I thought the twist for The Last Airbender would've been one of two things:

A. The whole movie actually took place in Central Park

or

B. The movie is all in Aang's head and he's still frozen in ice.....but it turns out he's not Aang......HE'S CAPTAIN FUCKING AMERICA!!!! And we have a cool tie-in to the Cap movie

You know, if that last one was actually true, I'd pay to see it! :D

Really all of the fire benders should have been able to create fire like they do in the series. Fire isn't an element, so it's not readily available like water, air, or earth. Because of that, the other nations could just keep them away from matches or flint and they'd be harmless. They'd never be able to take over the world in Shyamalan's interpretation of the series, looking at things logically.

WTF, didn't episode 22 come out like 2 days ago?

Yep. 22 was originally supposed to be out last friday but Blip (for whatever reason) decided not to let us upload it, and the next open slot on TGWTG wasn't until monday. In short, last weeks episode went up this week, and this week's episode went up on schedule.

I thought at the end of last airbender Bruce Willis was gonna wake up and say what the hell is wrong with me?

The Girl from Kickass should be Toph. I forgot her name but she played Hitgirl

Why not get somebody Asian to play her, or blind, or a blind Asian (that'd be awesome).

Hey, maybe the movies will clear up that huge cliffhanger at the end of season 3... avatar fans know the one. But I seriously will forgive the acting and annoying mispronunciations if they work foo foo cuddly poops into the second movie.

sorry for double comment but i have to say something about the "mis" pronunciations. actually the pronunciations in the movie are correct and are the pronunciations used pretty much everywhere else in the world that the show is aired but in the american version they pronounced all the names with an "american accent" for lack of a better way to describe it.

No, they hired a linguist to make up their bullshit pronunciations.

I know that these are correct Asian pronunciations, having dabbled in Japanese myself. But isn't it a bit hypocritical for a movie that has completely removed all East Asian roles from the cast to concern itself with Asian pronunciation?

I don't even think Shamalayan's daughters will like this movie. For whom the film was made.

You've been far too kind to this film. I can hardly remember a film experience where I spent my head buried in my hands than during this film. Even though it was barely over an hour and half it was BORING, which is the kiss of death for me for any action adventure film.

I spent the majority of the film with my head buried in my hands, begging for the experience to be over. Just thinking about the film makes me very angry.

I don't accept the excuse that Shamalayan had to fit to much story into a movie. How is adapting this series any different than a novel?

As a fan of the series I can bitch and moan about how everything was "wrong" or different than the TV show. But frankly, if I wanted the TV show I'd just watch the TV show.

On the whole this was a good looking film that is so poorly written and edited that I swore it was made by someone who has no idea how stories are told, much less knows what made the Avatar animated series great.

I think the movie had no mission statement and nothing to make us care about the characters or the universe it exists in. This movie was a complete failure. And I don't want to say that people's opinions are wrong or anything, but if you liked The Last Airbender you are wrong.

[color=green]My epic crossovers would be Digimon and Pokemon,
Gradius and R Type, Gundam vs Armored core, Sonic and Mario in a 2d side scrolling game NOT THE OLYMPICS!!!, Star Wars meets Star Trek, Ghostbusters meets the men in black, and Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star in Final Phantasy Star, True Blood vs Twilight, Halo vs Killzone master chief fights the helghan army, contra and gunstar heroes, Metroid vs Predator...and that's all I've got[/color]

[color=green]Has Roger Ebert seen Okami????? that's art!!!! nice squidbillies reference.[/color]

All right. I gotta say my piece about the casting business.

The original Zuko who was cast before Dev Patel was Caucasian pop-singer Jesse McCartney. It was only after the casting backlash started gaining steam that he mysteriously dropped out due to "scheduling issues" and suddenly all the villains became noticeably darker-skinned Middle Easterners and South Asians. Before that, the ENTIRE cast was Caucasian. It's been documented in multiple places that this is because they were ONLY looking at Caucasian kids for the leads.

And you know, none of the fans ever expected a full Asian/Inuit cast. It would have been perfectly okay to change one of the tribes to be Caucasian. Want a Scandinavian Water Tribe? Fine. But casting Caucasians in ALL the lead hero roles and only using ethnic actors for exotic set dressing is not okay. Not when 90% of "Avatar" came from East-Asian and Inuit culture. In the movie they were happy to keep using the cultures, but all the actual East Asian and Inuit PEOPLE were either whitewashed out or kept in the background. Even Suki and the Kyoshi warriors, who were all over the ads ended up cut.

Come on, Kat, you should know better than this. The creators of "Avatar" didn't specify that Aang and Katara and Zuko were kids of East-Asian and Inuit ethnicities because it should have been obvious from the staggering amount of contextual clues in the show. All the writing is in perfectly readable Chinese. Aang is based off of a Buddhist monk, down to the vegetarianism and the orange and yellow robes. The Water tribe kids live in igloos. Igloos!

