M. Night Shyamalan has yet to finish filming his adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, but fans of the Nickelodeon franchise eager for a glimpse into the project can check out a new teaser trailer (embedded below) that has made its way onto the Internets. And though it’s giving me more of a Battle of Helm’s Deep feeling than an animé feeling, it doesn’t look half bad — barring the awkward fact, of course, that the sole actor featured in the trailer is a white boy playing an Asian character .
Now, it should be noted that Shyamalan has managed to atone for some of his original questionable casting decisions for the adaptation of the series, which is rooted in Asian culture — he cast Dev Patel in a role slated for Jesse McCartney, as well as non-white actors Cliff Curtis and Aasif Mandvi. And perhaps the coolness factor (CGI! Battle scene!) in the trailer allows you to forgive the director for any perceived white-washing anyway?
Either way, it is nice to see Shyamalan tackle a genre that doesn’t quite fit his formula. As long as the killer trees don’t serve as Aang’s biggest foe in the film, I’m happy. Thoughts, PopWatchers?
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It sure doesn’t show much but I am still excited. Hopefully M doesn’t stray too far from the basic story.
As a fan of the animated series, I’m actually getting pretty hyped about this. M. Night has good source material to work with, so I’m crossing my fingers hard for this one.
I am a huge fan of the series, but I was and still am very disturbed by the casting of Aang. As an Asian American, the decision to cast a white kid in that role makes me feel invisible, a feeling that I presume can only be intensified by my watching this film when it comes out. As such, I am appalled by the suggestion that any kind of white-washing is forgivable.
M. Night made exactly one good movie a long time ago and he has been making crap ever since. I have no doubt that this film won’t be any better than any of his recent efforts (e.g., The Happening, shudder). This is what Netflix is for.
As a middle-aged viewer, Avatar was one of the few cartoons that I really enjoyed, after being introduced to it by my niece. But I’m really quite tired of hearing about the casting choices vis a vis ethnic actors being overlooked for roles that went to “white” actors. Haven’t we come to a place in history where people just accept people as **PEOPLE**? Why do we continually find an excuse to keep ourselves separated from each other, whether it be by religion, class, race or some other superfluous distinction that, in the long run, means nothing? I didn’t hear an outraged cry from people when Michael Clark Duncan was cast as “The Kingpin” in Daredevil. Nor was there turmoil in the streets when Marvel remade Nick Fury in the image of Samuel L. Jackson. In fact, no one even blinked when Starbuck did a gender switch in the new Battlestar Galactica. So, apparently, it’s only wrong to cast **white** actors in roles that have been misinterpreted to be designated as ethnic characters.
I am tired of all this “it needs to be cast with Asian people”. Have you ever watched the TV show?
Yes, the show has an Asian influence in the animation, but none of the main children characters look Asian, and they have always spoken in American accents. The actors who gave the voices to the children in Avatar are not Asian.
This isn’t David Carridine playing a fighting monk in the TV series, Kunk Fu.
Avatar doesn’t even take place on our planet. It’s a fantasy piece. There is no earth, there are no humans.
It’s a story about four tribes of human like people, and amazingly, the tribes of people seem to have been heavily influenced by Asian cultures. But, that’s where it ends.
My preteen and teen have been watching Avatar for years. And, I have watched many of the episodes with them.
Get over it.
@Curt,
Oh please. First of all, yes, there were many people who were annoyed with Nick Fury being a black man. Go on to any nerd message board at the time, and you’d see huge numbers complaining about the choice as being too sensitive, too PC, too affirmative action. And no one bat an eyelash at Starbucks gender switch? How can you be so confident of that, when you’re absolutely wrong?
Second, this is a completely separate issue. It’s set in a world dominated by Asian cultural influence. It would be like casting a movie about hte American Revolution with predominantly Asian actors.
I don’t have a problem with the casting, considering the creators are white, and I see it more of a business move than a racial move. But people like you, so clueless in every possible way about race, annoy the heck out of me.
I’m not the target audience for this film, but my brother is actually a fan of the show and he is very excited with the trailer…it looks good so far.
