you really need the pictures of the cast to get the full effect of what Shyamalan is doing here.

However, the Katara and Sokka actors look reasonably right on. As for the Aang actor, no picture, no opinion.

You people who claim to have an open mind need to get over the fact that it's "just a silly cartoon" and just sit down and watch it. Good is good. Avatar is great.

Avatar was an impressively well done show. I hope that M Night working within the constraints of a pre-existing franchise will stop him from repeating the mistakes he's made recently.

Thank you... It's nice to know I'm not the only one who liked that movie. It wasn't award-worthy, or anything, but it was pleasant modern escapism... nice to think that fairy tales could still happen even in these cynical times. I liked the characters, too, and Paul Giamatti has my seal of approval anyday (absolutely brilliant in John Adams).

Then again, in most popular anime (even American-anime for lack of a better term) everyone has big eyes and looks (again for lack of a better term) white. It's everything else that makes the world look Asian (I personally think the score has alot to do with it).

Let's face it, even if the cast looked Asian it'll still be a Hollywood cast. Question is, when is the live-action Venture Bros. movie being made?

Also, M Night should play the cabbage guy.

Hopefully this'll be Shyamalan in Unbreakable form, because as a fan of Avatar I'll be obligated to see its cinematic adaptation.

Critically, sure, they were panned. But that's a whole different verb than 'flopped'

I think, by the way, that his two worst films have been "The Happening" and "The Village". "Lady in the Water" was simple, quirky, and entertaining.

On the other hand, I don't really care that much; I don't work hard to see racism everywhere I look.

this has to be it. this one tanks, loses a shit ton of money somehow even with a built-in fan base, and Shyamalan will finally be done.

The Village was a fucking piece of shit that had no reason to exist other than to provide a terrible twist ending. It would have been better if the woods actually had monsters in it. Not much better, but it would have avoided the insult to the intelligence twist he dumps on you. His worst film.

The Lady in the Water was an interesting idea, poorly executed. The film critic character was embarrasing, and casting himself as the writer who will change the world is just asking for it. It's a mess of a film.

The Happening was just a bad idea to begin with, coupled with the fact that he had no idea where to take that bad idea. It would be his worst film if it weren't so absurdly amusing.

"Oh no! Look at the grass! It's wind!"

"What do we do?"

"Run!"

"Where?"

"I don't know? It's wind! Just run goddamn it!"

*Everyone runs*

"Oh, good. We're safe. The wind has died down."

The Happening not only sucked but in one foul swoop it killed any interest I had in watching anything this guy makes again. I now find myself even more confused. Do I now go back a reaffirm my appreciation of his earlier work. How can someone who created the Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and yep Lady in the Water make a film that wouldn't seem out of place in Uwe Bolls resume.....Jesus had days like this.......

The new James Bond flicks have been relatively good, and TBers didn't blast them. The old 007 flicks are near and dear to lots of folks, but we were open-minded about the new ones.

If anything was going to get hate spewed at it, it was going to be LotR. The LotR trilogy is the second most-read books in history. But that movie kicked butt and TBers said so.

TBers usually have a pretty good read on films after only a little information leaks. Case-in-point: flames on Optimus Prime (not to mention lips). After that info came out, TBers spewed hate on Transformers and sure enough... Transformers sucked the big one. So give credit where credit is due. TBers have a knack for spotting crap a mile off.

P.S. there is no modern hip hop better that grandmaster flash

Avatar was incredibly weird. Weird in the sense that it was so great, but had everything going against it. American production, for Nickelodeon (or however you spell it) and definitely for little kids. Considering that most productions have way more going for them, and usually end up as crap, there is very little reason that this show would have ended up the classic that it is. I encourage everyone to watch it.

M. Night directing worries me, I'm afraid his ego might prevent him from recognizing this as the moment as a filmmaker to take a backseat to the strength of the project and the source material. If he can do that, I think he might turn out something on par with Harry Potter, if he fails, we'll get another Golden Compass- that is, a rare, beautiful children's story that any adult can enjoy, rendered in film with it's balls chopped off.

That would be a great shame, there are so few of these kinds of stories these days, the kind of kids story that a parent can be proud to show his kids, and (secretly enjoy just as much) there's a part of me that doesn't want anyone to mess with it. Please, M. Night, don't fuck this up.

Oh yeah, and as far as the race issue- I got the impression that the races were sort of ambiguous, the characters were different colors, but it was never an issue. That was one of my favorite things about the show, a very subtle point- that racism is something that's taught, Zuko's character is one that has been taught since birth that his nation is superior, that he and they are entitled to take over the world, and it takes a multi-national (implied multi-ethnic) group of friends to show him the error of his ways. Race is never an issue in Avatar, but issues of bigotry, oppression, persecution and hatred are. Let's respect the writers and make sure we have a bit of a mixed cast, huh? To make them all lily-white would be the first disservice to the source material.

here's Roger Ebert's summation of it. hilarious and SO accurate:

"Solemn violin dirges permeate the sound track. It is autumn, overcast and chilly. Girls find a red flower and bury it. Everyone speaks in the passive voice. The vitality has been drained from the characters; these are the Stepford Pilgrims. The elders have meetings from which the young are excluded. Someone finds something under the floorboards. Wouldn't you just know it would be there, exactly where it was needed, in order for someone to do something he couldn't do without it.

Eventually the secret of Those, etc., is revealed. To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore.

And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we're back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets."

What has vexed me for a long time is why so many characters in japenese anime appear european or american. Plenty of examples in Bleach, Full Metal Alchemist, Naruto, Code Geass, + many more. Has this phenomena been the topic of much discusion, or have I just not seen enough anime.