...

>>84264

I checked today, even with some international gross revenue, it's only made $152 million, two mil above production budget, possibly not counting the cut theaters take. It'll take a miracle for it to make back that money in any reasonably short timeframe, the chances of the sequel are slim, even form an optimist's (or pessimist's, depending) viewpoint.

>>84263

I watched it with a freind of mine who's never seen the show. He had not a single fucking clue about what was happening. He hated the movie so much he vowed to never watch the show.

Ever!



...we're about halfway through the second season. (watching "City of Walls and Secrets" right now).

That picture posted near the end of the last thread makes me wonder why there was no chemistry between the three actors in the movie when in those shots they look like they're having all kinds of fun together, especially Jackson and Noah.

Then I remembered The Last Airbender was SRS BZNZ.

>>84266
Mind posting his assessment on how the show is an improvement?

>>84266
How'd you convince him?

Glad you were able to convert him though.

>>84290

I just did the same thing I've done to get about 6 other people to start watching the series after seeing the movie. I pulled out the DVD's and told him that I didn't want him to watch the show, but that I just wanted him to watch the first 5 minutes of the first episode to show him that there was more character development in that first 5 minutes than there was in the entire movie.

We were still up at 2 am by the time we got through the first DVD.

>>84302

>>84265

It's made $126 million in the States and $27 million elsewhere, but it hasn't opened in most markets yet. It opens in the UK next week (I've seen posters for it plastered all over the tube). If it does as well overseas as it did in the US, it could be close to $280 million, but we won't know for sure until September.

Shyamalan movies usually do pretty well outside the US, but TLA seems to be bucking the trend thus far. Thank fuck.

>>84311
I'm hoping it fails here against summer blockbusters, Twilight and Toy Story are doing pretty well...

So bebopsamurai finally finished his/her big-ass review -- it's a pretty nice read.

Part 1: http://bebopsamurai.livejournal.com/70401.html
Part 2: http://bebopsamurai.livejournal.com/70862.html
Part 3: http://bebopsamurai.livejournal.com/70992.html
Part 4: http://bebopsamurai.livejournal.com/71359.html
Part 5: http://bebopsamurai.livejournal.com/72068.html

>>84381
Who is he and why do we give a shit what a random person thinks?

>>84384
Because it does a nice job of actually analyzing what made the series good and how those things got messed up in the movie? Reviews like this are like that Phantom Menace review by RedLetterMedia: we all know Episode I was bad, but often we can't point out specifics except for obvious things like Jar-Jar. In the same way, we sometimes focus on the flailbending or things like that when pondering how the movie was bad. It takes an in-depth review to really understand how fundamentally flawed these movies are.

And as I said before, it's an entertaining read.

"Earthbending Boy" didn't even have a single line, did he?

>>84388
He did, and it was probably just that. A single line.

>>84394
iirc "father" or "that's my father" was the only thing he said in the movie.

>>84394
Well duh! He's Asian. You can't expect them to handle anything more complicated than that.

>>84381
I was sort of interested until s/he listed "sexual ambiguity" alongside "harmony in nature" as themes of Avatar. With screencaps suggesting Zukaang and Tyzula no less. Whaaaat the fuck.

>>84411
I think that was more meant as a joke than anything else.

>>84381


While I get its point, it was pretty silly to use cartoons based on human-like cats and mouses who are invincible, something based on toys and talking fish as examples towards why Avatar just doesn't work well in a Live action environment.

I absolutely disagree with her point there to but I think she was just babbling for the sake of babbling there. Most of it is an intelligent view, part of it though is just fanatic cynicism for things, and she did say some of it was going to be that, so I can't complain. Fun read, though.

So anybody has seen Uwe Boll's "In the Name of the King"?

Equally bad as TLA.

I'm thinking Season 3 was deliberately made as a minefield to avoid possible adaptations. Think about it, Sozin's comet finale was 4 episodes already -TWO hours!

TLA3 would have a lot to trim, including Hama's bloodbending, the eclipse with the failed invasion and Aang learning firebending by visiting secret ruins where dragons dwell. I think that's what Shyamwow was referring to when he said "the third one is ambiguous".

>>84431

EVERYTHING is ambiguous to M. Night.

>>84434
the point is, how would you adapt Book 3 into a movie then?

