Avatar: The Last Airbender

Destroying Avatar "The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented"
(Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times). Many have sat through and watched The Last Airbender, directed by Shyamalan, while others have ravished over Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Nickelodeon cartoon. Both of these have the same concept and story line, but yet still vary completely. Shyamalan altered the setting, plot structure, added and deleted ideas and details from the cartoon, as well as portrayed the characters differently from the original episodes. In The Last Airbender, several rumors arose over the controversy regarding the casting; how Caucasian actors portrayed all the heroes, while non-Caucasians portrayed all the villains. In the original cartoon, Katara and Sokka came from Inuit ethnicities, but yet in the movie, Caucasians played them. Likewise for the Fire nation who were portrayed from central Asian and the Middle Eastern areas, and in both the film and original cartoon, the Fire Nation is seen as the villains. Shyamalan claims he tried to be more “culturally diverse and organic at the same time” (Shyamalan Interview). When casting the Fire Nation, Shyamalan seemed to like more of the Mediterranean, Asian, Korean, and so forth, ethnicities. All dark skinned. So did Shyamalan purposely cast darker-skinned actors as the villains to portray that those who were “unfortunate” enough to be born into such ethnicities became automatically labeled as a scoundrel? Of course not, for Shyamalan himself was an Indian and dark skinned. Unless, he had some kind of hatred toward his culture, which caused him to cast all dark skinned characters as the villains, giving the underlying meaning that not only is Shyamalan racist, but also prejudice. Anyone who has seen the groundbreaking cartoon before must realize how Shyamalan develops, or rather doesn’t develop, the characters throughout his film. The original

Cited: 2010. Netflix. Web. 31 Aug. 2011 "Budget « Last Airbender Film | Avatar: The Legend of Korra News, and Media Fan Blog." Last Reviews, News, Quotes, & Cultural Commentary. Web. 31 Aug. 2011.