The Last Airbender: M. Night Shyamalan’s Magnum Opus!

[matrix_ghost]

HOLLYWOOD, CA – April 16, 2008 – Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies have greenlit the live-action epic adventure “M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender,” which will launch over the Independence Day weekend in 2010, opening on Friday, July 2, 2010.


Shyamalan, the visionary creator of the Oscar®-nominated “The Sixth Sense,” “Signs” and the upcoming “The Happening,” will direct and produce the epic action-adventure based on a script that he penned. Joining him as producers are Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, who produced the blockbuster “Indiana Jones” and “Jurassic Park” film franchises, Sam Mercer (“The Sixth Sense,” “The Happening”) and Scott Aversano (“Failure to Launch,” “The School of Rock”). Michael DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko, the creators of the popular TV series, “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” that inspired the film, will serve as executive producers.

“I was drawn to the series because of its influences: one being Hayao Miyazaki, said Shyamalan. “I’ve always been a huge fan of Miyazaki’s work. He is one of the greatest storytellers in the world and makes anime films in Japan. His combination of spirituality and super natural elements have brought depth and meaning to his art form. In “The Last Airbender,’ I see an opportunity to make a live-action version of a Miyazaki film.”

“We're delighted to be partnering with Nickelodeon to bring M. Night Shyamalan's vision of “The Last Airbender” to the big screen and to audiences of all ages,” said John Lesher, President, Paramount Film Group.

“M. Night Shyamalan’s exciting vision for a film with the potential of ‘The Last Airbender,’ is another perfect fit for the Fourth of July holiday weekend that we have used to launch such blockbusters as ‘War of the Worlds’ and ‘Transformers,’” said Rob Moore, Vice Chairman, Paramount Pictures.

Based on the hugely successful Nickelodeon animated TV series, the live-action feature film is set in a world where human civilization is divided into four nations: Water, Earth, Air and Fire.

The Fire Nation is waging a ruthless, oppressive war against the other three nations. The film’s hero, the reluctant young Aang, is the “Last Airbender” - the Avatar who, according to prophecy, has the ability to manipulate all of the elements and bring all the nations together. Aided by a protective teenage Waterbender named Katara and her bull-headed brother Sokka, Aang proceeds on a perilous journey to restore balance to their war-torn world.

"M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender” promises to be a summer movie for the ages, combining the imagination and visual canvas of the “Lord of the Rings” saga with the action and spectacle of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

[Duck]

A slow boring action movie. Awesome.

[matrix_ghost]

Eh it could be big if done right.
I'm liking the series. Got some cool action and cool visuals.

[matrix_ghost]

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=22380

If you're a person who laments the decline of the Saturday morning kids cartoon genre, then you should really check out Avatar: The Last Airbender. It may not currently be on TV (we've not been getting up early), but it's available on DVD and it's properly brilliant; beautifully animated and very well written for kids' entertainment. M Night Shyamalan is currently in pre-production adapting the cartoon into a movie trilogy, so now is really the time to get yourself familiar with it.

We chatted with Shyamalan recently and he filled us in on a few details of the movie. For those who don't know the show, he explains the plot thusly:

"The actual plot is in a place where there are four tribes of people. And these people each have people within their tribe that have mastery over one element: water, earth, fire or air. They all live in a balance and harmony and once every generation there is born an individual who can bend – that is manipulate – all four of those elements and thereby keep a balance between all. They are kind of a Buddha figure to some extent. The story is about how, in this particular time, this avatar is born into the airbenders and disappears. Then all hell breaks loose and the fire nation basically commits genocide and eradicates the air tribe in the hopes of killing the avatar and taking over control of everything. This child then re-emerges, which is the beginning of our story. He reappears having been frozen in the ice — there is a whole story about how that happens — a hundred years later and this world is all ****ed up and he is the last airbender, but he doesn’t want this job. He’s forced into the position of putting the world back together again. It actually has a lot of Shakespearean overtones to it. There’s lots of family angst, and fathers denying sons in different storylines."

That all clear? Short version is, there's a small boy called Aang who has the potential to control all the elements and everyone wants to capture him. Shyamalan says it was the mythology and philosophy inherent in the story that attracted him to it.

