#is this about the Netflix live action being announced

[schwirrymartz]

Why is NGE trending

#no seriously #was there an announcement about idk the fourth rebuild not being the final or what #is netflix doing a live-action adaptation #help i just woke up #nge #neon genesis evangelion

[nightprompts]

&. 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞 (𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧) 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬.

( dialogue prompts taken from episodes 5 & 6 ( "eat at baratie!" & "the chef and the chore boy" ) of the netflix live action one piece series. feel free to edit and change as you seem fit. )

❛ how about we sail away as fast as we can? ❜

❛ about the battle, you wanna talk about it? ❜

❛ there's something on the breeze. smells like butter. soy sauce. and meat. ❜

❛ think he has brain damage? ❜

❛ i smell food, which means that there's someone somewhere cooking. ❜

❛ what's a... baratie? ❜

❛ let's eat! ❜

❛ you'll have to excuse them. they're idiots. ❜

❛ wanna take this outside? ❜

❛ are you asking me to dance? 'cause i kind of had my eye on that blonde at table eight. ❜

❛ i call it a true bluefin sauté. it's elephant tuna, seared asparagus, in a sweet soy reduction. ❜

❛ if i gotta sling one more prime rib medium-well, i am going to drop dead of boredom, you old shitbag! ❜

❛ this ain't gonna be a fight. i'm just going to kill him. ❜

❛ hi, welcome to our shitty restaurant where the only thing worse than the ambience is the food. ❜

❛ one of our signature cocktails to help you choke down your meal? ❜

❛ apologies, madam, i didn't see you there. ❜

❛ something wrong with your eye? ❜

❛ just blinded by your beauty. ❜

❛ nami's got a boyfriend. ❜

❛ did i catch you in the middle of something? ❜

❛ just killing some time. ❜

❛ who's the quarry? ❜

❛ doesn't sound like much of a challenge. ❜

❛ why are you after me? ❜

❛ you woke me from my nap. ❜

❛ i can't eat another bite. but it's so good. ❜

❛ who the hell is monkey d. luffy? ❜

❛ i don't even think there's liquor in this. it tastes just like candy. ❜

❛ who's ready for another drink? my treat. ❜

❛ i don't really do regret. no point in looking back. ❜

❛ sometimes, when i try to look ahead, all i see is back. ❜

❛ you know, you're a really good cook. ❜

❛ if a man is hungry, i feed him. ❜

❛ what are you carrying around that's so heavy? ❜

❛ i bet i know more about you than you do about me. ❜

❛ i guess something about you, you drink. you guess something about me, i drink.❜

❛ i have business with your captain. if you know what's good for you, you'll hand him over. ❜

❛ i've been following your career since i was a child. it's an honor to finally meet you, sir. which is why it pains me to inform you that tomorrow... you're going to die. ❜

❛ accept my challenge. you'll see how serious i am. ❜

❛ you want me to say you're the best? you're the best. okay? ❜

❛ you're the best i've ever seen, but you are not better than him. ❜

❛ why do you give a shit? ❜

❛ because you're my friend, you idiot. ❜

❛ you said it yourself. you don't have any friends. ❜

❛ what is that? i'm here for a sword fight. ❜

❛ i don't hunt rabbits with a cannon. ❜

❛ you're brave. i'll give you that. ❜

❛ wounds on the back are a swordsman's greatest shame. ❜

❛ this world could use a few more wild cards. ❜

❛ it's too soon for you to die. grow strong and come find me. i'll be waiting. ❜

❛ you could never fail me. ❜

❛ look, i'm not gonna lie to you. he's lost a lot of blood. it might be too late for him. but it might not be. ❜

❛ he's got one foot in each world right now, caught between life and death. you have to find a way to keep him tethered to our world. ❜

❛ nice of you to announce yourself. ❜

❛ i don't take orders. not even from the likes of you. ❜

❛ what's the matter? don't like fish? ❜

❛ if you don't want the fish, i got two-inch t-bones in the kitchen. or maybe you're in the mood for saffron risotto? ❜

❛ i can make anything. just tell me what you want. ❜

❛ being a captain, it's the toughest job in the world, okay? ❜

❛ how'd you two meet? were you on his crew or something? ❜

❛ oregano's for savages! ❜

❛ you've got a sharp tongue on you, boy. how about i cut it out and fry it up with some pig fat? ❜

❛ do what you want, but i'm not gonna die here. ❜

❛ they're all dead, except for us. ❜

❛ you ate it? you ate your own leg? ❜

❛ you don't even know me. why would you do that for a stranger? ❜

❛ so i'm gonna need you to live on. and i'm gonna need you to fulfill that dream... for both of us. ❜

❛ have any idea what that's like? having someone lose a limb to save your life? ❜

❛ sometimes, when you are in charge, you have to make the tough decisions. ❜

❛ i'd do anything to save him. anything. except stand in the way of his dream. ❜

❛ isn't there something that you want? something more than anything else in this world? ❜

❛ not everyone gets to follow their dreams. ❜

❛ did you not hear what i just said? they are hunting you. we need to run. ❜

❛ i can't let innocent people get hurt because of me. ❜

❛ i hear you're looking for me. ❜

❛ so this is the pirate i've heard so much about? ❜

❛ do you know who i am, boy? ❜

❛ how'd you even know how to find me? ❜

❛ if you bow down to me, i might even let you serve in my kingdom. ❜

❛ i don't bow down to any man. ❜

❛ i told you in the bar i didn't have any friends, but the truth is, i couldn't let myself have them... because i always end up hurting the people closest to me. ❜

❛ why waste your time killing a devil fruit eater? let the sea do it for you. ❜

❛ what is your problem? ❜

❛ me? i'm fine. you're the one with the problem. ❜

❛ you're not gonna be anything, not if you stay here. ❜

❛ it's not like i can just leave. ❜

❛ don't you get it? it's one thing to have a dream. it's another to go after it. ❜

❛ you want my permission? you got it. ❜

❛ i didn't know what to say before, but i know what to say now, and it's so simple. i need you. ❜

❛ you gonna keep talking, or let me get some sleep? ❜

❛ i vow to stand by your side from now until the end. ❜

❛ you're my captain, and i'm your first mate. ❜

❛ heard you guys need a cook. ❜

❛ why are we bringing the waiter? ❜

❛ you keep your feet dry. ❜

❛ you know, all these years, living under your shitty roof, cooking at your shitty restaurant... i owe you my life! ❜

❛ thank you for putting up with my shit all these years, old man. ❜

❛ i'll never forget you! ❜

#one piece #opla #sentence starters #roleplay memes #roleplay starters #rp memes #inbox memes #rp starters #dialogue prompts #ask memes #tv

[sagegreenfrogs]

being delusional is my greatest strength

ATTENTION ZUKKA NATION THIS ONE IS FOR YOU

as most of us in the ATLA fandom know by now, there's gonna be both an adult gaang movie coming out at some point and the live action netflix show in 2024

and I may be connecting some dots

for the adult gaang movie:

1: we don't know who Izumi's other parent is besides zuko

2: TLOK comics say that zuko worked to outlaw homophobic laws input by sozin

3: we have no idea if sokka and suki stayed together/had kids

4: in the ATLA comics zuko and mai break up, and reconcile- but don't get back together

5: ATLA has always been ahead of its time in terms of representation of POC, disabled people, LGBTQIA+ people, etc.

for the live action

1: it is going to be canon-divergent, this was confirmed because some characters will be appearing in season 1 that weren't introduced until season 2 in the og show-

2: Mike + Brian (atla creators) left the project in 2021 because of "creative differences" when it comes to ideas

3: netflix loves making money off of gay people.

4: when Mike + Brian left, and when the "creative differences" emerged, was AFTER the explosion of zukka-

sidenotes:

there are official, fully canon letters to zuko from uncle iroh about their lives- and therefore, about the gaang, in "The Legacy of The Fire Nation" the one about sokka contains... this.

"the prince and the fool. but is that all you and sokka were, or were to one another? no, I think not.//and sokka needed you, zuko..."(continues but I'm cutting it off here bc this is all that matters.)

these projects were announced after ATLA really got popular again over covid- AFTER ZUKKA BECAME POPULAR-

DO YOU SEE. WHERE I AM GOING WITH THIS.

I AM MANIFESTING CANON ZUKKA IN AT LEAST ONE OF THESE PROJECTS-.

#atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #zukka #zukka atla #manifesting ship #manifesting #theory #ship theory #atla theory #atla live action #adult gaang movie #adult team avatar movie #the gaang #gaang movie #canon zukka? #delulu #the prince and the fool #zuko x sokka #zukka nation

[incendiobrock]

Clout Chaser {Chris Sturniolo}

Request: Could I request a Chris x reader.she has a huge crush on him but he waste his time getting heartbroken by a girl just using him.when he finds out she is just using him for clout it sends him in a spiral.The reader is there to help mend his heart. (Action 7)very much angst some fluff at the end please.

Prompt(s): A telling B they deserve better

Warnings: language, heartbreak, fluffy ending!

A/N: idk how i feel about this one 😔

Chris was never really a relationship person. Sure, he had some brief talking stages throughout high school, and had his share of a couple situationships but never anything serious. He made it pretty clear to everybody that he wasn’t interested in dating and didn’t think he would be interested for a while.

Chris had fully meant that too, that is until he met a girl while he was out shopping one day. Her name was Jax and she quickly became a constant in Chris’ life. After Jax was introduced you started being put on the back burner. You had been friends with the triplets for years and there was no denying that you had a huge crush on Chris.

The crush started out small, a little school girl type crush is how you would describe it but it grew tremendously over the years as you became a young adult. You never had any intention of telling Chris about it, wanting to respect his boundaries and understanding his want to stay single, which is exactly why your heart had shattered when he announced that him and Jax were together.

His new relationship with Jax drove a wedge between your friendship. She didn’t like him being so close to another girl, friend or not. Chris quickly became distant and it was hard to ignore when you would still spend a lot of time at their place, continuing to hang out with Matt and Nick.

As you sat in the living room of the triplets house one morning you scrolled through Netflix trying to find something to watch. The sun gently gleamed through the big windows, early morning setting in. None of the boys were awake yet and you didn’t want to disturb them so you stayed on your bed (the couch). As you clicked through some more shows a prominent knock was heard on the front door. You weren’t expecting anyone this early but maybe the boys got a package delivered. Your feet echoed through the hall as you ran down the stairs to open the door.

“Oh, hey.” You half smiled, looking at Jax as she stood in front of you. Jax looked up from her phone and rolled her eyes at you, “Didn’t realize you were going to be here.”

