M. Night Shyamalan on live-action ‘Airbender’

News | Film News | by Mark Pollard

One of the hottest family programs on television at the moment is Nickelodeon’s kung fu and anime-influenced cartoon AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER. SIXTH SENSE helmer M. Night Shyamalan previously announced plans to adapt this series into a live-action feature film and recently spoke to Sci Fi Wire about it.

“It has martial arts and spirituality and the supernatural, and it has Buddhist philosophy and Hindu philosophy–really, everything I talk about–all in one movie,” Shyamalan said in an interview while promoting his latest writing and directing effort, THE HAPPENING.

“It has a mythology,” Shyamalan added. “It’s Shakespearean. It’s all this incredible stuff, and it has a balance. All these movies are plays on magic, whether it’s LORD OF THE RINGS or THE MATRIX or STAR WARS even, and each one of them relates to me in a different way, in its belief system.”

Shyamalan recalled sensing “some kind of religion” in Star Wars when he saw the film for the first time at age 7. “I couldn’t articulate it when I was in [a] station wagon between my parents; back then, you could sit in the front seat,” he said, laughing. “I felt the same thing watching this show. I was like, ‘This is the Eastern-philosophy STAR WARS movie.’ I started thinking about what it meant to me, if I could imbue it with the things that are important to me. And, lo and behold, here we are.”

I have yet to sit down and watch the AIRBENDER series but it’s on my radar. The series has been on the air since 2005 and has picked up numerous awards. It’s one of the few series on TV in the U.S., animated or live-action, that deals with Eastern themes including martial arts, Buddhist thought and what could be interpreted as the channeling of qi energies.

M. Night Shyamalan’s live-action AIRBENDER is expected to be released in 2010. It will follow another live-action adaptation of an even more popular martial arts-themed animated series when James Wong’s DRAGONBALL, starring Justin Chatwin, James Masters and Chow Yun-fat arrives in 2009.

AVATAR: THE AIRBENDER [TV] – New York Comic Con trailer

Tags: animation, TV

Robotech_Master

The Avatar Season 3 box set release date is approaching.

This would be a great time to watch the series from beginning to end for some reviews.

Just sayin'. :)

Robotech_Master

Just a little note that Nick finally starts airing new episodes of Avatar again this coming Monday, and won't stop until the two hour series finale!

Peter

It's a great show, maybe because of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UveI0EHaIuA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C0RvNVfT1Y&...

I only hope they don't screw it up like they are doing with Dragonball.

By the way, tomorrow is the airing the next chapter, isn't it?

KimchiGUN

I'm looking for to it... much more than DBZ UGH!

Robotech_Master

I believe Avatar is one of the best shows on TV today (I've posted my review of the series as a so-far whole in the forum), and certainly one of few Western shows of any kind that I've seen that pays more than lip service to Far Eastern philosophical concepts as well as the martial arts.

(Any time you see even a live-action martial arts show on western TV, it plays up the fighting aspects while fortune-cookie-izing the philosophy—and worse. Consider Kung Fu, which was developed by Bruce Lee, but far be it from Hollywood to allow an Oriental character to be played by an Oriental actor! Even Sammo Hung's Martial Law largely played up Hung's foreignness and trouble pronouncing English words for cheap laughs.)

There's such marvelous attention to detail in Avatar that they even go to the trouble of having the writing on signs and posters be precise and accurate. Fans on the Avatar forum have a field day translating and discussing what it says. (There is no English writing in the show's signage at all—only Chinese. How many other kids' shows have done that?) There are even some jokes or references that you only get if you understand Chinese or Japanese (though they don't get in the way of enjoying the show for everyone else).

And the show doesn't talk down to kids, and is not afraid of being pretty dark when it has to. Sure, they can't show (much) blood or graphic deaths—but they manage to turn this from a weakness into a storytelling strength, because they know what remains just out of sight is often far more powerful than what is seen.

I literally cannot praise this show enough, and will be looking forward to Mark Pollard's review if and when he finally gets to watch the show. (But since it's going to be a total of 61 episodes long, in three seasons of 20, 20, and 21, he had probably better block out some time. :)