Which frankly I didn't think was possible after the Village and the Happening. Hell, this was suppossed to more or less be his comeback piece. A huge budget, a potentially huge property, and since he had an established lore and story to follow, he couldn't possibly include any of his usual nonsensical plot twists and surprises. But yes, M. Night Shahadoons take on the beloved and completely awesome Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender is a complete affront to fans of the show and moviegoers in general. I could forgive the lack of appropriate race casting (most of the cast of the cartoon is Asian or Indian) as it admittedly might have a less broad appeal that way, but the actors (aside from the kid playing Aang, who does an okay job) are all completely terrible. Their are numerous essential elements of the show either completely butchered, missing or changed for no reason to something compleltely ridiculous, the special effects are serviceable at best, and the fighting is choppy, slow and extremely clumsy. Finally, if you watched the series, you know that that while it is a fairly serious affair about rebelling against a violent empire, it also had a ton of hilarious moments. The offbeat humor was a key element, and it's pretty much completely absent from the movie. This will arguably be his biggest failure to date and frankly given his track record over his last 5 films, I'd say we are all better off if it's his last.
So, Nintendo's E3 press conference was 20 kinds of awesome, but they were lacking in one big area: NEW IP. As much as we loved seeing all those old franchises updated, their pretty much wasn't anything new, making many think Nintendo has pretty much blown their wad and won't be able to follow it up next year. While it will be hard regardless, the good news is that Shigeru Miyamoto knows this, and has stated that they in fact need new characters, which they should focus on next year, so kudos to him for realizing this, I hope they can keep up with it.
Birth By Sleep is coming up fast (Sept. 7), and I thought I'd do my little bit to promote it by making a fanvid"
Finally, Roger Ebert has recanted? No of course not, that'd be silly. He simply apologizes for expressing his half-assed opinion that he still clings just as strongly to about games not now and not ever being art. Gamers are seeing this as some sort of victory? Why? Frankly the man shouldn't apologize for giving his opinion on the matter, that he should be free to express all he wants, it's the whole point of free speech. Just as the gaming community is free to respond. That he shouldn't have apologized for, and it's damn cowardly of him to do so frankly. So the gaming community is hounding him about it? Get a goddamn backbone and don't sort of apologize for having the opinion in the first place. Essenitally saying "I still believe what I said, but I was wrong to say it anyways" is a complete fucking cop out.
That's really all for today, but I'll probably try and post something this weekend if I can, in the meantime, here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Infectonator!
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You left "Lady in the Water" out of your recent M. Night flops. ;) Or maybe you liked that one? I like most of his stuff, but LitW was kinda meh. I DO hope Shyamalan continues to make films, but he should probably stick to writing/directing his own, original stuff from now on. An established franchise with a large fanbase is not something someone with his track record should screw around with. :p
And I thought Dev Patel did all right as Zuko. The hardly-there-face-scar was a letdown, but the character did show some appropriate anger/intensity from time-to-time.
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