>>84438
Not that guy, but I'd do it like they're doing Deathly Hallows - as two parts. First half is DoBS, second half is Zuko joining and Sozin's Comet.

>>84438

Pretty much what >>84439 said.

>>84438
I've actually worked out how to adapt each season into a movie almost 3 hours long. Even season 3 (it helps that the first half is filler heavy).

Of course, it's just a theory and in practice it might not work out like I think.

>>84443
actually 3 hours is a much better deal than what we got.

>>84381

>And when we do see Bending, most of it is completely unrelated to the things the actors are supposedly doing to invoke it, their actions either too out-of-sync with their Element or too overwrought for what they're attempting.

>Dancebending.jpg

Fucking THIS. The dancerbenders making either the wall or the softball sized rock fly makes no sense.

If they made the wall, why were they still spazing out after they made the wall? If they made the rock fly, why so many for just one rock? It is just plain retarded either way.

>>84506
Tht's so true! Also, earthbending is based on the deep low stances of Hung Gar, so the whole "dancing" is out of place nonsense...

Why do we still care?

Also, Bryke wants to get into movies someday.

>>84567
Really? That would be badass! Like, in animation or live action?

>>84568
They said either an original animated story or one set in the Avatar mythology.

>>84593
Korra.

>>84747
Korra isn't a movie.

>>84753
At least not yet.

>>84754

>>84754
If Korra became a movie.

It won't be Shyamalan.

>>84822

If Korra became a movie, hopefully it would be animated.

>>84826
Live action can work if well done (consider the various Marvel flicks of the past few years)... problem is M. Night should not be let near it.

>>84381

She makes some really good points. It really was a convergence of crappiness that occurred with this movie; it was not just the bad casting.

And yes, medium does matter. Take "Dune", for example: Like Avatar, it takes place in a world very different from our own, with its own complex laws, cultures, creatures, etc. It has tons of characters with amazing depth and personality. And, the attempts to adapt it for the big screen have been hilarious failures. What works as a novel or TV series doesn't always translate well into a feature film.

>>84884
On the other hand...

>>84891

God dammit...

Anyway, as other people have said, I feel just awful for the people involved in this. Except M. Night. His insane ego is the primary cause of this clusterfuck. A good director knows when to listen to constructive criticism and when to forge ahead with his or her own vision.

>>84915

I feel the worst for Dev Patel, myself. Most accomplished and overall best actor of the four leads, and he took the longest to get another role after this one, but to sour the news, it's not a new role, he's reprisng his character from Skins.

Plus, did anybody read his recent interviews here and there? He admitted that he wasn't impressed by the cript, that Shyamalan had to talk him up to be enthused. (Also, he was skeptical about the term "benders" but knew they couldn't change it because it would depart too far from the source material...is that actual irony, or just a coincidence that's amusing? I really wanna just say "...Iorny..." because it sounds classy, but I know it's probablly wrong.)

Also, he's trying to sorta promote the movie, but also not brownnose or lie and say it's good. It's just difficult for him.

You guys heard?
Apparently they guy who butchered Sokka feels like butchering The Riddler now in Nolan's 3rd Batman film.

http://www.celebrity-mania.com/news/view/00014738.html

>>84954
Poor Riddler, he never gets good actors to portray him.

>>84954
I know he seems to be a nice guy and that he's only joking. But the fucking thought of that pisses me off to no end. I've been forced to watch Twilight, he sucks in those too.

>>84960
Twilight just sucks in general. Inb4 bloodsucking jokes.

>>84966
Too late!

TLA has reached its $180,000,000 mark.

I still think that by not including Koh, M. Night missed out on a perfect opportunity for a cameo.

>>85034
Still has to make a profit.

>>85037
You know, I actually forgot about that!
This means after a month, the movie has only made like $30 millions when it took 5 times that money to be made... LOL

http://horror.break.com/devil/audience-groans-at-m-night-shyamalans-name

"Dev Patel attacks Hollywood over lack of roles for Asian actors"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/aug/11/dev-patel-asian-roles-slumdog

In B4 Shayamalan blames internet piracy for the failure of his turd.

Have not seen the movie. Have not read the fanfiction. To those of you that have: would you have rather they made a movie out of "How I became yours?"

Amazingly, that would still have been more accurate.

And the boobs would be bigger too.



