• While I didn't like Avatar, The last Airbender at it's initial release, it slowly grew on me. But I can say that this makes me want to cry * the sad kind of tears* because the world of Avatar is colorful, kind and geeky. I guess you can only find that in anime, but this just looks like an Asian(and not much at that) Lord of The Rings. Another thing that bothers me is that it has M Night Shabalabadingdong written all over it, but doesn't mention Nick or the developers at all. Humor doesn't seem like it'll play a part, and that was what Avatar had going for it. However, as long as Uncle Iroh turns out okay, I'm happy. Oh yeah, and the sand wolf things from the giant library.

• M. Night wrote the script. Mike and Bryan had NO SAY on what was put in, left out, etc. They assisted with the storyboarding, but that's about it. Mike and Bryasn may be the creators, but they do NOT have the clout of J.K. Rowling. They don't own the series

• Mike and Bryan helped with the storyboarding. M. Night wrote the script. So there goes that hope.

• Trailers can lie. Check out the trailers for 'Eragon'. They looked incredible. Then the movie came out. BOMBED.

• Damn.. That looks pretty faithful. As a friend said, a joke he read online, it turns out that the twist is that the movie is actually good. Still, I still am bugged by the typical Hollywood racism. Heaven forbid you actually use Asian actors and designs from the actual cultures each element tribe was based on. Instead they replaced the Japanese based enemies with Middle Easterners and Indians. The tribes at the poles are played by generic white kids. Are the Earth benders at least still Chinese? Plus, really, is Hollywood so desperate that they're remaking a TV cartoon from barely five years ago? If so.. where the hell is my Mighty Max or Exo Squad movie?

• Dude. I'm really, really shocked that you are not up to date on AVATAR. It's been around so long! It is, by far, my absolute favorite show my kid watches. It has excellent worldbuilding, compelling characters, very strong voice acting. The music and sound effects are so cool. It is a tremendous piece of television art. I'm not convinced that M. Night won't screw it up, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until I see good evidence that it sucks.

• This x 1000. I'm hoping (really really hoping) that working with material adapted from other creators will help here.

• Yeah this "Karma" dude seriously needs to find some happy in his life. He is totally "not get the joke guy" as with the comments he made on Rob's "Smurf" post.

• *nods head*

• Shyamalan is a great director. What killed his last few movies was his writing.

• This is exactly what I was thinking. I can't understand the difference in reactions, especially since this is coming from M. Night "I burned up all my good faith" Shyamalan and doesn't have Liam Neeson in it. Also: how come this trailer gets a pass on having a ton of slow-motion when every other trailer else gets demonized?

• I'd say Unbreakable was his last good movie. Signs was awful. Aliens that are burned by water couldn't even move around in our atmosphere without wearing full-body suits. Mel Gibson was in the deep of his crazy phase. Joaquin Phoenix gave the worst performance of his career. But YMMV.

• Given TR's reaction to The Clash of the Titan's trailer, the enthusiasm about this one confuses me. It's the movie's most expensive scenes crammed into a 30 second trailer over hard rock music, which is pretty much exactly what Clash's was. None of the clips are long enough for anything to actually happen in them. Jury's still way, way out, I say.

• What people have complained enough about people co-opting Asian culture, can't Indians wear turbans now?

• There are scenes filmed at Reading, PA's pagoda. It's tough finding a good pagoda selection in Pennsylvania.

• Not entirely, he's saying essentially that concepts from animated series, particularly action- and fantasy-heavy ones like anime, do indeed have potential to become attractive live movies, unlike preious attempts to to the same, i.e. Dragonball or like ... Fist of the North Star. Mark Hamill-killing Guyver movie was its own beast entirely.

• The Fire Nation has Blimps! Blimps are always the one-shot cue that you're in an alternate world. Even Doctor Who knows this.

• Lies! The Village was his last good movie!

