When I first heard rumors that there was going to be a movie adaption of Avatar: The Last Airbender, I seriously considered writing M. Night Shyamalan a letter asking to audition for the part of Zuko or Sokka. I was so engrossed in the series at the time that I wanted to bring it to life myself. It was a momentary passion, one inspired by the most beautiful American-made cartoon of all time -- epic and action-packed yet sincere and endearing, Avatar: The Last Airbender won the hearts of millions, many of them outside of its intended 6-11 age demographic.
Having seen the movie now, I’m glad nothing came of that plan.
I’m sure some will say that I should not have gotten my hopes up, and the truth is that I was immediately skeptical about The Last Airbender, if only because of the dubious history of franchise medium translations. I was also skeptical when I heard the project was given to Shyamalan (a director whose work I am not especially fond of) and that the film featured no Asian actors whatsoever. It’s not like I didn’t know better. Yet despite my skepticism, I held onto a sliver of hope that The Last Airbender would do the series justice. At the very least, I figured that even if it wasn’t on par with the the cartoon series, it might still make for an entertaining fantasy action flick.
Shyamalan defied even most conservative expectations by making a horrible movie by any standard, one that not even several online reviews could have prepared me for. It was the worst movie I had seen in a long time, and the words of one critic describe it perfectly: “Surely the worst botch of a fantasy epic.”
The Last Airbender is actually very faithful to the series in the sense that it changes few facts or elements of the timeline. It is unfaithful in the sense that it fails to bring its world and characters to life, or in any way channel the series’ spirit and personality. Everything from Shyamalan’s script (they let him write it) to his lamentable cast are responsible for making this happen. The opening, which attempts to set the stage for the movie, scrolls text while Nicola Peltz narrates the same words at the same time. The poor writing and noticeable mispronunciation of “Avatar” were early warning signs that my worst fears were about to come true. All Shyamalan had to do here was replicate the introduction of the series’ first episode.
The next fifteen minutes involve Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz and Jackson Rathbone exchanging non-sequiturs, exposition and bullshit in what is some of the most poorly written and stiffly delivered dialogue in any movie that even pretends to take itself seriously:
Aang: We were forced under the water of the ocean.
Katara: Oh...I see.
Noah Ringer has no acting experience, a fact made painfully evident by this film. Nicola Peltz and Jackson Rathbone are even worse despite having some experience, and it’s obvious that they were both thrown in just because they are pretty faces. Jackson Rathbone pisses me off in particular. Nicola Peltz is at least on track with her character, though in the end she fails because of both the script and her own inabilities. Rathbone on the other hand is among the least faithful to his character, and it’s safe to say that his inclusion was part of a move to capture the horny teenage girl demographic.
Things hardly get better from there -- there are just too many things wrong with this movie, from miscast Indian actors trying much too hard to feign villainy to Shyamalan’s incompetent directing and storytelling. The script is bad enough, but Shyamalan never even has any idea where to put the camera or his actors, whether it’s during an action scene or even a conversation. The camera is too close when it needs to be back a bit, and too far when it needs to be in your face. At times, narration displaces dialogue and action entirely, which has the effect of creating huge lapses in the development of both the movie’s narrative and characters, which is already quite thin and disfigured to begin with. Much of what dialogue there is serves the purpose of exposition rather than actual interaction between characters.
No matter who got to direct The Last Airbender, one of the obvious problems the movie would have had to face is the task of condensing over 400 minutes of the series’ first season into a movie. The series engages in a lot of side-storytelling, and even if this movie had been three hours long, many of the side-stories would need to be cut. Shyamalan makes the mistake of allowing only 94 minutes for the plot and the characters to develop, and the result is that they don’t. It would have been a challenge to be sure, but the accomplishments of the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter films prove that it is not by any means insurmountable. (And Peter Jackson arguably faced a much bigger challenge than Shyamalan.) Done right, The Last Airbender should have been a three hour movie. It should have cut out some of the more incidental escapades and characters, while still allowing the principals time and opportunity to flourish, grow and live. Although, considering how The Last Airbender ultimately turned out, perhaps it’s for the best that it only runs for an hour and a half.
Shyamalan not only failed to meet his challenges; he couldn’t even get the easy stuff right. The Last Airbender is not only a bad movie; it utterly fails to even be an entertaining popcorn flick. The action is consistently unimpressive and the special effects seem as though they could have been done at least ten years ago, if not more. The soundtrack is composed with some technical skill but is conspicuously bombastic, a painful mismatch with the underwhelming fight scenes and broken storytelling. He didn’t even have the courtesy to pronounce the following names correctly: Avatar, Aang, Sokka, Iroh, Agni Kai. This is so braindead simple. I have seen some ridiculous posts floating around the Internet that these are the “real, Asian” pronunciations and that the cartoon “Americanized” them for ease of pronunciation. The cartoon is American-made, and the real pronunciations are the ones that people heard in the sixty episodes that they watched over the course of three years.