“Yeah, I slept over last night-“

“I didn’t ask.” She snarked, shoulder checking you as she welcomed herself into the boys home, going straight down the hall into Chris’ room.

You stood frozen in the doorway for a minute before shutting the door. Did that really just happen? Jax always seemed to be bothered by your presence in the boys lives but you had been friends with them way before she ever came around so you weren’t planning on leaving. You stomped back up the stairs and locked eyes with Nick, who was now awake and standing in the kitchen.

“Woah. Why do you look so pissed off?” Nick chuckled, noticing the scowl playing on your face as he pulled a box of cereal out of the pantry. A huff fell past your lips as you made your way over to the table and pulled out a chair, taking a seat and abruptly dropping your head onto the hard surface. “Miss sunshine and rainbows is here unannounced! Completely ruined my morning.”

Nick’s eyes widen as he poured milk into his bowl, “Why is she here this early?” Luckily Nick seemed to hate Jax just as much as you did, something was off about her and you both were trying to get to the bottom of it. You lifted your head up and watched as Nick shoveled some apple jacks into his mouth. Shrugging your shoulders in response you felt your stomach churn. Chris was too amazing to be dating someone like her…

“We were planning on filming a vlog today if you want to join. You know you’re always welcome, maybe it will help you keep your mind off of everything.” Nick offered, shooting you a genuine smile, knowing about your hidden feelings for his younger brother.

“Keep your mind off what?” Matt’s voice said as he came out of his bedroom, his hair shooting in different direction from his nightly slumber.

“Jax.” You deadpanned, stealing Nick’s spoon and copying his movements as you yourself shoveled some cereal into your mouth. As you chewed the bite you had taken the room in the air turned cold, causing your brows to furrow as you looked between Matt and Nick. With cereal still in your mouth you spoke up again, “Why are you guys being so quiet?”

“What about me?” A voice behind you sassed, the hairs on your arm standing up as you realized why Matt and Nick had stopped talking. Quickly, you gulped down the cereal and turned in your chair to see Jax and Chris standing side by side, his arm swung over her shoulders. “Yeah, are you guys having fun without us?” Chris asked, oblivious to the tension shared between you and his girlfriend.

“I’m going to go brush my teeth and get dressed.” Matt said, excusing himself from the conversation and b-lining down the hall. The tension was finally cut as Chris began talking to Nick about the vlog they would be filming today. Jax never let up on the glares she would send you as she moved around the kitchen with Chris, helping him make some eggs, sausage links, and toast for breakfast. It was in moments like these you were thankful for Nick as he stayed by your side and did his best to hold a conversation with Chris.

After everybody was dressed and ready for the day you followed Nick out of his room as he started messing with the camera, turning it on and going to find Matt.

Matt checked his hair in the bathroom mirror, giving the audience a quick spiel about his target thermal, causing you and Nick to laugh from behind the camera. The fans were used to seeing you appear in their videos at this point, always leaving comments when they would hear you in the background.

Jax pushed past you for the second time today, making her way in front of the camera. Fans had started noticing her in the videos too, soft launching her and Chris’ relationship through small moments they had shared in other recent videos.

“Did you already tell them where we are going today Matt?” She asked, fake niceness dripping off her venomous fangs. “Awww, Matt’s got a boo boo.” Chris teased, now appearing in the frame next to Jax as she took hold of his hand.

Nick turned the camera around to the two of you as he explained that Matt had been experiencing some ankle pain for months, and they were finally all taking a group trip to urgent care so he could get it checked out. You felt all of your energy drain out of your body as you observed Jax and Chris from behind the camera, watching silently as she seemed to always have something to say. Even her laugh pissed you off, you couldn’t seem to figure out what it was about her that rubbed you the wrong way.

—-

A couple days had passed and you were back at the triplets place for dinner. Nick had uploaded the vlog for their Wednesday video a little earlier and you decided to scroll through the comments as you both sat side by side on the couch.

I hope y/n is doing okay, she didn’t seem like herself in this vid 🥺

omg did you guys see jax and chris in the background at 12:53???? i’m glad chris is happy !!!

ugh jax is gorgeous i love seeing her in the videos

more jax content plzzz!!!! (and y/n) love them both 🫶

Bad choice. You were agitated that everybody seemed to love the girl that you were beginning to despise. It was almost like it was all an act. She was a complete stuck up bitch off camera, but as soon as the camera was rolling she was the nicest person anyone has ever met.

As you felt yourself spiraling down a hole of despair Nick gently nudged your arm, causing you to look at him as he sat beside you on the couch. He gave you a questioning look, silently asking what was up. Without words, you handed the phone over to him, showing him the comments all praising Jax. Glancing over the back of the couch you saw Jax at the kitchen table, her phone propped up against a candle as she continued her tiktok live.

“Baby, come say hi to my live?” Jax probed, positioning her phone so that Chris was in view. Chris smiled and waved to the camera, watching as the live flooded with thousands of viewers.

Jax began gushing over the attention she was getting, just by bringing Chris into the frame. That’s when it hit you, she was just using him for fame and views. “God, I’m gonna be sick.” You mumbled, pushing yourself off the couch and storming up the stairs into Nick’s room, slamming the door behind you and hoping that everybody heard it.

One of your hands aggressively rubbed over your face as you paced around the bedroom. You couldn’t believe that it had taken you so long to piece it together, the mood switches on and off camera seemed so obvious now. A voice from the staircase caused you to jump slightly,

“Y/n? Are you okay?”

“Chris what are you doing? I’m sure she’s fine, you don’t have to check up on her.” Jax’ voice followed, snapping at him like he was some sort of dog. Normally, Chris would bend to her every command so you were even more shocked to hear a knock on the door. It cracked up slightly, Chris peering in around the frame and making eye contact with you as you stayed glued to the middle of the floor.

Chris fully walked in, leaving the door wide open behind him which allowed Jax to stand in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest.

“What? No more tiktok live? You’ll probably get millions of viewers! People love drama.” You spat, finally not caring about trying to remain civil towards her. Jax stared back at you, swallowing her nerves as she realized you had read through her little act.

“What’s going on?” Chris asked, looking between the both of you as he stood in the middle of your staring contest.

“Tell him, Jax,” You edged. “Tell him that you’ve just been using him for views.”

Chris turned back towards his girlfriend, his confusion being replaced with sadness, “Is that true?” He searched her face in hopes that she would instantly deny the accusation being thrown at her, but she remained silent. A look of guilt played on her face as her lip began to quiver.

“Chris, look… I-I can explain.” She stuttered, her voice coming out shaky and weak. Chris shook his head, knowing there was nothing she could say that would make things better.

“No, get the fuck out of my house Jax. We’re done.” He pointed his finger down to the floor, telling her to leave.

“But Chris I-“

“I said leave!” He yelled, tears filling his eyes, he could barely look at the girl. Timidly, Jax descended down the stairs, tail between her legs as she faced defeat. Chris felt his body trembling with nerves and anxiety, ultimately falling apart when he heard her go out of the front door. A sob escaped his lips as he slowly turned around to see you still standing there.

“Oh Chris…” You cooed, walking over to the broken, brown haired, boy and pulling him down into a hug. You gently ran your hand over the boys head, smoothing his hair. Chris felt like his world was tumbling apart. This was why he wasn’t a relationship person. This was why he was closed off, because why would anybody want to experience pain like this?

“I’m so so sorry. You deserve so much better Chris.” You whispered into his shoulder, pressing a firm kiss there without a second thought. Chris’ sobs began to die out as he allowed you to keep holding him, whispering sweet nothings into his ears. Finally, he broke away from your embrace, his eyes red and puffy from the tears he’d shed.

“We’re not all like that you know. There’s going to be a girl out there who loves you for you and who treats you the way you deserve. None of that superficial bullshit is going to matter because all that will matter is her love for you.” You reassured him, your hands still resting on either side of his neck on his shoulders.

“How can you be so sure?” He whispered.

“Because I love you Chris. And I have for a long time now, I just didn’t want to overstep your boundaries since I knew you weren’t super keen on relationship…”

His face prepped up at confession, a small smile forming across his lips. “I love you too.”

Now, it was your turn to be confused, a quizzical expression playing on your face. Did you really hear what you thought you heard, or were you dreaming?

“Can I kiss you?” He asked, his hand coming up to rest below your chin, his thumb running over your bottom lip. Your lips parted as he traced over it with his thumb, heat spreading through out your body.

You nodded your head, granting him permission to kiss you. His hand gently pushed your chin up as he brought his lips down to connect with yours in a deep kiss. A hum escaped you as you kissed him back, his tongue snaking his way in, tasting all of you. The kiss was better than you could’ve ever imagined and now that you’ve felt it you weren’t sure how you had gone so long without it.

After a few more seconds Chris pulled away, pressing a firm and final kiss on your lips almost as if he was sealing the deal.

Thank god Jax was finally gone.

#chris sturniolo #chris sturniolo imagine #chris sturniolo x reader #christopher sturniolo #matt sturniolo #matt sturniolo imagine #matt sturniolo x reader #sturniolo triplets #nick sturniolo #chris sturniolo fluff #matthew sturniolo #sturniolo smut #nicolas sturniolo #sturniolo fanfic #sturniolo x reader #chris sturniolo fanfic #matt sturniolo fluff

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

thoughts on sokka and zuko's netflix actors ian ousley and dallas liu (jokingly?) teasing zukka in interviews? are they queerbaiting?

For those who don't know what the fuck queerbaiting is: you know how Disney announced "it's first openly gay character" in literally every movie they've been releasing lately, and these "characters" are always on screen for only 5 seconds so it won't annoy conservatives or be banned in China?

That's them trying to use the promise of gay content to get people (be it gay people or someone that just wants to know if Disney will handle the subject properly) to watch their stuff. It's just false advertizing in rainbow colors.

Netflix, being the cheap bastards that they are, love using "We got minorities in this!" to advertise either their bland, bad shows that will get a million seasons, or the rare good show that they'll cancel way too soon because they seem to be alergic to quality. Either way, the gay content they promise audiences is usually there - you know, it's just not good because Netflix hates good things. Hell, they made Oma and Shu a lesbian couple from what I've seen.

Considering I've heard that the cast of the Avatar Live Action is pretty comfortable dunking on Zutara as a ship despite it being crazy popular and some fans literally only watching the show because they thought it'd make Zutara canon, and even having the balls of saying their show is less problematic than the OG one because they cut the plot of Sokka unlearning sexism, I'd say they're not claiming to like Zukka because some executive told them to, in the hopes of getting people to watch. The actors are probably either two buddies joking around because "Dude, what if our characters got together?" or saw some fanart/headcanon on Twitter and rolled with it.