...Just saying.

>>85090
Not more accurate, but possibly more lulzy. And the writing would be about the same.

>>85086

I don't know how to feel about that. On the one hand he's completely right, but on the other he contributed to one of the biggest examples in years of what he's complaining about by simply being in the movie. Should he have never accepted or dropped the role once it was known who was cast to play the lead characters, or was he helping Asians get more screen time by being in the film?

>>85093

Patel has said that he wasn't impressed by the script, and Shyamalan had to talk it up for him to accept. He probably chose the role just because it was something different than the crap he'd been getting. Kinda like how Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa plays villains all the time because thanks to the stuff he was being offered at the time, he'd have likely ended up sexless and emasculated if he'd played heroes. If I remember how he put it during "The Slanted Screen" it more or less went: "If I played villains, at least I'd have balls."

That documentary was awesome, though, it was Mako's last recorded interview.

Where's Ninja?
When M. Night needed him most, he vanished.

>>85112
Well, we can't all live on the internet.

>>85112
>>Where's Ninja?
>>When M. Night needed him most, he vanished

Could it be? They're the same person!!

>>85117
Ninja is a ghost. What a tweeeest!

>>85119
Obvious in hindsight...

Bit of news from across the pond: Airbender is opening this weekend in cinemas across the UK, which has prompted a raft of new reviews. None are positive, which has pushed the film's Rotten Tomatoes rating down an extra percentage point to 7%.

There's a special reason why it's attracted particularly heavy amounts of ire here, and sent audiences up and down the country into fits of hysterics. There's a quirk of transatlantic mistranslation that Avatar's fallen foul of, and had prompted Nickelodeon UK to release Avatar as 'The Legend of Aang' in the first place:

'Bender'.

We seem incapable of listening past it. Every mention of the word reduces even the most sensible critic into a puerile, smirking 8-year-old. To whit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/aug/12/the-last-airbender

Expect TLA's UK box office haul to be entertainingly low.

>>85195
>Airbender is opening this weekend in cinemas across the UK, which has prompted a raft of new reviews. None are positive

It feels like Christmas all over again.

Was the show popular in the UK?
If the movie fails there, the foreign box office gross is pretty much done.

>>85197

It was on ITV Saturday mornings for a long time, but it's definitely pretty niche compared to other Nick shows like Spongebob. Its impact is next to non-existent in its target demographic.

As far as I know the DVD boxsets are steady sellers, so it has a fanbase. If you've seen Dai Li and Sharkman around, then...you've basically met it.

>>85213

More like if anybody's seen you and Dai Li. I actually live in South Texas.

That said, the movie still has to use it's foreign gross to cover the loss of money from ticket sales, and usually it's up to DVD sales to make back the cost of marketing, right? In terms of all the money spent to...well, exist in any way shape or form, it's burned off about $280 million. That's what this whole movie franchise needs to make to break even, and that's everything from toys (that suck) to video games (that suck) to the movie itself (which sucked.)

>>85215
>I actually live in South Texas.

Derp. I need to pay better attention.

Weird, I remember this IRC conversation when I was at work...and you were at work...and I thought we were in the same time zone. That's uncanny, that is.

>>85215

$280 million? You got that figure from...?

>>85232

See: >>84253

The production budget was $150 million. Studios get, on average, 55% of box office revenue (the rest goes to theatres and distributors). Ergo, TLA needs to make $280 million worldwide to break even.

>>85232
>>85237

Actually, I got it from this article by Perri Nemiroff, who apparently wrote it for The LA Times:

http://www.shockya.com/news/2010/06/26/theres-a-lot-riding-on-the-last-airbender-280-million-to-be-exact/

$150 million for production, $130 million for marketing and the like.

And a few things I also wanted to clarify and point out:

>That said, the movie still has to use it's foreign gross to cover the loss of money from ticket sales-

I phrased that kinda poorly, I was referring to the cut movie theaters get from the ticket sales, but I wasn't using it in any of my points.

Also, from this site:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7908309/Hollywood-fears-the-3D-bubble-has-already-burst.html

Key phrase:
>At the beginning of this month only 56 per cent saw The Last Airbender in 3D

A sizable chunk of change, as much as 56%, came from 3D tickets (I think that figure's from the opening weeks or so,) so the movie isn't as popular as it's revenue makes it seem, but it benefited from the inflated sales price.