There are so many things wrong with The Last Airbender, but the absolute worst is the fact that so many people are going to see this movie and get the wrong impression. Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the best works of fiction of the past decade, and many people will never know this simply because it is a Nickelodeon cartoon. The Last Airbender was a golden opportunity to reach out to new audiences, much in the way Peter Jackson enchanted an entirely new generation of people with The Lord of the Rings.
When you compare this movie to even just the first two episodes of the series, the cartoon has better acting, writing and fight choreography; it even has more drama. The scene where Aang enters the Avatar state for the first time in the series, when he is unconscious under water while Katara calls out to him -- these thirty seconds are more electrifying than all 94 minutes of Shyamalan’s film.
Given the fact that The Last Airbender is supposed to be only the first movie in a trilogy, there’s still time for damage control. Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko need to cut their losses, take the project away from Shyamalan and give it to a new director who will recast it entirely. The second wisest course of action would be to leave the trilogy unfinished at 33.3%.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
Paid2Party and Efusjon Pyramid Scheme
I have periodically been checking the et cetera, part-time and tv/film/video sections on the craigslist job postings for potentially interesting ways of making some extra money. My most recent find was something called Paid2Party. Sounds a little too good to be true already, doesn’t it? I figured so myself, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt and called the number. I scheduled an appointment for an interview a few days later. My expectation was that it would involve handing out energy drink coupons (or tickets, as referred to in the ad) at select events and getting paid a nominal amount. In other words, I was expecting infrequent, low-paying part-time work for promoting a product.
When I arrived at the location, I walked into a bar and realized that this wasn’t exactly an interview. The door to the bar said nothing, but the two small windows beside it had images of coy fish. This was the Coy Lounge that I walked into. It was dimly lit, with chandeliers and mirrors on the wall. There were tables that each had four energy drink cans on them and the bar had several dozen cans in a display case. These cans weren’t filled with Red Bull or Rockstar. They were filled with Efusjon.
I had never heard of Efusjon before, and as I would later find out, typing it into Google would pair it with all sorts of unattractive terms, such as “scam,” “class action lawsuit,” “mlm,” and “pyramid scheme.” I have only briefly perused the web searches that came up, but it sounds as if Efusjon is already fairly well recognized as a shady operation, so it surprises me that it’s still around. Perhaps this is why the craigslist ad that I stumbled upon had no actual mention of Efusjon - to get people’s feet into the door before they even have the chance to do any research that might discourage them. In contrast to Efusjon, a Google search on “Paid2Party” will not be paired with any of the aforementioned terms, which makes it seem much safer. The Paid2Party website also makes no mention of Efusjon.
When I was sitting in the bar, listening to this guy give me his spiel, I was waiting for him to tell me about logistics and locations - what events this alleged business would be promoting at, where they were, what my responsibilities were, etc. I was never told anything like this. Instead of talking about parties, he spent nearly all of his time talking about Efusjon and complicated signups processes. It costs $30 to sign up with Efusjon as a “member.” This gives you your own Efusjon page through which people can buy their product. Any purchases made through your webpage give you a return of %4.25 of the amount spent. This is only the first level of involvement with Efusjon and it is probably designed primarily as a way of simply getting people into the door.
The real goal for them is to get you involved at least at the “associate” level, which requires you to spend $120 on Efusjon products in addition to the $30 member signup. This allows you to participate in Efusjon’s “Matrix Compensation Plan.” You can get up to three people to sign up under you, who can each get three people to sign up for them, who can each get three people to sign up for them, etc. I was told that I would get $100 for each of the first three people that I sign up, a percentage of what they make from sales, as well as a percentage of what the people they sign up make. Supposedly, you can earn commission down for 15 levels of a hierarchy, which is supposed to be lots of money that you don’t even have to do any work for. Basically, “Matrix” might as well be their substitute for pyramid, and there were times when this guy was literally drawing triangles on a dry-erase board to explain how this thing works.
There is actually a whole lot more to this, but as of this writing I do not exactly have the time to read everything I can find on this company. It seems to be pretty well established as a pyramid scheme. It is BBB accredited, but between this and The Southwestern Company, I’m really beginning to question the trustworthiness of the Better Business Bureau (not to mention their use of “better”). Efusjon does not even have its own Wikipedia entry yet.
If it seems like I’ve gotten off the track from Paid2Party, that’s how I felt when I was in this bar while this guy - who did not seem like a professional businessman - was trying to hardsell me on Efusjon. He was waxing philosophical about taking control of your personal finances and changing your life, he told me that JOB means Just Over Broke, and he said "makes sense, right?" after any explanation of some element of the Matrix Compensation Plan.
