M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender

[doug maverick]

i know phil sylvera, good guy, good martial artist too.

[Zenshiite]

^Will that translate on screen? Any of the other people involved got roots in Chinese martial arts? Aside from Ming Liu that is, I understand she's been a long time Hong Kong stunt person.

[doug maverick]

phil is a stunt man, for a long time now. go youtube him or something check his stuff out.

[Lokhopkuen]

Hi - i'm new to the forum. I have a kung fu family. I used to practice taiji until I needed back surgery... my husband trains/teaches wing chun. My 12yr old son, my older brother and my sister and her 3 boys practice Northern Shaolin.

I've been lurking and keeping up with the Airbender news and Zenshiite asked about the stunt coords...

IMBD posted them the other day:

Stunts
Erik Betts .... stunts
Jon Braver .... stunts
Ben Cooke .... fight coordinator
Christopher Leps .... stunts
Ming Liu .... stunt performer
Mark Rounthwaite .... fight coordinator
Philip J Silvera .... stunts
Gary Ray Stearns .... stunts

I've also read the rumour about MNight giving himself the role of Iroh.
If I was not a fan of the show, I would probably watch the movie. However that is not the case.

I wonder when this movie comes out with its own fans (ones who have never seen the show, movie only) what will they think when they watch the animated version?

Anyways - any of the names above sound familiar? Better yet, any of the cast sound familiar? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0938283/fullcredits#cast

Erik Betts is good as an acrobat ( we were on Power Rangers a million years ago) I hear he's recovering from an injury, Ming Liu is his wife or girlfriend, solid Wu Shu and a good stunt player.
Philip J Silvera I had never heard of until Jose Rodriguez (associate producer) mentioned he was hiring him. Jeff Habberstadd is the top dog as far as stunt coordinator on that show. I liked his work in Jarhead and Unbreakable. Originally they wanted Jeff Imada on board looking for some "Borne Identity" style fights but I'm not sure what happened there. With 150 million for a budget I don't see how they could f u c k it up but stranger things have happened in film.

[doug maverick]

Erik Betts is good as an acrobat ( we were on Power Rangers a million years ago) I hear he's recovering from an injury, Ming Liu is his wife or girlfriend, solid Wu Shu and a good stunt player.
Philip J Silvera I had never heard of until Jose Rodriguez (associate producer) mentioned he was hiring him. Jeff Habberstadd is the top dog as far as stunt coordinator on that show. I liked his work in Jarhead and Unbreakable. Originally they wanted Jeff Imada on board looking for some "Borne Identity" style fights but I'm not sure what happened there. With 150 million for a budget I don't see how they could f u c k it up but stranger things have happened in film.

superman returns-250million dollars= ****ing two hours of boring trash.

miami vice=200million dollars=the worse dialogue in the history of film.

[Zenshiite]

Plus, there's pretty much everything that M. Night has done since Unbreakable that hasn't exactly been great.

[Shaolinlueb]

Plus, there's pretty much everything that M. Night has done since Unbreakable that hasn't exactly been great.

which mean 2 of his 8 movies have been good? thats a sh*tty track record. lady of the water was good i thought.

[doug maverick]

the only m.night film i liked was sixth sense, and this amex commercial he did. other then that, eh....

[Jimbo]

As unpopular as it was, I kinda liked Lady in the Water, though I thought M.Night Shyamalan's ego went way overboard on that one. At least the actors had some personality in it. In most of M. Night's films, the actors have to act like they're sleepwalking zombies.

I thought Sixth Sense was so-so, but the rest of his films are no good. Especially his last one, The Happening. I kept giving him the benefit of the doubt, but after The Happening, I won't be going to see anymore of his films.

[Zenshiite]

So I just watched Tropic Thunder and I'm now wondering why Brandon Soo Hoo... the little kid that played the leader of the drug gang... wasn't cast as Aang.

[doug maverick]

maybe cause he wasnt offered he role or he didnt go for the role. who knows seriously. i seriously think the entire cast is about to be scrapped anyway, because they were holding auditions up here in queens ny, looking for asian kids between the ages of 10-13. which means we may have a new avatar soon.

[Zenshiite]

Haha, seriously?

I have absolutely not confidence in the movie... I just want to buy the series on dvd is all.

[Shaolinlueb]

doug why don't you go try out for the fire lord guy?

[GeneChing]

It's three pages - this is only page 1. You can click the link for the rest...

In Va., Casting About For Mongolian Actors
By Dan Zak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 2, 2009; Page C01

Hollywood searching for Mongolians in Northern Virginia . . .

An odd premise, but it explains why a casting director is draping a beige smock over a cute Mongolian American boy in an apartment building in Rosslyn.

"We'll make you look like a warrior," the casting director with dirty-blond curls tells the boy. She holds up a camera and says, "Now don't smile."

"Smile!" calls the boy's father, who was born in Ulan Bator.

"No, he shouldn't smile," a casting assistant tells him. "They don't like people to smile because it's not how you really look."

On Saturday, a casting team was bouncing around Arlington -- home to several thousand Mongolians -- seeking potential members of the Earth Kingdom, a tribe in the animated TV series "Avatar: The Last Airbender," which director M. Night Shyamalan (known for gotcha-ending thrillers like "The Sixth Sense") is turning into a live-action film.

What do members of the Earth Kingdom look like? Like they're from Mongolia. Or Cambodia or Laos. Something like that. Exotically Asian, at least. Like they could be an extra in a movie that's based on a series that's inspired by many Eastern traditions, from Japanese anime and Tibetan Buddhism to kung fu cinema and yoga.

"Night doesn't know what it is he wants, but he'll know it when he sees it," says DeeDee Ricketts, the casting director. At the least, it's a chance for locals to get on the set of a major motion picture. But this is Shyamalan, so there's a twist.

In December, the lead "Airbender" characters of Zuko, Aang and Sokka were filled by a trio of young white males: pop singer Jesse McCartney, newcomer Noah Ringer (a karate **** from Texas) and "Twilight" star Jackson Rathbone.
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Those character names again: Zuko, Aang and Sokka. Played by a Jesse, a Noah and a Jackson.

"I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan," Rathbone told MTV.com, presumably just before his publicist sat him down for a chat about political correctness. "It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit."

But the only thing some fans will suspend are their plans to see the movie when it opens in summer 2010. Forums online including LiveJournal have spearheaded letter-writing campaigns to object to the casting. More than 2,000 people have joined a Facebook group titled "Save the 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' Movie from an All-White Cast."

[Zenshiite]

Man o man. This Dee Dee Ricketts just sounds worse and worse the more I hear about her.