Knowing Shyamalan, he'll probably cover the discrepancy with his own money to get the sequel pushed through.

>>85250
Rock

>>85256
Paper?

>>85258
Boomerang!

>>85270

Come quick! Quartz Parchment Shears gone terribly wrong!

Wasn't someone fervently defending the direction of this scene earlier?

>>85290
I wasn't defending the direction of this particular scene. I was defending the editing of the movie as a whole. The way the scene is framed is awkward but I liked that the battle scenes used long takes and didn't jump around so much. That's all I really meant.

>>85290

Not fervently defending, but he was ranting and raving at us that this is pretty much what happened, when most of us figured that the six dudes moved the tiny rock.

I mean, I can actually see his point very clearly now, even before reading Rufftoon's comic, but I'd have had an easier time of doing so if he hadn't been a total dick about it.

>>85296

I remember Mari commenting on the long take thing. It really doesn't come off as impressive because a character would do something, then wait for another character to do something, and the camera pans away from them while they stand around.

Remember when I sorta complained about Light Eco Sage saying Katara "had spunk" for uselessly shoving a Fire Nation soldier? Yeah, that was part of the "long take." She walks up, pointlessly shoving the Fire Nation soldier who does nothing to react, then stands around like a dainty little flower with nothing to do while the camera pans away from her and onto the next person to do something.

If you want an impressive long take, watch that last fight scene from The Protector. It's constantly moving around the main character, changing it's distance, sometimes it takes advantage of the set to obscure what he's doing, while implying it by having badguys get their heads shoved through the walls and stuff. *That* was impressive. This was just kinda boring.

>>85290
Enough said!

>>85296
No, it wasn't you. This guy was pure distilled asshat. He had a very specific interpretation of that scene, and anyone who didn't agree with his interpretation 100% was a complete moron who didn't understand anything about how film or storytelling works.

I was actually being a bit of a dick, but Mari even went so far as to entertain the notion that "ok, I can see your point, but I'm still not sure I'm sold on the idea..."

To which his response was basicly "HOW DARE YOU NOT SEE THINGS MY WAY AND ATTEMPT TO INTERJECT THOUGHTS OF YOUR OWN. ME ME ME ME ME. FUCK YOU FOR NOT UNDERSTANDING THAT I'M SMARTER THAN YOU!!!"

In retrospect, I think it' pretty obvious that it was M. Night Shyamalan.

>>85195
>the last airbender
Pfhahahah.

>>85195
Did any jokes happen with Futurama and its robot being gay?

wait wait wait
So if I'm following this correctly,"bender" is british slang for a gay guy?

well that must be really god damn confusing when watching avatar.

>>85329
>>"bender" is british slang for a gay guy

It is. Knowing this, I couldn't help but chuckle when I first hear the "I could tell at once that you were a bender, and that you would realise your destiny" line. And I'm not British!

...Ong, get out of the closet!

>>85322

Not really, but Bender's name wasn't portended with great weight and profundity like TLA's benders are. We probably took as much as an in-joke as everything else on the show.

I just watched the movie (pirated, of course, no way I'm going to contribute to this thing getting a sequel), and I feel hollow and empty and violated. During the movie I had to pause and walk away four times from the screen just so I could work up the gumption to continue watching. Even after having seen all the flaming of this movie from so many sources, I still found it to be so much worse than anything I'd imagined. Literally not a single span of 40 seconds went by without some new idiocy slapping me in the face like the hot wet sweaty ballsack of Shyalaman as he raped my brain through my eye sockets and ear holes.

Does anyone else feel the way I feel? Does anyone else feel the sense of futility and helpless revulsion at the prospect that this movie may yet get a sequel, and that Shyalaman will strip away the arrogance and cold menace of Azula, the charming senility and mad genius of Bumi, and the fierce independance of Toph so that he can turn them into emotionless drones that do nothing but speak in blocks of exposition?

>>85344

Yes. Yes we do. Kudos for the pirating, though I am sorry for you having to sit through it. I wish there were a proper way to rage quit movies, but boycotts don't tend to work when the masses arrive. Hopefully this movie will be its own death and even if a sequel is made this one's reputation will make it will tank hard properly like this one didn't due to mass ignorance.