[Ronin4hire]

Originally Posted by Jaydelart

"The acting was mediocre." They are kids. And, frankly, they did well for their roles. Has it been lost in consideration that a majority of the voice-acting used in the cartoon is done by adults? And that the physical acting in the cartoon is not all that physical after all? They're drawings. Voice-acting and animation makes for a more highly controllable presentation in comparison to live-action.

The reviews I read mostly blamed the acting on the script they had to work with. But yes the fact they were kids was also hinted at.

"The only highlight was the action, and there was few action scenes." Bullshit. I don't remember where I read that, but I was remembering how absurd that sounded when I found myself satisfied by the amount of action taking place. Yes, the effects were a highlight... but the action was far from rare... and, might I add, the choreography was surprisingly good, considering the intricacies involved in some of their real martial-arts-based movements.

While you were satisfied with the action, the anime had much more to offer than action. It was a humanistic tale with a surprising amount of drama for something aimed at 6-12 year olds.

"It was too fast paced." That's right. I agree, it was fairly fast paced. However, I also remembered, again, that it was not the cartoon, which had the luxury of a dozen episodes to gracefully present the plot. In this case, the beginning and middle were fast-paced (in comparison to the cartoon) to cover more ground and set-up the main conflict -- all within the trime-frame of a single sitting. I found that if you can somehow manage to forget the cartoon, you can appreciate the scenes more.

I dont know... they managed to successfully translate the Lord of the Rings books. Its not an impossible feat to accomplish. Difficult but not impossible.

"The casting was racist." I don't think so. I'm asian; I would've liked to see more asian actors... but I didn't mind... because the casting was not entirely bad. Some people think Ang should be pure asian... but there are a number of qualities needed to be filled in order to match the character of Ang: he had to be young, childish yet mature, fluent in english, and preferably capable of acrobatics or martial arts. The kid had it. Not to mention, he had genuine martial arts skills, and is half asian. And his two inuit companions? How many blue-eyed inuits will you find that match most of the qualities needed for the roles?

Shymalan was not simply mirroring the cartoon. He was attempting to convert the world into a more realistic dimension. There are people saying there were not enough East Asians... but I saw East Asians! I also saw Caucasians, African Americans, Indians, and Latinos. Note: There were hardly if not no black characters in the cartoon. I saw a literally ethnically-mixed cast. The fact that people are accusing him of racism is kind of ironic.?

Its not as simple as that. Throwing in token minorities doesnt counter accusations of racism. The fact is that it was a world based on Asian folklore and mythology so naturally Asian leads should have been considered (if you dont agree then I pose my Lord of the rings question to you... would a tale based on European myth and folklore go down well with you if it had a cast of Asian and Africans?) so it is puzzling why Asian actors almost make up none of the cast.

Though as I said before, if M Night Shyamalan reimagined the world then that takes care of criticisms of racism regarding the casting but it also asks the question... why would the film NEED to be reimagined? I suspect that this had more to do with making it marketable to an America that may not respond well to a cast made up mostly of Asians rather than a decision that had any racist agenda behind it. But the decision itself to cave into such a demand is still racist and thats another reason why people are saying its racist.

In the end, I do wish there were more ambient scenes, though that's just my taste. There was a lot of missed content from the cartoon, and I think that's what irked the hardcore fans the most. Taking into consideration how difficult it is to recreate the same attachment developed in the cartoon under significantly more limited circumstances, I think people should be a lot less anal about the whole thing...

Again.. It seems Lord of the rings got it right...