So no, it's not queerbaiting, it's just actors voicing their opinion - basically the same as the Wedneday situation. The actresses for Wednesday and Enid ship their characters, but Netflix never gave any indication that these two would be a thing, and the internet only cried QUEERBAITING because people can't accept that sometimes the goth girl and the girly girl don't kiss because none of the writers even thought about making them gay.

And before someone inevitably goes "Oh but one/both of them are straight/don't want to discuss their own sexualities - are they queerbaiting when showing excitment at the idea of their characters hooking up?"

1 - Real people can't queerbait because their sexuality is a personal matter, not a product meant for other people to consume.

2 - If Netflix does want to make Zukka a thing (and I've seen nothing to sugest that they do) and starts promoting it, it's the CHARACTERS that would have to be gay, not the actors. I'm pretty sure Zuko's actor can't create/control flames at the palm of his hand, but that doesn't mean he's lying to people, he's just an actor acting. Even if and Sokka's actor have to play a gay couple at some point, it won't be queerbaiting for them to do so and even be excited for it/thinks it makes sense for their characters, regardless of what sexuality they are in real life, because the actors are not their characters they're just people doing a job.

#netflix #avatar #zukka #queerbaiting

[natlacentral]

The cast of Netflix’s adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender knows they can’t please everyone.

It’s a difficult life lesson that many of the show’s young actors have come to learn since they were chosen to star in a live-action reimagining of one of the most beloved animated series of all time.

Like any great saga, the latest iteration of Avatar has taken a circuitous route to the small screen. In 2020, two years after Netflix announced that it was developing a remake, original creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino departed the project over creative differences. A year later, former Nikita and Sleepy Hollow writer-producer Albert Kim officially assumed the role of creator and showrunner, intending to honor the Asian and Indigenous roots of his source material.

Since the debut of the new Avatar last Thursday, longtime fans have remained divided over the many changes that were made to turn a 20-episode half-hour children’s cartoon into an eight-episode serialized drama that has multigenerational appeal. But by maintaining the essence of the original while expanding the world that Konietzko and DiMartino have created, the new creative team is hoping to recapture some of the magic that transformed Avatar into a cultural phenomenon.

Every diehard fan can recite the basic premise by heart: The four nations — Water, Earth, Fire, Air — once lived in harmony, with the Avatar, master of all four elements, keeping the peace between them. But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked and wiped out the Air Nomads. A century later, Aang (Gordon Cormier), a 12-year-old Air Nomad frozen in an iceberg, reawakens to take his rightful place as the next Avatar. With his newfound friends Katara (Kiawentiio) and Sokka (Ian Ousley), siblings and members of the Southern Water Tribe, Aang sets out on a quest to save the world from the onslaught of Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim) while avoiding being captured by Ozai’s tempestuous son, Crown Prince Zuko (Dallas Liu).

Almost every Zoomer who grew up watching Nickelodeon seems to have their own relationship with the original Avatar. Kiawentiio, whose older siblings would always have the show playing in their house, recalls being drawn to its depiction of a young Indigenous girl, at a time when there was scant representation of Native Americans. Ousley credits Avatar and Star Wars: The Clone Wars for inspiring him to take up martial arts. Liu has a vivid childhood memory of watching a restless Zuko and his tea-drinking uncle Iroh’s first scene together on a boat. Cormier, as the youngest of the bunch, admits that he had not watched the show prior to auditioning. But by the time he entered production, all he could do was live and breathe Avatar.

Daniel Dae Kim, who watched the original with one of his sons when it first aired, tells Teen Vogue that he held a kind of family meeting with his now-adult children and some of his nieces and nephews after receiving an offer from Albert Kim (no relation) to star in the new version. “I called all of them, and I said, ‘What do you think about me doing a part in Avatar?’ And they were like, ‘You should do it!’ without hesitation. Then I asked the next question: ‘Well, I’m playing Ozai. He’s a bad guy…’ They paused for a second, and then they all screamed, ‘You should still do it!’” he says with a laugh.

Once the cast was assembled, the creative team began the seemingly gargantuan task of trying to breathe new life into each of the characters. While the animated series dealt with weighty issues such as genocide, war and imperialism, there is an added human component in live-action storytelling that requires a more grounded approach to depicting real-life reactions and emotions. “We were all definitely allowed to look into the darker sides of each of our characters,” Cormier says. In Aang’s case, he is tasked with a responsibility that he doesn’t necessarily want but feels obligated to assume after discovering that he is the last living Airbender of his kind.

Aang is “naturally a really fun-loving, goofy 12-year-old, so to be hit with something so serious like a genocide [affecting] all of his people, it really affects him badly,” Cormier says. “We see in the first episode where I blow Katara and Sokka off the mountain how badly it’s affected me. It hurt me so much [that] I blasted into the Avatar state and started destroying my home. I think it just shows how serious and traumatic it is for Aang, but slowly, he’ll get through it and become the Avatar.”

The themes of loss and grief remain prevalent across all eight episodes, with each of the young characters being forced to confront their own unresolved trauma.

Katara is forced to reckon with how her memory of her mother’s death has affected her ability to become a full-fledged Waterbender. “Another thing that I feel like impacted her so much, without even really explicitly touching on it, is being the last Waterbender of her tribe,” Kiawentiio says. “She really feels so deeply connected with that part of [herself], even though it’s something that she can’t really access [at first], and she feels this sense of, ‘This is what I should be doing.’”

After his father left years ago on a mission to fight the Firebenders, Sokka was forced to grow up quickly and protect his tribe, especially his younger sister, from the waterbending abilities that had caused them so much pain. “Sokka is a perfect example of somebody that is not healed, is pushing stuff down and won’t let it come out, is putting on different masks to the point where he doesn’t even know who he is when we first find him,” says Ousley, who insisted on finding a way to bring out a more serious side in Sokka without losing his signature sarcasm in this adaptation. “I think the trauma that he has is covered up by humor often and covered up by acting silly, and he will have lots of moments where he actually discovers who he is.”

Zuko, however, may have the most compelling arc of the first season. Having been banished by Ozai from the Fire Nation, Zuko has effectively lost one father but gained another father figure in his Uncle Iroh (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee), who takes it upon himself to look after Zuko on his journey to capture the Avatar. In the first season, viewers see Zuko’s Agni Kai — or traditional Firebender duel — with Ozai, who was responsible for giving Zuko his prominent facial scar.

While Ozai “may not have the tools to do it the right way,” Kim understands that his character “is trying, in his own way, to shape his children into what he feels is necessary to secure the future of not only his family, but of the entire Fire Nation.” That kind of tough love, unfortunately, has done irreparable damage to his children.

In a dramatic departure from the original series, the writers decided to introduce Elizabeth Yu as Princess Azula earlier than in the original series. In doing so, the family dynamics between Ozai, Zuko and Azula become even more complicated. “Since Zuko’s away on his ship in the first season, you get a glimpse into, while he’s away, what is going on in the Fire Nation and who’s pulling all the strings,” Yu says. “For Azula, Zuko is very much more like a roadblock than anything else. You see that sense of family is not really there.”

“I think the writers did a good job of showing a rivalry between the two fighting for the father’s approval and attention without us directly interacting or speaking with each other,” Liu adds. “Zuko is just trying to prove he is worthy of his father’s love and attention just as much as Azula is. I think people will really come to root for Zuko because of everything that he’s been through.”

The production team was also keen to honor and recreate the costumes of the original series in a way that was not only beautiful but practical for the actors; Kiawentiio and Ousley had to wear heavy coats made of suede and fur, while Kim, Liu and Yu wore layers upon layers of corseted material with large shoulder pads.

“They really helped me complete the character because there was something about when I put on the wardrobe that made me walk [and] feel a certain way,” Kim says, “and it turned my character into someone more regal and powerful.”

It’s almost fitting that the most regal character is played by Hollywood royalty among Asian Americans. For the better part of the last three decades, Kim has been at the forefront of the movement to increase the visibility of Asian Americans in film and television. “The fact that I’m still working and able to see [the change] and be a part of it makes me feel very grateful, because success is not guaranteed to anyone in this business,” he reflects.

Kim believes the new Avatar is a reflection of today’s changing landscape in Western entertainment for more diverse stories that center Asian and Indigenous communities. “I don’t think it’s any secret to say that a live-action version has been done in the past, but it wasn’t done this way,” he says, referring to M. Night Shyamalan’s disastrous The Last Airbender film, which whitewashed many key characters. “I don’t think that it would have been done this way even five or 10 years ago because there wasn’t the same emphasis on proper representation and real diversity [that there is now].”

“I feel like we fought hard for the progress that we’ve made, and at the same time, I acknowledge that there need to be others outside of those of us in the community to push things forward,” he adds. “It takes a community working together along with allies.”

As the most accomplished actor of the group, did Kim have any advice for his younger castmates? “I don’t feel like it’s necessarily my place to be giving advice where it’s not needed or wanted, but it was nice of them to ask me about my experiences and how they could chart their own path forward in a business that’s very difficult,” Kim responds. “I can tell you that I really have been impressed by all of them, and I’m so excited to see the next generation of Asian American actors in particular come in with this attitude, with this opportunity. I would really love nothing more than to see them succeed beyond what we’ve seen in generations previous.”

The first season ends with Aang, Katara and Sokka successfully helping the Northern Water Tribe fend off a vicious attack from the Firebenders. Rather than following the advice of past Avatars, who stressed that he would have to bear the burden of his title alone, Aang realizes that he needs his friends to master all four elements.

“The Avatar still has to learn other elements, so we had to get the ball rolling on water and earth. If we did reach Season 2, I believe that we’ll find Aang already practicing water just because in the group he has quite the master to teach him,” Kiawentiio says with a smile, alluding to her own character.

But the last minutes of the finale also reveal that the attack on the North was actually a decoy for the Fire Nation. Ozai, as it turns out, had his sights on the Earth Kingdom — and his daughter, Azula, has taken over the Earth Kingdom city of Omashu with her own army. Aang’s old friend, King Bumi (Utkarsh Ambudkar), has now been taken prisoner.

“You have this idea of the prodigal son and you put all of your attention to someone who, in Ozai’s eyes, is failing him,” Kim says of the state of Ozai’s relationships with his two most powerful children at the end of the season. “So when there’s another child that you are not looking at in the same way that ends up surprising you, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it changes the way that you see the future. I think Azula was a surprise to him, and it brings him some joy, and he may have overlooked her in the past, but now he sees her as a real heir apparent.”

The revelation that his father has passed him over for his sister, at least for now, shakes up Zuko’s entire world, Liu says. “He feels a weird sense of betrayal because even though it is his sister and his father working against him, they are part of the Fire Nation, and his loyalty towards the Fire Nation was something that we know he was very persistent about, even though he was banished.”

