Jun 23
2009
03:13 PM ET
'Avatar: The Last Airbender' trailer: Does it make you forgive M. Night's questionable casting decisions?
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i think everyone is retarded, watch the show because none of u are going to know what it’s going to be like just by watching the damn trailer. your all just a bunch of children i swear.
Suck it up you paranoid ignoramuses. Get to grips with the fact that nobody hates people tha arnt white anymore. Stop trying to act persecuted and get over it. The producer can do whatever the hell he wants too. He isn’t white washing or anything. You come to an English founded country, you are going to find white people. Now suck it up.
Wow. How about you stop trying to make assumptions and get educated. Obviously you don’t know why people are like this in the first place.
No one is offended that there are white people in america (well…except for early native americans).
We’re simply asking for fairness in casting. Hollywood still practices racism and the audience supports their bigotry.
If you don’t think it’s a big deal, fine, I won’t argue with you because there’s no arguing with bigots. I suppose you think african-americans of today should go back to the fields too huh?
I’m concerned because the movie seems so dark. Mr. Shayamalan will probably put an appropriate amount of humor in the film, but the two trailers I’ve seen are targeting a small audience. People like to laugh, and that would draw more to the box office.
Ugh. There are so many things that will piss me off about this movie, from big details (casting) to small nitpicky ones (makeup / tattoos.) Effects don’t make a movie. A good movie with writing (which the series has) and directing (which unfortunately falls on M. Night Shyamalan.) With M at the helm, I’m expecting the Water Tribe to be supremely evil, since Water is the bane, toxin, and/or villain of at least half of his films.
Aang doesn’t look like an asian kid in the cartoons.Get over it.Stop acting like you care about your own race. All you really care about is yourself, money, designer clothing, and expensive luxury cars that you can barely make the payments for every month.
Rob-
Its true, Aang does not look like a “typical” asian kid with black hair and epicanthal eyelid folds, but the creators the series have said that Aang and the air nomads (and the other characters and nations) are based in asian culture.
You should also take into account the style of the animation, which is based on japanese anime.
In anime, even though the characters (such as sailor moon) have blonde (or blue or pink) hair and have huge round eyes, they live in tokyo and are understood inherently to be japanese.
And finally, this is not a “get over it” moment, Rob. This is a talk, discuss and learn moment. I am not at all Asian, and I think its important we understand how priviledged whites are in this country. We have no lack of heros and heroines to call our own. We look at super man and iron man and all the rest do not question his race, while my black and asian and latino friends have so few heros to look up to… who look like them (do not even get me started on disney princesses).
I cannot presume to speak for my friends, but if you could imagine your discomfort going to see a bollywood film, surrounded by hindis and the only white person in the film is the villan, perhaps you could begin to understand why people are so upset about the “racebending” issue in avatar.
And finally, people do care about these issues Rob, and thank god they do, or we would be stuck in a stagnant world where nothing got better and nothing changed. Please, I pray for you, that you will learn something from this, that you may think about telling people to stop, and open your mind to what could be…and if not… well you’re argument was pretty weak, so forget you if you can’t even consider opening your mind…. love love
ps what I wrote goes out to that morethansoccermom and curt guy too, and anyone else unable to see their own priviledge
rob, you’re not even making an argument. You’re basically telling people to stop talking about the issue. I see you’re anti-first amendment huh. Well too bad. We live in america.
Nice color this blog and good communication and avatar the last airbender episodesmovies is good.
I like that this blog has sparked a lot of racial commentary. Its important for americans to talk about this subject. We may think that racism ended with the civil rights movement in the 60s but those of us of a brown pursuasion know that racism isn’t dead, its just more subtle-
shame on Paramount and Shamylan for calling for white actors to play inuit (water tribe) and east asian (earth kingdom, fire kingdom, air nomads) characters.
I’m a huge fan of the series and it was so refreshing to see a world not based on western culture! and I say this as a through and through westerner.
I also agree the trailers and teasers look awfully dark. I think a lot of the charm in avatar came from Aang still behaving like a kid… he knew he had to save the world, but there’s nothing like windsurfing on the Unagi!
anyway, I’m praying that this movie doesn’t suck and I’ll go see it, but I’m already disappointed in some of the choices the studio has made, racial or otherwise.
I am a HUGE fan of the series. However, I agree w/PCWONG’s comment. I’ve seen many talented Asian actors who (I believe) would have been perfect for the roles (talent/looking like the original characters). I will see the film, but I consider his casting choice to be similar to casting Ruben Studdard as Pavaratti in a feature film.
if you know anything ANYTHING about the auditions tell anyone!
you don’t know what im talkin bout!!!
im talkin bout the auditions for the next airbender movie!!!
i think i would be perfect for the role of katara!!
i think that i look exactly like her!!!
As a fan who has watched the series from the begining i will say that it will be weird to see aang as an non asian character, to me this compromises the integrity of the movie, and i am not racist i just believe he should have tried to make the most accurate film, and part of that is casting
shyamalan has completely lost any goodwill fans of avatar have for him. His movie will crash and burn and he’ll have no one to blame but himself.
And for those who think the characters aren’t asian because the story is pure fantasy, well, elves in LOTR aren’t real either but why didn’t we have any asian elves? Oh yes, because the story is based on european folklore.
And frankly, the characters in avatar DO look asian to me, especially since I grew up watching anime. Ethnocentric whites like to think any fair-skinned character without “slanty eyes” (and buck-toothed) are caucasians
And does this really matter at all? Just watch the movies and enjoy it or not.