Hi Curt, no one complains about the casting switch up of Daredevil, or of BSG because they were attempts to diversify. Avatar was a great opportunity to address diversity by casting Asian Americans as leads. The casting of Avatar missed a huge opportunity to really give a wide audience something that could have been unique. The lack of creativity and risk in the casting alone reflects how badly the filmmakers are misinterpreting the source material. I will never watch this film.
@WayBeyondSoccerMom
God I hate that argument. “They don’t look Asian.” What in your opinion, I wonder, would they have to be drawn like to “look Asian.”
to curt and soccer mom there are plenty of movies and shows that have white actors, this was a great opportunity for film makers to show some positive asian characters that asian kids could ahve seen on screen.
i am of asian indian descent like shyamlan and i have to say i am very disappointed in him for not including asian actors.
the only asian “actors” in his movies seem to him and his wife.
To Eric:
My kids read Manga and watch Anime.
And, I don’t think there is anything wrong with noting that the animated children in Avatar are not drawn as Asian.
Again, Avatar is a fantasy and it doesn’t take place on our known Earth.
Avatar has even less Earth-bound relevance than the TV show, Firefly, which was most definitely influenced by Chinese culture including swear words.
Really, let met get this straight, people are upset that a movie, probably running less than two hours total, will not prominently feature Asians…but did NOT get upset that a children’s TV show that began in 2005 and has aired 60 episodes, repeatedly, of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” did not have any Asian children in the vocal cast.
Please, your faux outrage is over the top.
If you are really upset, try contacting Nickelodeon about its constant, repetitive airing of the animated “Avatar: The Last Airbender” TV show.
You’re upset over a two hour movie, that isn’t even completed, versus over 30 hours of a TV show, that any and all children can watch repeatedly on cable TV, every single day.
Try setting your DVR/TIVO for “Avatar” and see how many hours it will be recorded, in a single week.
First: I love this show.
Second: M. Night has made great movies based on his creativity with the storyline
Third: The show definitely has characters drawn with “asian” appearance. Other than the water tribe, the other tribes are very heavily based on asian areas. A person can easily name which tribe is influenced by which asian culture. And it isn’t just that the main cast was not asian.
The casting director had little kids in VA (normally dressed kids) put on a smock so “they can look more asian”… so obviously theya re good for representing the fire tribe when they are extras? Or when she told Koreans to come in kimono so that they looked more asian for water tribe? So why is it ok to cast mostly asian for the extras but the main cast isn’t? You can’t go one way and not the other? That’s hypocritical.
ALL IS FORGIVEN FOR THE ROCKIN’ FIRE NATION BATTLESHIPS. (And nice air effects.)
WayBeyond, that’s a completely disingenous argument. You don’t see voice actors, so it’s all right to be race-neutral and even gender-neutral about casting. Or would you really mistake Bart Simpson for a middle-aged woman or Samurai Jack for someone African-American?
And there were Asian actors prominently featured in the show. Zuko was played by Filipino actor Dante Basco. And Uncle Iroh, of course, was our dearly departed Mako, who spent much of his career fighting against this kind of discriminatory casting. practices like this.
To Vina:
I never wrote that “none” of the characters on the TV Show were not Asian. I wrote that the main children characters weren’t drawn as Asian, and that those same characters were voiced by non-Asian people.
Prince Zuko only became a main character later in the series. There are 60 episodes and Prince Zuko has only appeared in 48 episodes, with especially brief appearances at first.
There are three main characters: Aang, Katara and Sokka. Other supporting characters were added later, like Uncle Iroh and Toph, along with Prince Zuko and his insane sister.
And, after the actor Mako passed away, his character’s voice, Uncle Iroh, was voiced by actor, Greg Baldwin.
And, as important as Prince Zuko became in the story line, Appa (half bison, half manatee) and Momo (half bat, half lemur) are featured more often than the Prince.
And, let’s not forget the show is pure fantasy, with characters able to bend to their will: earth, water, fire and air.
First of all TEASER, not trailer.
I don’t think anyone should ever judge a movie before the trailer. I’m glad that people liked this teaser, but let’s hold off our crazy judgements until the real trailer comes out.