Going forward, Kim would be interested in deepening the portrayal of Ozai’s relationships with his children, as well as his older brother, Iroh. “What is the relationship between the two of them when the second son supersedes the first? And how does Iroh feel about all of that? We never really see that explored,” he remarks. “I’d also like to see what happened to Zuko and Azula’s mom. These kinds of things are crucial to deepening the character, and I would love to see a little bit more of his history and how that informs who he is now.”

While the show has yet to be renewed for a second season, the young actors all have their own hopes for future seasons. Ousley would like to see Sokka “pick up the pieces” emotionally after the beautifully tragic end of his first love, Princess Yue (Amber Midthunder). Yu is ready to “do some of the really iconic Azula lines and scenes that we all know,” especially the Agni Kai in Season 3. Cormier is most excited to potentially adapt “Appa’s Lost Days” and the final fight scene between Aang and Ozai. “Throughout the show, I feel like he's going to learn more and more about why he has to be the Avatar,” he says.

#article #teen vogue #gordon cormier #kiawentiio #ian ousley #dallas liu #daniel dae kim #elizabeth yu #natla #atla #netflix atla #atla netflix #avatar netflix #netflix avatar #avatar the last airbender

[im-a-hoping-beetch]

In all honesty, idk what happened with the fandom recently for it to suddenly shit out a ton of crappy takes in ATLA most especially for Zutara. I often find myself defending Zutara because a lot of its antis say the most racist and sexist stuff against it. I'm not even a Zutara fan! I'm a rareshipper.

Can't just antis simply say they don't like Zutara and move on to enjoying their own ships instead? No more stupid holier art thou morality takes that just backfire on their faces.

If they want discourse, then use canon material NOT HEADCANONS, FANONS, OR FANFICS as "evidence" to back up their takes. Antis that do that makes my head spin in exasperation. Then you point that out they start whining how you hurt their feelibgs and get all offended as a "minority".

Actually, let's focus on that last bit. It's pretty rancid too how sometimes they pretend to be part of the "minority" so they can use it as a shield for themselves when their bad behavior gets called out. In fact, this tactic hurts the actual minorities who have valid concerns about Zutara. They get drowned out by all the insanity toxic shippers say and get lumped in with them.

Well, with the new live-action coming, there has obviously, been a revival, making the fandom way much more active. Which leads to people having more time to pay attention to the show and all its intricacies.

This is where ship wars come into play. And in all honesty, atla’s ship wars have definitely left a legacy in a way I don’t think we’ll have to ever witness. With the creators perpetuous jabs at zutara solidifying antis need to hate on it and the fans, fuelling the whole thing to another level. To this day whenever something avatar related gets announced or released you start to see a revival of a not so dead ship war. And while they (probably, not sure) aren’t as brutal as they used to be, they have took another turn, with this faux-progressivism being used to fear monger zutara shippers as well as casual listeners about the ship’s legitimacy. I recommend @i-d-e-g-a-f ‘s post about it to get more insight.

On my part, if I were to pin point the moment where this faux- progressivism started taking space in a lot of anti-zutara takes, I’d say that the atla renaissance isn’t innocent for this phenomenon happening. You need to understand the context in which atla’s release on Netflix took place in. One where the blm movement took the entire world by storm. Resulting in people not having the reservations they’ve probably had in the past when it came to talking about racial issues. This was followed by the emergence of numerous movements involving similar cases (not identical, tho). As well as media and the people consuming said media being ready to offer commentary on and call out harmful depictions of racial minorities as well as the rethorics they carried.

Suddenly, anyone and everyone could offer their piece of mind on harm being caused to racial minorities. And while good, it also came with its downside.

When you take into account this context, I think it exacerbated the already existing phenomenon of people saying things in order to put on this front of being good and virtuous, yet failing or simply not wanting to realize how these things are perpetuating the very harm they claim they want to undo. You know, people perceiving and claiming zutara to be a colonized-colonizer ship. As well as comparing katara to Pocahontas, when talking about these two. Which, if these people actually cared about progress, they would know how incredibly racist and sexist it is to make that comparison.

When it comes to antis obsession with hating on zutara, I think it stems from a certain insecurity. You gotta understand that unlike any other non-canon ship, zutara could’ve legitimately been canon. It was constantly talked about in the writers room, many of the team members seriously considering it (head writers, voice actors etc..) Hence why, the creators felt the need to throw numerous jabs (ie. the ember island play, (2008) comic-con) at the ship and more specifically, its fans. Since they themselves were insecure. @burst-of-iridescent perfectly explains it in this post.

#zutara #zuko #katara #anti kataang #anti bryke #atla fandom critical #atla #avatar the last airbender

[melonteee]

When opla was announced I was guarded, but trailers and learning that Oda would have first and last word about everything made me hopeful.

But I knew that live action are never for the actual die hard fans.

Too much need to be cut because of time, as real actors cant look like they only age two years for 26 years, and some cartoon stuff doesnt translate well to live action *cough* garps fist of love *cough*

So I was able to convince my friend to watch opla with me.

She had read the manga when she was little, up to syrup village, so she was excited to see Kuro because she actually liked him back when she read it.

I was mostly there just to observe my friends reaction to it instead.

My favorite moment was watching her freak out after the "grandpa?" reveal.

I dont like that Garp was included that early on, I didnt mind him being there at rogers execution. But more than that seemed too much. I watched some Netflix guy explaining that they wanted to add a reason why the strawhat had to keep moving from island to island, but no marine would do because who would bother chasing a pirate crew with no bounty. I understand that reasoning. Still dont like it, but I understand.

But my friends reaction made it all better.

Did you know netflix wanted a romance between Nami and Zoro? Thank god Oda was there to stop it.

Also my friend and I quote "Oregano is for savages!" a lot now.

I'm truly glad you liked it anon and I do understand the excitement that came with it, but I honestly could not stand it. Nearly every scene and every line was like "Sanji wouldn't say that. Nami wouldn't do that. Why is this happening? Luffy definitely wouldn't say that."

An adaptation must adapt to its medium, true, but that is not what this did. This was an insanely loose reinterpretation that took so much charm away for me. I've talked about it on this Tumblr tons now but I've finally had the time to watch through all of it now that the hype's died down, and it just made me angrier per episode?

They had to shorten things down, but they included so many new scenes that added nothing? They had to explain the Strawhats going from island to island... WHY? They literally had a spine to go off, the original property had them going from island to island to find a crew and get to the grand line. That's literally a very solid reason. WHY did they need any marines chasing them? It just sounded like an excuse to add a fan favourite character so the Garp fans could scream about it.

And I've said this many times, but Oda being part of the process genuinely means nothing to me. Netflix infamously do not listen to their creators, and not only did they admit Oda HATED the Garp addition and they STILL added him, you can tell so much of his original vision was thrown aside for non-anime fan audience convenience. Usopp and Sanji felt like side characters for god's sake, Buggy felt comically evil for a LIVE ACTION, Mihawk's fight was literally so empty due to the fact no one was THERE? NAMI was the one who yelled she believes in Zoro and they'll always be friends??

I truly do not believe Oda would agree to most of that, and considering we know he was ignored for Garp, we know for sure he was definitely ignored for many other things.

As always, if you loved it, great! I'm glad the excitement was met. Maybe I'm cynical, maybe it's not to my tastes, but it screams Netflix cash cow to me and the whole time I watched it I thought "This is not One Piece at all."

As a reinterpretation? Great!

As an adaptation? It failed miserably. None of the characters felt like themselves and the additional scenes were so nothing. Sorry for the sour reply anon but for those on here who know, I indeed have a sore spot for that entire production.

I honestly think a lot of people got blinded by the pretty actors and the millions of dollars that went into production and promotion to really look at it for what it was trying to be.

#ask #melonask #oplatalks

[aangarchy]

The fact that Netflix took out sozin's comet plot. And want to show the air nomad genocide and zuko being burned. Is that why bryke left the live action remake? I remember their statement being like "we want to be true to the story we did"

So the way i interpreted it is that they removed the ticking time bomb that is Sozin's comet < for now>. The reason they did this is bc it's very hard to put a deadline on a show with child/teen actors, who are all going to age throughout the process. I mean look at Gordon, his voice is getting deeper bc he's starting to hit puberty. Same is happening with Walker Scobell (pjo series).

They can't possibly pretend this all takes place within a year bc even by next season (if they get one) our Aang will be visibly older. Even saying it will take three years is unbelievable bc Gordon will most likely be 17/18 if they get to filming s3 (for context they filmed when Gordon and Kiawentiio were 12 and 15 respectively, Gordon is now 14 and Kiawentiio is 17).

Tbh, my theory on why Bryke left is bc they got the opportunity to create Avatar Studios and took it. Around the time the live action got announced the show got put on netflix and got a huge renaissance. It's no coincidence the studio got announced about a year after they quit the live action production. I truly believe they couldn't possibly be SO upset at the changes in the story that they fully left, bc the crew who worked on it are all major fans of the cartoon, they wouldn't change it so drastically that the creators themselves up and left bc of it. I definitely believe it's a combination of the story not being exactly what they envisioned and the creation of Avatar Studios.

I also don't rlly believe it has anything to do with them changing the romance story bc so far in book 1 there is no romance, and according to Albert Kim's statement they're nowhere near developing for a potential s2 yet.

#atla #netflix atla #atla netflix #atla live action #netflix #anon #ask dori

[deemee-ed]

Wow, I'm so normal about this movie! *develops a DreamWorks conspiracy theory on why Me and My Shadow got cancelled*

DreamWorks and franchises: a "conspiracy theory" on why "Me and My Shadow" got cancelled

On December 10th 2010 the project for an animated movie called "Me and My Shadow" was announced by DreamWorks. The story is about a timid and boring man called Daniel Grubb and his shadow "Shadow Dan" trying to convince him to live a more exciting life. The animation style follows an idea similar to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", except that instead of blending 2D animation and live-action it would have worked with both 2D and 3D animation, with 2D for the shadow characters and their world and 3D for the real people. Despite being half-way done, the release date of this project kept being pushed back, first from 2013 to 2014, until it entered a state of limbo and eventually got cancelled. This decision was taken mostly due to the failure in 2014 of "Mr. Peabody and Sherman", which brought to the cancellation of other projects as well.

Personally, I have been upset about this cancellation ever since I found out about this movie, mostly because I just know that if it had come out this would have been one of my favorite movies ever. A few days ago DreamWorks released a trailer for their next movie, "Megamind 2", a very cheap-looking sequel to "Megamind" set to release on March 1st 2024 on Peacock. While I was washing the dishes (lol), I thought about this trailer for a moment and had a sudden "conspiracy theory" coming up on why "Me and My Shadow" was one of the movies got cancelled after 2014: In the same trailer of "Megamind 2" they announce a new serie which will come out based on it, meaning that this movie is basically an advertisement or a pilot for the show. This is reinforced by the cheap animation commonly used in these spin-off shows.