"Buddhist and Hindu philosophies run through the stuff," he continues. "When I realised that is what it was, it really drew me as the template for putting storytelling on a new level. There is a kind of thread that connects Star Wars and The Matrix – the first one. That same thread is in this story, about a forgotten belief system, or the illusion of the world now."

Of course, philosophy doesn't necessarily guarantee bums on seats. But this is a film that has a great deal of potential for incredible spectacle. The most powerful of the element benders can do great things with their powers, like controlling a raging river or manipulating walls of flame. Done right, this should have some incredible action.

"Obviously [there will be] some breathtaking visual effects," the director says. "Just imagine if you saw a little girl bending water out of a glass into the air as an extension of her own personal discipline. It’s three movies about the hero learning three elements. Live action".

But, equally, Shyamalan doesn't want the film, which he says will shoot on stages in Philadelphia, as well as locations including Greenland, to simply be an excuse for empty spectacle. He also acknowledges that this is a long way from anything he's done before. It's got the philosophical elements he likes, but it's also painting on a much larger canvas than any of his other films and speaking to a younger audience.

"It’s daunting on the level of not doing it properly," he admits. "It can’t be special effects for the sake of special effects, it has to be [that you use] take seven because the girl breathes properly on take seven. I have to tell the animators that. Everything, has to have that detail. I can’t leave it. I have to make sure that I make it the same kind of storytelling, but with just one more tool."

Like we say, this is very different to anything Shyamalan's done before, but we can really see him making this work. Whether you like all his movies or not, you can't deny the man is blessed with a lot of imagination. And that's exactly what a project like this needs – someone who can wrestle the multiple ideas of the show into a simple, coherent and visually amazing film. This should, and hopefully will be, fantastic.

[matrix_ghost]

http://movies.ign.com/articles/894/894111p1.html

SDCC 08: Avatar Creators Talk Airbender Film
The animated writers discuss M. Night's adaptation.
by Tory Ireland Mell
July 27, 2008 - This weekend at San Diego Comic-Con, IGN sat down with the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. The duo briefly discussed the upcoming live-action movie adaptation, currently in preproduction. The film, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, has been recently renamed The Last Airbender, in order to avoid a name conflict with James Cameron's Avatar film.

Konietzko said, "It's going really well. We love the script, and working with [M. Night Shyamalan] it's been really collaborative and he's been really respective of us and the material, and we've been able to help out on some of the artwork, and consulting. It'll be a pretty faithful adaptation of season one, that's the first movie, and hopefully there'll be two more after that."

DiMartino added, "From day one when [Paramount Pictures] said they wanted to do a live-action movie, we wanted it to be its own thing. We already did the series, we did it our way and we want the live-action thing to take on a life of its own. We're excited to see it reinterpreted."

The Last Airbender is currently set for release on July 2, 2010.

[neomaul]

awsome

hopefully it's as cute and action packed as the show.

[matrix_ghost]

Should've posted this sooner

First official pics of Aang and Zuko are out

[skaje]

rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R rated R

[matrix_ghost]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclu ... last/51238

HD LINK

[skaje]

lolwtf. I want to be that guy who gets to narrate all these stupid trailers.

[Smith_the_Gunslinger]

[matrix_ghost]

http://www.ugo.com/movies/the-last-airb ... first-look

[matrix_ghost]

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810071569/video/18070297

THEATRICAL TRAILER ONLINE

[Smith_the_Gunslinger]

Ok, this looks dumb.

[Tesseract]

I'll watch it. The animated series ain't bad. Better then most of the shit Nickelodeon calls entertainment these days.

[skaje]

If M. Night Shyamalan delivers a turd, can we officially stop watching his movies? They have literally been on a downward slope ever since his first one. Without fail:

The Sixth Sense > Unbreakable > Signs > The Village > Lady in the Water > The Happening

[slowmo360]

Sixth Sense < Unbreakable.

Other than that, I totally agree with you.

[skaje]

I agree, both of them are actually quite fantastic films and I have trouble ranking them myself. Unbreakable is a terrific film but I dont think it congeals quite as well as The Sixth Sense does (which I find to be a phenomenally impressive movie).

