July 7, 2010

• The Advanced Airbender

  M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender is the most hated movie in America, and this is where America gets it wrong.

  First of all, any talk of this movie being racist because of the lack of Asian actors in the leading roles is absurd.  As someone who is said to be hypersensitive about history and race, I will say that the casting for this movie was not racist.  Yes, the movie was adapted from a cartoon (Avatar: The Last Airbender) that was drawn in a Japanese style of animation, and yes, I suppose that some of the characters in the cartoon had an “Asian-look” to them.  I will also concede that Asian philosophy, martial arts, and lettering and symbols prevailed throughout the cartoon.  I will admit that there was an overall “Asian” feel to the cartoon.

  However, this movie isn’t chronicling the ancient history of Earth, nor is it telling a story based on any historical period on Earth.  If any of these were the case, specific attention to race would be appropriate during casting.  Rather, this movie is adapting a cartoon that portrayed a fantasy world that is completely different from our own.  The characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender weren’t Asian, white, black, or Indian, even though they may have looked like it.  They were Air, Water, Earth, and Fire.  And just because Eastern philosophy heavily influenced the animated series, it still doesn’t mean that the characters were Asian.  People who make this argument are basically saying that aliens in science fiction stories who act “Asian” should look Asian.  This just sounds silly.  I mean, George Lucas borrowed elements from Eastern philosophy when he formulated the Jedi code, but no one cared that he didn’t cast a Japanese shogun to play Yoda.

  While they could have casted Asian actors for the cartoon characters who looked Asian, they didn’t really have to because it would have made no difference to the story whatsoever (and not casting Asians doesn’t take anything away from Asian people or culture).  This is not an issue of “yellowface” (in which Asian characters are being portrayed by non-Asians), as some people have said.  People who complain about “yellowface” are just saying that “Japanese people should be the Fire Nation.”  Who’s the racist now?

  It’s not like there weren’t any Asians in the film, too.  There were many Earthbenders who were Asian, and since the Earth Kingdom figures prominently in the second season of Avatar, there will likely be a bunch of Asians in the sequel film (if it’s made).  The truth is that the movie was intelligently casted and could go down as one of the most diversely casted films in recent history.  The four different nations are somewhat distinct from each other, and Aang, the Avatar, is brilliantly casted with an ethnic-neutral-looking Noah Ringer.  People who complain about the casting being racist don’t realize what the fundamental theme of the original series is:  Diversity.

  Other than the race issue, the movie also takes criticism for its bad acting.  People have said that the acting is horrible, the dialogue was forced, and the character interactions were unbelievable.  This is probably true, but the acting is no better or worse than other popular science-fiction /fantasy movies, including Star Wars and Star Trek.  I realize that this may be difficult for some people to accept, but they need to realize that they were likely children when they saw Star Wars for the first time.  When we’re kids, we automatically like any movie our parents take us to see in the theaters.  The reasons why we like Star Wars today are 40% substance and 60% nostalgia.  People hate The Last Airbender for the same reason why people hated The Phantom Menace:  There’s nothing to be nostalgic for.  Nostalgia trumps all reason.  By all technical accounts, Michael Bay’s 2007 film Transformers was a bad movie.  The bad acting and brainless plot was simply a vehicle to deliver big explosions and special effects.  Yet, most people who saw it loved it because they got to see Optimus Prime again, whom they haven’t seen since 1985.  If Transformers (the movie) came out in 1985, I doubt it would be as loved as it was in 2007 because it would have to compete with the cartoon.  If The Last Airbender was released in 2025, it would probably be better received.

  Also keep in mind that The Last Airbender (and Star Wars) is a children’s movie, no matter how many cosplaying adults at AnimExpo refute that claim.  Yes, the acting and dialogue was bad and corny, but when Princess Yue said, “We believe in our beliefs just as much as they believe in their beliefs,” that was no more preposterous and contrived than when Obi-Wan Kenobi first said, “May the Force be with you.”  You know this to be true (as Yoda would say).

  Now, to be fair to all the haters, the anime purists probably have the biggest gripe with the movie.  They feel that the movie’s plot wasn’t completely true to the story in the series.   They say that too many creative liberties were taken to condense the ten hour anime series (Season 1) into a ninety-minute motion picture.   The end result was that the movie was a failed adaption of the original series in every aspect imaginable:  The story was tweaked, it didn’t capture the mythology, the character development was nonexistent, and the overall spirit of the show was sucked out of it.  All of this they blame squarely on the writer, producer, and director, all of whom are M. Night Shyamalan.

  Shyamalan was probably the last person anyone would have suspected to helm The Last Airbender.  Best known for the highly thought-provoking psycho-drama The Sixth Sense (which starred Bruce Willis and a sober Haley Joel Osment), Shyamalan’s movies have mostly been psychological thrillers about ghosts, aliens, ladies in water, happenings, and spooky villages.  As such, Shyamalan is particularly popular with college students, heroin addicts, and wiccans.  But ever since the critically-acclaimed The Sixth Sense was released eleven years ago, his movies have received increasingly negative criticism.  His style of having “twist endings” has been said to have gotten old, and he’s been labeled as a one-trick pony.  Has Shyamalan, who was considered a genius filmmaker in1999, progressively gotten worse?  Is he only good for making psycho-thrillers, and if so, is The Last Airbender his attempt to shed that stigma? 

  These may be questions that Jason Hartley might want to answer.  In his book The Advanced Genius Theory, Hartley postulates that artistic geniuses will always be geniuses, even if their later works aren’t as likeable as their earlier, more popular stuff.  Using Bob Dylan and Lou Reed as prime examples, he theorizes that they are not as popular today not because their new music sucks, but because their genius has advanced beyond what most people can appreciate.   Rather than concede that artistic genius fades over time, Hartley proposes that artists become more brilliant as time goes on and that the general public aren’t as Advanced.  While mostly everyone loved The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan’s most recent films have been slammed by critics and generally audiences alike.  But did he all of a sudden start sucking, or did we all of a sudden just not understand him?  Hartley’s Theory might be true, or it might just be a way to justify liking shitty stuff. 

  It might take a certain level of humility to like The Last Airbender.  So, if you didn’t like the movie, the problem might be you.

  • 8:33 pm
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