{"id":13441,"date":"2008-12-11T22:02:16","date_gmt":"2008-12-12T05:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/12\/11\/the-last-airbender-and-its-casting.html"},"modified":"2014-06-13T17:07:11","modified_gmt":"2014-06-13T23:07:11","slug":"the_last_airbender_and_it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/12\/11\/the_last_airbender_and_it.html","title":{"rendered":"The Last Airbender<\/i> and its casting"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

So lots of brouhaha over the casting for the Avatar: The Last Airbender <\/em>movie (the actual movie is dropping the “Avatar” part of the name<\/a>), largely because it’s all a bunch of white kids<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I am so mixed on this. My first reaction is some dismay, but reading some of the comments shows some wild hyperbole, to wit, The movie is ruined! Ruined, I tell you!<\/em> (Which reaction would have been heard regardless of the casting.)<\/p>\n

The argument boils down to The Four Nations are all Asian. Well, yeah, they’re actually different Asian groups. No, that’s never stated, but here are my guesses. No, wait, the Water Tribe are Inuit. Are they Asian? Anyway, the movie is ruined by the racist choosing of a bunch of shallow non-martial-artisty non-Asians.<\/em> Which is a bit racist of an evaluation itself.<\/p>\n

The main young characters in the cartoon do not strike me as being distinctively ethnic in their design, and it is all set in an odd fantasy world after all. On the other hand, many\/most of the supporting characters, not to mention the costumes, architecture, cultures, and magic \/ martial arts styles, are <\/em>clearly Asian-flavored — which, if the leads are all white, will feel more than a bit off, even at best.<\/p>\n

So on the one hand, I don’t know that I feel like the movie needed to be cast all with Asians actors or Inuit actors or whatever to maintain some sort of artistic ethnic integrity — but, on the other hand, casting all <\/em>the leads with guelo<\/em>s is … goofy.<\/p>\n

That said — unless this is designed to be a series of movies (which it’s not), I’m not sure how M Night Shyamalan is going to possibly do justice to the multi-seasoned, multi-faceted saga of Avatar<\/em>. I mean, it would sort of be like trying to distill down Lord of the Rings into a single 2-hour film. That, I think, is going to be a bigger problem than this (yes, problematic) set of casting decisions.<\/p>\n

I’m looking more forward to watch the 3rd Season DVDs<\/a> with Katherine after I give them to her for Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So lots of brouhaha over the casting for the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie (the actual movie is dropping the “Avatar” part of the name), largely because it’s all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[45,529,382,41,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-cartoons","category-avatarairbenderkorra","category-lord-of-the-rings","category-media-movies","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":137211,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/18\/do-we-actually-need-a-live-action-avatar-the-last-airbender.html","url_meta":{"origin":13441,"position":0},"title":"Do we actually NEED a live-action "Avatar: The Last Airbender"?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 18-Sep-18 3:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Not so far as I can tell. I mean, the animated version seems to still be quite rewatchable. (Indeed, it's on my binge list for my wife and me.)Granted, that the show is being helmed by original creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko is triffic news, and making something that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":152831,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/31\/2020-in-review-movies.html","url_meta":{"origin":13441,"position":1},"title":"2020 In Review: Movies","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 31-Dec-20 1:21pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A look back at what I watched this year.","rel":"","context":"In "Avatar \/ Airbender \/ Korra"","block_context":{"text":"Avatar \/ Airbender \/ Korra","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/avatarairbenderkorra"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/movie-theaters.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/movie-theaters.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/movie-theaters.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/movie-theaters.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":16674,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/02\/05\/another-last-airbender-trailer.html","url_meta":{"origin":13441,"position":2},"title":"Another Last Airbender trailer","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 5-Feb-10 7:18am","format":false,"excerpt":"I keep trying to keep expectations down about this movie, but this new(er) trailer looks ... pretty darned good. I'll keep being pessimistic, just so I can be pleasantly surprised.","rel":"","context":"In "Avatar \/ Airbender \/ Korra"","block_context":{"text":"Avatar \/ Airbender \/ Korra","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/avatarairbenderkorra"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17215,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/04\/25\/yet-another-last-airbender-trailer.html","url_meta":{"origin":13441,"position":3},"title":"Yet another Last Airbender trailer","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 25-Apr-10 8:23pm","format":false,"excerpt":"With the noteworthy new footage inclusions of Appa, Yue, the Blue Flame, and Fire Nation Lizard Mounts.\u00a0 Boo-yah!\u00a0 It does indeed look like the first movie will, somehow, encompass the entire first season.\u00a0 Yikes. (Not so thrilled with the retrofit to 3-D, but ...)","rel":"","context":"In "Avatar \/ Airbender \/ Korra"","block_context":{"text":"Avatar \/ Airbender \/ Korra","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/avatarairbenderkorra"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16714,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/02\/10\/yet-more-last-airbender-goodness.html","url_meta":{"origin":13441,"position":4},"title":"Yet more Last Airbender goodness","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 10-Feb-10 11:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yet another trailer, this time with some actual dialog ... Or maybe not-so-goodness. I'm forced to agree with Topless Robot that Kitara does not come across as very impressive here in her few appearances. Regardless of the whole ethnicity controversy (about which TR has some interesting comments) aroundt the movie,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Avatar \/ Airbender \/ Korra"","block_context":{"text":"Avatar \/ Airbender \/ Korra","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/avatarairbenderkorra"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38401,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/07\/disney-princess-last-airbender-mash-ups.html","url_meta":{"origin":13441,"position":5},"title":"Disney Princess \/ \u00a0Last Airbender Mash-ups","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 7-Aug-13 2:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Not perfect, but darned fun.Reshared post from +The Mary SueRacookie3 has redesigned Disney princesses as characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender. See more at\u00a0http:\/\/bit.ly\/144S92M.In album Disney Princess Avatar CharactersThis post has been reshared 1 times on Google+ View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42718,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13441\/revisions\/42718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}