It would be like:

The Sixth Sense: 10/10
Unbreakable: 9.8/10
Signs: 7.5/10
The Village: 5/10
Lady in the Water: 3/10
The Happening: 1.3/10

[neomaul]

OMG! Momo & Appa look just like in the cartoon.
I can't wait for it to open.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxKIu_Ad ... r_embedded

[Lokkii]

gonna see a midnight showing tonight, hoping its an at least ok movie. only 7% on rotten tommatoes though...

[Lokkii]

.0007/10. i have not felt this violated since the last time i was violated. fuck you shamalamadeuchebag, there will be no sequel.

[skaje]

The Last Airbender is getting a 6%. Eclipse is getting a 52%....tempting, tempting...

[neomaul]

(crying) .0007/10. i have not felt this violated since the last time i was violated. fuck you shamalamadeuchebag, there will be no sequel.

I refuse to believe he fucked another one.
Seeing it tonight

[matrix_ghost]

The Last Airbender is getting a 6%. Eclipse is getting a 52%....tempting, tempting...

http://www.joblo.com/review-the-twilight-saga-eclipse

Perhaps the material is to blame, with the dialogue, most of which seems to have been ripped right out of Stephanie Meyer's books, being so bad they make George Lucas' prequel scripts seem like they were written by David Mamet. I'm amazed Melissa Rosenberg, who does such an awesome job with DEXTER, keeps coming back to the thankless task of adapting the TWILIGHT novels although I supposed the big paycheck doesn't hurt.
Some people hoped the formerly edgy David Slade, of HARD CANDY, might give ECLIPSE a shot of energy but this is totally a paycheck job, with him doing a workman like performance behind the camera. There's no howlers like the 360 degree “watch the seasons change as Bella cries” shot from NEW MOON, but Slade doesn't try to distinguish this film at all. Meanwhile, the special FX, including the ridiculous obvious green screen, and CGI werewolves, seem like they were pulled out of a bad Cannon film. It's amazing that the TWILIGHT films could make so much money, without the producers at least trying to make the FX look passable, and a little less “SyFy channel original movie”-ish. I've seen better CG on episodes of STARGATE: ATLANTIS.

Overall, I absolutely loathed ECLIPSE. It's marginally better than NEW MOON, but that's like saying JONAH HEX is better than X-MEN 3. The difference is negligible, and this is still a shockingly bad piece of work. Five years from now, people will look back at the TWILIGHT SAGA, and wonder what the hell people ever saw in them. That's when those of us who always hated these films will point and laugh.

RATING: 2/10

followed by
http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/2 ... Page1.html

Somehow the Twilight films are getting worse. The more money Summit spends on them, the shittier they become. The first film was bad, but had a ragged charm all its own. The second film, New Moon, was a turgid disaster that finally sputtered out with a complete non-climax. And now the third, Eclipse, is just a tedious slog fit only for the most devoted Twihards. Boring, stupid and utterly squandering the concept of a vampire army fighting werewolves, Eclipse makes New Moon look like a snappy screwball comedy.


Eclipse is a movie where people just stand around talking at each other, delivering the plot and the absurdly minimalist character progression in expositiony chunks.


I swear the last time I saw this level of ineptness in a major studio release it involved Mark Wahlberg running from the wind (disclosure: I think The Happening is a brilliant piece of bad cinema. I do not feel the same way about Eclipse).


Three films in and I remain baffled by the popularity of this franchise. This story is not good, these characters are flat and dull, the mythology is generic and derivative, the romantic themes are centuries outdated. And that's just the books - the films are possibly even worse, because at least it only took Stephenie Meyers to write a bad book. Eclipse is the result of poor work from many actors, the writer, the director, and the producers. The only people who come out looking good are the below the line employees, as Eclipse is the most polished looking of all the Twilight movies. But you know what they say about polished turds, right? They're still Twilight movies.

2 out of 10

http://www.latinoreview.com/movie-revie ... clipse-814

Rating: D+

Eclipse is almost 3 hours of Edward and Bella talking to each other. The most boring on screen couple in the history of cinema, these two pieces of plywood hold hands and talk about the exact same thing for over two hours. It's excruciating to have to sit through. It's almost as if the filmmakers are trying to test our patience with these two. Kristen Stewart, who is somehow getting worse with each picture, still looks at the ground all day while biting her lip and brushing back her hair. My trash can has more energy that this woman. She always looks bored, she puts no energy into the character and I'm sick of looking at her pissy face on screen. It's as if she detests being in front of a camera and is only doing it to pay off some debt to a gay vampire mafia.