• Guy playing Sokka is like 20-ish, but he can pass for a teen

• there are Asians in the cast, almost jokewin, but no

• I'm actually pretty impressed. They seem to have even recreated scenes from the show with somewhat faithful accuracy. The characters' makeup and dress looks about accurate and I've got a good vibe about this. I'm still absolutely terrified that it's being made by M. Night Shyamalan but he's not tried his hands at an action movie (much less an anime film) so maybe he has a secret talent for it? (yeah, I know I'm reaching).

• Don't mind him - he's the resident fuckoff who dislikes anything remotely anime-related.

• APPA!!

• Ok M. Night Shyamalan...I almost forgive you for The Happening.

• fanboy dickriding madness... shit looks weak site is failing hard lately

• Wow! This... this teaser is just jam-packed with cool. The bending looks excellent, and the same goes for what I can see from the world of the movie. I have to agree with Gleeman though, I hope they followed the show's martial-arts inspirations for the bending movements. I do hope the generic hard rock soundtrack is just for the teaser, though. Not that I don't enjoy hard rock, but with ATLA... no. No.

• Now *that* would be great: In the last reel, it's revealed that he was really the "First Water Straightener" the entire time! What a twist!

• Dev Patel is Asian. He's from London, but his parents are Gujarati.

• Dev Patel is Asian. He's from London, but his folks are Gujarati.

• wow...You need to take a break. Go outside and get some fresh air.

• Nice..., but still not spending a dime or giftcard to see the flick and encourging my friends to do the same.

• Well, I call it promising at least. Even if it is released on the 4th of July weekend, this movie should attract a different audience (ie, one with brains) than the Twitard movie. Seeing the bending makes me wonder if they were able to get Sifu Kisu to choreograph the bending again? In other words, Tai Chi for water-bending, Shaolin Kung-Fu for fire benders, etc.

• I was hoping they would get to produce it at least, but if you watch the special features from (I think) the Season 2 DVDs there is an interview where M. Night says that his kids talked him into making the Avatar movie. So hopefully they influenced him enough not to fark it up too badly. But then it's Hollywood so you have a 50/50 shot when adapting a creation.

• The problem is this: According to Box Office Mojo this movie (which I am looking forward to...good, God Rob. Just watch the fucking cartoon already...saying you're gonna get around to it is actually more annoying than you having not watched it yet...and heaven forbid you netflix it and get one disc at a time...you'll be kicking yourself at the end of every disc...just buy the sets) Anyway....where was I. Ah yes...it's set to be released on the July 4th weekend....the same weekend as the next goddamn Twilight movie. It will get absolutely fucking buried that weekend. And forgotten. And we will never see the rest of the trilogy. Is there a way to start a petition to get this bumped back to an August release and (hopefully) make it one of those "late summer" surprise hits....like District 9 or something? http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2661&p=s.htm

• "I don't know how you handle all the d-bags Rob, I really don't." Here's a clue. He invites them. By being one, himself. I thought everyone knew that, already. I thought that's already what the "secret in-joke that everyone on this site already knows" is supposed to be. Step one: Rob makes stupid, ranting, knee-jerk, asshole reactions to everything pop-culture related on a daily basis. Step two: Rob sits back and amuses himself with all of the people that comment on his selfishly delusional soapbox rantings, one way or the other, as people both kiss his ass and flame him to hell and back. Seriously. That's the "joke" around here, apparently. It's the big secret everyone is in on. This blog is nothing but a big experiment to troll the entirety of the Internet's culture, and laugh at all the losers (like me, you and everyone else) that wastes their lives posting on it.

• Oh yes. Because, you know.. A James Cameron film about a tribe of garfield smurfs, and a movie based on a completely unrelated cartoon, have so many thins linking them together except for just the title. I don't know what kind of logic you were attempting to use, to tie Rob's opinion of these two films together, but you fucking failed. Gloriously. Besides. You're not qualified to say that Rob is a fucking idiot. I am qualified. Rob. You're a fucking idiot. But not for this article. Just... for the whole blog.

• And you might actually have a point. If Avatar: The last Airbender was actually anime. Which is is not. It's an American produced show. I.E: Not anime. That means you and your point fail. Thanks for playing.