This serie announcement made me realize something: DreamWorks has made A LOT of shows, shorts and sequels based on their movies. In other words, this studio loves creating franchises. And even though this is a common marketing choice for many studios, I feel like DreamWorks does this VERY often. Some examples are: -"Shrek", with 3 sequels (might become 4), 8 shorts, 3 TV specials, and 2 spin-off movies and 1 serie based on Puss in Boots -"Kung Fu Panda", with 2 (soon 3) sequels, 3 series and 5 shorts -"How to train your Dragon", with 2 sequels, 3 series and 6 shorts -"Madagascar", with 3 sequels, 3 series, 3 shorts and a spin-off movie based on The Penguins of Madagascar -"Trolls", with 2 sequels, 2 series, 6 shorts and 2 TV specials -"The Croods", with 1 sequel and 2 series -"Monsters vs Aliens", with 1 serie, 2 shorts and 1 TV special -"Captain Underpants", with 1 serie and a possible spin-off movie -"Mr. Peabody and Sherman", with 1 serie As you can see, both known and less known movies ended up having at least 1 serie, turning them into franchises. It's actually rarer to find movies by DreamWorks that were not turned into franchises. So I'd say it's clear that DreamWorks has quite some interest in this marketing choice.

Even their newer movie "Orion and the Dark", released on Netflix on February 2nd 2024, can work as a DreamWorks franchise. You can understand this by the presence of a TEAM of secondary characters: they can't be fully developed in a movie, but they are an interesting team that can be developed in a show. It's the same concept as the Furious Five from "Kung Fu Panda", or as the Penguins of Madagascar and King Julien from "Madagascar": a team of secondary characters the movie can't focus on, but that you wouldn't mind seeing again. And now, with the release of a show based on "Megamind 2", a new team of villains is introduced in the sequel. Villains that are very likely going to be secondary characters that could be developed more in a show. See the pattern? I believe that DreamWorks follows this as their standard for a franchise: the movie must have a team of secondary characters.

Now, let's look back at "Me and My Shadow" and let's focus on the characters. From what we know, there were going to be 4 relevant characters: -Daniel Grubb (who some of you might also know as Stanley) -Shadow Dan (also known as Shadow Stan) -Heidi (Daniel's love interest) -The Shadow Villain (the bad guy, obviously) Every other character that was seen in small Behind-The-Scenes works doesn't seem to have much relevance. There are secondary characters, but they don't seem to be connected as a team, unlike many other secondary characters from Dreamworks.

Now, here's the "conspiracy theory": I believe one of the reasons "Me and My Shadow" was cancelled is that it could not be adapted as a DreamWorks franchise. The story would have been concluded in the movie, the characters didn't need to be developed more, and none of the secondary cast could work as a team. Could they have made some shorts based on it? Probably yes, but a short is not a serie. DreamWorks seems to have more interest in shows than shorts (remember: most franchises have at least a SHOW, not a short!).

With that being said, I'd like to end this post by doing some advertisement for this movie, even if it never got a chance to be finished. Everytime I find a new clip I am filled with pure joy. "Me and My Shadow" deserves to be made. -Shout-out to SQUIDWORD15 on YouTube for finding mANY unfinished clips. Bless this fella

#I will never forgive DreamWorks for this #justice for my Shadow Dan boy #me and my shadow #me and my shadow dreamworks #daniel grubb #shadow dan #random #analysis

[taz-ma-raz-skylar]

Taz Skylar on training his body and cooking skills ahead of One Piece Season 2!

Taz Skylar was met with an overwhelmingly warm welcome from One Piece fans at the 2024 MEFCC

By Sarah Kuleib ( February 15, 2024 )

Every pirate crew needs a cook. With a captain like Monkey D Luffy, whose ship seems to sail to the sounds of his stomach, finding a cook who could whip up the most delicious bowl of fried rice to join the Straw Hat Pirates was pretty high on his priority list. Luffy finds his cook in Sanji, and Netflix’s smash hit One Piece finds their Sanji in Taz Skylar.

When the Spanish-British-Lebanese Olivier Award-nominated actor was announced to be playing the romantic chef, Sanji, in Netflix’s live-action adaptation of One Piece, Skylar was catapulted to international stardom.

Skylar and his co-star Iñaki Godoy (Luffy), were recently in Abu Dhabi for the 12th edition of the Middle East Film and Comic Con (MEFCC), where they were met by thousands of passionate fans in straw hats queuing up for hours to take photographs, get autographs, and witness the pair’s charming interactions at panel discussions.

Esquire Middle East sat down with Taz Skylar at the MEFCC to discuss his intense stunt training, Season 2 of One Piece, and what’s in store for the rest of 2024.

–

ESQ: You’re a man of many titles: actor, screenwriter, thrill-seeker, professional surfboard creator. What drew you to each of those things and how do they come together to inform one another in your career and life?

TAZ: I was a really shy kid and I never used to leave home much. Thrill-seeking, I used to see it in movies and I thought “Oh that would be cool!” Surfing was the first thing that I did. I remember the first time I got in the water with a surfboard and a wave hit me – it wasn’t even very big but I was little, and I was like “Ahhh!”, and I got out [of the water]. The guy who was teaching me – he was called Juanito, and he’s still my friend today, 15 years later – was like “What are you doing man? Get in!” He grabbed me, put me back on the board, and pushed me out and that changed my life that day. That was the gateway. I got into other scary stuff and I would get angry at being scared. So if I was scared I would be like, “Cool, now there’s no choice, now you gotta do it.” That kind of spiraled and now it’s just a thing that I do.

Writing and acting… well, acting was an accident.

ESQ: A happy one?

TAZ: It was a happy accident! I’m very happy about it! I only like acting when I like the thing I’m acting in; nobody likes acting when they don’t like the thing they’re acting in! So, I only act in things that I like – at least now, I’ve definitely made that choice – and I always like what I’m writing. I want to make films, I want to make shows. Being in them is a cool part of it, but I want to make stuff. In a world where financial security is there, I don’t find much point to life other than leaving a legacy I can be proud of, and I think that can achieved by making stuff.

ESQ: There’s a different joy in filmmaking and writing.

TAZ: Yeah, yeah! You feel resolved in what you’re doing and connected. You have some sort of choice over what it can say or what the outcome can be. One Piece in particular was really cool because Matt and the whole team were really good to us in terms of saying “What do you want to do with it? What do you want to bring to it?” and that’s not always the case. When I do a writer’s room with other writers, my thinking is like: What do you like? Do you want to sit on a chair? A yoga mat? Do you want to bob around on a skateboard? What makes you most creative? Because whatever it is, do that thing. That’s the kind of environment I want to create and be a part of. When a film or show or play has been made in that way, you can feel it, you can feel that it’s been made very rag-tag.

ESQ: On the topic of One Piece, how did you prepare for the role of Sanji – mentally and physically, I know you did all of your own stunts – and with season 2 confirmed, is there anything you learned that will inform or change how you prepare for season 2?

TAZ: Ooh… yeah I did all my own stunts! Part of how I prepared for it… I really went psychopathic on it. Like, let’s throw absolutely everything we possibly can at the wall because we don’t have much to stick right now, we’re starting from zero.

It was 4 hours of training in the morning, then I’d cook a dish we needed to do for the show, repeat that dish over and over again, another 4 hours, then we’d go to the sauna and stretch, they’d pull on my legs and push on my back. That made me improve really quick but what it also did was decimate my legs. I have scar tissue on the inside of my ligaments and it took me about a year to feel like I could land on my legs without pain – I used to duct-tape my legs! I had to be quiet about it so they’d let me do my own stunts.

There was no real way of improving whilst not hurting myself because of how far we needed to go. Whereas for the second season, because I’ve maintained my level and haven’t stopped training ever since– I trained this morning with Iñaki at the UFC gym [in Abu Dhabi]! Iñaki came with me to a kickboxing session and he’s gotten so good at tricking in between the seasons too! So, because we’re kind of at a level that we’ve maintained, the second season for me is about how much quicker I can be. There are not many new kicks or moves to learn, so it’s more about how great we can make those moves. Part of it is going: instead of training 8 hours today, I’m going to train 4 and focus on choreography. Or maybe today I’m just going to do 2 and then stretch, because the less injured everything is, the quicker everything moves.

So for season 2, I want to enjoy it more, and I want to make what we had a lot better… and I want [to do] the party table kick.

ESQ: Was there a specific stunt that was the most difficult to do?

TAZ: Yeah! So there was this one where we jump over a pool, kick the Fishman mid-air, and land on a little rock. And that was all practicals! It was so difficult to do because he was underwater and they had to time pulling him out of the water at the exact same time that I jumped, and landing at the same place so that I could kick, and then there was another wire pull that took him to the other side of the pool. That must’ve taken an hour and a half which doesn’t sound like that much, but we were up against time. I remember thinking: “If we don’t get this, they’re going to cut it. They’re going to cut the stunt and this stunt will never exist.” It was the last take where we just managed it and they all looked at it and went “Cool, we got it! We can keep it!”, and we just started cheering. Isn’t it mad to think that there’s a world in which half an hour would’ve made the difference between it existing and not existing?

ESQ: Now, I must ask… how do you really feel about Oregano?

TAZ: [Laughs] Ha! I love it! I put it on salads! It’s not for savages! It’s nice – have oregano it’s good for you!

ESQ: Who and what are some of your personal influences as an artist?

TAZ: Florian Zeller is my favorite writer. Rappers are my favorite poets. I like old films. Keanu Reeves in Point Break made me want to skydive and surf and jump out of planes. I love Bond. My dad loves Bond, we used to have a box set. I love the way those films are made. I just worked with Martin Campbell who made two of my favorite Bond films.

ESQ: What’s in store for Taz Skylar this year?

TAZ: I’ve got four TV shows in development, with different production companies. One of which is called Seesaw which made a lot of Florian Zeller’s films that I’m really excited about! I don’t have that much time until we go shoot [One Piece] again. There’s a book I’m trying really hard to get the rights to and adapt, so I’m chasing the author about that. I’m going to try and see if I can get all of those things done before I go shoot again.

https://www.esquireme.com/culture/interviews/taz-skylar-on-training-his-body-and-cooking-skills-ahead-of-one-piece-season-2

#taz skylar

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

started watching the new live action avatar

it’s. It’s pretty ok I guess? But there’s a lot of things I’m not altogether happy about. It feels very. Generic. Which is kind of sad.

