Avatar: The Last Airbender live action film pre-production interview

[timepiececlock]

Here's the 10 minute interview with M. Shyamalan regarding the Avatar live-action trilogy. This is the first I've heard or seen about the movie since the news that he was doing the project, and I am actually somewhat reassured by what we see here. Initially, at least.

I'm mixed feelings of him as a director: I think he has talent and skill but his lastest movies have fallen flat for me, and I only actually enjoyed about half of his total film work. But what I liked, I *really* liked. I'm excited to see this because I feel like his talent as a director exceeds his talent as a writer, so maybe if he does an adaptation--particularly from a well-written source--then the end result will shine. And since the three films will apparently mimic the three season plotline with ongoing story arcs (a good choice and better than a single film) we know that he'll have to be significantly faithful to the material because the path is already laid out ahead of him.

Unlike his previous films (except perhaps Stuart Little) this comes with an enormous fanbase. I don't mean the online fans or the convention- go-ers , I mean all the kids and teenagers that give the series it's high ratings and buy merchandise and come preladen with expectations. From the interview he says his daughter got him to watch it, so I'm going to cross my fingers that he'll be faithful to the spirit of the show to impress her if for no other reason.

Apparently he is:

1) "in love" with the series

2) prepared to devote his entire life for the next six years to this trilogy

3) actively involving the original creators/writers in his outline/script process

4) thanking the series creators for writing "the coolest mythology I've ever seen"

5) a huge fan of Hayao Miyazaki / Studio Ghibli films which have pervasive and visible influence in ATLA's visual style

6) plans to cast unknown child actors for the leads


This is really happening folks! That's right... in a few years everyone on my flist who isn't watching this insanely great magical martial arts epic that I keep blabbing about will have the chance to experience the story on the big screen and see what all the fuss is about.

Minor notes: I am a bit sad, I admit, that this means we probably will never see an animated full feature-length film for the show. I would love to see this written and animated with a feature's budget. I am also curious as to how the series will handle the violent content. The series is already PG-level in animated form, and certain things could be pushing PG-13 if shown with real actors, where the fighting won't get away with as much as it can in animated form, where people are inclined to judge it with a lower rating than the content might otherwise get. It's true that a lot of the mature ideas are in dialogue and implication rather than visually shown, but there's enough visual violence to make me wonder, especially in season 2.

What am I most excited about?

THE COSTUMES!

No matter how good or bad the movie is, I bet the costumes will be great and I can't wait to see how the costume-designers translate the animated character designs to clothing for live actors. The costume styles and varieties and cultural influences are one of most interesting and consistently strong parts of ATLA's style, so I am really excited to see what the designers come up with.

Comments

Re: I am hoping for that too

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

just a random thought (which probably should've occurred to me ages ago)--the reason the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom's skin tones are all mixed is probably due to inter-breeding. At least on the Earth Kingdom's side, and I feel like the majority of the FN people we've seen have been pale, so...wow. For some reason this bunnying me, and I don't know why.

in other video-clip-related news, those three guys are huge dorks, and it makes me smile inside to see how goofy they are. *crosses fingers and hopes for a good film*

Re: I am hoping for that too

[oyster-district.livejournal.com]

The Earth Kingdom is the country that has had to deal with colonization the longest, so it makes sense that there would be more cross-pollination, as it were. I think it's only Fire Nation elite who stay racially isolated -- the folks who stay within the archipelago or are colonial governors. The infantrymen and sailors and their families do more traveling at a younger age -- there have to be Fire Navy sailors with Earth Kingdom wives/girlfriends.