Ribbons wrote:Funnily enough, I found this post in the James Cameron's AVATAR thread explaining a little bit about what this series is. So if anyone's interested in a primer on what Shyamalan's working on, read on.
MonkeyM666 wrote:...this is my favourite new cartoon of '06.
I can't be bothered writing the whole description, so read the below from TV.com
In a lost age, the world is divided into four nations: the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads. Within each nation, there is a remarkable order of men and women called the "benders" who can learn to harness their inborn talent and manipulate their native element. Bending is a powerful form combining martial art and elemental magic. In each generation, only one bender is solely capable of controlling all four elements. That bender is the Avatar.
It's an east meets west US cartoon that is aimed at early teens, so when you watch it expect some younger humour and the like. I enjoy it so much because it reminds me of the excitement I felt when I watched shows like Voltron and Pizza Cats as a kid. It uses the ever-constant Jap-epic plot line (save the world, you are the chosen one although you don't want to be... etc), so the story keeps building from ep to ep, series to series.
I can imagine that Nick are planning to make a movie or two about is as well. It would easily cross formats and make them a bucket load of cash at the same time.Nickelodeon are promoting the hell out of it, making it their 'big hitter' of the season. There’s card games, video games, dvds, toys…. Everything a sly marketing exec can think of.
It's currently in season 2, and I'm waiting for season 3 to start soon.


ALSO:
MonkeyM666 wrote:I can imagine that Nick are planning to make a movie or two about is as well. It would easily cross formats and make them a bucket load of cash at the same time.
Good call on that one, Monkey!
Boody hell, I didn't even know this thread existed (thanks Havoc and Lord VM.) let alone that I was being quoted in it!
Personally I hate the choice of director. Lady in the water was very limp wristed and self-indulgent. Sure he's done a couple of younger style films (Stuart Little is the main one, all though it is aimed at a slightly younger audience, not tweens like avatar is aimed at), but so what?! It just had to be PG 13 violence, the story will take care of it self in regards to themes and the like. The avatar universe is one that focuses quite heavily on the innocence of Ang, the lead, and he'll focus on that too much.
One of the main reasons that Avatar is so popular is the action, and I am yet to see Shyamalan pull that off successfully. He always just implies action, it's like he failed that unit of film school or something (I have only seen Stuart Little, The Village, Lady in the Water and unbreakable so I may be wrong).
Along with all that, if he casts himself as Ang or one of angs sensei’s I will go spare. I can't see if there's any word if he's directing all three or only one. Could it turn out like the Harry potter movie franchise? Let's see Alfonso Cuarón do another kids film. Prisoner of Azkaban was great, but maybe he's a bit dark for it. what about Tetsuya Nomura just for the action scenes then Shyamalan can do the rest of it.
There you go, that's an idea.