I’m only two episodes in though, so I won’t be too harsh. But there are a few things that I really don’t like, and number one was Aang going into the Avatar State in front of Sokka and Katara for the first time when seeing Monk Gyatso instead of when escaping Zuko, and that moment being isolated instead of the moment everyone in the world knew the Avatar had returned

in the original series, Aang goes into the Avatar State when confronted by irrefutable proof in the form of the skeleton of his best friend and mentor - the airbenders really were massacred and he can no longer deny it.

every statue of the Avatar around the globe lights up in a single moment. the legendary figure’s destined return is announced to the world by an overwhelming outpouring of grief and rage from a young child who just discovered that everyone he ever knew and loved is gone. it’s poignant. the Avatar’s return in that moment is not a triumph. that terrifying show of strength and power, enough to light up the world in its glow, is pure emotional anguish from a small twelve year old, who just saw the dead body of his mentor and now believes he is all alone

and Katara and Sokka having seen the Avatar State before means that there is less of the shock and “what is happening” in this pivotal scene (which was the main focus in the live action). of course Sokka is still concerned about them potentially getting flung off the mountain. but both of them know this reaction for what it is - mysterious power, sure, but primarily, they see and recognize his grief.

I just. what happened to “we’re your family now” and “neither of us are gonna let anything happen to you”??? :(

on a side note, I do feel like Katara and Sokka themselves have been heavily (heh) watered down. it’s a shame. Sokka’s my favourite, and I just think that I. Don’t trust writers with Katara now. (Why is her waterbending a secret? The whole reason she didn’t learn was because there was no one to teach her and she couldn’t leave… also where is her instant connection with Aang… where is their silliness… where did it go…)

however! I did like a couple things that were done and I want to be a bit positive so here

love Zuko and Suki’s actors. they did a great job

Sokka and Suki’s training together was cute ☺️ (though I wish he had worn the uniform of the Kyoshi Warriors…)

Aang himself is adorable :) (wish he got to be a little more silly but Netflix adaptations always are more serious for some reason)

I actually kind of enjoyed getting to see some of the scenes from the war’s outbreak. I prefer the way the original show portrays it, with a lot of info being learned reverse chronologically, but it was cool to see Sozin, and some of the airbenders, and a little more of Gyatso (who I also really enjoyed :’) )

Katara bending water at Aang and it reducing to them splashing each other without even trying to bend. Rare sillies!

I thought Kyoshi herself coming to defend her island was pretty sweet!!!

Katara getting flashbacks to her mother’s death on seeing firebending. Well I don’t like this, obviously, but it clearly shows how her mother’s death haunts her, and if they have Katara face off against Zuko again at the North Pole, it’ll be all the more triumphant.

Suki’s mom!!! Damn she was so cool!!!!!!

#also whyyy was Katara not the first person Aang saw??? this is really important!!! #and what is Katara’s role here. She didn’t even seem to break the iceberg. That’s. That’s her whole. That’s. She. She kickstarts it. Gah. #Katara my beloved my sweetie I don’t know why your writing got fucked up in the comics and now here #you deserve so much better #also why no Aang and Zuko confrontation? hello? that’s really important??? #they had him meet Iroh though. so that was actually pretty interesting #no agni kai between Zhao and Zuko either? maybe it’ll happen next episode? #ugh. I actually don’t like a lot of things. But I’ve only watched two episode so I’ll be chill and wait for more #storyrambles #atla #also this is just me being nitpicky but if we were going to actually see gyatso’s death (which. Idk it was more impactful not seeing it tbh #there’s this implication that gyatso may have broken his vow of pacifism since his skeleton was surrounded by tons of fire nation soldiers #implying he may have killed them #it wouldn’t have fit or made sense at the beginning of the show #but if they were going to show his death scene. Idk. Guess I just expected something more substantial #personally from what little we knew of Gyatso it actually does seem likely he’d break his vow if he really did die protecting the children #also. he was supposed to be the strongest airbender at the time. come on now. he just gets roasted?

[crowcaws]

I've had some thoughts brewing ever since I finished NATLA, and watching Friendly Space Ninja's review of PJO really brought up a lot of feelings after sitting on it for a month so I'm going to try and articulate those thoughts here.

It's very interesting this fixation on the "word of god" and its involvement making or breaking a screen adaptation, to the point where you get unwavering devotion when a creator is on board, and outright disdain when a creator isn't on board. Both are completely reactionary takes that are unhelpful, especially when adaptations can be, sometimes, excellent without their original creators involved, and awful (cough fantastic beasts cough) when they are involved.

Regardless of whether or not NATLA was bad (it wasn't, it was just fine) I love that people are going "HA I bet Netflix regret losing BRYKE!" as a sort of gotcha, as if Korra didn't prove like a decade ago that Bryke are not infallible screenwriters. As if those same people, when the show was first announced and Bryke were on board, didn't even think to consider that Bryke are just two of the writers that made a great show.

Because fandom has a problem where it doesn't actually care or consider if the original creators are a good fit or not, if their involvement will harm the adaptation or help it, or if their recent work is still up to scratch with their original work. Fandom just wants a security blanket in the form of a name on a credits list, to the point of almost cult-like devotion that makes or breaks their opinion of content before it's even released.

This devotion is how you end up with fans doing logical backflips when their perfect book accurate Percy Jackson adaptation that "Uncle Rick" promised is now changing a bunch of stuff for not very good reasons, and now they have to either do mental gymnastics to justify questionable choices or admit that Rick can be wrong.

Percy Jackson had Rick Riordan on board and that series, let's be honest here, was just fine too. It wasn't groundbreaking, it did not surpass the source material on most points (I say most because all that Sally content was inspired) and fell short in a lot of ways that have been outlined by critics more articulate than I. Some of that, I suspect, was due to Rick's fixation on this adaptation being the antithesis of the 2010 movies to the point where it feels like they refused to let the show be fun and colourful in parts where it should have been. His involvement, as a book author delving into screenwriting, cannot be proven to have been more beneficial than if he had simply consulted and set boundaries and left it at that.

And of course Joanne is a fuckwit. But even creatively, you can't tell me that the fantastic beasts movies were better for her meddling.

But back to PJO and NATLA: I genuinely feel like we got very similar end products with both shows. An underwhelming foray into live action adaptation that suffers from too few episodes and disappointing characterisation save for a few standout roles (In this case, Sally, and Zuko and Iroh), and some problems aside that each show varies on, but ultimately still delivers something entirely and completely watchable. Percy Jackson has at least a tiny bit better characterisation overall, but cannot hold a candle to the fight choreography and special effects in NATLA (partly because in PJO they had a bad habit of cutting away or writing out every time anyone was mean to do something heroic or actually fight.) And yet you cannot speak a bad word about PJO, but NATLA is torn to shreds.

Back to NATLA and the Bryke: Almost nobody, in this whole time from the NATLA announcement to airing, has made comment on the absence of Aaron Ehasz, who was not involved with Korra either. They were happy to celebrate when Bryke was involved, and mourn when they departed, but you should have been mourning Aaron this whole time, if anyone. Aaron wrote Tales from Ba Sing Se, if you weren't aware. Arguably the most memorable episode of the Last Airbender, so emotionally rich and captivating that even hearing the instrumentals of that song in NATLA brought me to tears.

So why wasn't Aaron's absence ever felt? Well, that is because the fans saw "original creators" in headlines and ran with it without question as a sure sign of victory (and then failure when Bryke departed). Because fandom doesn't really care WHOSE name is in the credits, fandom just wants that sense of security -- and it's a false sense of security, because Annabeth and Katara both still ended up gutted of their depth at the end of the day. The presence of Rick didn't save Annabeth any more than the absence of the ATLA writers doomed Katara.

#natla #avatar the last airbender #netflix atla #pjo #pjo tv show

[yyh4ever]

Yu Yu Hakusho Live Action Series by Netflix

The main cast has been officially announced by Netflix:

Takumi Kitamura as Yusuke Urameshi

Jun Shison as Kurama

Kanata Hongo as Hiei

Shuhei Uesugi as Kazuma Kuwabara

Sho Tsukikawa was also unveiled as the director.

On July 16, Netflix has finally announced Takumi Kitamura as the main character Yusuke Urameshi. Takumi is the leader of the dance-rock band DISH, and recently starred in the live-action adaptation of Tokyo Revengers. His casting is not a big surprise, as some photos of him were leaked in 2021 during the shootings in Shimonoseki city.

A local merchant had taken the photos and posted on Twitter. Although she was asked to deleted them, they were already all over the internet.

Takumi left some comments to the press (source: cinematoday), in which he admits he couldn't believe it when he was cast as Yusuke. He initially thought it was a joke, because Yu Yu Hakusho is such a famous work:

Q: How did you feel when you were chosen to perform in this series?

The original work is such a masterpiece that I couldn't help but laugh at first, thinking it was a big joke. But, this time, I was really excited to be able to challenge myself again with Director Tsukikawa on Netflix.

Q: About the charm of "Yu Yu Hakusho", which has been loved for over 30 years

I believe that this work is so historic that it's no exaggeration to say that it is a reason why Japan is so proud of its strong manga and anime culture. It is a universal and unique masterpiece.

Q: About your role as Yusuke

I think there's definitely a darker atmosphere compared to the original work. I'm playing the role of Yusuke with both feelings of the bad boy who goes against the rules of school and society, and the kind-hearted boy who doesn't look away when something bad is happening right in front of him.

Q: About the shooting site

It is a friendly atmosphere. I think it's been a challenge for the entire cast and crew, so I always keep that in mind, while enjoying working there.

Q: A message to fans all over the world

I am happy to share the masterpiece of "Yu Yu Hakusho" with the world. I hope the Japanese entertainment industry will continue to expand, and that we can create a work that people everywhere will enjoy.

Sho Tsukikawa, who had previously worked with Takumi in the movie You Shine in the Moonlight (2019), has also been revealed on July 16 the director of the series.

He also wrote some comments:

Q: How did you feel when you heard about the live-action version of "Yu Yu Hakusho"?

When I first heard about Yu Yu Hakusho receiving a live-action adaptation, I honestly wondered if it would even be possible, but after being presented with the producer’s vision and possibilities with Netflix, my expectations grew and I found myself burning with passion to make this project come to life.

Q: About the charm of "Yu Yu Hakusho", which has been loved for over 30 years.

I think the charm of "Yu Yu Hakusho" is above all the charm of its characters. I'm still moved by the characters I was obsessed with as a kid. Even if you read it again as an adult, you can discover new charms. Also, the story encompasses themes that will never get old. For example, even though Yu Yu Hakusho is depicted in a fantastical setting of youkai and humans, there are also universal questions lying dormant, such as: "Can people of different races understand each other?".