(I’m having a very hard time ignoring Kate’s claim that Aang was asian, but I will)
As Aang would say ‘nope, nope, nope!’ Avatar wasn’t about some skilled martial artists that just happened to have a special power. Avatar was more that friendship between the children and coming to understand one’s destiny. The white washing of the live action cast pi**es me off more than anything else. The characters, the basis of the story line itself, and oh yeah, every other aspect of the show was based on Asian culture. There wasn’t even one white character in the show! GRR!!
Pardon me, Eric for not consulting your “nerd message board” before making my post. I just didn’t have time because I was actually living a life like William Shatner suggested.
But seriously, can anyone answer these queswtions BEFORE they start screaming “discrimination,” “racial intolerance” and “elitism:”
1) How many “Asian” actors actually auditioned for the roles in the movies?
2) How many were actually talented enough to be in a major motion picture production? (not just generic “actors” like 97.2% of the population of New York City calls themselves “actors” even though they couldn’t act themselves out of a wet sack.)
3) What would you rather have: a movie that is racially diverse but with actors so pitifully untalented that the show is painful to watch; or an entertaining movie?
@Jeff
M. Night is actually a superior director, and he his child actors always put on good performances in his movies. That can’t be said for his writing skills. I’m sure this movie will be better than his recent attempts seeing as the material isn’t his and he’ll get the kind of acting tht he wants from the stars.
On the subject of the casting, both sides have valid points, but ultimately people should not be angered enough to not go to this movie to see if it was worth the price of admission.
Just to throw in my opinion though. I feel that the most powerful element of the show was not the region of the world the show represented, but the brand of philosophy that was influenced by it. I’m seeing this movie not because I’m okay with every casting decision, but because the message of the show is important. For turbulence in both the world and in your heart, peace is the best medicine.
WayBeyond, you couldn’t tell that a kid with a shaved head, in orange robes, doing marial arts with a staff was supposed to be a Shaolin/Buddhist monk? You couldn’t tell the dark-skinned kids who used kayaks and lived in igloos were meant to be Inuit? The younger characters in the show did tend to have more race-neutral features, but then so do most cartoon heroes no matter what their origin. I understand how you could mistake them for Caucasian from a few isolated promotional stills, but it was made very clear by all the contextual elements in Avatar – clothes, food, writing, behavior, terminology – that the characters were non-Western.
while the actor does somewhat resemble aang and the cartoon may not look as “asian” the important thing is that in the setting which is primarily influenced by eastern cultures it would make the movie a little more authentic to have more asian actors. in the modern media asians are often overlooked and i personally would have liked to have seen an asian on the screen that younger kids of asian heritage could look up to. also dev patel as zuko is questionable he seems like he could pull off sokka better. i am excited for the film of course i hope it doesn’t turn out to be another “eragon”. i hope we can see asains cast in the future for roles like Tai Lee, Mai, Jeong Jeong, Avatar Roku, dai lee leader Long Feng, or others, that is if this franchise can last another movie.
The air bending looked so much like the cartoon, I’m kind of sold. Plus, Dev Patel is amazing, so I’m game just for the fact he’s in it.
To answer your headline question: NO.
That kid is terrible. He’s ridiculously clumsy and he looks like he’s 7 years old.
Sigh. Another great story ruined by a pretentious, egotistical, jerk director.
KEEP THE MOVIE TO WHAT THE CARTOON IS LIKE. THEN U DONT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT STARS AND THE PEOPLE U USE IN UR MOVIE IS WHAT U WANT NOT ANY ONE ELSE JUST HOPE ITS NOT ANOTHER ERAGON
Aang is going to be played by a really talented kid named Noah Ringer–he’s phenomenal. We used his motions for an animated short called “Ninja Toy” while he was auditioning for the part. You can check out the video and see more of what he’s about at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2I1Wbr-i7g
@WayBeyondSoccerMom
So in order for them to be Asian, they have to be drawn with small slanty eyes, right?
You probably don’t know, but y’know there are A LOT of Asian people with big eyes. Voice acting has nothing to do with their race, gender, age, etc. If it did then Bart Simpson would be a middle aged Woman, and Appa and Momo would be humans.
Also, did you know Nick advertised the show as an ‘Asian World’?
@Curt
In the casting sheet, it specifically asked for Causcasians. How many Asians do you think would Audition after reading that.