Shyamalan's The Last Airbender Pics!

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2009-05-21-airbender-first-look_N.htm

I don't know if it's just me, but that picture of Noah Ringer as Aang has gotten me just a tad bit interested in this project again.

I'm still miffed about the Ethnicity issues, but knowing that Ringer is a Black Belt and actually trained in Martial Arts gives me more hope that just casting a short kid who look-ish-ed the part.

I don't know, what say you all?

 

I was concerned about the casting too, but that's actually not bad.

 

There's no question Shyamalan can make a good-looking film. I still say he's the wrong director for this project in every other way.

I do like the way they've reinterpreted Aang's forehead tattoo. The big blue arrow always looked kind of silly to me.

 

The cartoon was better!

 

They're letting Shyamalan near ANOTHER movie?! The Sixth Sense really has allowed him to make just about any crap film he wants...

 

Ok, now I'm getting excited about this. He sure looks a lot like Aang. You could almost say he's a dead Ringer!

 

Aang should be ASIAN! Hollywood is clearly aganst minoritys!

 

That picture looks interesting. I haven't really seen any Avatar - The Last Airbender cartoons but I've a nephew who adores those. And the kid does look kinda like the kid in that show. So I concur.

Shyamalan's last for me was the Lady in the Water and that was just too disappointingly stupid. I think where he failed over there is to get me as an audience to care about any of it. I think if I had been pulled into the movie I might've actually been "taken" with the story (I doubt it tho'. There was no "whoa" moment or even a 'the design is finally clear' moment). I hope with this Shyamalan can step out of the prison of his own making and just do a fun movie. He doesn't have to be a slave to the image of M. Night Shyamalan a la Hitchcock - try some thing other than those "here-comes-the-twist" movies. He might have been trying for that earlier but I think with this movie people will go in not expecting that this will be a twist-in-the-tale kinda movie cos this one does not seem to be a movie of that genre.

 

Is that a vagina painted on his forehead?

And can Shyamlan just STOP now, please?

You made one really great movie, one or two OK ones than a bunch of crap.

 

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Come on, someone had to do it...
Man, I'm having way too much fun with this whole "canon violation" thing.

In all seriousness, I'm not really familiar with Avatar: The Last Airbender, but I can understand the concerns with Shyamalan directing. I thought his last two films stunk. I hope for the sake of Airbender fans that he manages to surprise everyone and make a decent movie, but I'm not exactly optimistic.

 

I'm completely uninvested in the franchise, but the whole race thing is still a bit problematic to me. But whatever. The Prince of Persia is going to be white... I'm sure the new MLK Jr biopic will have a white guy in it too.

And where did this canon violation meme start anyway?

 

Well, Persians are white.

 

They just have great tans!

But yes, I know. Still, Jake Gyllenhaal looks as Persian as I do... which is not that much.

 

No, Jake Gyllenhall doesn't look Persian at all. I have, however, an Iranian friend who looks quite similar to the blue-eyed fair-skinned character in the latest Prince of Persia game.

 

I think the technical term is Caucasian.

 

There is nothing technical about the word "Caucasian". We're all humans, the traditional subcategories are completely meaningless. What I meant is that Persians are white, i.e. usually fair-skinned, sometimes even with blue eyes and blond hair.

 

Persians -- Iranians -- are literally Aryans, a term that the Nazis completely misappropriated to refer to blond, blue-eyed Nordic types. (They took a theory about the origins of the Indo-European language family and co-opted it into a nonsensical theory of racial purity.) Aryan and Iranian are just variations of the same word, basically.

 

Before this gets derailed any further, I'll just say again that I meant in the specific case of Jake Gyllenhaal.