Q: What were the challenges in making a live-action adaptation?

For the live-action adaptation, we aimed to create a video work that could be simply enjoyed as entertainment, while keeping those universal themes as its foundation. In the early stages of screenwriting, we focused on selecting themes that are relevant today, but the appeal of "Yu Yu Hakusho" lies in the relationships between the characters and the battles, after all. So, we also steered in that direction and included plenty of action. The VFX are quite challenging, but we are working to achieve the highest quality possible at the present time by investing in cutting-edge technology.

Q: About the lead actor, Takumi Kitamura

I asked one of the most trustworthy actors, Mr. Takumi Kitamura, to play the role of the main character, Yusuke. This is the fourth time we work together, but I feel that his acting skills have been refined even more. He embodies Yusuke Urameshi with his body and soul, from the delicate emotional expressions to the way he moves his body in action scenes of various sizes.

Q: A message to fans all over the world

From the very beginning of this project, we have been working with a strong awareness of "delivering it to a global audience". Just like when I first heard about the live-action adaptation, there may be many who feel that "it's an impossible undertaking", but no matter how many words I use, I believe the work will speak for itself and prove it's possible. We will put our hearts and souls into this work to the last, so that we can deliver the finest quality of entertainment, from Japan to the world.

On July 17th, Netflix announced that Jun Shison will play the role of Kurama. Here follows his comments to the press:

Q: How did you feel when you were chosen to perform in this series?

I watched and loved "Yu Yu Hakusho" when I was a student, so I never thought I would be offered the chance to work on it. Of course I was happy, but at the same time I felt the pressure to play the character Kurama in a work that has many fans all over the world. However, the director is Tsukikawa, who also directed the first film I played the leading role. I wanted to show how I have grown over the past 10 years, and I am very eager to help the work that Director Tsukikawa is helming, so I was grateful when I was asked to join it.

Q: About the charm of "Yu Yu Hakusho," which has been loved for over 30 years.

In every era and in any environment, everyone is fighting. For money, for status, for friends... However, in this work, they are fighting for something or someone, and even though they clash sometimes, they respect each other, each one with their different feelings. The times have changed, but I feel those are things that people can relate to, no matter what age they live in.

Q: About the shooting site

I have experienced so many things that I don't think I have ever been in a shooting environment like this before. We have spent about two to three years just on the visuals, exploring the smallest details through trial and error together. The enormity of the filming sets, the scale of the work that goes into each scene and each cut. It is all new to me, I've been having a personal experience that reminds me how immature I am. This shoot, where we are all exploring creativity with the theme "From Japan to the World", has been very fulfilling, and I don't want it to end.

Q: A message to fans all over the world

This work was first serialized more than 30 years ago. I am sure that many of you have many feelings for this work, and there are many different interpretations of it. That's why we are all working together with everything we got to create a work that can be expressed in this era, from Japan. I hope you will look forward to it.

On July 18, Netflix announced that Kanata Hongo will play the role of Hiei. Here follows his comments to the press:

Q: How did you feel when you were chosen to perform in this series?

I have known this work for a long time, so I was very happy when I got the role. It features flashy battle scenes with various characters, so I was really looking forward to shooting it, because I thought it would definitely be a big production.

Q: About the charm of "Yu Yu Hakusho," which has been loved for over 30 years.

The wide variety of characters and ingenious special techniques are of course interesting, but the way the main characters grow and confront difficult enemies, I think this work is an example of the basic principles of Shounen Jump: "Friendship, Effort and Victory". I think the heat from the readers who are constantly excited about this work, is the charm that has made it so loved.

Q: About the role of Hiei

I intended to construct the character with Hiei's nature in mind, so that people who like Hiei can be convinced of his fighting style, that makes the best use of speed, and his cool but actually "someone who cares about his friends" personality.

Q: About the shooting site

First of all, my honest impression was "The scale is just so big…!". I can't go into details, but there are a lot of flashy things going on. There are all sorts of battle scenes on a scale never before seen in Japanese video productions. The action team's spirit is tremendous, so this going to be a very powerful battle scene.

Q: A message to fans all over the world

"Yu Yu Hakusho" is one of Japan's most popular manga works. I believe that we will be able to create a powerful visual work using the latest modern technology, while cherishing the image of the popular original work. I am sure that the work will exceed expectations, so please look forward to it.

Lastly, on July 19t, Netflix announced that Shuhei Uesugi will play the role of Kazuma Kuwabara. Here follows his comments to the press:

Q: How did you feel when you were chosen to perform in this series?

I never thought that I would be able to appear in a work that I was reading in elementary school. I was very happy to be able to play the coolest character, Kazuma Kuwabara, who is honest and rustic, full of love, and straightforward. At the same time, I felt a lot of pressure and worry about how I would face the live-action adaptation of this work, which has many fans around the world, and what role I would play in making it a work that would be loved by everyone. Also, I was very excited to be involved in a Netflix production, a format with a global market.

Q: About the charm of "Yu Yu Hakusho," which has been loved for over 30 years.

Each character has a distinct personality. I feel that these characters are the major charm of this work, as they are unforgettable at first sight. It was more than 20 years ago that I picked up this work at a friend's house to read, but even as a child, I felt the indescribable fear and eeriness of Elder Toguro, and the overwhelming strong man and charisma of Younger Toguro. Even now, as an adult, I remember those days with a strange feeling. Besides the fascinating charm of the enemies, all the allies and characters have their own unforgettable scenes and stories that stick in your mind. I believe that many of these factors are one of the charms that have made this work supported by many people.

Q: About the role of Kuwabara

I faced Kuwabara's kindness, who wants to become strong in order to protect someone important, while cherishing his straightforwardness. At the same time, I realized that trying to do so was a very difficult, solitary, and lonely thing. Kuwabara is not the type who is good at acting and hiding his emotions, so I played the character while discussing with the director and cast members how Kazuma Kuwabara would feel and act in each scene and each cut.

Q: About the shooting site

I was feeling euphoric on a daily basis as I headed to the movie set, because it was a magnificent scale and a shooting schedule that I had ever experienced before. Although it feels like a very luxurious site, with sets of a size I had never seen before, shooting methods for CG on a scale I had never experienced before, and filming on locations all over the country with a top-notch team, I was also spending every day excited to be a part of it. It was the best shooting site where not only the cast but also the whole team communicated with each other and everyone involved was seriously committed to making a great film.

Q: A message to fans all over the world

I am beside myself with joy that the live-action adaptation of "Yu Yu Hakusho", a work loved by people all over the world, will be available on Netflix to all over the world to watch. I can assure you that this is a work that can be enjoyed regardless of national borders. This live action is a work which not only those who love the original, but also those who have not read it, can enjoy the charm of "Yu Yu Hakusho" to the fullest. Please look forward to it.

According to an article published on cinematoday.jp, Ryo Sakaguchi, Academy Scientific and Technical Award Winner will be joining the live action series.

Sakaguchi, who has more than 20 years of experience in the Hollywood VFX industry, has worked on numerous Hollywood productions and is currently a VFX supervisor and CG director at Scanline VFX, a north american-based company. This is the first time he takes part in a japanese production.

"Yu Yu Hakusho" is a work he read and became familiar with when he was in junior high school. He mentions the difficulty level of the live action adaptation of "Yu Yu Hakusho" is high: there are various youkai, humans versus youkai, and transformations. From a VFX perspective, it is as difficult as the most difficult films in North America.

Project Details:

Director: Sho Tsukikawa

Screenplay: Tatsuro Mishima

VFX supervisor: Ryo Sakaguchi

Executive Producer: Kaata Sakamoto (Netflix) 

Producer: Akira Morii (ROBOT)

Production: ROBOT 

Produced by: Netflix

On July 25 2022, the Weekly Shounen Jump N°34 dedicated a page to the live action, summarizing the actors' comments.

Netflix's live-action adaptation of Yu Yu Hakusho is expected to premiere worldwide in December 2023.

#Yu Yu Hakusho Live Action #Netflix #Takumi Kitamura #Sho Tsukikawa #Tatsuro Mishima #Kaata Sakamoto #Akira Morii #Ryo Sakaguchi #yusuke urameshi #yoshihiro togashi #kurama #hiei #kazuma kuwabara #jun shison #kanata hongo #robot #netflix

[natlacentral]

'I've got to pinch myself': Paul Sun-Hyung Lee on playing Iroh in 'Avatar: The Last Airbender'

Presumably the people outside a local car dealership a couple of years ago who heard Paul Sun-Hyung Lee let out a “huge whoop” during a phone call with his agent didn't fully grasp the significance of that celebratory sound.

The Toronto actor beloved as the internet’s “Appa” thanks to “Kim’s Convenience” and a popular part of the “Star Wars” universe, too, was about to become the internet’s favourite uncle.

Lee had landed the role of Uncle Iroh in “Avatar: the Last Airbender,” Netflix’s much anticipated live-action reimagining of a well loved animated series (not to be confused with James Cameron’s “Avatar” films).

“Honestly, I have moments where I think I’ve got to pinch myself because, even as a youngster, I never would have believed that I could be a part of these things, because I never saw anybody who looked like me reflected in any of these shows,” the Korean Canadian actor said, reflecting on his roles in “Airbender” and the “Star Wars” spinoffs “The Mandalorian” and “Ahsoka,” in which he plays the popular Captain Carson Teva.

As Iroh in “Airbender,” Lee has stepped into the robes of another fan favourite character.

First, a bit of a primer: “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” which debuts Thursday, is about a 12-year-old boy, the “Avatar” of the title, on a quest to save the world from the rapacious Fire Nation, which has gone to war with the Earth, Water and Air peoples. Despite his youth, Avatar Aang (played by Vancouver actor Gordon Cormier) is a powerful “bender,” honing his ability to manipulate air, water, earth and fire.

Aang and his friends — Katara, a water bender (played by Indigenous Canadian Kiawentiio), and her brother, Sokka (American actor Ian Ousley) — are being hunted by fire bender Prince Zuko (American Dallas Liu), who’s accompanied by his wise and compassionate Uncle Iroh, himself a fire bender and a former Fire Nation general.

If that all sounds kind of geeky, well, that’s right up Lee’s alley.

The 51-year-old has well-established nerd bona fides as a fan of “Star Wars” and other science fiction (he shares his love of the genre on his Bitterasiandude Inc. YouTube channel). He caught up with the original “Avatar: The Last Airbender” (which aired on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008, then moved to Netflix) while he was still working on the CBC comedy “Kim’s Convenience” (2016-21), in which he played a South Korean immigrant who runs a convenience store in Toronto. 