• This trailer shows every one that said M. Night wasn't going to do a good job, that they were WRONG. This looks PERFECT. APPA looks perfect, Ang looks perfect, and all the bending looks perfect. AH! CAN'T WAIT. I'm actually super excited for the Super Bowl now lol, just so I can watch this on my big screen! As much as I would love/hate to comment on all the stupid ass comments on this post, I think I'll have to restrain myself. Since the beginning of time... things have been awesome, and d-bags have said they sucked to try and look cool. I don't know how you handle all the d-bags Rob, I really don't.

• You're confusing ethnicity and race - VERY badly.

• "...The last hope for peace In a world consumed by <strike>dark people</strike> darkness" I SEE WUT U DID THAR M.Night/Nick/Paramount. Also, I see that all the bad guys - in addition to being dark skinned Indian, Middle Eastern, and Asian - are all wearing turbans. Greeeeaaaat. "at least the effects were decent" - Bryke and Sokka called it.

• So you like one movie named Avatar and another movie that's titled the same you absolutely loathe??? This blog needs to stick to useless comic book information and disturbing fan fiction, you fucking suck, Rob.

• Two random white kids in a village full of Inuits. How are they going to explain that?

• You hope for too much... this is NO LONGER the world fan's know. This is no longer Mike and Bryan's creation. It's M. NIGHT'S creation. He wrote the script. All Mike and Bryan did was help with the storyboard.

• And you don't find anything skeevy about that?

• How can there be ninjas? No Asians allowed in this movie, remember? :P

• I won't be seeing it. Ethnocentric casting gets on my nerves. Besides, this is a Nick movie, right? Their adaptations always suck.

• Like I said in the last thread about this, using a real-world culture as a basis for a fantasy world's culture, without staying true to the real-world ethnicity associated with that culture, sounds a lot like "We like everything about your culture but you. See ya." It's lame. Of course, also like I said last thread, I'll still be seeing this movie anyway.

• Good point. I think FIREFLY/SERENITY is a nice illustration of this. That future human culture has a heavy Asian influence, but speaking a language that includes a kind of pidgin Chinese doesn't make any of the characters Chinese.

• That doesn't look like Philadephia at all. But it must be. And I sure hope it has a character who's lost his faith that goes on a journey of redemption, and climaxes in a twist ending. That would be pretty exciting and original.

• I believe he's saying that the culture doesn't dictate ethnicity. On Earth, the Asian cultures generally happen to people who LOOK one version or other of Asian. On this alternate universe, the "Earth/Asian" cultures could just as easily be for a variety of phenotypes. (Of course, that probably doesn't help the viewer's ability to immerse themselves into the movie. If they have to remind themselves that it's an alternate universe, it's less time spent enjoying the movie...)

• Maybe seeing an actual child as Aang will remind them that these are all underage characters and all the shipping (especially by adults) is a little creepy? I just hope the actress playing Katara isn't *that* much older than the actor playing Aang...

• Yes. Clearly the Asians and Inuit that founded those nations all died out, and the white people of the world simply took on their cultures.

• And by that you mean very, very homo, right?

• WHAT A TWEEST!!!

• I prefer Cockbender. No homo.

• THE Sharkfarts?

• This movie actually looks better than the cartoon, which is good but nothing I ever really got into.

• "The last airbender" is actually a far better title than "avatar". Also, don't miss out "The last Assbender", the unavoidable porn spin-off.

• okay, first Sonic 4 and now this?! M. Night, you better not fuck this up! i know it's just a teaser, but dammit, it looks pretty cool so far. i can see that this may just be accurate enough to the show and storyline. still upset with casting, but let's see what they bring to the table when another trailer come out. i'm hopeful, but i'm not putting all of my eggs in one basket just yet.

• Teaser or not I'd take this over the shitty Dragon Ball/KOF movies any day.

• Way better than anime. I'm actually impressed. This might make it possible to salvage other decent ideas from otherwise lousy and cliche anime flicks.

