Apparently we're all ninjas, because you can't see us

[yeloson]

Reading up on the first reviews on some roughs of Avatar the Last Airbender movie, and aside from the not too great reviews of the acting, this stood out to me:

The action scenes work pretty well, but only one really stood out for me at this time, which takes place in an ancient airbender temple and had some nice set pieces. Plus it was fun to watch Noah Ringer’s double (a woman with a shaved head) performing the fight scenes – they hadn’t gotten around to doing a face replacement yet.

I do remember when they first started talking about casting, they were talking about how much training they were giving the actors, and how impressive their movement had gotten.

But I'm sure it's all because it's SO IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND ASIAN ACTORS WHO DO MARTIAL ARTS:

(skip to 6:30 for the beatdown)

Seriously, when I'm stupid rich, I'm going to make a movie about hockey filled with anyone but white people, because it's so fucking hard to find white actors. (Huh, a Thai hockey movie with Tony Jaa would be kinda awesome. Though skate blades and Muay Thai kicks would make it really, really bloody...)

(ETA: Also, they screened it at Arizona? Really?)

Comments

Re: Oh Crap!

[yeloson]

Actually, that episode makes me cry still. It's this:

Here's this group of people, the last place they can call home, after having so many taken and abducted and killed. Here is their tie to the land, the tie to their culture, the tie to their holiest of holies, which they, alone, are charged to protect even above their home.

The series shows you all the shit they've been through- and still, this spirit, this fish, is more important than all that to them.

It works in the cartoon, much like the Life/Death God in Princess Mononoke, because the audience has been given a deep sense of wonder, of the holiness of it- and now it's being destroyed.

Re:What Me Bitter?

[willow]

And then if you have some knowledge, you get hit with the Meta; he darkens their lives. It's Stolen Generations and Sterilization and various Experiments and other Crimes of Colonization - destroying their tie to their ancestors and their future. to a large part of how they define themselves.

Yeah.

There are SO many reasons I love love love the animated series.

It is -not- just 'punching a fish to death'. It's a VIOLENT VIOLATION.

Though maybe it needed Mel Gibson directing an actor with a whip to get the proper impact.