We’ve got the teaser trailer for M. Night Shayamalan’s The Last Airbender and let me tell you: it is much cooler than I ever would’ve imagined! It opens with a badass kung-fu feel and closes with a promise of epic, action-packed adventure.
And unless they had one hell of editor cutting this trailer, I dare say The Last Airbender is looking like the film that might finally redeem M. Night Shayamalan!
| |
Based on the popular Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender, Shayamalan’s film will also tell the story of a war-torn world divided into four nations, based on the four elements of Fire, Water, Earth and Air. From this world emerges a young boy named Aang (Noah Ringer), The Last Airbender, able to manipulate all four elements of Fire, Water, Earth and Air, who is prophesied to defeat the imperial Fire Nation and bring peace to the world.
Now that you know the story, check out the trailer for M. Night Shayamalan’s The Last Airbender:
I just love the arch of this trailer: the quiet, cool, kung-fu opening building to the epic war sequence with fire balls coating the sky. Awesome. And did I mention that the “airbending” effects looked pretty good? An effective way to employ CGI.
Most surprising for me was the total lack of “Shaymalanisms” in this trailer. With just about every one of M. Night’s prior movies I saw ten seconds of a trailer and could immediately tell it was him sitting in the director’s chair. If I didn’t already know he was doing The Last Airbender, I wouldn’t have guessed it. Apparently adapting somebody ELSE’S work for the screen seems to agree with Mr. Night. Good to see him branching out of his own head.
Suddenly The Last Airbender is on my list of most anticipated films of next year. Who knew? It’s currently slated for a July 2, 2010 release. Tell us what you thought of the teaser trailer.
Source: Slash Film
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or if you want more frequent updates follow us on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
Loading ...
74 Comments
Can’t wait for this movie….I’ve seen all the cartoons and i think the lead Aang looks pretty close to the character.
Wow. “not staying true to the series.” How can you see that from what has been shown of the film so far? Because of the casting? Wow. Pessimistic is for sure the right word choice here.
Could be cool… I know nothing about the series but if Night is doing a live action movie on it than there must be something special about the story/characters even though his last few movies were high quality garbage.
it’s hard to judge anything from a teaser.
http://www.racebending.com/
It may sound pessemistic, but when you hear of someone like Jesse McCartney being the initial choice for Zuko, who is one of the least caucasian characters in the series, and Jackson Rathbone playing an obviously Inuit based character (Sokka), you don’t exactly get a positive feel for the film. I will never understand the logic in picking Shyamalan as a director of ANYTHING after The Happening, let alone for something that has such a strong fan base. I’ve seen all three seasons, and the lack of respect and representation of the cultures in the show is so upsetting. I am so sick of Hollywood whitewashing roles when there are plenty of actors and actresses who fit the cultural description in want of work!
For the record, I have no problem with the young man cast as Aang. The older Airbenders have obvious Asian features, but Aang has more versatility in whom can portray him.
NONE of the Avatar cartoon characters look anything other than caucasion. We’re talking white, white, white. Having said that, I don’t care what race the actors are, as long as they can ACT. I can’t say I’ve seen all of Mr. Shyamalan’s work, but the casting has always been good, even if the concept and/or plot has been iffy. With ATLA, he has a solid concept and plot already in place. I think it could be good.
Well, I would think Hollywood is going to get pretty boring if all key (and non-stereotypical) roles, whether based on characters of color or not, are only going to go to White people. I mean, we are a nation of different faces and nationalities, all of whom accomplish great things and are capable of such. Why can’t that be represented in our films? ESPECIALLY when the character’s description calls for it?! As for you, Trish, maybe you need to sit down and actually watch the series. As far as I’m concerned, most of Shyamalan’s films are garbage, and based on that alone I can’t see this movie being much better. It’s a shame that a great show has to be culminated in such a way, and with such an…interesting director. Nice going Konietzko and DiMartino. But we will see. I could be wrong about this film. Doubtful, but maybe.
I for one am reserving judgment until I see this film. I’ve just begun watching the cartoon, so I don’t have the whole picture yet, but I love it so far. As for ‘not doing justice’, there are few, and I do mean few live action movies that can ever do true justice to books, comics or animated series. There just isn’t the budget, time or resources for that today. I think if people went in with a margin for ‘error’ (i.e. some questionable casting, poorer acting, low-budget special effects, etc), you can enjoy many of these films a lot more. As far as the casting, as a person of a visible minority, my feeling is that Hollywood (and every other major movie centre) should cast people according to their talent, abilities and merit for a role, no matter what they look like and where they come from. I’ve found that Britain has been great for this; they hire who they think will do the best job, regardless of race, looks or ‘audience preferences’. I just hope that all the people in this film do their best and Shyamalan doesn’t drop the ball again. *I’m looking at you, Lady in the Water*
Hey Silvertongue, I love the inkheart books dearly. But I think the movie did not turn out right. Here’s to hoping The Last Airbender will be different.
You can tell its not the same as the series already when did aang ever fight anyone in anyone of the air temples?
chased momo in the like 2nd or 3rd ep but thats about it.. and if he did there was never a heavy artilary of ships just outside floating around. but still cant wait to see the film marked down on my calendar and people stop being so bashful bout race hey were all the same
Just So you Know Bradley18 its a TEASER TRAILER known of that really make sit into the movie.
Noah had to shave his hair to Look like the avatar..Cool..
Honestly I’m not impressed by this trailer. Maybe it’s because I hated the series, or because of my hatred of anime (which I’ve expressed here before) but this trailer was just… Boring really. Didn’t make me want to see it and didn’t capture my attention at all. I mean… I’m an open hater of the anime style and that may be why I don’t want to see this, but if the effects and characters look any better than this then I might give it a chance. MIGHT! Wish I couldhave seen the pics of the characters before Paramount took them down… I only saw the 1st episode of the series, do I need to be a big fan of it to understand this movie or will it honor the fact that not many people have watched must of the series but may see the movie?
I don’t really consider Avatar to be true Animé. But more to the point…why comment if you totally hate everything about the series and the Animé genre altogether? I mean, why even watch the trailer in the first place? I just don’t understand why people are so determined to trash things just for the sake of it.
I for one love anime and yes Avatar is not considered full on anime. Phillis was also right on the characters being of different race decents and I for one do believe it matters I mean Im pretty sure if the Dragonball movie was full of Japanese characters that actually know some kind of art unlike Spike and the wannabe karate kid that would have been a great movie not including the fact that the director did not take the show seriously. The fact is that these cartoons have comedy in them to get the kids attention but when you pay attention inside all those jokes theres a really good story going on. I do like M. Night and I hope he gets his act together on this one.
What's your opinion? Leave a Reply!
Go to Gravatar.com and upload your own (we'll wait)!