• The biggest question I had about this endeavour was whether or not Shyamalan could direct action since he's never, you know, directed action. But I've gotta say, that looks like some pretty serviceable bending, to me. Of course, there wasn't a lot of punchy-type fighting going on in the trailer, just Aang twirling about a bit. Still, I think contrived wirework might actually make sense for Aang's fighting style, since he's working against gravity, anyway.

• ok, i took a lot of flak last time rob posted about this movie for saying that just because its a pan-asian inspired world didn't mean all the characters were asian in ethnicity...people said i should watch the show, and i admit, that was a valid suggestion. so i watched the show, quite a bit of it actually...there was a marathon the other day...and now, armed with much more information, i STILL don't see anything that points to any of the characters i saw being ethnically asian. the entire world is influenced by asian themes and culture, combined with inuit and native american stuff, but this is a mythical fantasy world, so the ethnicity of the characters within said world are certainly not limited to the east asian variety. not stepping on any toes, you're all entitled to your opinions, just thought i'd let you guys know, i've informed myself a bit more, but my stance has not changed.

• Oh, my sister will be so mad this doesn't look terrible!

• Ain't it Cool's got two reviews of it up. One guy likes it, the other, sharkfarts, doesn't. Both agree that Jackson Rathbone blows hard. I personally don't trust a movie review by a guy calling himself sharkfarts

• I'm fangirling having watched this show since it started and squealing with joy when I heard there would be a live action I'm happy.

• this is Shyamalama-ding-dong's favorite show. he loves this cartoon and has resources and the passion to make it... so i think he's gonna try his best to do it right. man i hope it all works out.

• Skip Dr Who for Avatar already!

• see.. the problem with M Night is people all have different opinions. Many would say he hasn't made a good movie since Sixth Sense and that they think Signs, Unbreakable, etc is a terrible movie...

• few hours ago actually :P

• Ooo, nice spot! Yay, Appa!

• Goddammit, M. Night. I'm supposed to hate you. Looking like a day one here.

• well the trailer to The Village looked "AMAZING" and that movie blew dick. This chump hasn't made anything good since Signs

• Good eyes!

• Tears of joy!!! Check out Appa in the top left corner around 0:10!

• oh god i think i got wet =D that looks awesome!!!!! i cant wait for the movie

• It's really happening on Pandora.

• Man, the whole Kataang/Zutara stuff is gonna get EXTRA creepy when this comes out...

• It looka OK. It's not that great. BTW, I can't believe you liked Voyage of the Damned, Rob! How could you like it? It's so shittyargghhhhhh

• Yeah, I don't see him adding a massive twist at the end, like "Oh yeah, he's not *really* an airbender" or something. Could be good.

• My thoughts exactly

• Maybe this will be a little different because he's adapting this instead of doing something from scratch? At least, that's what I hope.

• Right, because we all know that a movie can be accurately judged by a 30 second preview. You've got way too much faith in M. Night Shyamma-banna-fofanna-alan: Maybe watch "The Happening" or "Lady in the Water" again to remind yourself that he's become among Hollywood's most unwatchable, incompetent directors.

• As someone who owns all three seasons on DVD, I am happy to see it's visually good, but I'm still skeptical. I refuse to get my hopes up for this, just like Sonic 4. Oh yeah, Rob, when are you going to tell us the news about Sonic 4?

• Tell me about it! For just a brief moment, my inner cynical asshole was driven back, and light once again entered..... This must be what happiness feels like.....

• I'm sold already. I'm calling it now: THIS Avatar will be better than the "blue balls" Avatar.

• It's a "teaser", hence just a little bit of the movie. :)

• 30 seconds of any trailer is not enough to get me excited. Visually looks nice though. But then, so did that other Avatar.

• I would have liked to see more of the other characters, but at least the bending doesn't look terrible. A small seed of hope!

• More ninjas than I expected, but still very good. ^^ They seem to have the Northern Water Tribe templey thing from the end of season one down pretty well there.

• There is a small glimmer of hope in my heart now for this movie. Let's hope it doesn't get squashed.

TotalComments: 91