Efusjon seems well established as a pyramid scheme, but Paid2Party is something people don’t really know about yet. Paid2Party seems to be a local, San Diego-based business whose primary goal is to get people enrolled into Efusjon by giving out “free drink tickets” at parties and events, according to the craigslist ad. The first red flag I noticed was that the energy drink “tickets” were not “coupons” or anything exchangeable for an energy drink. Instead, they are referral cards to get people signed up into Efusjon’s Matrix Compensation Plan. I don’t think the guy with Paid2Party is at the top of the Efusjon hierarchy. He just seems to be another guy who has gotten into it, and is figuring out his own way to make money off of it and get more people signed up. He represents one level (or perhaps multiple levels) of this pyramid scheme, and I would say that Paid2Party is not to be trusted either.
Perhaps in the future, when I have more time, I will create a more extensive blog entry on Efusjon. For now, check out some of the following links; read carefully, cautiously and skeptically.
Related Links:
efusjon
efusjonscams
efusjon Policies and Procedures
Paid2Party
When I arrived at the location, I walked into a bar and realized that this wasn’t exactly an interview. The door to the bar said nothing, but the two small windows beside it had images of coy fish. This was the Coy Lounge that I walked into. It was dimly lit, with chandeliers and mirrors on the wall. There were tables that each had four energy drink cans on them and the bar had several dozen cans in a display case. These cans weren’t filled with Red Bull or Rockstar. They were filled with Efusjon.
I had never heard of Efusjon before, and as I would later find out, typing it into Google would pair it with all sorts of unattractive terms, such as “scam,” “class action lawsuit,” “mlm,” and “pyramid scheme.” I have only briefly perused the web searches that came up, but it sounds as if Efusjon is already fairly well recognized as a shady operation, so it surprises me that it’s still around. Perhaps this is why the craigslist ad that I stumbled upon had no actual mention of Efusjon - to get people’s feet into the door before they even have the chance to do any research that might discourage them. In contrast to Efusjon, a Google search on “Paid2Party” will not be paired with any of the aforementioned terms, which makes it seem much safer. The Paid2Party website also makes no mention of Efusjon.
When I was sitting in the bar, listening to this guy give me his spiel, I was waiting for him to tell me about logistics and locations - what events this alleged business would be promoting at, where they were, what my responsibilities were, etc. I was never told anything like this. Instead of talking about parties, he spent nearly all of his time talking about Efusjon and complicated signups processes. It costs $30 to sign up with Efusjon as a “member.” This gives you your own Efusjon page through which people can buy their product. Any purchases made through your webpage give you a return of %4.25 of the amount spent. This is only the first level of involvement with Efusjon and it is probably designed primarily as a way of simply getting people into the door.
The real goal for them is to get you involved at least at the “associate” level, which requires you to spend $120 on Efusjon products in addition to the $30 member signup. This allows you to participate in Efusjon’s “Matrix Compensation Plan.” You can get up to three people to sign up under you, who can each get three people to sign up for them, who can each get three people to sign up for them, etc. I was told that I would get $100 for each of the first three people that I sign up, a percentage of what they make from sales, as well as a percentage of what the people they sign up make. Supposedly, you can earn commission down for 15 levels of a hierarchy, which is supposed to be lots of money that you don’t even have to do any work for. Basically, “Matrix” might as well be their substitute for pyramid, and there were times when this guy was literally drawing triangles on a dry-erase board to explain how this thing works.
There is actually a whole lot more to this, but as of this writing I do not exactly have the time to read everything I can find on this company. It seems to be pretty well established as a pyramid scheme. It is BBB accredited, but between this and The Southwestern Company, I’m really beginning to question the trustworthiness of the Better Business Bureau (not to mention their use of “better”). Efusjon does not even have its own Wikipedia entry yet.
If it seems like I’ve gotten off the track from Paid2Party, that’s how I felt when I was in this bar while this guy - who did not seem like a professional businessman - was trying to hardsell me on Efusjon. He was waxing philosophical about taking control of your personal finances and changing your life, he told me that JOB means Just Over Broke, and he said "makes sense, right?" after any explanation of some element of the Matrix Compensation Plan.
Efusjon seems well established as a pyramid scheme, but Paid2Party is something people don’t really know about yet. Paid2Party seems to be a local, San Diego-based business whose primary goal is to get people enrolled into Efusjon by giving out “free drink tickets” at parties and events, according to the craigslist ad. The first red flag I noticed was that the energy drink “tickets” were not “coupons” or anything exchangeable for an energy drink. Instead, they are referral cards to get people signed up into Efusjon’s Matrix Compensation Plan. I don’t think the guy with Paid2Party is at the top of the Efusjon hierarchy. He just seems to be another guy who has gotten into it, and is figuring out his own way to make money off of it and get more people signed up. He represents one level (or perhaps multiple levels) of this pyramid scheme, and I would say that Paid2Party is not to be trusted either.
Perhaps in the future, when I have more time, I will create a more extensive blog entry on Efusjon. For now, check out some of the following links; read carefully, cautiously and skeptically.
Related Links:
efusjon
efusjonscams
efusjon Policies and Procedures
Paid2Party
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