And believe me, I'm as tired of talking about this as you are of hearing about it, but we can't shut up. This is wrong. If Hollywood thinks they can get away with this kind of whitewashing without complaint, next time they'll do it to "Death Note" or "Akira" or "Cowboy Bebop" or "Full Metal Panic." Somebody actually wants to make a Genghis Khan movie with Mickey Rourke. Urrrghhh.

And I do NOT want a sequel. Shyamalan shouldn't be allowed within 100 miles of Toph and Jet!

I think a problem with the casting was not that it wasn't 100% Aian but that it changed the main characters into a group of white people and the bad guys into Indians, it kind of brings up some Unfortunate Implications.

Dear god. I hate to be such and asshat but will SOMEONE fix Kat's mic??? That's pretty much the only reason I never watch your podcast, the audio for someone is ALWAYS terrible, either if it's to loud or too quiet.

I had to stop listening when it got to the race debate. It still inspires such anger in me whenever someone even insinuates that the 'characters didn't look asian in the show' especially when Cat went on to say that the show had some stereotypes characters that were 'obviously supposed to be asian'
I'd like to ask anyone who thinks Aang doesn't look Asian what it would take for them to buy him as asian? Honestly, what do you want? He's a young boy with a shaved head full of child-like glee. If anyone says smaller eyes I will do them physical harm
The argument that they got 'actors who were best for the role' falls completely flat when most people who see the movie admit the acting SUCKS HARD.
I could go on for hours about asian actors and roles for asian actors in hollywood and the fact the show is an Asian fantasy so where are the white people coming from? but I'm just going to stop, have some soothing tea and play video games

I don't think it qualifies as just stupid fan rage to be upset about that clearly Asian and Inuit based cultures were casted with clearly non-Asian actors. It would be like casting all the elves from Lord of the Rings as... I don't know, Africans or something. The cultures should match the actors' genetic background. It's too "yellow-face" to see white people in Inuit and Tibetan clothes.

Even more of a problem is that it's such a shame that a perfect opportunity to give Asian and Inuit actors major roles was thrown away. It's such a [i]waste[/i].

Shyamalan himself seems to give conflicting messages: He says he wanted to change the name pronunciation to more authentic Asian (which is a valid point he's making of course...) but why change it if he's not admitting that the characters are Asian?

In any case just dismissing the feelings of outrage that people have because of this, it's just offensive. At least admit that people have valid opinions here even if you don't agree with them.

Well, that's just my thoughts on the issue summarized. I could start ranting and be at it all day. Anyway, please visit [url]http:// www.racebending.com/v3/[/ url] for many good points for why so many people are genuinely upset and why it's not an insignificant issue to us.

[color=purple] I can't wait for Shana 2 but why so long wherever. I hope Funi get When they cry 2, BTW what wrong with the mic Kat [/color]

We're working on the sound issues, but its like the old chevy you owned in high school: as soon as you fix one thing, another breaks down. :pinch:

Wow, people REALLY hate this movie. :0 I'll have to see it for myself, find out what all the fuss is about.

The movie had some of the worst acting I have ever seen, and the story was no better. It was boring and uninteresting and I have watched quite a bit of the cartoon series.

Your review was to easy on it and was terribly biased. I went in the movie knowing that it probably would be bad because they would have make a entire book into a movie. :angry: :( :angry:

I never thought a live-action adaptation of a animated series could ever work out. ^^;

We weren't doing a review. Our intention was to try and analyze the film stacked against the TV series. Any opinions Cat expressed in the podcast are just that, OPINIONS. Feel free to disagree, but please try to be polite about it. The curse laden emails I've been getting? They stop NOW. Sending me an email calling Cat a C*** IS NOT HOW WE ROLL HERE.

Edit: Besides, law of averages says SOMEBODY had to walk out of the theater WITHOUT a murderous rage, and who are we at N^3 to argue with SCIENCE? :P

...except for a couple of stereotyped characters.
You just went into detail on how heavily Asian influenced this show is, from the music to the art to pretty much everything, yet none of that screams to you 'Hello, I'm Asian'?
WTF, do the characters need a Post-It note on their forehead that says "Yes, I'm Asian, in case you couldn't figure that out from the contextual context."

And I'd have to disagree with you that this is a stupid debate, Kat. We can't do anything about this movie's casting, but hopefully it'll influence directors and casting directors for future movies.

Her mike needs to be turned down, it has too much over-exposure.

Just technical criticism.

Gosh, Cat, you're right. Who gives a damn about shameless whitewashing, amirite? We should all just shut up about racism. That'll make it go away!

I second this.

I'm just happy none of the fail (and there's lots of it. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOTS~) touched my favorite group of minor characters. :woohoo: FREEDOM FIGHTERS FTMFW!

She can have a different opinion all she wants, and I'm still be entitled to think that different opinion is the stupidest piece of shit ever.

FYI most people are upset because she completely missed the point on why the casting upsets people. [BECAUSE RACISM IS SILLY LOL JUST SHUT UP ABOUT IT]

First off I never said people weren't entitled to there opinion. But getting angry over others in the manner of "how can you think that? That is totally wrong. I hate you and your differing opinion.". I say this as raging against opinions has no point. There are only two basic reasons to post an argument.

