Mar. 17th, 2009
Today's tweet(s)
Mar. 17th, 2009 02:02 am- 01:41 There once was a man from Nantucket / who was really, really bad at limericks / and even worse at haiku. #
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Mar. 17th, 2009 06:24 pm![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Anyone who hasn't seen this show ought to give it a chance. For all of the superficial facets pointing to it being your traditional Saturday-morning cartoon, it's incredibly smart, with genuine character-based humor and development, well-animated action sequences, smart plotting, excellent acting (they actually cast kids for the main characters), and a fully-realized world. They specifically plotted this show out for three seasons, and they know how they were going to spend every single half-hour episode. Small details that are mentioned offhand may show up in more significant capacity further down the line, and there are numerous scenes that are out-and-out gorgeous to watch.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Now, like I said, the "fully-realized world" was an incredibly important part of the atmosphere in Avatar. It pretty much lives and breathes, and you can see how much work was put into creating it. Each of the different cultures takes its element from a different culture: The Water Tribe is very heavily Inuit-influenced (note their manner of dress and the color of their skin, as well as their villages), the Air Nomads (more or less extinct as of the beginning of the show, hence the sub-title "The Last Airbender") more or less based on Tibetans (their mode of dress), and the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation based on different eras of Chinese rule. The inhabitants of this world are more or less Asian.
For the movie, we currently have:
Main characters from "Hero" races (Two from the Water Tribe and an Air Nomad thus far): White.
Characters from "Villain" race: Iranian, Indian (two thus far), Maori.
I think the best word to summarize all this is "blargh." While I like all the actual actors playing the characters (at least, the Fire Nation characters--I don't really know any of the main characters), I just want to spend my time banging my head against the wall hearing about the casting choices and its basic implications.
Y'know what, though? I don't have to watch this film. I don't know how they're planning on distilling something like Avatar into a couple of hours, anyway, even if it's apparently planned to be a trilogy. I do highly recommend checking out the TV series when you can, though.