In 2018, as new fans were discovering “Kim’s” worldwide after the series moved to Netflix, the streaming giant announced its remake of “Airbender,” setting in motion Lee's ascent into another dream role. 

“Almost immediately I got fan casted (as Iroh) by all these people on the internet,” Lee said in a Zoom interview. “I was very, very flattered, but I was doing ‘Kim’s.’”

A few years later, though, “Kim’s” had ended and Lee got an audition for what was billed as a basketball movie called “Blue Dawn,” as a coach who had come out of retirement to guide his nephew.

Although he’s “more of a baseball, hockey guy,” Lee taped the audition and then forgot about it, until a callback a couple of months later. Except now, the retired basketball coach Howard was named Iroh.

“There’s only one Iroh that I know of,” said Lee. “And so I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is for “Avatar”’ … right away I got super nervous. The stakes went up and I really wanted this part.”

But, after doing a chemistry read with Liu and not hearing anything for a couple of weeks, Lee assumed he had missed out on the role, which is part of the lot of an actor … until his agent called just as Lee and his wife were about to sign a lease on a new vehicle.

“So I excused myself, leaving the salesman completely befuddled. I went outside and that’s when I learned that I landed the role. And immediately let out this huge whoop. I had forgotten that I was in a public area and there were lots of people outside, and they all suddenly looked at me and I said, ‘It’s OK. It’s good news. It’s great news.’”

There was one more hurdle to overcome, though. 

“Airbender,” which shoots in Vancouver, overlapped Lee’s schedule for “The Mandalorian,” which films in Los Angeles. And playing Iroh meant shaving off the middle part of the moustache that Lee sports as Captain Teva.

“Luckily I was able to have my cake and eat it at the same time,” said Lee. “Lucasfilm was like, ‘Oh, we’ll just build him a little fake moustache to put on while he’s shooting (“The Mandalorian”).’”

Lee isn’t certain how familiar the producers of “Airbender” were with his work on “Kim’s Convenience” — it's an established fact that “Mandalorian” producer and director Dave Filoni was a “Kim’s” fan before he cast Lee — but he considers his latest job to be another of the many blessings accruing from the CBC series.

“‘Kim’s Convenience’ was such a wonderful launching pad for my career,” Lee said. “I mean, that show was kind of my coming out party in terms of the film and TV world.”

Lee, who was born in South Korea but immigrated to Canada with his parents when still an infant, struggled to find good film and TV roles as a young actor in the 1990s and early aughts. 

After graduating from drama school at the University of Toronto, he did a lot of theatre work, but onscreen “I played a lot of doctors, a lot of store clerks, a lot of window dressing-type caricatures, not characters.”

And yet, he persisted. 

Despite not seeing himself reflected in the television he devoured as a kid and from which he developed his love of storytelling, “I thought, well, heck, if there’s nobody (else Asian) out there, maybe there’s a shot for me to get in … that was kind of foolish thinking because maybe you’re the only one because a lot of people have tried and haven’t been able to get through. But I was just too stupid and too stubborn to quit, so just kept at it.”

Now Lee hopes to provide inspiration for the young Asian actors coming up behind him.

On the set of “Airbender,” which has many Asian actors in its cast, Lee became particularly close with Liu, the 22-year-old Chinese-Indonesian-American actor playing his beloved nephew. Just as Iroh is protective of Zuko, for whom he becomes a surrogate father, Lee said he wanted to nurture Liu.

“Every chance that I got to just sort of give him little pearls of wisdom based on my experiences … I couldn’t help but want to see him succeed,” Lee said. “This kid is a superstar,” he added.

Now that Lee himself is part of two much-loved pop culture franchises, “my cup runneth over,” but he still has entries on his acting bucket list.

“Not to sound greedy, but I’d love to do ‘Star Trek’ because that's filming right in our backyard. I’d love to do a ‘Ghostbusters.’ All those geeky playgrounds I never got a chance to play in. I want to be in a rom-com. I want to be in a Western, the genres that I grew up watching …

“But I’ll take it as it comes and I’m grateful for what I have. And if this is the only thing I ever do again I will be thankful for it because a lot of people don’t get these opportunities.”

#natla #atla #netflix avatar #netflix atla #avatar the last airbender #paul sun hyung lee #atla netflix #avatar netflix #toronto star #article

[highfantasy-soul]

Re: Netflix's live-action Avatar the Last Airbender

I was 12 when the animated series started airing.

I caught episodes as they came on Nickelodeon, but I didn’t watch it religiously start-to-finish. I caught episodes when they happened to be on and I happened to be watching TV (I was NOT part of the generation that had unlimited access to shows - tv/computer/video game time was strictly monitored in my household) so there were some episodes I saw over and over again, and others I never did see.

I think it was around middle/high school (honestly can't remember - it was one of the two) that the show got put on Netflix and I started watching it from the beginning with my brother and some friends. Needless to say, I've been a die-hard fan ever since.

I think the animated show is incredibly well done and the storytelling is super on-point for what I love in media. Zuko's redemption arc is still the best arc I've ever seen, and the character growth is amazing.

I had never really fallen into the 'it's not perfect, but…' way of analyzing media, so I never dwelt too much on its flaws - I'd much rather focus on the things it got right as literally every piece of media has flaws and things that could be changed to make it better.

So yeah, hyperbolically, the animated version of ATLA is 'perfect' - but since people insist on anything that's not perfect being drug through the mud and hyperbolically being called 'garbage', I guess I have to dredge up the things I didn't care so much for in the animated version while analyzing how the live-action handled it (or avoided handling it).

I was super excited for the film adaptation - again, announced while I was in high school. I was looking forward to it so much - then, well, we know what happened there.

Things were changed that didn't make sense to change (the pronunciation of character names, the 'test' for figuring out who the Avatar is, the poor bending where movements didn't align to what was happening with the CGI, casting of white people when the characters were always meant to be indigenous and all asian ethnicities, among other issues people have made many essays about)

So, when this was first announced, I was SKEPTICAL.

While the trailer looked good, it seemed very safe - I recognized everything in it and it looked well made, but like, that doesn't mean the whole thing will be good - or justify its existence.

I tried to ignore any 'leaks' or interview quotes because those are always misconstrued so much and people hear one sentence and create a massive narrative in their head about what that sentence means and usually, all their bellyaching assumptions they made from that piece of info is just a non-issue once the show actually comes out.

I didn't give any credence to people screaming about "Sokka isn't going to be sexist anymore?? It's ruined!!" or "They're going for a Game of Thrones tone?? They don't understand Avatar at all!!" or "No side-quests?? They don't understand the point of the show!!"

First off, invoking the demon that is Game of Thrones is just a marketing tactic - that's all it is: MARKETING!! Just like EVERY YA book for years was 'The new Hunger Games' now it's 'The new Game of Thrones' even when the story at hand is NOTHING AT ALL LIKE THOSE THINGS!! It's literally, let me cradle your face gently in my hands, JUST a marketing ploy to get you to see a recent title you DO recognize and have (assumedly) heard good things about (ie popular) so that you then pick up the thing that they slapped that name onto.

Creators rarely have say in what their creation is likened to, they're told by marketing companies to go with it (if they're told anything at all) and they just say "yes, marketing team I have no control over, whatever you say".

Also, a passing comment in an interview is off-the cuff and when someone makes a comment like that, people read WAY too far into it and it's usually not nearly as deep as people make it out to be. That's why I just wait for the actual thing to come out and just watch it and judge it based on what it is, not some narrative someone else has created for it based on half a quote from some random interview.

So going into this: why the live-action adaptation? Why was it necessary?

In my opinion, the answer to this question is the thing many fans hate the most: altering the original story.

A beat-for-beat remake isn't necessary - the original is right there, so in order to 'earn' the right for this adaptation to exist, that necessitates changes to be made that add to the themes, deepen the lore, and delve into different aspects of the world in ways a child's cartoon can't.

So, I'm looking for not a 1-1 remake, but rather an adaptation that enhances the themes, irons out some uneven characterization/pacing, updates the story just enough to really get what they want to across, and delve more directly into some of the harsher aspects of the war.

I have always felt that Iroh's involvement in the Fire Nation military was glossed over a lot in the cartoon - I suspect because he's supposed to be a good guy and we can't have our good guys be overtly war criminals responsible for the deaths of thousands of people.

The effects of hard decisions made during war are shown in the animation, but the decision making process itself is rarely talked about until the very end with the gaang's struggle to keep helping people while also knowing where to focus their energy and Aang's struggle finding a way to stop the firelord without killing him.

something this adaptation can do is actually show the people making the decisions - and directly talking about the horrible effects of it. I'll get to it later, but that's one of the major themes in Episode 4 that I'll talk more on then.

Especially in Book 1, like many first books/seasons, the worldbuilding isn't fully fleshed out and the themes that really come to fruition later aren't as tight as they could be at the beginning. If the adaptation can go ahead and seed/tighten the themes that become big deals later on here at the beginning, it will 'justify' it's existence as the story retold after the whole story has already been plotted out.

Just like with the Percy Jackson and Wheel of Time adaptation, those writing for the show have the benefit of knowing how the story ends and all the stuff that's added to the world building as time goes on that wasn't necessarily known by the authors when they wrote and published the first books - the benefit of hindsight allows the show's script to take into consideration these additions and seed them early on to make the story more cohesive and reinforce themes.

So, this analysis is going to be long and filled with minute details, beat by beat for the episodes.

I have seen so many takes that I just sit and scratch my head at and think 'that was so obvious in the show - how did you miss/misinterpret that thing so wildly?' that I guess what I took for granted as obvious in the show, others didn't, so here's me being pedantic and over-explaining everything so maybe others can see that 1) they aren't the only ones who saw this interpretation and 2) maybe others will see the scenes a different way

Still trying to decide how to break up the analysis as the episode recaps are going to be LONG and since people now demand to see all the citations for stuff, the character analysis posts will be long too as I pull direct scenes to show why I feel the way I do.

I don't want to overload the posts and make it so they're just annoying to read, so I'll probably break them up into the sections of the episodes and maybe break up the character posts.

[Masterlist of my NATLA thoughts]

#natla #netflix avatar the last airbender #netflix avatar #avatar live-action #netflix atla #atla #I've already posted a couple blurbs about changes I liked - but I do want to go through the episodes too so we'll see how this goes #excess hate media is getting now that everyone has access to posting their opinions and outrage gets clicks is really wearing on me #and I think it's wearing on the industry too with how short of seasons we're now getting plus everything being canceled left and right #so I wanted to put out a whole bunch of positivity for a show I really really enjoyed and thought they did a fantastic job with