One you wish to debate. If this was your goal you would present your argument in such a way that the person your arguing with would want to respond. If you want them to respond you should not insult them or put any confrontational language in your post. I can't speak for everyone but if someone is cussing me out and saying how stupid I am for believing what I do, I'm not going to take there opinion seriously.

Two you're angry and want to vent your frustrations to the world. And this is the one I find funny. I don't get why people make such a big deal over the opinions of others that they would get so worked up over them. Just because you don't agree with what they think is no reason to get angry.

Here is a hypothetical situation.

Person A: "I like clouds, there all fluffy and calming to watch move across the sky."

Person B: "What!? How can you think that? Clouds are the stupidest fucking things on earth. You must be the most retarded person I've ever met."

So looking at the above situation, does that make sense? What about person A's opinion is making person B mad?

I have no idea how you can go on about how asian influenced the show is and yet how none of the characters are actually asian, unless they are stereotyped.

It's implied by all of the nations of ATLA borrowing from multiple asian cultures that the world itself is asian. If ATLA borrowed from different cultures, outside of asia, in any way it would be much more "ambiguous" than M Night and people like you make it out to be. What you imply by your statements that no character is "hello I'm asian" or whatever, is that asian's only act certain ways.

Would the casting be okay if ATLA was based completely on african culture, art, architecture? No of course not because it'd be obviously wrong. This would show that hollywood supports institutionalized racism, by casting on heroic [that weren't cut out of the movie] leads to white's because they don't believe America will watch a movie with an all ethnic cast.

So why is it "a really stupid debate"? You are a moron if you think people will just sit around and let racism like this continue.

[also you deserve all the hate mail you receive for being such an idiot]

HERE'S TO ALIENATING MOST OF YOUR FELLOW AVATARD FANS~

Does Cat mean voice acting Dubs or subs, if she means of all language I call blasphemy.

in the movie, the water benders are caucasian, the fire nation guys are indians, the Earth benders are CHINESE, and the Airbenders are... a mix of Black, tibetan AND Caucasian lookin dudes...

Zukko isn't really A BAD GUY, he's more like Vegeta, his side isn't so clear, but he's definitely a main character...

the 2nd movie will spend a lot of time with the Earthbenders obviously, who WILL BE ALL CHINESE !

and the third... with INDIANS...

so let me put it this way:

the CAST OF THE MOVIE ISN T RACIST ! it's actually more multi-ethnic than the Anime IS !

stop the hate

Sorry but... it's not that simple. There's still the issue that they cast three of the main characters as white people. Not to mention that making the Fire Nation brown is some serious Unfortunate Implications. Just Zuko and Iroh being good guys isn't enough to change the fact that the "bad nation" is the guys who look Middle Eastern. At this day and age that's just not very sensitive at all even though the director himself is Indian.

Of course Toph seems to be meant to be Asian which at least is good to know... but it only helps marginally in this case. It still means three of the main characters are white people dressed as a Tibetan monk and Inuits while the actors of other ethnicities are mostly on the background. They could have given a young Asian boy and two Inuit kids a chance to star in the big screen but instead they decided to just cast white actors who don't get constantly dismissed from significant movie roles because of their ethnicity. It would have shown the world that even Asian American and Native people can make it in Hollywood. Instead now it seems to say that no, you have to be white to star in a big budget movie. Whether or not they meant it that way or not, it's still going to seem that way.

Many kids of colour have already been brutally disappointed when they have found out that that one single cool series where there were people looking like them in major roles, is having their favourite characters turned white. It's simply not fair for them or for the Asian and Inuit actors who have no chance of getting noticed by Hollywood and the one chance they get to have a movie that's actually practically made for them, is just dismissed and they are stuck playing the geeky Asian stereotypes or "Indian" extras.

Just adding ethnicities isn't making the movie less insensitive either. In a modern setting, colour-blind casting is often good, true, but you wouldn't cast a movie set in pre-colonization Africa or a world based on it with multiple ethnicities and make the main characters white, would you? (No wait, some people actually have done that, I think. My bad.) Why is it okay to do that with an Asian based world?

And note that the movie makers haven't been very polite about the whole deal either. Both Shyamalan and others have said some very insensitive things like "there's no Inuit girl who looks like Katara" and "if you're Korean, wear a kimono". It doesn't help the people who were already offended, not at all. The least they could do is to at least acknowledge the issue rather than turn it around and call us racists and haters.

It all comes down to the fact that no, racism is not dead in America. It's still there. And in media it seems like Asians and Asian Americans are still an acceptable target for stereotypes and general unpleasantness while similar treatment toward African Americans is thankfully less accepted nowadays. This i...

Here's a question for Cat; would The Last Airbender worked better if, rather than attempting to recap the entire first season, they'd gotten the writers to create an original plotline using the same characters?