Robert Pattinson, who I think is realizing how stupid he looks as Edward, is just as bored looking on screen. These two have no energy and it makes the whole movie drag on even longer than it should. I can tell that he's sick of acting with a person who would rather look at the ground than at his face. Sometimes I wonder if Robert goes to his trailer and practices saying his lines to the floor in preperation for his scenes with Kristen.

[/quote]




ANd finally the greatest Twilight review ever :
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12-6-m ... clipse?m=k

I do not believe there is a filmmaker alive who could manage the impossible feat of creating a faithful adaptation of Meyer's book and also making a good movie. Going into the home stretch, I think this is one of the worst blockbuster franchises of all time, inept from start to finish, and getting worse as they go. There will come a time when we look back on these films and wonder what sort of mob insanity drove their success, and we will laugh and shake our heads and pretend they were never really that popular.

There will be a lot of people seeing these movies this weekend, and nothing I say will change that. But I dare you, as you sit there watching, to really think about what you're looking at. Don't just let this garbage slide across your corneas. Don't just let the parade of pretty faces go by.

Please... if you've found your way here, and if you're reading these words... then I have faith in you. You're better than "The Twilight Saga." We all are

So skaje. My fellow TLFC"er.
I have faith in you. You're better then Twilight.










As for TLA , alas.
I'm still going to watch though one word of advice . I've heard that the 3-d is bad. Not COTT bad but pretty much non existant. You're better off watching it in 2-d.
And it'll be interesting to see how kids will react to TLA. Of course grown ups will react differently to TLA then kids but from what i've read , kids love the movie.

[matrix_ghost]

Drew McWeeny is the only critic who's opinion i truly trust. In 9 out 10 times , i'll agree with his review.

He just put his review of TLA online. Jesus Christ... :
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12-6-m ... -newcomers

I have a sneaking suspicion this is going to be the only film in this particular live-action franchise. If they do move forward, there is little or no chance they will be doing so with Shyamalan attached. And the idea that he's not even competent enough to pull off a live-action version of an action cartoon pretty much puts the last stake in the heart of the notion of him as "the new Spielberg." After I saw "Lady In The Water," I called a friend of mine and compared the film to that footage from the '60s of the monk lighting himself on fire in public as a form of protest. I'd forgotten about that call until my buddy reminded me the other day, but I think that sums up that film and "The Happening" both... cries for help that were public and ugly and left little behind aside from ash and horrifying images. This time out, I think the cries for help are over. This is more like you're at a party and a dude walks up to you and starts telling you a story, but he's so drunk that he gets most of the details wrong and he gets things out of order and he skips important information and, most importantly, he's totally unaware that he's pissed his pants and his dick is showing. It's embarrassing, and you hardly know where to look.

For fans of the show, I can sum up how big a misfire this is very simply. They got Appa wrong. As you can see in the photo, he looks right, but he's just used as a transition from one scene to the next without any discernible personality. I repeat... they got Appa wrong.

[Lokkii]

i just finished re watching the entire animated series and i still cant get the awefullness out of my brain.

[skaje]

Shyamalan will never work again. He has dropped one turd after another. Literally every single movie has been subsequently worse.

Sixth Sense: Amazing movie.
Unbreakable: Great.
Signs: Passable entertainment.
The Village: Stupidly boring.
Lady in the Water: Terrible.
The Happening: Horrifically awful.
Last Airbender: ...critics seem at a loss to describe just how bad it is.

Such a shame.

[Lokkii]

Last Airbender: ...critics seem at a loss to describe just how bad it is.

dude... and pretty much sum it up.

i pray someone who respects the animated series does the other two, but alas they will prob never be made (which sucks because i wanted to see toph in live action form).

[neomaul]

Let's hope the general public don't read reviews.
It did make 16 million on day 1. It should top 50 mill by end of weekend. Any chance of a sequel being made it has to be a financial hit.

[neomaul]

Horrible!

M.Night & Paramount turned a great animated tv show into a shit of a live action movie. For godsake they couldn't even get the pronunciation of the characters names right.